Stretched
Anthony Goldstein was back on his feet, whining to Ginny and sending glares Harry's way.
Harry felt those glares on his back and Ginny's displeasure with him all about, it was like a presence, a clawing, insistent one that was very distracting at Quidditch practice.
Draco had quit Quidditch. Indefinitely.
He wouldn't answer Harry's questions as to why he had. Nor would he answer his questions as to why he'd told the panicking Professor Flitwick that it'd been he and not Harry that had cursed Goldstein into unconsciousness.
Harry was worried, the silence between them seeming to fill with speculation and more suspicion. This quiet left room for Harry to notice things, now understanding why Hermione shushed Ron so often, it was in the uninterrupted quiet, strangely empty and barren without scathing snipes and self-satisfied smirking, that Harry saw there was more to Draco than what the drawling voice said.
The smirk may remain, but it couldn't brighten the ashen look to his skin, the glare doing nothing to dispel the purpled marks of insomnia beneath his eyes. He snapped and became immaculately nasty whenever Harry dared to ask him if he was getting enough sleep, but that just brought about murmurs of crankiness that he studiously refused to address. He'd be cold, strong, and defiant, a snarling superiority to every word and yet, unaccountably, Harry believed the bravado to be nothing more than a façade. Yet another mask the Ice Prince wore.
And though his voice may have never faltered, those slender fingers did, the slightest of shakes to them, wavering over his parchment at odd intervals. It was at these intervals that the mask slipped, giving way to a slump-shouldered and very tired person. His eyes got glazed, then suddenly impossibly bright and narrowed as if fighting pain. Before they turned to Harry and became perfectly blank, if not suspicious.
Let him suspect, let him know that Harry was watching, it made no difference for Harry knew Draco was smart enough to realize that he'd be watchful after…whatever had happened that day.
Whatever had happened remained somewhat a mystery, never addressed because of Draco's volatile mood. It wasn't for lack of trying on Harry's part, always hinting with a horrible obviousness and even snapping at him once, all to be returned with a maddeningly cool look and the rising of a single pale brow. Heck, even Hermione, although she had no idea what Harry was brooding over, had tried to coax the stubborn Slytherin into saying something about something.
That was the day Draco had called her a Mudblood for the first time in Merlin knows how long.
That had also been the day Harry had hit him since the incident in the courtyard.
There were far too many 'incidents' between he and his Master, but this had been the first since insults turned to mild flirtations and glares became lingering glances. Even curses had turned to kisses, and maybe it was the need to make better the angry red mark he'd inflicted across Draco's sickly pallid skin with one such kiss that made it all the more painful.
Draco had just sat there, looking up at Harry from his seat in their little haven within the library, his face still that infuriatingly blank mask that Harry wanted to slap some more feeling into before, incredibly, it shattered, crumpled to someone with bright eyes, tinged with a pain that someone much older felt, and not someone who looked so abruptly and dreadfully young.
Harry opened his mouth to say something—not even sure of what—but Draco had stood and left, his strides long but lacking the confidence they usually carried, the hurried steps of someone bearing an excruciating burden on their mind. So Harry was left standing there open-mouthed along with a frowning Hermione, whose soft voice returned him to reality,
"I don't think you should have slapped him like that."
"He shouldn't have called you that." Harry retorted, feeling less mad at Draco and more at Hermione.
"I know that and so does he, but he did." she shrugged, and picked up the book she'd dropped, "You shouldn't push him."
"What am I apparently pushing him for?" Harry exclaimed, his outrage growing to a size that wouldn't be accommodated by the volume requirements of the library. He could hear the clicking of Madam Pince's shoes on fast approach to either violently shush or oust them.
"If there's one thing I've learned from Ron, and there really is only one thing," she rolled her eyes, "it's that you thick-headed boys won't admit to anything that makes you weak. And that thing that makes you weak, that hurts you, is all you think about, therefore, you, stupidly, lash out at the people you're around to make you look strong."
Harry opened his mouth—this time to vehemently protest—but was silenced by a look that rivaled McGonagall's.
"You don't mean it, you don't mean to hurt your friends, but you do and then you feel so much more miserable. You've made yourself all alone and you believe that it makes you brave. It's a dreadful, miserable delusion."
There were many things Harry wanted to ask then, like how Hermione made it sound so true that it hurt right down to his guilty, curse-addled core that was gnawing at his insides with a dull roar, as if contained by the library's need for peace. But Madam Pince poked her head about the corner to glare at them and, in Harry's case, oust him from the library on the punishable offense of being too loud in the sacred space of the library.
The curse had deemed striking his Master an offense punishable by pitching himself off the Astronomy Tower. As the ringing in his ears turned to a screech of outrage and the tangled bits of the curse within him seemed to cut through his organs and snap, each flailing and burning like a live wire.
Every tendon in his body demanded movement, every vein tingled with the need to be spilt, his skin prickled in its desire to be broken and Harry didn't understand what had gone so wrong, what had been niggling at the fraying lines of the curse like a song waiting to be sung, familiar in its tune, but words unknown. It was an order that sat there, as if poised on the edge of a violin, the strings the hair on the back of his neck and the bow the sour swoop of his stomach—foreboding and adamant, unmovable and important.
It was an order that Harry had broken.
He'd sworn to protect Draco, do everything in his power to assure that the heir to the House of Malfoy was not harmed—as directed by the lady of the House of Malfoy, whose power is only superseded by the head.
And he'd hurt Draco, who was hurting on his own, internally, but it was an agony real and unacceptable to the curse no less.
It was only now, while his hands scrambled at his wrists, nails shredding the flesh and bringing up blood with a sickeningly sweet satisfaction, that he realized that Narcissa Malfoy would have only made him promise to protect Draco if he were in danger.
Draco was in danger, but at the moment, so was Harry, and the danger was twisting and writhing within him, dragging his feet forward on taut puppet strings and looking for height—for pain—for his Master.
~o0o~
Draco disliked Anthony Goldstein, him and his glaring, griping, gloating ginger girlfriend; he hated her right down to the roots of her flaming head.
But he hated Theodore Nott more.
He hated him because a part of Draco pitied him, but was largely disgusted with the boy and his jealousy. Jealousy of filth marking his arm, staring at it as if upon a delicacy rather than the stain of a madman and the murders he commissioned, unbelievably, yet understandably, it was the honeyed appeal of blood spilt that lured the boy like a moth to flame.
Only Draco knew how badly he'd be burnt if he were to take the Dark Mark.
No one spoke of the horror of the Dark Lord, only of his power and the almighty terror and fear he spread about his enemies rather than his followers, but it was they, hiding behind masks and terrified admiration that felt the horror. They bore the brunt of the Dark Lord's ever swinging moods—his fury in the form of multiple curses when he was thwarted, or his happiness in the echoing memory of a little Muggle girl's dying scream along with his maniacal laughter forever etched to their minds, just like that bloody, disgusting, woefully permanent mark and their own dashed hopes of glory.
His good moods were just as dangerous as his bad, Draco quickly learned. Those days of dreaming of being praised and appreciated by the Dark Lord far, far behind him.
Nott was still dabbling in his however, indeed angry that Draco had gotten the 'privilege' before him and Draco unfortunately knew the murderous, sadistic, conceited fantasy he was entertaining, but nevertheless pitied him. He would no doubt learn the hard way about the Dark Lord's moods and how bitter blood really tasted.
As if there was any better way.
The Dark Mark was burning, turning Draco's own blood foul and seemingly scarce. He felt faint and dizzied, and Potter's presence, and persistent questions, did nothing to help that. Potter wanted to know what the kiss was, a subject that Draco was losing the sleep he didn't have to lose over, although it was rather pleasant to have green eyes and smooth skin haunting his subconscious rather than corpses and calls of "Crucio!"
But Draco couldn't think of snogging the Boy Who Lived mere days, terribly short things they were, before a gathering. That was suicide, which before indulging in the delights of Harry Potter's mouth, seemed like a mildly welcoming thing.
Wouldn't have that been quaint? Rather, who hadn't guessed that Lucius Malfoy's disenchanted son dove off the Astronomy Tower and to his escape from a responsibility the spoiled child couldn't handle? He knew it was whispered, he saw it clear in the glint of the Dark Lord's malicious smile that he was not expected to succeed in his mission.
But he was beginning to find that the unexpected was a thing just as welcome as the end of his servitude to the Dark Lord.
Potter was always doing things unexpectedly, like outing himself, or being civil to his merciless 'Master', or throwing a Quidditch match for such a wretch, or kissing that sardonic, and thoroughly surprised, Slytherin.
Then he'd slapped him. That was unexpected indeed.
But not undeserved.
He shouldn't have called Granger, who by all means had been downright sweet to him as compared to the distrust the rest of the Gryffindors treated him to, a Mudblood. It was something that had once rolled effortlessly off his tongue, that thrill running through him of knowing that was something his great and glorious father said. Now it lost the luster of being a mildly 'forbidden' word and was unpleasantly pungent in his mouth.
There was a look of utter shock on her face, evidently in her mind Draco had become a person who'd never say such a thing in civil conversation, much less a short quip spoken in irritation. Draco wished he could still be that person.
Then Potter was looming over him, expression unbelieving and betrayed, and then it was Draco who was unbelieving and betrayed because Potter's open palm smacked soundly across his face, the sound terribly loud in the muffled silence.
It stung, and Draco wanted to sting the Gryffindor back, some sharp comment about how he hit like a ponce poised on his lips before they thinned, his throat feeling unaccountably tight because he saw, lucid and bright in Potter's verdant eyes, that he already was hurt.
It fell, his mask, and he knew it because Potter's eyes widened and features softened, something that made Draco feel even worse.
And it was that moment again, the moment where he could take what he wanted even if it meant daring to degrade himself and apologize and beg for forgiveness like the house elf Potter was now. He could even order Potter to do something, make him the one to beg for forgiveness and kiss the smarting mark on his face better.
But Draco wasn't brave enough to do it, and he found himself running away from that moment, just as he'd run away from allowing Potter to discover the Dark Mark.
Draco didn't take what he wanted, and that was unexpected, surprising even himself.
The tears pricking his eyes were even more unexpected.
Merlin, he was acting like a sodding girl with a broken heart! His heart, blackened and cruel as it may be, was perfectly fine thank you very much. And he was most certainly not going to go lock himself away in a bathroom and bawl his eyes out over Harry Potter like so many other hopeless students no doubt did.
He couldn't mope in the Slytherin common room, where Blaise and Pansy hounded him with questions about Potter and Nott ogled his left arm and hissed his 'subtle' hints about Draco's mission that his father had undoubtedly told him about if he wasn't busy snogging Terry Boot. Boot was not only a sickeningly flirty annoyance, but he also was Anthony Goldstein's best mate, so Draco would be face with his pouty glares as well.
Draco had hexed enough people that week.
He had another retreat to shut himself away in, a place that a scarce few could find and even less knew about. It wasn't a place he necessarily liked, but it was quiet at least. Nott had yet to discover where he was 'dutifully' carrying out his mission.
The Vanishing Cabinet was an austere figure that loomed out from the piles of rubbish and forgotten forbidden goods, always seeming to glare at him even while covered in a dusty and stained sheet. Draco didn't like it and he had the distinct feeling that it didn't like him either, always creaking and spooking him, the gaping maw of its open door seeming to strain to swallow him completely.
"Shut up," he growled at the offending furnishing, slamming its door with more force than warranted, the sound echoing just as loudly in the quiet as Potter's hand striking him had.
"I've likely caused an avalanche now," he mused, aloud.
He knew it was wrong to speak to himself, in an empty room which although was much better than a room full of people, was no less crazy if not a little desperate. Lonely.
That Room of Lost Things had an air of something desperate about it, the ghost of the frantic rush of students abandoning whatever thing they eventually forgot echoing down through the ages. Draco's own desperate charade occupied the valleys and mountains of junk, pretending to mend an impossible to mend Vanishing Cabinet, just getting it to transport an apple or two ("Greyback, that freak leaving me half eaten cores stinking of Merlin knows what." He grumbled to himself with a shudder) and nothing more. Whoever attempted to use it would no doubt be splinched or lost in limbo or even find themselves in a toilet a fortnight later in the case of Marcus Flint.
Draco had no desire to make the sinister cabinet work.
"An ingenious plan, yes," he acknowledged, addressing his audience of broken broomsticks and congealed potions, "But one that won't work."
He didn't expect to be answered, and naturally he was scared out of his wits when he was, by gentle click of the door seeming to chuckle at him. He whirled around, glaring accusingly at the door, the door that always shut, the door that someone had opened.
Heart thumping, he approached the door, wand at the ready and a Memory Charm racing through his head, the Latin becoming entangled with his own panicked thoughts of being discovered of Nott, that elusive shadow, listening to his little speech and reporting it proudly to his father, outing Draco as the half-arsed spy he was and effectively ending his and his parents lives in one fell swoop of nothing more than a whisper to the Dark Lord.
His hand—which felt unaccountably clammy—reached toward the rusted door knob, closing around the cold metal and—
"Master Malfoy is be going somewhere?"
Something that he would never admit to being a shriek caught in his throat and he started, eyes flickering to the owner of the squeaky, hiccupping voice. A house elf, no taller than his knee, gazed up at him with watery eyes from a three-legged chair nearby, her (he presumed) long-fingered hands working at the dirtied blouse she wore.
For a moment he thought that the house elf was just as lost and abandoned as the rubbish she sat on, but a memory niggled at the back of his mind, of the wind in his hair, the smell of collected people and his mother's perfume, of the cushioned seat he sat on while watching the Quidditch World Cup…
"You're that elf from the Minister's box!" he exclaimed, distinctly recalling her round, fearful eyes and squashed tomato nose.
"Winky is being Winky," she muttered, giving him a mildly confused look.
"Yes, but you were at the Quidditch World Cup…" he trailed away, "So what are you doing here?"
"Winky is being working at Hogwarts," she snuffled, "Winky is not liking Hogwarts. Is not like a proper pure-blood household and Winky is missing a proper pure-blood household."
Draco nodded faintly, wondering if Dumbledore had the same mad ideas about house elf rights as Granger did. He should be suspicious however, and not disgusted, although mildly amused, with the Gryffindors and their fierce love of freedom and equality and all that tripe.
"And what are you doing in this particular room? I don't suppose you plan on cleaning it."
"Winky is be looking, Master Malfoy." she said, casting a gaze about the room before disappearing with a pop!
Draco swore under his breath. How dare a house elf just pop off without being dismissed? Although this Winky didn't really seem to be all there, voice thick and eyes glazed and teary, she seemed like an elf that knew her place unlike some.
He was assaulted with another image of Potter in nothing but rags, perhaps that little frock Winky was wearing, little tattered blue bow and all.
"Winky is have find!" her small voice carried to his ears and dispelled his thoughts. She was sitting atop one of the mountains of junk upon a beg of something that looked suspiciously like a Weasley twin product, a scratched and scuffed wooden case clutched to her chest and a delighted look on her face.
"What have you found, Winky?" he called impatiently, his glare bringing her Apparating to his feet with a low bow.
"Winky have found rumored." She beamed.
"'Rumored'?"
She offered up the polished case with shaking arms and Draco snatched it away, examining the scuff marks and listening to a curious tinkling as he shifted the case. It sounded like glass bottles shifting inside, potions, possibly? Some poison left to ferment? He found a rusted bronze latch and flipped it open with a protesting groan of the hinges.
It was a certain sort of potion that lay untouched in velvet lining, but it wasn't the sort of poison Draco had been expecting. It was Firewhisky, centuries old by the look of the label, the two bottles' contents glimmering with confined fire waiting to lick down some lucky tosser's throat and burn them into oblivion. Draco wasn't one to get disgracefully smashed, but the idea to do so was working its way into his mind as liquidly as the alcohol sloshing within the bottles.
"Cheers," he sniggered under his breath, gently running a finger over the smooth glass.
"Master Malfoy?"
Winky was looking inordinately distressed, gazing at the bottles with unshed tears, her fingers twitching as if wanting to swipe them from Draco's hands. Hadn't he heard a snatch of a rumor once about a house elf in the kitchens that constantly got drunk? From the reek of Butterbeer on her, Winky could very well be that sad, sad elf.
"Get moving, were going to the kitchens." He decided, giving her shin a light kick, "I want a proper meal along with this."
A watery shimmer of hope flashed in her eyes as she promptly fell all over herself to get to the door, opening it with a sweeping bow and ushering him out with shuffling feet and a snuffling nose.
Draco wasn't sure if he would give Winky a glass of the age old Ogden's, he was indeed sure that it wasn't normal of masters to award their elves with alcohol. Then again, Draco didn't think they awarded them with a hot snogging session either.
She scampered behind him, staring adoringly at the case tucked under his arm while his thoughts drifted to the other odd house elf, the one with a free will and the ability to make him both angry and wanting all at once. He was not going to apologize to him because it was only what courtesy expected of him and not what he felt. He did regret calling Granger a Mudblood, so decided he may say something—something that it would only take her overly intuitive brain to realize was an apology.
He had ordered Potter not to apologize when he didn't mean it and he suddenly didn't want to be a hypocrite.
He was brought to a staggering halt by a small body flinging itself onto the back of his legs, the case nearly flying from his hands as he turned to glower coldly down at Winky.
"Master Malfoy cannot be going up these stairs!" she cried, "They is be stuck!"
Draco looked down the flight of stairs and found that they were indeed frozen mid-movement, the bottom giving way to the chasm four floors below. Pansy had been nattering on about a fourth year nearly losing his life the other day, but really there was many more dangers than the moving staircases in the castle that could attempt to maim a student.
Take Hippogriffs for example.
"Bollocks," he sighed, shifting the Firewhisky case back under his arm, "We'll have to take the long way then."
He began to turn, but Winky was still clutching to the back of his calves, her hands clenching in the fabric he'd no doubt have to have ironed now, her dirty hands wrinkling the material. She was unmoving, her eyes impossibly wide and fixed forward, gazing down at the end of the staircase. Which Draco noted with a jolt was not empty, a scattering of something dark on the white marble and the unmistakable shape of a wand lying ownerless on the very last step—
Along with a hand gripping the marble.
The case slipped from his fingers and he didn't know if the bottles of Firewhisky shattered on the steps because all he could heart was the blood roaring in his ears as he flew down the stairs, peering over the edge and hating what he saw there.
It was no poor hapless fourth year that dangled above his certain death, but it was Potter, his green eyes filled with alarm, features sweat slicked with strain, and bottom lip bloodied again. It was wrong to see such a valiant hero this way, although so unfortunately this was the line Potter walked and sometimes stumbled on, the terribly thin edge of life and death.
"Master," Potter gasped, his other hand twisting uselessly beneath him and sending him swinging in a worrying way, "D-Draco,"
Draco was snapped from his stupor and did not the cowardly—or the smart thing—instead dropping to his knees and grabbing onto Potter's arm, finding it blood-chillingly wet and practically shred, his hands slipping as Potter winced.
"What the fuck?" he hissed, feeling himself pitch forward with Potter's dead weight, his hand, just as torn and bleeding, losing its purchase on the marble.
"P-punishment," Potter groaned, teeth gnashing as he strained to grab onto the step with his other hand.
It slipped, and Draco felt himself falling to become spread flat out on the stairs, his stomach pressed painfully into the sharp corner of a step, his knees knocking about and bruising as he fought to keep his hold on Potter's arm.
"Damn it, Potter!" he shouted, his voice echoing mockingly all the way down to the bottom floor, where Potter could easily end up a heap of blood and bones, "Apparate like before!"
"I can't!" Potter roared back, his eyes shining bright with fright but still burning as passionate as ever, "I told you it doesn't fucking work like that!"
"And why the bloody hell not? You and your fucking accidental magic!" Draco spat, his nails digging further into Potter's forearm as he felt his chest wrench forward toward the edge.
It was the Quidditch pitch all over, but this time there was no helpful 'accidental magic' to defy the laws of Hogwarts, A History and save Potter's wretched life. Hysteria crept up on Draco, threatening to make him fall along with Potter just to see if they'd survive to wake up blurry and pained in the hospital wing, Draco never having to face the damned gathering he knew was fast approaching and Potter to never face the Dark Lord.
But, in that split second, Draco didn't want to be a coward.
He didn't want to lose Potter.
They jerked forward again, Potter's face drawing into what looked like reluctant defeat, once something Draco craved to see, but now it only curdled in his stomach like a poison before becoming fire through his veins, something like courage and anger surging about in a furious maelstrom, something like Firewhisky.
Determination, pure mad determination and anger. Quite a bit of anger.
"Don't you dare die on me!" he all but screamed, "You're not allowed to die! Do you hear me? Don't fucking die!"
Potter stared up at him incredulously, before his gaping mouth set into a hard line of focus, his white-knuckled hand renewing its grip with a fierce strength, but Draco took no moment to be satisfied as Potter's weight swung and shifted, dragging him dangerously forward before, suddenly, he was bowled backward by an armful of Gryffindor.
"I won't." Potter promised, just a hoarse whisper in his ear, but meaning a desperate amount.
Draco wrapped his arms around the raven-haired boy, who was shaking just as much as he had when he had nearly fallen to his death, giving the comfort he had wanted and generously received in the arms that trembled as they wound around him now. Arms he had nearly lost.
"Don't ever do that again."
Potter pulled back to give him a shakily wry look, his eyes behind his glasses bright but a crooked smile curved his lips.
"Nearly fall four floors off a staircase? I think it happens only once in a lifetime."
"Not for Longbottom, or you apparently."
Potter snickered, a low fluttery sound against Draco's neck that made his breath hitch, hold tightening around Potter's solid weight resting between his legs. Draco wanted to keep him there, tucked under his chin where he could live off of the scent Potter gave off, all October air and well-worn linens, all the sustenance he needed within the verdant depths of his eyes, his meals flesh and sweat and—
"I'm sorry."
There was another surge of unaccountable anger as he took Potter' face in his hands and forced a brutal kiss on his coppery lips, which froze for a moment before responding eagerly, making it all the more difficult for Draco to tear away and hiss against Potter's searching mouth,
"I'm not. What did I tell you about saying you're sorry?"
His eyes drifted open and stared at him with an unfathomable expression, severe and soft all at once. Before Draco could demand to know what he was thinking, Potter kissed him again, chaste and smirking.
"Slytherins never say they're sorry, do they?"
Although he knew Potter full well realized that was a lie, a cardinal rule that Draco had broken, he didn't contradict him, opting to delve in the delights of Potter's mouth instead, tongue snaking to dance sinuously with Potter's, hands twining into black untidy hair.
"Rumored this was also," a high voice stopped their ministrations dead, craning around to see Winky standing at the top of the stairs, holding the undamaged Firewhisky case and watching with disinterest, the anxious shuffle of her feet telling Draco that she would rather be in the kitchens cracking open a bottle of the ages old Ogden's than witnessing Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy snog.
"I wager it is," Potter groaned, "That Parkinson bitch."
"Oi, potty mouth," Draco snickered, "You're Irish boy is just as bad, if not louder and that is saying something indeed."
"Seamus is…" Potter trailed away, rubbing his face tiredly, "You're right, yeah."
Draco smirked before catching sight of Potter's mangled forearm, which likely hurt as much as his own.
"What the hell happened to you, Potter? What tried to eat you?"
Potter blinked before examining his arms with resigned shame.
"I never actually did bite, just tore and scratched."
Draco snatched at Potter's hand and saw that there was just as much blood there, skin and scabs built up under his nails, Draco's own hands smeared with the still flowing blood, making his stomach swoop uncomfortably, a chill running through him.
"It really hurts, the curse?" he heard himself saying, mouth dry and blood running cold.
"It's like the Cruciatus Curse or something."
Draco dropped Potter's hand, mind buzzing and heart sinking with self-loathing. No one deserved the Cruciatus Curse, especially not Potter. It was too much for even a hero to stand, even if the pain didn't last, it scarred deeply, clawing its way all the way down to where you thought you were safe, the lapse of consciousness in sleep becoming a place where it played on your nerves, dragging screams from your throat and terror in your heart-
Potter looked up at him, but Draco was already staggering to his feet, feeling faint and sick, muscles aching and Dark Mark burning more acidly than it had an hour before. It couldn't possibly be tonight could it? Wouldn't that be just brilliant, attending a Death Eater meeting after just saving Harry Potter's life? Brilliant indeed.
"You've bled all over me, I need a shower now. Thanks a lot Potter." he sneered mildly, steeping lightly up the stairs, trepidation growing in his stomach, which had not a moment ago been all warm and filled with the flavour of Potter. He wished he was still in those arms, he wished he could just say in Potter's embrace and ride out the night and hope he didn't die, or his parents didn't die or Severus didn't die or some innocent Muggle didn't die…
Hope was never enough, he knew all too well.
Potter scrambled after him, grasping to his shoulder and whirling him about to face him.
"Draco," he said, eyes firm and unwavering, making Draco feel frightfully transparent, "We need to talk."
"We will," Draco nodded hastily, beckoning Winky over with a snap of his fingers, "But first Winky is going to fix up your injuries and take you down to the kitchens. You're a mess Potter, and I refuse to kiss a mess any further."
He hated the way Potter didn't smile or scowl, his face still stony and staring at him seriously, eyes aflame with his Gryffindor passion, that damnable stubbornness.
He knew exactly how to take that away.
Draco reached out, caressing his hand over Potter's set jaw and pushing it into his unruly hair with the faintest of smirks on his face, the very ghost of amusement he was feeling.
"Bow to your master, Potter."
Potter went ramrod straight, nostrils flared and brows drawn together, and Draco knew he was fighting, straining against something sweet and pleasurable, but a curse just like the poison, acidic and painful tugging through Draco. He smiled bitterly as Potter gave in to the twitches and visibly melted as he bent forward into a deep bow, Draco's fingers playing in the hair that curled at the nape of his neck.
"You're a good elf, Potter," he crooned, leaning forward to feel Potter's shudders as his breath played against the Gryffindor's ear, "Now be a good elf and do as you're told."
He stepped back and Potter's eyes snapped to his, lust-hazed and curse-addled but still somehow defiant even as he bow and quivered like any lowly house elf. Draco graced him with one last smile, a smirk that felt wrong on his face, a lie that Potter saw through right down to the stain burning away his blood and tugging at his sanity, the ringing that sounded hauntingly like screams in his ears, the cold sweat on his skin that felt thick and metallic.
The horror of the Dark Lord that only his servants knew of, something even his enemies were sheltered from.
With a snap of his fingers, Winky latched onto Potter and Apparated them away to the kitchens with a pop! leaving Draco alone with nothing but the muttering of the portraits and the fate he had to face.
His footsteps sounded unaccountably distant as he walked down to the dungeons, down to where Severus would be waiting, grave-faced and silently supportive, ready to lead him to Hogsmeade in cloaked stealth and off to the Manor, a place that was no longer home, quickly becoming a torture chamber of sorts, an asylum that housed the maddest man of them all and his stains, his 'games', ashen faced and terrified as they awaited the slaughter like the animals the Dark Lord proclaimed they were.
Draco had the most sinking feeling that Potter's blood would not be the only spilt tonight.
~o0o~
A/N~ Sorry for the wait! Thanks for reading, please review!
Special thanks to That One Harbinger and, as always, Sylent!