Tempus, Chapter 15 (of 20)
Title:Tempus, Chapter Fifteen
Author: Ravenna C. Tan ravenna_c_tan
House: Ravenclaw
Word Count: 3701 (just this chapter)
Challenge: The "Old Cliches, New Tricks" Fest at hp_cliche
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Potentially coercive sexual situation, corporal punishment, masturbation, voyeurism, and the like
Pairing:H/D
Beta Reader Thanks To: miraba
Cliche: Time-travel, but that isn't Snarry.
Disclaimer: Harry, Draco, Hogwarts, and the rest all belong to JK Rowling. I'm just having fun, doing it for the love, not any money.
Summary: Students at Hogwarts have always been warned about corridors that appear and disappear. Did you ever wonder where they go? Or when? Harry thinks he is late to his seventh year potions class, but he turns out to be more than seventy years early.
(The Archive of previous chapters is available Right Here)
(As promised, I'm going to post a chapter every day this week until the fic is done! So if you missed Monday's chapter, #14, be sure you go back and read it before you read this one...)
The door from the corridor unlatched, and in came LeStrange. "Really, Draco, are you sure you're feeling all right?"
"I assure you, I'm quite recovered, professor." He closed the door behind him, locked it, then sealed it with another spell, an Imperturbable by the look of it. "Now I want some answers, LeStrange."
The professor looked taken aback as Draco's wand swung toward him. "Draco, I assure you, that's not nec..."
"Professor. I have some very serious questions which need answers. I am sure, given the nature of these questions, that you will not mind indulging my... caution." He waved the wand toward one of the leather-bound chairs by the fire. "Please have a seat."
LeStrange sat down.
"Accio Professor LeStrange's wand," Draco then said, and the wand slid from the inner pocket of LeStrange's robe to Draco's hand. "Now. Please. Let me explain myself."
LeStrange nodded.
"Someone has been tampering with my memories. Every time I visit you, it seems. I'm here for an explanation."
LeStrange's shoulders sagged. "I told him the charm would begin to lose its effectiveness after a while."
"Told whom?"
LeStrange looked up. "Regulus."
"I don't believe you."
LeStrange sat up straighter, as if shocked. "Mr. Malfoy! I have tried to help you at every turn. I have lied to protect you, jeopardized my own career..."
"Convince me. I'm not in a very trusting mood right now."
LeStrange began to stand but a warning shake of Draco's wand and he settled back on his chair. "I think the only way to solve this is to have Regulus do the talking. If we can reach him, that is."
Draco took the tin of Floo powder from the mantle and thrust it at LeStrange.
"We have to use the Floo in the bedroom. It is the one with the unauthorized connection," LeStrange explained. "Or didn’t you wonder why he never came in this way?"
Draco sneered. "Of course not, since I never remembered seeing him in the first place."
"Oh, right. Um..."
"You first, I'm following you." Draco held his wand out, and backed toward the door behind the desk. LeStrange came around and opened it, then went in.
Harry waited until they had both gone through the doorway to sneak from his hiding place toward it. He stopped at the door, which remained open, and peered into the room. LeStrange's quarters were down two short steps and featured a bedroom as large as Draco's, though it was round like a tower room and dominated by a large, circular bed tossed with green satin pillows.
LeStrange tossed a pinch of powder into the fire, knelt down, and thrust his head into the flames. He spoke briefly, but apparently heatedly to the person on the other end--neither Harry nor Draco could hear what was being said, but they could see his shoulders tensing and moving as he argued. Then he pulled back and shook soot from his shaggy hair. "All right. He's coming. He'll be here as soon as he can. Would you like to be alone, or would you prefer I stay, given your questions?"
Draco wavered, then sat on the edge of the bed, his wand and LeStrange's held rigid in one hand. "Stay for now," he said.
LeStrange remained standing by the fireplace, his hands clasped in front of his belly.
They sat in uncomfortable silence for several minutes until the Floo flared and out stepped a tall, slender wizard. He wore knee high soft boots, leggings, a tailored ruffled shirt, untucked, and had waves of black hair partly bound back in a black velvet ribbon which appeared to have come loose as he spun in the Floo. He shook his head and the rest of it came cascading loose, the ribbon falling on the floor.
Then his eyes focused on Draco and the wands. "Draco? What's going on?"
"I'd like to ask you the same thing, Regulus," Draco replied, but the hard edge of his voice wavered. "I know I come here to see you. Why don't I remember? What are you doing to me?"
LeStrange and Black exchanged a look. "I told you so," LeStrange said.
"Shut up you," Regulus replied and Harry started in surprise that he would address a professor that way. The dark-haired wizard stepped toward Draco, one hand on his hip. "You want to know what I am doing to you?"
Harry saw Draco swallow. Black walked up to him until his thighs touched Draco's knees. He leaned forward gently, picking both wands out of Draco's limp fingers and placing one on the nightstand. He flicked the other and his buttons popped, and now Harry could see an impressive-looking erection outlined clearly by the leggings. Black put the other wand aside as well, then ran his fingers down his bare stomach, under the waistband of the leggings, and shoved them downward, freeing his erection.
Draco gripped him by the hips, a whimpering sound escaping his throat. He seemed to have forgotten LeStrange was there, still standing immobile by the fire.
Regulus held Draco's hands against his hips and leaned back so his cock nudged against Draco's face. Draco turned aside at first, but then began trying to catch that cock in his mouth with his lips and tongue. Regulus pulled away and to the side, teasing, avoiding, until Draco slid off the bed onto his knees, pulling him in as he tried to step back. Draco swallowed him fully, down to the root, and Regulus said "Good boy. That's my Draco."
Harry closed his eyes, but now he could hear the sounds of the sucking, the wetness of Draco's lips and the pop and smack as Regulus fucked his mouth. Then a rustling sound, Harry opened his eyes to see Regulus had shucked the shirt to the floor. He picked up Draco's wand and waved it, and Draco's robes, shirt, and trousers fell away like petals of a flower.
Black then lifted Draco by the armpits, naked and glowing in the firelight, out of the circle of now-loose cloth and pushed him back onto the bed.
"Reg," Draco said, as Black ran his hands down Draco's ribs, then cupped his balls in one. "I need to talk to you."
"Later. Now look at the state you've put the professor in." He gestured back at LeStrange who was transfixed, one hand stroking his groin through his robes. "Don't you think you owe him some thanks for all he's done for us? I know I do." He leaned over and kissed Draco deeply. "I couldn't live without this. Without you."
Draco whimpered. "Reg, I... You know I'll do anything you want. But I..."
"Shhh." Regulus Black kicked off his boots and slipped his leggings off as well, then lay his naked body alongside Draco's. "Would it be all right if he watched? I'm sure he's thought about what it must be like, the two of us, isn't that right, you old pervert?"
LeStrange nodded in response.
"I want you to wank while watching us."
"Yes, Reg," LeStrange said, hurrying to free his cock from his clothes.
Regulus turned his attention back to Draco. "I've been masturbating myself raw thinking about you." He thrust his cock against Draco's leg. "Come here."
Draco was like a rag doll in his arms. Regulus turned him until Draco was curled in a ball under him, his hand moving between them. Then Draco suddenly stiffened and Harry knew Regulus had penetrated him. For a moment he didn't know with what--his finger? his cock?--but then the motion made clear it was his cock. His thrusts were hard and short at the beginning, and Draco cried out, clutching at the bedcovers.
Harry clenched his fists. He knew Draco liked it rough, and he knew the sounds he was making. But it was still hard to watch, hard to stand by and listen to cries that sounded like cries of pain.
Black pressed Draco's head into the pillows with one hand, Draco's wand in the other again. "Engorgio," he incanted softly, the wand tip pointed at the place where their bodies joined, and Draco's cries became frantic. Black's hand slid from the top of Draco's head to his neck, half-choking him against the bed as he held him in place and thrust harder.
LeStrange could not keep his feet and he fell to his knees at the side of the bed, pulling furiously on his own cock.
Regulus held the wand in his teeth and began to spank Draco with his free hand, one slap for each long, deep thrust. But he could not keep that up long, and he wrapped both arms around Draco's ribcage and squeezed hard as his hips jerked and he emptied himself into him. When his convulsive orgasm was finished, Regulus Black lay with his forehead against Draco's spine, panting, the wand still in his mouth and his hair thrown in a wild tangle over them both.
He sat up slowly, running his hands over Draco's back, then disengaged with a jerk and Draco cried out once more.
Black climbed off the bed, giving LeStrange a contemptuous look as the man looked about for his own wand to perform a cleaning spell. Black flicked Draco's wand toward him and LeStrange gasped and doubled over briefly, but then stood and refastened his trousers.
Black's ribs showed as he stretched languidly, his endowments spelled back to their normal size. Draco had not moved from where he lay face down on the bed. "Draco," Black said. "Roll over, dearest."
Draco did as he was bid, revealing his face red and tear-streaked and his erection looking similar.
Black toyed with the wand in his fingers. "So, you want to know why it is I erase your memory of every meeting?"
Draco nodded.
"I will give you a choice this time. When we are finished, I will ask you if you want to keep this memory or not. But if you choose to keep the knowledge, it is dangerous, you realize that? Of course you do. You know what my family would do. What the headmaster would do." He clucked his tongue. "You haven't come yet."
Draco seemed unable to speak, unable to move other than to tremble slightly.
"Spread your legs." Regulus Black motioned with the wand and Draco complied. Another motion and the coverlet itself reached up like four hands, immobilizing Draco's wrists and ankles.
Regulus leaned over and kissed Draco on the lips. Then he transfigured the wand in his hand into a switch. Neither Draco nor Harry's eyes left it as he swished it experimentally through the air.
"Draco, if you come, it will be because of how much you love me, and I love you," he said, running the tip of the switch lightly over Draco's balls. "Do you love me?"
"Yes," Draco said, a low hiss.
With that, Black began to whip him lightly on the balls. Draco writhed under the sensation but the hands held him fast, and he pressed his head back into the bed. Even Harry had to admit, he didn't look like a man who was suffering. He looked enraptured, every fiber aquiver with need.
Black's strokes became harder and spaced further apart, and now Draco began to cry out again. Sweat beaded on his forehead and now he began to sound again like it hurt. Harry could not help but clench his knees in sympathy--that had to hurt.
But when Black paused for a moment, to wipe the sweat off his own brow and the hair out of his eyes, Draco panted out "Please, don't stop... please, Reg..."
And so Black whipped him on the balls until he came, screaming, in great white spurts onto his own stomach.
"You see, you do love me," Black said, trailing his fingers through the come and then pushing them into Draco's mouth. Draco whimpered but sucked. "So, what was it you wanted to talk about?"
Draco looked up into Black's eyes. As Black withdrew his fingers from his mouth, he took a shuddering breath and then spoke. "My parents. They've betrothed me to Mirabille Frost."
Harry couldn't see Black's face, hidden under his hair as he leaned over Draco. But he heard the reply. "How soon?"
"I'm to sign the marriage contract tomorrow. The wedding will be right after graduation."
"This changes nothing, you realize." Black trailed his fingers over Draco's slick stomach again. "Once you bed her and get an heir, I'm sure the rest of your family could not care less who or what you do."
"But..."
"Is that all you wanted to tell me?" Black ran a wet finger over Draco's lips. "Or were you going to tell me what happened to your hair and eyes?"
"An accident. In transfiguration class." Draco's voice trembled a bit as he spoke.
"You should be more careful," Black said, then stood. He swayed a bit on his feet.
LeStrange leapt to steady him.
"It's all right," Black said, waving him off. "They have me on so many different potions. Every one supposed to make me forget the way I feel." He took a deep breath then turned back to Draco, who was still bound to the bed. "To forget how much I love you. To forget how much I love hurting you." He reached over and twisted one of Draco's nipples and Draco gasped. "I have to go. If I'm not there for the next dose, I'll be missed."
Draco nodded.
"Do you really want to remember me this way?"
Draco nodded again.
And with that, Black spelled himself clothed again, boots and all, lay Draco's wand on the mantle, threw a handful of Floo powder into the flames, and disappeared.
As soon as he was gone, the coverlet returned to being a coverlet and Draco rolled onto his side with a moan. LeStrange was there, a conjured glass of water in his hand. He helped Draco to sit up and sip it. Draco reached toward his wand but only summoned it partway and it fell to the stone floor with a clatter.
LeStrange picked up his own wand from the table and spelled Draco clean with something that looked a good deal gentler than what Black had done. Draco fell back with one arm over his eyes as LeStrange set about resurrecting Draco's clothing.
Finally Draco asked, "Is it always like that?"
LeStrange started, dropping Draco's shirt on the floor. "I suppose. I'm not usually in the room during your congress, you realize."
"I don't remember."
LeStrange folded the clothes and robes into a neat pile and placed them on the bed within Draco's reach. "I usually only see you afterward. Sometimes, I gather from your marks and injuries, it's much worse. That's why he usually wants you to forget."
Draco sat up and began pulling his clothes on. "It still doesn't make sense to me. Why he would want me to forget it, I mean. He always hurt me when he was still here." He frowned at the socks which did not appear to match, but put them on anyway. "Did you know he slept with Whittington, just to make trouble?"
"Draco..."
Draco stepped into his trousers and then began tucking in his shirt. "Unless my memories of before were altered, I've let him do much, much worse to me."
"Because you love him," LeStrange said in an almost inaudible voice.
Draco looked up, his silver eyes flashing in the fire light. "He was the first person who cared enough to give me what I needed."
LeStrange handed Draco his wand. "But is he the only one?"
Draco snatched the wand and stowed it. "That is not your business."
LeStrange sighed. "Don't forget the headmaster."
Draco took a few steps toward the doorway and Harry hurriedly backed up. "Yes, old Phineas. If he knew how intractable Reg was to the treatments and potions, what would he do? I know. I know." He walked through the doorway and sat down in one of the wing chairs, resting his elbows on his knees. "Still, it's not as if the headmaster is in the habit of reading my mind." But upon saying that Draco suddenly sat up straight.
"What is it?" LeStrange asked, as he came into the room himself.
"Nothing. I just realized... it's nothing." Draco stood.
"If you're having second thoughts, I will gladly perform the charm myself," LeStrange said.
Draco shook his head. "No, I had better go. It's better I remember this."
"Very well," LeStrange said, and moved toward the door to the corridor. He drew his wand and then said "Hmmm. I think you had best be the one to remove the Imperturbable, Draco."
"Yes." Draco drew his wand, cleared the door of his wards, and then reached for the handle.
"I'm sorry, Draco," LeStrange said. "Obliviate exculpo memoria commutato."
Draco opened the door, went out, and it latched shut behind him. LeStrange watched him go, then crossed the room and hopped down the steps into the bedroom.
Harry followed but stopped in the doorway. He drew his own wand and then pulled off the cloak. "Excuse me, professor," he said in the politest voice he could manage given that he was shaking with rage, "But I believe you and I need to talk."
[Next Chapter: Talk, talk, talk. Surprising allies. An empty bed.]
Continue to Chapter Sixteen
Author: Ravenna C. Tan ravenna_c_tan
House: Ravenclaw
Word Count: 3701 (just this chapter)
Challenge: The "Old Cliches, New Tricks" Fest at hp_cliche
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Potentially coercive sexual situation, corporal punishment, masturbation, voyeurism, and the like
Pairing:H/D
Beta Reader Thanks To: miraba
Cliche: Time-travel, but that isn't Snarry.
Disclaimer: Harry, Draco, Hogwarts, and the rest all belong to JK Rowling. I'm just having fun, doing it for the love, not any money.
Summary: Students at Hogwarts have always been warned about corridors that appear and disappear. Did you ever wonder where they go? Or when? Harry thinks he is late to his seventh year potions class, but he turns out to be more than seventy years early.
(The Archive of previous chapters is available Right Here)
(As promised, I'm going to post a chapter every day this week until the fic is done! So if you missed Monday's chapter, #14, be sure you go back and read it before you read this one...)
The door from the corridor unlatched, and in came LeStrange. "Really, Draco, are you sure you're feeling all right?"
"I assure you, I'm quite recovered, professor." He closed the door behind him, locked it, then sealed it with another spell, an Imperturbable by the look of it. "Now I want some answers, LeStrange."
The professor looked taken aback as Draco's wand swung toward him. "Draco, I assure you, that's not nec..."
"Professor. I have some very serious questions which need answers. I am sure, given the nature of these questions, that you will not mind indulging my... caution." He waved the wand toward one of the leather-bound chairs by the fire. "Please have a seat."
LeStrange sat down.
"Accio Professor LeStrange's wand," Draco then said, and the wand slid from the inner pocket of LeStrange's robe to Draco's hand. "Now. Please. Let me explain myself."
LeStrange nodded.
"Someone has been tampering with my memories. Every time I visit you, it seems. I'm here for an explanation."
LeStrange's shoulders sagged. "I told him the charm would begin to lose its effectiveness after a while."
"Told whom?"
LeStrange looked up. "Regulus."
"I don't believe you."
LeStrange sat up straighter, as if shocked. "Mr. Malfoy! I have tried to help you at every turn. I have lied to protect you, jeopardized my own career..."
"Convince me. I'm not in a very trusting mood right now."
LeStrange began to stand but a warning shake of Draco's wand and he settled back on his chair. "I think the only way to solve this is to have Regulus do the talking. If we can reach him, that is."
Draco took the tin of Floo powder from the mantle and thrust it at LeStrange.
"We have to use the Floo in the bedroom. It is the one with the unauthorized connection," LeStrange explained. "Or didn’t you wonder why he never came in this way?"
Draco sneered. "Of course not, since I never remembered seeing him in the first place."
"Oh, right. Um..."
"You first, I'm following you." Draco held his wand out, and backed toward the door behind the desk. LeStrange came around and opened it, then went in.
Harry waited until they had both gone through the doorway to sneak from his hiding place toward it. He stopped at the door, which remained open, and peered into the room. LeStrange's quarters were down two short steps and featured a bedroom as large as Draco's, though it was round like a tower room and dominated by a large, circular bed tossed with green satin pillows.
LeStrange tossed a pinch of powder into the fire, knelt down, and thrust his head into the flames. He spoke briefly, but apparently heatedly to the person on the other end--neither Harry nor Draco could hear what was being said, but they could see his shoulders tensing and moving as he argued. Then he pulled back and shook soot from his shaggy hair. "All right. He's coming. He'll be here as soon as he can. Would you like to be alone, or would you prefer I stay, given your questions?"
Draco wavered, then sat on the edge of the bed, his wand and LeStrange's held rigid in one hand. "Stay for now," he said.
LeStrange remained standing by the fireplace, his hands clasped in front of his belly.
They sat in uncomfortable silence for several minutes until the Floo flared and out stepped a tall, slender wizard. He wore knee high soft boots, leggings, a tailored ruffled shirt, untucked, and had waves of black hair partly bound back in a black velvet ribbon which appeared to have come loose as he spun in the Floo. He shook his head and the rest of it came cascading loose, the ribbon falling on the floor.
Then his eyes focused on Draco and the wands. "Draco? What's going on?"
"I'd like to ask you the same thing, Regulus," Draco replied, but the hard edge of his voice wavered. "I know I come here to see you. Why don't I remember? What are you doing to me?"
LeStrange and Black exchanged a look. "I told you so," LeStrange said.
"Shut up you," Regulus replied and Harry started in surprise that he would address a professor that way. The dark-haired wizard stepped toward Draco, one hand on his hip. "You want to know what I am doing to you?"
Harry saw Draco swallow. Black walked up to him until his thighs touched Draco's knees. He leaned forward gently, picking both wands out of Draco's limp fingers and placing one on the nightstand. He flicked the other and his buttons popped, and now Harry could see an impressive-looking erection outlined clearly by the leggings. Black put the other wand aside as well, then ran his fingers down his bare stomach, under the waistband of the leggings, and shoved them downward, freeing his erection.
Draco gripped him by the hips, a whimpering sound escaping his throat. He seemed to have forgotten LeStrange was there, still standing immobile by the fire.
Regulus held Draco's hands against his hips and leaned back so his cock nudged against Draco's face. Draco turned aside at first, but then began trying to catch that cock in his mouth with his lips and tongue. Regulus pulled away and to the side, teasing, avoiding, until Draco slid off the bed onto his knees, pulling him in as he tried to step back. Draco swallowed him fully, down to the root, and Regulus said "Good boy. That's my Draco."
Harry closed his eyes, but now he could hear the sounds of the sucking, the wetness of Draco's lips and the pop and smack as Regulus fucked his mouth. Then a rustling sound, Harry opened his eyes to see Regulus had shucked the shirt to the floor. He picked up Draco's wand and waved it, and Draco's robes, shirt, and trousers fell away like petals of a flower.
Black then lifted Draco by the armpits, naked and glowing in the firelight, out of the circle of now-loose cloth and pushed him back onto the bed.
"Reg," Draco said, as Black ran his hands down Draco's ribs, then cupped his balls in one. "I need to talk to you."
"Later. Now look at the state you've put the professor in." He gestured back at LeStrange who was transfixed, one hand stroking his groin through his robes. "Don't you think you owe him some thanks for all he's done for us? I know I do." He leaned over and kissed Draco deeply. "I couldn't live without this. Without you."
Draco whimpered. "Reg, I... You know I'll do anything you want. But I..."
"Shhh." Regulus Black kicked off his boots and slipped his leggings off as well, then lay his naked body alongside Draco's. "Would it be all right if he watched? I'm sure he's thought about what it must be like, the two of us, isn't that right, you old pervert?"
LeStrange nodded in response.
"I want you to wank while watching us."
"Yes, Reg," LeStrange said, hurrying to free his cock from his clothes.
Regulus turned his attention back to Draco. "I've been masturbating myself raw thinking about you." He thrust his cock against Draco's leg. "Come here."
Draco was like a rag doll in his arms. Regulus turned him until Draco was curled in a ball under him, his hand moving between them. Then Draco suddenly stiffened and Harry knew Regulus had penetrated him. For a moment he didn't know with what--his finger? his cock?--but then the motion made clear it was his cock. His thrusts were hard and short at the beginning, and Draco cried out, clutching at the bedcovers.
Harry clenched his fists. He knew Draco liked it rough, and he knew the sounds he was making. But it was still hard to watch, hard to stand by and listen to cries that sounded like cries of pain.
Black pressed Draco's head into the pillows with one hand, Draco's wand in the other again. "Engorgio," he incanted softly, the wand tip pointed at the place where their bodies joined, and Draco's cries became frantic. Black's hand slid from the top of Draco's head to his neck, half-choking him against the bed as he held him in place and thrust harder.
LeStrange could not keep his feet and he fell to his knees at the side of the bed, pulling furiously on his own cock.
Regulus held the wand in his teeth and began to spank Draco with his free hand, one slap for each long, deep thrust. But he could not keep that up long, and he wrapped both arms around Draco's ribcage and squeezed hard as his hips jerked and he emptied himself into him. When his convulsive orgasm was finished, Regulus Black lay with his forehead against Draco's spine, panting, the wand still in his mouth and his hair thrown in a wild tangle over them both.
He sat up slowly, running his hands over Draco's back, then disengaged with a jerk and Draco cried out once more.
Black climbed off the bed, giving LeStrange a contemptuous look as the man looked about for his own wand to perform a cleaning spell. Black flicked Draco's wand toward him and LeStrange gasped and doubled over briefly, but then stood and refastened his trousers.
Black's ribs showed as he stretched languidly, his endowments spelled back to their normal size. Draco had not moved from where he lay face down on the bed. "Draco," Black said. "Roll over, dearest."
Draco did as he was bid, revealing his face red and tear-streaked and his erection looking similar.
Black toyed with the wand in his fingers. "So, you want to know why it is I erase your memory of every meeting?"
Draco nodded.
"I will give you a choice this time. When we are finished, I will ask you if you want to keep this memory or not. But if you choose to keep the knowledge, it is dangerous, you realize that? Of course you do. You know what my family would do. What the headmaster would do." He clucked his tongue. "You haven't come yet."
Draco seemed unable to speak, unable to move other than to tremble slightly.
"Spread your legs." Regulus Black motioned with the wand and Draco complied. Another motion and the coverlet itself reached up like four hands, immobilizing Draco's wrists and ankles.
Regulus leaned over and kissed Draco on the lips. Then he transfigured the wand in his hand into a switch. Neither Draco nor Harry's eyes left it as he swished it experimentally through the air.
"Draco, if you come, it will be because of how much you love me, and I love you," he said, running the tip of the switch lightly over Draco's balls. "Do you love me?"
"Yes," Draco said, a low hiss.
With that, Black began to whip him lightly on the balls. Draco writhed under the sensation but the hands held him fast, and he pressed his head back into the bed. Even Harry had to admit, he didn't look like a man who was suffering. He looked enraptured, every fiber aquiver with need.
Black's strokes became harder and spaced further apart, and now Draco began to cry out again. Sweat beaded on his forehead and now he began to sound again like it hurt. Harry could not help but clench his knees in sympathy--that had to hurt.
But when Black paused for a moment, to wipe the sweat off his own brow and the hair out of his eyes, Draco panted out "Please, don't stop... please, Reg..."
And so Black whipped him on the balls until he came, screaming, in great white spurts onto his own stomach.
"You see, you do love me," Black said, trailing his fingers through the come and then pushing them into Draco's mouth. Draco whimpered but sucked. "So, what was it you wanted to talk about?"
Draco looked up into Black's eyes. As Black withdrew his fingers from his mouth, he took a shuddering breath and then spoke. "My parents. They've betrothed me to Mirabille Frost."
Harry couldn't see Black's face, hidden under his hair as he leaned over Draco. But he heard the reply. "How soon?"
"I'm to sign the marriage contract tomorrow. The wedding will be right after graduation."
"This changes nothing, you realize." Black trailed his fingers over Draco's slick stomach again. "Once you bed her and get an heir, I'm sure the rest of your family could not care less who or what you do."
"But..."
"Is that all you wanted to tell me?" Black ran a wet finger over Draco's lips. "Or were you going to tell me what happened to your hair and eyes?"
"An accident. In transfiguration class." Draco's voice trembled a bit as he spoke.
"You should be more careful," Black said, then stood. He swayed a bit on his feet.
LeStrange leapt to steady him.
"It's all right," Black said, waving him off. "They have me on so many different potions. Every one supposed to make me forget the way I feel." He took a deep breath then turned back to Draco, who was still bound to the bed. "To forget how much I love you. To forget how much I love hurting you." He reached over and twisted one of Draco's nipples and Draco gasped. "I have to go. If I'm not there for the next dose, I'll be missed."
Draco nodded.
"Do you really want to remember me this way?"
Draco nodded again.
And with that, Black spelled himself clothed again, boots and all, lay Draco's wand on the mantle, threw a handful of Floo powder into the flames, and disappeared.
As soon as he was gone, the coverlet returned to being a coverlet and Draco rolled onto his side with a moan. LeStrange was there, a conjured glass of water in his hand. He helped Draco to sit up and sip it. Draco reached toward his wand but only summoned it partway and it fell to the stone floor with a clatter.
LeStrange picked up his own wand from the table and spelled Draco clean with something that looked a good deal gentler than what Black had done. Draco fell back with one arm over his eyes as LeStrange set about resurrecting Draco's clothing.
Finally Draco asked, "Is it always like that?"
LeStrange started, dropping Draco's shirt on the floor. "I suppose. I'm not usually in the room during your congress, you realize."
"I don't remember."
LeStrange folded the clothes and robes into a neat pile and placed them on the bed within Draco's reach. "I usually only see you afterward. Sometimes, I gather from your marks and injuries, it's much worse. That's why he usually wants you to forget."
Draco sat up and began pulling his clothes on. "It still doesn't make sense to me. Why he would want me to forget it, I mean. He always hurt me when he was still here." He frowned at the socks which did not appear to match, but put them on anyway. "Did you know he slept with Whittington, just to make trouble?"
"Draco..."
Draco stepped into his trousers and then began tucking in his shirt. "Unless my memories of before were altered, I've let him do much, much worse to me."
"Because you love him," LeStrange said in an almost inaudible voice.
Draco looked up, his silver eyes flashing in the fire light. "He was the first person who cared enough to give me what I needed."
LeStrange handed Draco his wand. "But is he the only one?"
Draco snatched the wand and stowed it. "That is not your business."
LeStrange sighed. "Don't forget the headmaster."
Draco took a few steps toward the doorway and Harry hurriedly backed up. "Yes, old Phineas. If he knew how intractable Reg was to the treatments and potions, what would he do? I know. I know." He walked through the doorway and sat down in one of the wing chairs, resting his elbows on his knees. "Still, it's not as if the headmaster is in the habit of reading my mind." But upon saying that Draco suddenly sat up straight.
"What is it?" LeStrange asked, as he came into the room himself.
"Nothing. I just realized... it's nothing." Draco stood.
"If you're having second thoughts, I will gladly perform the charm myself," LeStrange said.
Draco shook his head. "No, I had better go. It's better I remember this."
"Very well," LeStrange said, and moved toward the door to the corridor. He drew his wand and then said "Hmmm. I think you had best be the one to remove the Imperturbable, Draco."
"Yes." Draco drew his wand, cleared the door of his wards, and then reached for the handle.
"I'm sorry, Draco," LeStrange said. "Obliviate exculpo memoria commutato."
Draco opened the door, went out, and it latched shut behind him. LeStrange watched him go, then crossed the room and hopped down the steps into the bedroom.
Harry followed but stopped in the doorway. He drew his own wand and then pulled off the cloak. "Excuse me, professor," he said in the politest voice he could manage given that he was shaking with rage, "But I believe you and I need to talk."
[Next Chapter: Talk, talk, talk. Surprising allies. An empty bed.]
Continue to Chapter Sixteen