Author's note: Welcome readers. 3 reminders for you.
1- Don't yuck someone else's yum. You simply scroll away from stories you don't like. Capiche?
2- Do not buy bound fan fiction off etsy. It's illegal.
3- Respect the fandom and the pairing choices of others in that fandom.
Xoxo Catstclaire
Ps- I've been gravitating to a fem Draco when i write Drarry lately. Don't know why, but i am rolling with it because i have been in a writers slump on some of my other wips, and fem Draco is pretty fun to write.
'Tell us what you were doing, when we found you.'
'Where are your little friends? Everyone knows Harry Potter doesn't make a move without Granger and Weasley close by!'
'What plans does the Order of the Phoenix have?'
'When will they notice you're gone?'
Harry had drifted in and out for varying bits of time as questions were shouted directly into his ear drum. Pretty quickly the questions had just all flowed into one continuous stream of white noise, and that made it easy for Harry to ignore.
It was all so funny to Harry, in a really fucked up way, because his friends constantly reminded him that he was incapable of keeping his mouth shut. Hermione especially loved to point out Harry's sass when it came, and she said it was as reflexive to him as shielding his face from a bludger. -and yet here he was, keeping his fucking mouth shut for once.
Harry chuckled low and dark, and got rewarded with another slap across his face.
That's allright he thought grimly, it would be over soon, and pain was only a temporary feeling- just like Lupin always used to say.
So far they had worked Harry over in an assortment of ways. Punching, kicking. Spells Harry couldn't possibly recognize, because they were well passed what his 6 years at Hogwarts had taught him. They screamed at Harry while they tortured him, and somehow he had managed to remain quiet and even present them with an air of imperiousness. Imperiousness. It was something he learned while watching how the Dursley's treated him sure, but it worked quite well for him here. This was beneath Harry, all of it, the beatings and the death eaters.
Ron would be calling him a bloody brave fool, but Ron wouldn't flip if it was him here. Harry wouldn't either. His friend trio was loyal, and brave, and golden. Harry owed them everything. A little torture wasn't going to be what got him to sell either of them out.
Harry couldn't stop them- the death eaters that captured him from killing him, eventually his body would have to give out, what he could do was keep his mouth shut though. The Order secrets he held weren't going anywhere but with him on to the afterlife. They tried getting into his mind several times already and each time Harry pushed them right back out. Arguably the only good thing Snape had ever done for him was teaching him how to protect his mind, but hey Harry wasn't going to be picky when it came to his allies because these days there were very few of those to be had.
Harry's hands had been bound with a heavy layer of enchanted silver chains. When they first touched his skin Harry immediately felt weaker, and his magic felt impossibly distant and farther away the longer they remained.
He wasn't able to use any bit of his magic, and it was clever of the death eaters really. Probably Bellatrix's idea he guessed.
Harry was royally screwed here. What could he possibly do to get free, without his magic?
If he was right they had held him here for at least 2 days so far. He was hungry, tired, and in pain. Harry wasn't even sure if they were still aiming to interrogate him or just kill him alltogether at this point.
Bellatrix had pocketed her wand for the day, and thrown Harry into a cell after the slap. The door slammed behind her but then a few minutes later he heard it open again, though the steps entering were distinctly not Bellatrix's. Harry was beginning to differentiate people here just by their footsteps. Bellatrix's were clicky and harsh from her heeled boots. Dolohov's sounded worn and heavy when he walked, like a bucket being dragged across stone. Harry's ears perked up when he heard the steps coming near him now- her footsteps had always been light and springy like a cat.
"Fucking finally," Harry said aloud, and grinned in a somewhat sloppy manner. His lips were chapped and busted so it stung to smile, but Harry couldn't help it. Probably this was the last friendly, or last once friendly face Harry would see before he died and he was choosing to be positive about it. "I was getting worried-no one was answering when i asked after you."
A derisive little scoff.
"You thought my aunt might answer you? Please. That loon rarely answers my questions and i'm her blood." Draco Malfoy said with outrage. Her hip was cocked to one side, and she wore her famous sneer when Harry met her eyes. Icy blonde locks fell around her face in floaty waves. She looked exactly as Harry remembered though it had been over a year since he last laid his eyes on her. "I hear that you're not being very cooperative with them Potter." Draco said, stepping fully into Harry's cell. A signet Malfoy ring stood out contrasting greatly against the pale background of her skin. It was on her left hand, Harry tried to ignore it. Refused to look at it because it- it stung.
Draco's face was blank when grey met green. Her skin was so pale it was almost glowy in the light filtering into the cell from the window. He always thought Draco's face was so perfect, and it made Harry want to cry seeing her like this. On Voldemort's side. Harry remembered what her smile had looked like, and the sound of her laughter...
Times had certainly changed since they were kids.
Harry had witnessed it all. Her many transformations through the years. When they met on the train they took to one another almost immediately even when they were sorted into different houses- it hadn't mattered. Draco was as close to him as Ron and Hermione at least for the first 3 years of Hogwarts.
There were many different versions of Draco Malfoy in the years Harry had known her. There had been the young impetuous Draco from first year, she liked quidditch and gave Harry her left over treats from Hogsmeade. Then there had been the vulnerable Draco of 2nd year. She messed with her hair alot almost like she was never satisfied with it, and she doodled in the margins of all her notebooks. Harry liked how open 3rd year Draco had been with him, she shared bits about her parents and home life out beside the black lake.
Then Harry watched 4th year Draco appear and she used the word 'mudblood' for the first time, and she apologized immediately... but it was like Harry knew then. Draco hadn't actually meant the apology. She was beginning to believe in the purists idealism. Suddenly they were arguing, and she said she picked the word up from Lucius. Harry knew that- but she had still said it. Hermione spent the whole next day crying in the girls loo over it. Later Harry and Draco became competitive on the quidditch pitch like they never had been against one another before. Harry had been so cross with Draco by the time the yule ball came he didn't ask her to it even though he had planned to at the start of the year. The yule ball had been an absolute disaster as far as his relationship with Draco went, because things went further south between them that night. His friendship with Draco was hanging by a single thread by that Christmas. Maybe if the triwizard tournament hadn't ended with Cedric dying that year Harry and Draco would have made up.
But Cedric did die and then 5th year came, and he and Draco still weren't speaking. They acted like the other didn't exist. It was petty and childish. 4 years of friendship was gone and seemingly easily forgotten. At the time Ron had told him it was for the best though, because the Malfoy's supported you know who.
6th year Draco Malfoy was clearly breaking apart but by the time Harry tried to speak to her. It was already too late, and then another body was dropped on Hogwarts ground, but this time by Draco's own hand.
Harry had cried then. In the aftermath of Dumbledore's death. Harry didn't hate Draco for it exactly. He had heard what she said right before, he was frozen under the invisibility cloak. "If i don't kill you he's gonna kill me." Then the green light, then so much nothing.
Draco was protecting her family, but all of it still left Harry horribly conflicted.
So many versions of Draco in his head was what gave Harry hope all these years later. She had changed so many times before, one day she could change for the better. Not that Ron or Hermione believed it, of course not. They told Harry more times than he could count that she was a lost cause.
It was captivating and brutal to behold all at once to watch the versions in her come and go, but Harry welcomed the changes that may come now. Someday she would come around. Harry always thought he would be around to see it, but now it was obvious he probably wouldn't.
Harry reminded himself that all these versions of Draco were one and the same though they all seemed so different. Even now she was still the girl who passed notes to him in charms class.
Draco leant down, and the white robes she wore flowed around her arms like flowers. She pulled Harry's face into her palm. Harry knew it had to be a grim sight, his face was swollen, and slashed. The only thing they hadn't broken on him so far were his glasses. At the start of each beating Bellatrix sat them off to the side- so later when they were done Harry still had his full vision in order to fully grasp his reality she said.
Draco made a tutting sound as she studied Harry's face. Her fingertip slid against a cut and Harry winced with a hiss of pain.
"My aunt is going to kill you, you realize? If you just tell her what she wants to know it could all be a painless affair. Imagine a whole bottle of bliss just to yourself. You could die with a smile on your face Potter." Her voice was admonished like it was a chore to explain this to Harry. "No one likes a rebel."
They weren't summoning Voldemort yet. No. They wanted Harry to give up Ron and Hermione's locations first. That way when the Dark lord came he could have the whole golden trio. Bellatrix was looking very forward to her reward.
"Well if it's you telling me i'm about to die, then it's true- i guess." Harry mumbled as he tried and failed to adjust his body to a more comfortable position. "After all this time and you're still such an ice queen-" Harry smirked. He had always found Draco's icy exterior to be a breath of fresh air, because when it came to everyone else they just blindly praised Harry. Draco's praise was hard to earn, and so when kind words came they were everything. "I've missed that."
Draco scoffed again, and dropped Harry's face like a wet rag. His last statement had annoyed Draco.
There was so much between them, so much had happened. They had been friends at one point, in the first couple years of Hogwarts, it had been so much fun then. Then the triwizard tournament came and Draco had changed- Harry hadn't known what to say or how to fix it- Cedric- and then Dumbledore- Draco Malfoy had gone from Harry's friend to a rival to a traitor. That was where they were now wasn't it? They were on 2 opposite sides of the war, and there was no fixing that. Draco's entire family were death eaters. It didn't matter what they had been in the past to each other, what mattered now was now.
Harry had remained terribly conflicted on the subject of Draco Malfoy for years now. She was a child when she killed Dumbledore, and Harry couldn't understand the people in the Order who blamed her for what happened. If the roles were reversed and Harry's parents were alive he expected he would have followed them into just about anything.
How were you just supposed to wake up one day and stop caring about the first girl you ever loved? That's what Harry knew now. He loved Draco. He hadn't understood because he was so young back then, but when he really thought about it that's what hurt the most about her betrayal. Harry had been hopelessly in love with her when she fled Hogwarts with Bellatrix.
Harry glanced at the signet ring again. Probably his greatest mistake had been not taking Draco to the yule ball- asking her at least, because Theodore Nott had taken her that year. A few months back the Order received reports that the Malfoy's had made a match with the Nott family to their only daughter. Draco was to marry Nott in another year- they were betrothed and it made Harry sick when he pondered on it to long.
"How's Theo?" Harry questioned bitterly. If he was going to die that was fine, but he wanted to die at least knowing how Draco felt about the match.
She sneered. "How the hell should i know?" Harry valiantly fought off the smile that threatened to come. Good he thought to himself, she hates him. A small consolation to Harry's circumstance of course.
"You were always an idiot, weren't you?" Draco leveled her face to Harry's. Her breath fogged his glasses. "Always preoccupied by the wrong things- even now."
Harry wondered what she would do if he mustered the strength to lean up and press his lips to hers. Probably slap him- or hex him- would it be worth it though? Not yet he decided when Draco began a monologue.
"The Order is going to let you die. You'll be their sacrifice- their martyr for years to come. Don't you know how you figure into all of their plans?" She poked his forehead, and pulled the glasses off his face in a single effortless swipe. "I'll tell you. You are nothing to them, nothing more than a pawn to be used and discarded at their own whim. You do not matter in the grand scheme of things- regardless of what the Order has been pumping into that thick skull of yours." She used the end of her white robe to clean Harry's glasses, then deposited them back onto his face gentler than he would have thought she was capable.
Every ounce of bitterness for Draco bubbled to the surface of his mind in that moment. She was not his friend. Probably Harry should keep the various Draco's separated in his mind it was safer that way.
Harry's voice was steely. "If i'm the Order's worthless pawn, i wonder what that makes you to Voldemort?"
Draco's lips pursed. She pushed her hand back up against the cut on Harry's face and Harry howled with pain. Her hand drifted downward in a caressing motion until it was at his throat. As Harry tried to reacclimatize himself, she wrapped her dainty pale hand tight round his throat like a snake.
"Imbecile," Draco murmured. "Can't help yourself can you?" Her grip tightened to the point Harry could barely pull in air. "You and that fucking mouth of yours.."
Draco raised her wand to Harry's temple.
"Let me in," she said.
Harry closed his eyes tightly, and shook his head.
"Harry," She said in a soft voice, and warning bells went off in Harry's head- she never called him Harry. Never, since their friendship ended. "Let me in- please Harry." Then her hand loosened from around his throat and instead brushed against his forehead gently. She couldn't force Harry- just like the others couldn't. He didn't have to let her in.
-but then Draco's fingers felt so nice against his swollen face- and she was being so gentle with him- calling him Harry- like maybe she was still the Draco he fell for- and that maybe she cared for him in the same way.
Maybe it was safe for Harry with Draco-
"If you won't let me in," Draco said calmly, "I'll slit the Lovegood girls throat. They found her wandering that same area you were found in. Cooperate and she can go home."
Harry's eyes jolted open, shocked back into remembering it was not safe with Draco especially because she was an ice cold killer- she killed more after Dumbledore. Many more.
Draco sunk seamlessly deep into his mind.