(Disclaimer: see first chapter.)
Beta: as always, the lovely RedButterfly33. : )
A/N: mandancie, as always, my heartfelt thanks for your review!
Warning: Abuse. Not quite rape, but it rather looks like it, so beware.
7.
Later that day
"These are your quarters, Potter. Be on time for the gathering at 8 o'clock," Wormtail admonished him. "Your... slave..." - he grinned salaciously - "as well as fresh robes have been laid out for you. I suggest you also make use of the bathroom." The rat animagus gave a derisive sniff.
"I may have no authority yet," Harry answered coldly, "but if I were you, I'd think twice about how I addressed my future superior."
He was pleased to see Wormtail flinch.
"One week from now, I will have full rein on meting out punishments. Trust me, your very existence makes me want to curse you." This was nothing but the truth. "Unless you wish to attract further attention, you will treat me with respect, is that clear?"
"Y-yessir, Mr. Potter."
"Very good. Now piss off before I decide to take my anger out on you rather than on Malfoy." With these words, Harry opened the door to his quarters and pulled it shut behind him with a loud bang.
Slowly, he looked around the apartment. In front of him stood a table with several chairs, behind it was a great window looking out on the estate around Voldemort's castle. Doors led to further rooms on both sides. To his left, he spied the small bathroom through a partially open door; meaning that his bedroom and Draco's room must be through the right-hand door.
Harry had not even taken two steps into the room when he paused. I'm definitely being watched.
He softly muttered a number of quick detection and recon charms, being acutely happy that he had paid close attention to the Defence against the Dark Arts classes during his last school year.
The charms immediately uncovered two eavesdropping spells and one monitoring curse. It took him a while to switch off the monitor, despite it being the most obvious of the bunch. The less obvious eavesdropping spells he left in place for now. Let Voldemort believe he missed them...
Tiredly, he sank down into a chair at the table to mull things over. What other spells might have been placed on these quarters? He doubtfully turned the new wand that Voldemort had supplied him with around in his hands. After a year cut off from doing magic, it was good to finally have that option again; but the wand still felt very unfamiliar in his hands.
Following a sudden spark of inspiration, Harry whispered his own monitor curse that would let him know if any new spells were added to his tiny apartment. Then he got up and stepped through the left door to take his first bath in nearly one and a half years.
Next to the tub, Harry found the announced Death Eater robes, as well as a few sets of ordinary, albeit expensive-looking, everyday clothes.
He was in the process of pulling the silky, shimmering shirt over his head when he finally remembered Malfoy. Dammit! How could he have forgotten about the injured man?
Maybe he was now permanently disabled due to Harry's negligence - his nerves fried beyond recovery, or his brains... He should have looked after Malfoy before he did anything else!
Foregoing shirt buttons, belt and shoes, Harry took off. Already his hand was on his bedroom's door handle - when he remembered the eavesdropping spells. Much as he despised the thought, he had to convince Voldemort that nothing happened in his quarters that would warrant monitoring. He had to show himself as doing exactly what was expected of him. In essence, this meant he would have to attack Malfoy once more, probably humiliate him as well, to be on the safe side.
Harry felt bile rising in his throat at the thought, and yet he could think of no better way to forestall future espionage.
After the long and eventful day, he was fairly convinced that he lacked the energy for another Cruciatus. Despite the rich dinner and even after he'd taken a bath... He'd have to improvise.
Calling himself to order, he resolutely entered the room.
The bedroom was spacious; apart from a large double bed and an old wardrobe, it also housed a small desk in one corner. And next to the bed, there was...
Harry gulped. Suddenly Wormtail's words and the nasty smirk made a lot more sense. "Your slave as well as fresh robes have been laid out for you."He hadn't really paid it any mind earlier, but why would his 'slave' be laid out for him?
Now he knew.
There, on a thin mattress next to the bed, was Draco Malfoy. The formerly proud Slytherin crouched in a tight ball, looking at Harry with eyes widened in panic.
Harry would have been panicking as well had their positions been reversed, for the boy wore... nothing. Nothing but a couple of heavy chains linking a metal collar around his throat to one of the bed posts. The blond's hands and feet were tied together with ropes.
When Harry entered the room, Malfoy tried to scoot back further - a hopeless endeavour, since he was already pressed up against the wall as tightly as though he hoped it would devour him and spare him from further shame. The shame of being completely helpless before his arch rival, who was obviously expected to practice his dark magical curses on him, as well as... certain other Death Eater's duties.
Draco had no illusions about his situation. He had seen the hatred in Harry's eyes when the man had tortured him until he lost consciousness. No matter what Draco might say, he'd have no chance against that hatred. Today, it had only been the Cruciatus; but Harry still had a lot to learn. Death Eaters had to know a huge number of curses to torment their victims, in addition to some of the nastier Muggle methods... Rape, too, was part of a Death Eater's standard repertoire.
Draco had been relieved when he finally felt his consciousness fading in Azkaban. He had only come back to his senses when he felt rough hands tearing the clothes from his body. They bathed and combed him. A Petrificus had assured the women that he wouldn't hinder them in their efforts. Mrs. Nott and Mrs. Parkinson had once been good friends with his parents, but now they were treating him like the lowliest scum. And to them, he was. Of course, after what I have done...
Draco heard the women talking about him.
"...do not trust the Potter boy. No matter what my husband says, they can't really expect us to believe that Dumbledore's Muggle-loving lapdog has suddenly mutated into a cold-blooded killer."
"But he did nearly Crucio Malfoy here to death."
"Hmm... you are right, that is unlike him."
"Besides, they say he claimed Malfoy as his property. I am sure you know the meaning of such a claim?"
Draco nearly fainted again. Property?! According to the ancient pureblood codex, this meant: a slave without rights, without a penny to his name, without free will... only there for his master's sexual pleasure.
Potter wanted him... for...
Or could all this be a simple misunderstanding?
Draco had clung to this hope. Fate couldn't be so bitterly ironic as to render his dreams so close to fulfilment and yet so impossibly unattainable all at once.
He had been grateful when the women finally stopped gossiping about his fate like it was the latest petty scandal in the society pages. The gratefulness lasted exactly until he was brought into the bedroom. The shabby little mattress beside the bed and the heavy chain links left absolutely no doubt about his new status.
When the women finally left him, without clothes, but with some pointed, barbed parting words, Draco Malfoy, last scion of a long line of pureblooded wizarding nobility and pride of Slytherin, had broken down in tears for the first time in many years.
And now Harry was here.
Draco listened, trembling, as the man who according to the two women was Voldemort's future right-hand man found and deactivated a monitoring curse. Draco's wand had been taken from him when he was brought to Azkaban and he felt even more helpless now upon hearing the proof that Harry once more possessed a wand.
But no matter how bad the Cruciatus had been, other things worried him more.
When he heard the water running in the bathroom, Draco nearly hyperventilated. Why was the other washing himself? Did he intend to...?
When Harry finally entered the room with firm steps, Draco saw his worst fears confirmed. Harry's shirt hung open around his otherwise naked chest, the hair was still wet from his bath and the belt dangled loosely. Harry examined Draco with cold eyes. For a long time he just remained standing in the doorway, observing the room. His eyes finally stuck to Draco and the boy felt as though the other were looking straight through his drawn-up knees.
He frantically tried to move further away from this horribly changed Harry Potter, despite his tied arms and legs. At least they had taken the curses off him so was able to move. But he quickly discovered that this wouldn't help him here at all.
Potter drew his wand and pointed it at Draco.
"Well, ferret, nothing to say?"
Draco desperately pressed himself closer to the wall.
He had to try. He had to tell Harry why he had been in Azkaban. Maybe that way, he would be able to placate the black-haired devil before him.
"Potter, I..."
"Silence!"
"Please, listen to me.. please...! I-"
"I said. SILENCE!" A loud smack resounded as Harry slapped Draco with a flat hand.
He bent down close to Draco, the tips of their noses nearly touching. His hand rose to stroke softly across the cheek it had just slapped. Draco whimpered in fright and finally gave up trying to vanish into the wall. There was no escape.
"Malfoy... When I give you an order, you better obey," Harry said loudly, yet somehow... gently. Only to add in a hard voice: "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
Draco sobbed. "Yes... Yes!"
"You will say 'Yes, Sir!'" Another slap. "This is for your impertinence."
One more slap. "This is for your past misd-d-demeanours." Was Harry trembling in anger or excitement?
Slap. "This is for daring to display yourself in such a wanton fashion." Draco's last hopes that he might have been mistaken vanished.
He opened his eyes when the hits stopped coming.
And saw Harry kneeling in front of him, eyes pinched shut and his breath sounding laboured. With the same fascination with which a hare looks straight into the hunter's eyes, Draco watched as Harry's lashes slowly raised. His 'Master' said with a cruel twist to the corners of his mouth: "Well, Draco, since you have awaited me here in so inviting a pose, I had best accept the invitation, don't you agree?"
"No, please don't... Ah!"
Harry had put a hand to his throat in no time. "You will say 'Yes, Sir!'"
Tearing apart Draco's bonds with his other hand, he hissed threateningly: "I will teach you manners. - On your hands and knees, and make it snappy!"
Draco was shaking with fear, but he did not dare protest again.
"Say, Malfoy, how loud do you get?" Harry's whispered words suddenly reached his ears.
It was too much. The fear of what Harry was about to do to him made him burst into tears once more. "Please... please don't...," he sobbed. Why did it have to be Harry? Why the one man who -
"Please don't, huh?" Scornful laughter. "You amuse me, Malfoy. But there is more amusement I wish to get from you tonight. You probably know from personal experience how long each day in Azkaban can be... and how much longer each lonely night..."
"No, please...!"
"Maybe we had better show some consideration for our next-door neighbours. Your begging is very loud already; how much louder are you going to scream when you beg me for other things? - Silencio!"
Voldemort contentedly petted Nagini's head. He had withdrawn to his own quarters to watch undisturbed how his future commander-in-chief settled into the castle. Potter may have countered his monitor curse, but he'd left the eavesdropping spell intact until a minute ago. He must have accidentally cut it off with that overzealous Silencio.
Upon realizing that the former Gryffindor did not show the least trace of mercy towards his victim, Voldemort had been surprised - positively. The further conversation had left him immensely pleased in some respects, but a little unsatisfied in others. He knew how to solve this dilemma, of course.
"Wormtail!" When the grovelling traitor stuck his head in through the door, Voldemort coldly ordered him: "Bring me one of the women left from the last attack." The image of Potter subjugating the young Malfoy did not leave him cold.
Sweat was gathering in large pearly drops on Harry's forehead as he forced himself to abase Malfoy further and further. He knew well from his visions that Voldemort knew no mercy towards his victims and loved to play with them.
Finally, Harry thought he had pushed this farce far enough. Casting Silencio and extending it to all three rooms, he accidentally-on-purpose also cut off the eavesdropping spells.
When he was sure he had properly performed that task and they were free from all forms of espionage, Harry cancelled the spell and shakily sat back on his heels.
He heard Malfoy whimpering quietly.
Running to the bathroom, Harry proceeded to be noisily sick.