A/N: Chapter warnings for; blood, violence, torture, explicit language, implied child abuse, implied threats of rape/non-con.
Next update on Saturday, 26th September.
Happy reading!
Chapter Sixteen: The Pathless Woods
"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:"
― Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
…
When Draco wakes up, it's to pain.
He lets out a small groan, and tries to roll over to his side, or at least his back to alleviate the burning in his chest. Or face. At this point, he cannot tell which is worse. He gingerly touches his cheek, then cringes at the dried blood there, scabbed over a long wound that runs down to his chin. It hadn't stopped bleeding long into the night. Or morning. Draco doesn't quite know. He just knows that sometime into the painful haze that clouded his vision, the sluggish moving of the blood had given into dried flecks of irritation on his skin. Painful irritation. Harry hadn't dared touch those again last night. Or Draco thinks that's the case. He wasn't paying attention.
Turning his head to the side, he looks over at Harry's face. He almost looks peaceful, serene. Almost being the key word. The tear tracks haven't quite disappeared from his face, and there is a crease between his brows, and the occasional trembling. Harry had slept considerably less than Draco, however much that was.
Draco doesn't even know if it is morning yet. The dark circles under Harry's eyes look even more pronounced than ever, and Draco wonders if his face is any better. Then he has to suppress the urge to laugh, his fingers keep tracing the cut on his face. He's not allowing mortification to kick in, just yet. He feels disgusting.
He's just going to ignore the consequences of this. Of a werewolf slashing him. He doesn't want to contemplate the outcomes. The full moons. And whether he has to go through an immeasurable amount of pain every single month. That is, if he gets to live after two days.
So he keeps lying there on the cold hard ground, his eyes almost determinedly stitched to Harry's face. It has a very enigmatic and calming effect on him, and Draco can blissfully tune out annoyingly persistent thoughts that plague his mind. He pays attention to Harry instead. To the smaller details, ones that people never get right on a first glance. Draco feels as if his entire relationship with Harry up until now has been nothing but a very long first glance.
As a child, he was simply too naive to see, to really look, when he acquired the gift of seeing at the age of thirteen, he was too jealous, too spiteful of Potter to use it on him. Now he and Harry share something incredibly intimate. They share pain, and Draco allows his eyes to roam every inch of Harry's skin as if it cures it of all suffering.
The very small ridge on Harry's nose, right beneath his eyes where a lifetime of glasses have left their mark, just a small, tiny red dent, the curve of Harry's ear as it melds into his jaw, and the very small, almost unnoticeable scar under his chin, white and camouflaged into the skin. Then he looks at the real scar, the famous, lightning shaped scab. It's red and irritated. As if it has been recently carved by a knife, like the words on his hand.
Draco wants to touch it.
Before he can even think about moving his hand, both Harry and Draco flinch, Harry startling awake with a gasp, as a crack sounds through the air. Draco looks around wildly, heart pounding, for the source of the sound, before spotting the small shape standing in the corner, nervously smoothing out the folds of her pillowcase.
"Master Draco," Twinky says, looking at him with wide eyes.
Harry is gaping. Draco isn't faring much better.
"What-" Draco starts, only to stop and swallow when his mouth feels too dry.
"Master Lucius sent Twinky to give you and Mr. Harry Potter some water." she snaps her fingers and a large pitcher of water appears in her hands, which she quickly sets down in front of them, before backing away again, wringing her hands.
"Master Lucius also told Twinky to be giving you some-" she looks even more scared than before as she quickly blurts out, "Food. But he says not to let anyone know." she's not looking at them, at his face, or Harry's body.
Harry is frowning in her direction, as if he can't quite figure out what a house elf is doing in there. To be quite honest, Draco can't either. Death Eaters aren't known to show this kind of hospitality to their prisoners, especially since both their deaths are kind of guaranteed in two days.
But Twinky belongs to the Malfoys, not the Death Eaters. So, maybe, Draco shouldn't be too surprised. And her words are catching up with him too. 'Not let anyone know.' His father is disobeying orders.
"Right," he says, voice low. He looks towards Harry, who is now eyeing the pitcher of water with suspicion.
Draco moves towards them, pouring half a glass of water for Harry, "C'mon Harry. She won't hurt you, I've known her all my life," he mumbles.
Something flashes in Harry's eyes, too quick to decipher, before he looks back at Twinky, assessing her. Then he nods, flopping back on the floor. Draco rests a hand beneath his head, tilting it up a little and trickling water down his throat. It reminds him of a similar position, attending to Potter in that abandoned bathroom, but at that time, things had been much simpler.
Perhaps if he'd never helped Potter, they'd- Draco shakes his head. No. Even if some very small part of him had blamed Harry for putting them here, it had shriveled up and died as gruesome a death as his mother when Harry was being tortured.
Harry sighs a little as he finishes the glass. His hands are still trembling badly. Draco doubts he could have held the glass himself even if he'd wanted to.
"Do you want more?" Draco asks. Harry opens his mouth, then winces, shaking his head.
When Draco turns around towards the pitcher to get himself some water as well, Twinky is standing there with a tray in her hands. Two sandwiches and two quarter pieces of an apple. He asks her to set down the tray, she shakes her head violently, her large ears flapping. "No, no one must know."
Draco sighs, and nods. Quietly gulping down water, stopping himself from moaning in pleasure as the cool water slides down his sore throat. The soreness couldn't only be as a result of thirst. He probably has an impressive ring of bruises around his throat that attribute to the pain too.
Twinky is still standing away from them, and he sighs. He doesn't have the energy to make his way over. Harry isn't even an option. "Come here."
Twinky looks startled, and then embarrassed, biting down on her lips as she quickly makes her way over to them, mumbling apologies. Draco ignores them and snatches the food off the tray, propping Harry up against the wall, shushing him when he makes a half choked sound, choking on air. There's nothing else.
"Harry," Draco says, breaking off a bite sized piece from the sandwich, "Eat." When he is halfway through the sandwich, Harry makes a gesture with his hands, insisting he can feed himself. Draco is skeptical, but still places the other half in his shaky hands before moving onto his own.
He is surprised to see Twinky still standing there, and looks at her, about to ask what's she waiting for, when she asks, "How is you doing, Master Draco?"
Draco's first instinct is to snap at her, 'How do you think I'm doing?' but he holds his tongue, turning her words over in his head. He would have thought Father asked her to inquire, but if that was so, she'd have asked earlier. And phrased it differently.
Before he can answer her, Harry's hoarse voice breaks through, "What's your name?"
Twinky looks just as taken aback at the question as Draco, but then quickly composes herself and answers, "Twinky, sir." She had always been the best elf in the Malfoy household.
"Twinky," Harry repeats, then, apparently satisfied, goes back to nibbling on his sandwich. Draco tries not thinking about the fact that the elf had already uttered her name at least twice while rambling. Harry is exhausted, he gets a leeway.
"We're not fine, Twinky," Draco says, exhausted as well. He needs a lifetime of sleep to get over the weariness in his bones. A lifetime of sleep… well, technically he is going to get that in two days. Draco hopes that death would have some semblance of peace in it. "But thanks for asking,"
He's never thanked a house-elf in his life. The fatigue is to be blamed.
Twinky's lips quiver, but she nods, shrinking back a little. "I will- I will take my leave now, sirs."
"Thank you, Twinky." Harry calls out, and her head snaps back to him, mouth opening and closing twice, before she settles on another slightly teary nod and disappears with a crack.
They sit and eat in silence for a while. The sandwich, ham and cheese; Draco's favourite, sits heavily in his stomach.
The silence drags on long after they're finished, and in the midst of trying not to think about the heaviness on his face Draco becomes aware of the shift in silence. It's dimmer, in a way and Draco's ears pick up on it almost immediately.
His eyes flick over to Potter, and they linger, taking in the image of the other boy intently staring at his lap. Nothing looks wrong with him, except for what takes Draco a second to notice. The look in Potter's eyes. Or rather, the lack of any particular acknowledgement in his eyes. Draco is instantly drawn to them, sweeping his eyes over Harry's body. It takes him a moment too long to notice why the scene is mesmerizing to him.
Harry isn't shaking as much. It's as if there's only half of a presence in his body, and the tremors that run down his arms and legs seem half hearted, a natural, uninterrupted cycle. While Potter's eyes stay glazed, somehow glassy in a way.
In this respect, Draco almost considers snapping his fingers in front of his eyes, just to see what would happen. But he's wary of whether it would do Potter any good. You weren't supposed to wake a sleepwalker.
But Potter isn't sleeping. He is… away.
Draco had never seen anyone that way, and it's momentarily alarming. Potter is absent. He feels absent too. And Draco is intrigued, latched on, on what could possibly string Harry away from this cell, away from his body. Unconsciously, he scoots closer to him, waiting to see whether Potter's reflexes acknowledge Draco's proximity to him. They don't. And Draco keeps staring. He's peeved by it.
What on earth is going on with Harry?
The better question, Draco realizes a beat later, is how on Earth is Harry managing this. Draco frowns. He doesn't have a name for it. He refuses to call it catatonic paralysis. It's not. Somehow he knows this. But this doesn't really have a name yet.
It cannot be the torture. Draco knows better than that. He just fed Potter, they exchanged words and he seemed sane enough. Besides, Draco has seen people who had gone mad due to the Cruciatus curse. Their eyes are never void of any emotions, they're overfilled with a conflicting abundance of them. Too much for anyone to handle, and the truth is, they don't. That's why they're called insane.
Harry's eyes are just glazed.
"Harry," he carefully keeps his voice mellow and not askance. He wonders, idly if the other boy can hear him from wherever he currently is. Draco envies that Potter has the ability to be anywhere but in a cell, in Draco Malfoy's basement.
Daydreaming is too simple of a name for it. The vibes that Draco is getting from Potter is wildly different. Tangible.
He observes as Potter's eyes don't shift and his pupils stay the same. Draco cautiously snaps his fingers near Potter's ears. Nothing.
He gulps and looks around their cell. He cannot panic. He's not even sure whether he should. He has no idea what's going with Potter. What he does know, is that the boy is in no immediate danger, even though he's not answering to any natural instinctive reflexes, that he feels absent from the cell and… that's all he has.
He already has the panic room in his mind filled to the brim with Greyback's assault, the possible side effects of last night and the fact that this might just be the last two days of his life. He has no room for Potter.
"Harry," he calls louder, minutes later, fixedly staring at Potter as the boy stares at his lap, this time wincing as the action pulls at the scabs on his face. He reaches a hand and physically shakes the boy's shoulder. He doesn't feel intrusive, or uncomfortably self conscious as he does this. He hadn't considered touching Harry to startle him out of his ' mindset' and the fact that Potter's warm skin shifts under his fingers at last is such a blissful relief.
Harry's eyes snap up, staring back into his, clear and filled with expression.
Draco barely restrains a sigh of relief.
"Fish do blink," is what Draco hears Harry mutter, before he completely straightens up.
He raises his eyebrows. "What?"
Harry waves him off with a shaking hand. "Nothing important. Just a goldfish matter,"
Draco stares at him and Harry looks right back at him in response, unblinking and unfazed by the longevity of their staring contest.
"What is it?" Harry asks and Draco holds the stare only for a beat longer before slowly shaking his head. Harry doesn't know. Either he is unaware of this little incident of his, or he doesn't think that Draco's noticed. Or maybe, and most interestingly, Harry Potter doesn't give a shit about what Draco thinks about him at the moment, and is just blurting out a natural, automatic response as a result of Draco's eerie staring.
"Nothing." Draco says, very slowly. "I was bored,"
The other boy's chuckle surprises him, and Draco raises his eyebrows but Harry keeps on laughing. "Bored," the boy sniggers. "We're in a prison cell and you're bored?"
Draco shrugs, noticing Harry looking at his face. Then he looks away, uncomfortable.
"You've still got a lot of blood on your face," Harry says quietly.
Draco winces, then stops as it hurts, "I guess."
"Come here," Harry pats the floor on his side, before quickly adding, "And bring the pitcher."
Draco frowns, "What-" Harry shakes his head, patting the ground more insistently.
Draco follows, for a lack of a better thing to do. When he moves to take the glasses, Harry tells him not to bother. He quickly settles down beside Harry, the warmth from his body is sinfully comforting.
Draco's lips quirk when Harry starts ripping at the lower half of his shirt, already ragged in places from where he'd torn it last night. But then concern takes over, "You'll be cold." he says.
"It won't really make a difference, the shirt was too big anyway." The strips in his hands are uneven, and Harry grimaces. But Draco is impressed, he hadn't thought he would be able to do much at all with his hands.
Getting up on his knees, Harry shuffles over to kneel in front of him, and if Draco were a better person, he'd have told Harry to lie back down. But he doesn't. He lets himself be soothed by the way Harry wets the cloth and starts dabbing it against his face, wiping away the dried blood. It almost hurts worse than last night, when he'd been high on adrenaline.
But he manages to keep most of his whimpers to himself. He still doesn't feel like his pain means much compared to what Harry went through, must still be feeling.
When Harry is done he settles back on his heels, discarding the bloodied strip, and looks over at Draco, gaze settling on his blood soaked shirt.
"I didn't clean it last night," he says.
"It's alright."
"No, it's not. Open your shirt," Harry says, eyes determined as he takes another strip and soaks it in water.
Draco purses his lips and shakes his head. He doesn't want to see the damage. But another look from Harry, and he can't refuse him. How could he? With the determined expression on his pale, too thin face, and hands that are so gentle despite their tremors. He's taken aback by this.
Draco heaves a sigh before moving his hands to unbutton his shirt, shuddering slightly. But when he moves to open it, it doesn't move. Breath hitching, he pulls a little harder, wincing when the shirt is stuck to his wounds, and then gasping when the wince catches on the cut at his cheek.
Harry grasps his wrists and moves them to the side, quickly wetting the areas on his shirt where it is sticking to his skin, and the shirt itself, and while it made pulling away slightly easier, he still hisses when Harry attempts it.
He looks up at Draco's face apologetically, murmuring a quick "Sorry." and then he yanks the cloth away. Draco is left too breathless from the sudden sharp pain to even cry out.
"What the fuck," Draco says as soon as he can.
"Easier that way, like ripping off the bandaid." Harry smiles, looking a little sheepish, until he glances down at his chest, where two almost identical lines had snaked down the length of half his torso. So covered in blood it's difficult to distinguish where they begin or end.
He gets to work quickly, but tenderly, as he wipes down more blood. It hurts a lot more than his cheek did, perhaps because there's more blood, perhaps because it didn't receive the treatment last night.
There is a birthmark below the left side of his collarbone. Draco has always hated it. It's a halfmoon shape, the colour of rust. He stares at it for a while as Harry works.
Draco's eyes are squeezed shut and he is panting for breath by the end of it. God, it hurts so much. Almost as if someone is still weilding a knife, ripping through skin as he lay there, helpless.
"Remus, um, Professor Lupin is a werewolf," Harry says, slightly fumbling with the cloth. Draco bats his hands away and starts buttoning up the shirt, cringing slightly.
"I know," Draco tries to muster up a scowl, but fails, brows pinching together in pain.
"Yeah, he's really nice, not at all like… Greyback. You know, just for reference."
"He is still a werewolf and I might be one too," Draco's voice is flat and not half as bad as he'd expected.
"No, I don't think it works like that. He didn't bite you last night and these are shallow wounds, not deep enough for a werewolf's nails to really get in there, and it wasn't even the full moon."
Draco stares at him. "At least that's how I think it works," the other boy mumbles.
"Well, I suppose we wouldn't know anyway. He'll be here in two days."
Harry, much to his surprise, shrugs.
"Two days is forty eight hours. A lot can happen in forty eight hours."
"You talk as if you know a way out of here." He ignores the hope sparking in his heart.
"I don't." Draco's heart sinks, but Harry continues, "I'm just incredibly, foolishly lucky. I know it seems insane… but I have a good feeling about this."
"Umbridge was a death eater," Harry shoots him a look.
"Yes, I got that much."
"Rosier was just randomly strolling around in the school. Dumbledore is as good as gone, do you have any idea what those mean, Harry?"
"I'm not a moron," he grumbles.
"Well, let me highlight it for you anyway," Draco starts, straightening up slightly, as if to increase the weight of his words, "It means that there is no escaping this. If Umbridge has infiltrated the Ministry into letting her interfere in Hogwarts then that means she and by proxy, the Dark Lord, have essentially infiltrated two of the most important wizarding organizations in Great Britain. He has outsmarted us. By far. Checkmate."
"You know I have a funny feeling that you and Ron would get along," Draco opens his mouth. Closes it, then opens it again.
"Did you even hear me?"
"Of course I did. I meant it on a strategic level. He's really into chess and strategy too. You're kind of similar."
"Potter," Draco slumps back down. Maybe the tortures did affect Harry on a more psychological level.
"There's always a way out of anything. I know that from experience. If our gig is up, then my fate would be just as gruesome as yours, if not worse. At least you'll get to die. I'm the one who has to live with the guilt of killing you and dooming the wizarding world."
Draco sucks in a breath, "You're not killing me."
"You're right. Just like I didn't kill Cedric, or the Dursleys and the same way my parents' death wasn't my fault. At some point, you all have to realize that I don't need to be the murderer in order to be responsible for someone's death. If you weren't helping me, then you wouldn't be here. It's as easy as that." Harry's words, said so simply, as if he were stating mere facts, 'The sun rises from the east,' sent a thrill of unease through him.
"You just said that you had a good feeling about this," he settles, after contemplating his reply.
"I do, but that doesn't mean that I'm an idiot. There are two certain variables at the moment, either we will die or we won't. If we do end up dying I would be responsible, if we end up getting out alive, then congratulations, I would also be the reason why we'd be fugitives."
"I don't blame you for this, Harry." The name sounds weird on his tongue, he hasn't really ever used it, "I forced you into it."
"You didn't force me into helping me. We both know how ridiculous that sounds. You helped me because I let you. And we're here because I didn't end it when I was meant to do so,"
"God," Draco starts, throwing his hands up, only to wince and put them back down, "Stop the pity party already,"
"What?" Harry looks taken aback.
"You just said that we have forty eight hours left, are you going to spend that time wallowing?" He doesn't know when the roles reversed, from him wallowing to Harry, but they have.
"What else is there to do between torture and cleaning up each other's wounds?" Put that way, it makes everything sound even more terrible. This time, the scowl comes easy.
"I haven't the faintest." he snapped in absolute honesty. "Just tell me something different,"
Harry bites his lip for a beat. "Anything?"
"Anything!"
"Did you know that the moon is moving away from the Earth at the rate of four centimeters per year?" Draco blinks. Then thinks it over.
"It does? But the moon doesn't look smaller,"
Harry laughs, "It wouldn't. I heard it in the telly last summer while I was painting the windows."
"What is a telly, and why on earth would you be painting windows?"
"Telly is short for Television." Harry is patient as he explains, something that wouldn't really have been possible before… all this. "It's a radio of some sort but has moving images on it, and I was painting the windows because Uncle Vernon said I had to, as a chore."
"So you just picked up a brush and-"
Harry imitates the act with an invisible brush, dramatically dunking it into an also invisible bucket as his eyes shine with amusement. "And I dunked it into the paint bucket and started painting the windows," he laughs again, "Seriously? I just told you that the moon is moving away by itself and this is what you're intrigued about?
"They both sound equally baffling. I'm being honest. Tell me another,"
But before Harry can open his mouth once more, clanking sounds interrupt them, and the sharp clicks of high heels against the damp stones echo around their cell. Harry drops his eyes and gulps. Draco curses under his breath and scoots closer to Harry as Bellatrix finally comes into view.
Draco's eyes sweep across the cell, looking for a weapon, something, anything, but the only thing he notices with dismay is that the pitcher and glasses have disappeared.
"It'll be okay," That's what Harry tells him, surprisingly, as Draco's desperate gaze comes back to him. They both know who Bella is really here to torment. Harry seems as if he wants to say more but by then Bella is already in the cell, a stone cold look on her face as she dispassionately points her wand at Harry and the screaming starts anew.
Draco hates his life.
##
Currently, as of this moment, Harry has three different revelations regarding his predicament.
The first and most obvious one, is that Harry's pain limit has reached a new, unexplored high that he's not sure anyone has ever reached yet in the history of the human kind. It's a raw, unfiltered kind of pain that Harry's mind only perceives as pure static, blasting into his ears, and rupturing his eardrums at an alarming rate. He's not sure whether there's a level of pain above this one. He's not sure whether he wants to know.
The second one, is that despite that endless drone of pain that shakes his body, in the most ironic sense of the word, Harry is acutely aware of Draco Malfoy staring at him the entire time, between half lidded eyes, from the corner of the cell, where Rosier also stood when it wasn't his turn to play. Harry doesn't know why, but Draco watching him suffer, is more embarrassing, and nerve wracking than he had realized. Harry knows that on a sub conscious level, he doesn't give a flying fuck that Draco is watching as he screams and writhes on the stone cold floor, but in the same instance, he has to constantly stifle the urge to yell at the other boy, just to tell him to "LOOK AWAY! DON'T LOOK AT THIS!"
The sight isn't a pretty one, Harry is sure of it.
The last but in no way the least important one, was that Harry, according to an enraged imaginary Sirius, standing in the corner, and shouting abuse, is a natural born killer. And that killing Bellatrix, in the grand scheme of things would really benefit the war effort and lessen his suffering. Harry has no breath left to argue with his violent imaginations, and he's frankly too gone to respond with any ounce of decorum. So he doesn't. He keeps screaming because if he doesn't, if he shuts off that one last outlet then he's sure that he'll lose it.
'I'm sure I wouldn't mind in real life, her being my cousin and all,' Sirius's voice is barely heard over his own screaming. Harry is tired. 'Even as children she was such a bitch. She used to yank my hair, casted stinging jinxes at little Reggi all the time,'
Draco is still watching. As if he cannot look away. He's not morbidly fascinated by Harry, Harry knows that look. He's just mortified. Harry really really wishes he would look away.
"Ohh, Harry, I just love it when you scream," Bella says as she finally lowers her wand, only for a bit. "Like that halfblood snack Ruddie and I shared two weeks ago. She screamed so loudly, and she did it with style, do you know what I mean?"
No, Harry wants to growl. No I don't, and fuck you.
"Hard to believe that some people don't even know how to scream rightly. Isn't that right, Evan?"
"Are you asking me for personal experience?" is the man's bereft reply and Harry rolls on the floor, facing away so that Draco wouldn't see his face, damp in perspiration and his own drool. It's disgusting.
"Oh don't spoil the fun," Bella steps over Harry and the side of her left heel momentarily digs into Harry's fingers. Harry is honestly too worn out to yell in pain.
"What do you expect of filthy blood, Bella?" Rosier replies. Harry imagines Sirius spitting in the man's face.
'That's too vulgar,' Sirius responds. 'Let's try that spitting idea, if I were to turn into a dragon,'
"Cannot do anything right, and I know from experience. Potter's muggle relatives for instance," there's a crunching against gravel as Rosier steps closer to them. "Or rather two slabs of fat and a sack of bones, wriggling little creatures didn't even have time to open their gobs before I blew them up. Do you hear that Potter? How does that make you feel?"
Harry groans, and with strenuous effort, croaks out, "Screw," he pants for breath, "You." He is vaguely aware of Draco stiffening, eyes going wide with shock. Stop staring.
Rosier chuckles, and the sound sends a sudden wave of shivers down Harry's spine. "I would have," Evan says. "But Lucius and our Lord have made it abundantly clear that you aren't to be touched."
'Oh, the nerve of this guy,' Harry wholeheartedly agrees with Sirius, his horrified face no doubt reflecting Sirius's.
"Do you want your fun or not?" Harry cannot see, but Bellatrix's tone is dry and almost cooled with an air of unimpressed impatience.
"Oh, only if you insist. Crucio!"
Lucius Malfoy is there too. Harry thinks that he is. That or Imaginary Sirius now has a companion with him. The man isn't staring at him, unlike his son, but rather at Draco's back, from what Harry's blurry and wracking vision can tell him. He's leaning on his cane, his back straight as an arrow as the torture goes on and on and on.
It's like a moving carousel. Harry has never been on those. He's seen a few as a child. The ones with the moving, dancing horses, that went round and round in a circle, the kind that only Dudley was allowed to ride. Harry is on top of one of those horses now, going up and down, up and down as he hangs onto the railing for dear life.
'I'll take you to a magical theme park sometime, ask the real, less gorgeous version of me, and if he isn't too much of an idiot, he'll arrange something.'
Harry doesn't bloody care. He wants it to stop. He's past the point of caring about smacking his head back into the ground, or shaking as his every nerve is set alight.
'There you little asshole, feel it burn,' oh and how it burns.
The fourth revelation reaches Harry when he's mere seconds away from passing out for real. And it's the most haunting one so far. It's quite simple too. Harry's body, or anybody's body for that matter, does not keep a memory of pain. Not even an aftereffect. Once they stop and leave, Harry is going to forget. It's a horrifying truth, that one can forget this kind of pain. How anyone could ever forget. But he will, his body won't, not in the physical sense of the word, he would be shaking as if he were having an earthquake for some time, maybe even the rest of his life, but the pain? It'll be gone, nothing but a memory until they decide to come back again.
It's this fourth one, that pushes Harry down and he finally lets his conscious mind leap out of his grasp.
##
When he wakes up, he is still warm. But not the burning, scorching heat from before. He makes a noise in his throat, before quickly stifling it, wide eyes darting around the grey corners of the cell, as if Bellatrix is about to pop out with a loud 'Boo!' before proceeding to reduce him to a writhing, screaming mess again.
Then he notices that the warmth is really comfortable. He could just close his eyes and fall asleep there if he wanted. If it weren't for the infernal pain still coursing through his veins, not as bad as before, but noticeable.
Draco has one arm flung over Harry, their legs touching, as they huddle together in one relatively warm corner. It takes Harry the entirety of five minutes to think that perhaps it IS the heat coming off of Draco that's making them so hot.
Harry frowns, shifting weakly in his place as he grasps Draco's hand with his own, which is too hot. Too hot to be normal, and he is mumbling in his sleep too, brows pulled together, as if in pain. Or perhaps having a nightmare.
Harry lifts a shaking hand to Draco's shoulder and grasps it in a pathetically weak grip, "Draco, Draco, wake up, it's a dream," he murmurs quietly into his ears, trying not to be loud. It's not hard, given he can't really do much more than produce a hoarse squeak from his throat anyway.
Swallowing hard, Harry firmly- or as firmly as he can- shakes Draco. Draco's lips part and he lets out a small groan, but otherwise doesn't break. Harry moves his hand to his cheek and almost flinches back.
Draco is burning up.
Harry helplessly looks at his flushed cheeks, his bloodstained shirt and back to his face, his eyes moving restlessly under his lids. He probably has an infection. And while Harry is used to dealing with injuries with almost no supplies at all, even he doesn't have anything to help him with. The water pitcher is gone.
He pats Draco's uninjured cheek, gently at first, then a little more roughly. Draco's eyelids flutter, and he mumbles something incoherent.
This is bad, Harry knows it. This is really bad.
"Draco? Draco, can you hear me?"
Draco groans once more and Harry swears, struggling to get on his knees before the boy. He has been an idiot. He's been so worried and preoccupied with his own torture, and the werewolf thing that he completely forgot about infections.
He has nothing to treat this. Not even water. He bites his lip, and reaches to Draco once more. "You need to wake up," Harry curses his shaking hand and does it again. It might as well be pointless, Draco is like an inferno already, he could be delirious at this point.
"You have a fever, I don't know what to do, Draco!"
The blond groans once more and then frowns, as if bothered by a fly. Harry presses the back of his hand to his forehead and then as modestly as he can manage, sneaks a glance through Draco's unbuttoned shirt. The slashes are red and inflamed. Of course they are, they're infected.
"Oh no. No, no." If Harry had been having trouble breathing before, he definitely can't breathe now.
"Har'?"
"You're awake, good." he sucks in a desperate gulp of air as relief floods his veins at hearing the sound of Draco's voice, before worry takes over again.
"Wha'?"
"No, don't get up," he pushes the other boy back down, as gently as he can. "It's going to hurt a lot, because we left them untreated, I'm so sorry, they look infected. We need help, like proper medical help, Draco."
"Hm," he grunts, his eyes closing again.
"Oh no. Do you have a plan? Anything?" then he remembers who he's speaking to. "Forget it, don't speak, just… just don't die, alright?"
Draco, of course, cannot answer, and only grumbles in response before slumping back down on the ground into another restless slumber. Meanwhile, Harry spends his time slumped against the wall, nerves frayed from more than just the cruciatus.
He has to call someone to treat Draco. They wouldn't let him just die like this, not while Voldemort is still a day away. But, oh merlin, Harry really doesn't want to push his luck by calling in a sadistic bastard who might just make things worse.
Rosier wouldn't help. Bellatrix might, only after she's had an extra round with him. Harry cannot afford either in this state, and Draco is burning up already. He needs to notify someone who might care. Maybe Lucius Malfoy. But how?
'You're panicking, Harry,' Sirius says from his corner and Harry growls, his trembling hand slipping on the walls as he sinks down to the ground. Even though he's sitting down, his toes feel on the ledge of the rooftop once more, on the soft gravel.
"Of course I am, I have no idea what to do, he might die, oh fuck. He really might. I need to call someone, but no one would hear us, and if they did they might not help him. I don't know what to do. This isn't good. This is really bad. Fuck. Fuck,"
'He looks fine,'
"He's burning up! It's an infection, not a scraped knee. Infection kills, I don't know why or how, but I know that much. Infection kills. What do I do,"
'Lower the fever, obviously, '
But it's not really that easy. What would Imaginary Sirius know? He's not real.
After a few minutes of periodically freaking out, and crouching over to check on Draco's rising temperature, Harry really cannot handle any more of this.
"I'm going to do it. We need to take our chance," even though he's fairly certain that the cells are noise proofed. He has to try. They could give them some water, at the very least. It could at least help lower the fever.
'Use your head, Harry, '
"I am!" Harry snaps. "I need to call for someone!"
'But that someone has to matter. Who can really hear you over the silencing wards? '
Harry is getting tired of this game. "I don't know," he grits out. "Let me be, alright? I need to help him!"
'You need to help yourself before helping him. I would know. I'm a figment of your imagination, and even your mind is telling you to slow down. It'll save time later on, '
"How?" He paces, clenches his hands, he can feel them shaking, his both arms are seized by it, his breathing keeps stagnating. He might just pass out.
Sirius follows the rapid pacing. 'Listen to your instincts,' he has the audacity to say and Harry snaps.
"How?!" He screams, "It's all so easy for you to say when you don't have to deal with another fucking death you imaginary piece of crap-"
'Harry,' Sirius looks at him. 'Focus,'
His voice dies in his throat. "He cannot die, I cannot kill another...Sirius,"
'Kiddo.' Sirius steps closer, and if he were real Harry might have actually felt his breath against his face. 'Focus,'
Harry gulps, clenches his hands and looks at Draco again, he cannot freak out, he wants to, really really wants to but he won't, because for the second time in his life, he feels as if a force he can only describe as 'Draco Malfoy' had sneaked up on him on his rooftop once more. He's on the rooftop, not in the cell, the wind whips against his face and his hands aren't shaking. He's standing on the ledge, only an inch away, the crowd bustling beneath his feet before the force suddenly propels Harry off the rooftop again, and this time, instead of falling headfirst into an endless sea of crowds, Harry isn't falling at all. Instead, he is in a place he has never been before.
An unknown, unexplored patch of his mind that was entirely new to Harry, new in imagery and sensation. He looks around the dark woods in absolute silence, not trembling, but rather, steady and calm in the face of the unknown.
Only as he looks down at the dark blue grass crunching beneath his feet, does Harry realize that this place might be the most magical place he has ever been to, and the irony of it, the fact that the most magical place he has ever seen only exists in a distant place that is only in his head, is not lost on him.
He looks at the leaves, and the way they glitter without any assistant from a light source as he walks beneath them. He feels strangely subdued. Only a second ago, he was on the verge of a complete breakdown and now, he's breathless in the face of something so beautiful and serene.
It's night, and Harry cannot actually see the sky above the canopy of enormous trees and lush vibrant leaves that extend infinitely above him. He doesn't care, he knows this place already, like the back of his hand, he's not lost or scared.
He just needs to find the stream.
Crickets and tiny night owls interrupt the sound of his steps onto the crispy grass and despite being mildly repelled by insects, an aversion he has had since early childhood, Harry doesn't mind the thought of close proximity to them in the slightest. He just needs to find the stream, and then get back to Draco, to help him.
He hears it in the distance, not from a particular direction, but from every direction at once, and somehow Harry still knows he has to head to the left, just under the old giant roots of a beech tree, make his way through the tall stalks and there he would see it, a small trickle that runs from the edge of his vision to as far as his eyes can see.
The trickling sound isn't just the water, Harry notices as he gets closer, it's a unison whisper that fades into the sound of water itself, like a thousand tiny voices all bunched together. It sends a shiver down his spine.
Harry regards the small, clear stream and then kneels to run a careful hand into the trickle. It's cool against his fingers, and just by staring at it, Harry can tell that it's the cleanest, most purified water he has ever seen.
"Twinky," That seems to be the word that the stream is trying to push to the forefront of his mind, as it glitters under the imaginary moonlight. Harry sighs and then almost smacks his own forehead for being so stupid.
Of course, Twinky.
He huffs a noiseless chuckle, and mildly narrows his eyes at the small, almost mote sized purple flowers, bunching near the stream from both sides, he's transfixed by them, and as he looks down at the rushing water, Harry vaguely wonders if the Draco like force would ever push him down into the stream the same way he pushed Harry off the rooftop, send Harry cascading down to another world, or maybe just down an unseen depth in the stream that will only drown him to death.
Almost as if readying himself for the impact, Harry closes his eyes, waits and then opens them again. No one pushes him. Even though he can feel Draco, this time the dizziness of disorientation or instability doesn't grip him as he falls helplessly.
Draco is here. Lying beside him, easily in Harry's grasp, and Harry doesn't hesitate as he lifts a hand to the boy's shoulder, and gently shakes him.
"Draco?" the boy mumbles, still irrationally hot to touch, and flushed in the face. Harry tries once more but the response is much about the same.
With a desolate look around their dreary cell walls, Harry wonders whether Twinky will answer to him instead of his masters.
"I might as well try this," he mutters to the unconscious boy next to him and raises his chin.
With a deep mighty breath, Harry prepares himself. "Twinky?"
Nothing happens.
A/N: For those who may not have noticed, we have posted another chapter in our side story, 'i'll trade you a memory', taking place between chapter 14 and 15, featuring the Parkinson moms.
**Thanks a bunch to our Beta Amar for editing, whom we shamefully forgot to mention during the last update! He's doing a great job, any other typos are solely our own fault :)