Fic - All These Things That I've Done - Harry Potter
Title: All These Things That I've Done 3/3
Author: Lady DeathAngel
Disclaimer: So totally not mine. Everything belongs to JKR.
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17 (eventually)
Warnings: violence, language, eventual slash, eventual sexual content
Spoilers: Through HBP
A/N: *gasps* I finished it! I finished one, period! This, ladies and gentlemen, is momentous. Anyway, this is for
orcatiff, my muse and my lovely lovely. It's H/D, HBP-compliant and written entirely in second person. It didn't end like I thought it would at all but I'm pretty happy with it. I hope you enjoy it and feedback is love.
In your wildest dreams, the nightmares that plagued you and brought Severus running to your side on several nights, you never imagined what death was really like. To you it was a horror, yes, something to fear. But never something to think about. Never something real. And now it’s more real than anything has ever been or ever will be. Death is in the air you breathe and it is in your blood, pumped into your heart in exchange for the hate that comes out and makes you into one of the most ruthless killers the Death Eaters have ever seen.
They think you have no remorse and they laugh. They call you the Ice Prince and they say your father would be proud if he would ever venture out of Azkaban. You ignore them the same way you’ve ignored everything for weeks because you feel like you don’t even exist on the same plane of existence that they do any longer. You are broken, ripped to pieces and you’re nothing but a ghost. You hate so much and so easily that you could torture someone for hours and not feel a thing. Everyone notices and while your Aunt Bella is happy for you and probably rather aroused if the way she looks at you is any indication, the Dark Lord is wary.
You notice it in the quiet way he questions you the next time you meet. The way that he says, slowly and carefully, “You’ve grown beyond my expectations, Draco.” The way that he’s really saying, “What happened to you?” You simply nod and he seems to think that you aren’t a threat. He is, of course, wrong. You are even more of a threat now because you are one of them. They like you, they respect you. They think you’re as mad as Bella and it means something good when they clap you on the shoulder and say ‘Malfoy’ in hearty tones.
They tell you things. You know more than Severus ever did because you know when to shut up and when to listen, when to be almost-friendly and when to ask the proper questions. They don’t mind telling you because, for all that you’re a killer, you’re hardly a threat to them. You’re too stupid to do much of anything right, aren’t you? Forgetting, of course, the fact that you killed Severus Snape with your bare hands just as you were commanded.
You contact Potter once more before the Dark Lord moves on Hogwarts. You tell Harry who will be at Azkaban and who will not and you leave before he can say anything to make you stay. It wouldn’t have taken much. Just the sight of him loosened something inside of you that you’d been ignoring for the last few weeks.
You-Know-Who plans to move in a week. You see Harry on Christmas Eve and you spend the next thirty-six hours curled up on Severus’ bed beneath a duvet that smells like him, clutching at your arm as it bleeds freely and then sluggishly and then not at all, trying to feel anything. You see your father for the first time in nearly two years three days before he will die.
Of course, you don’t know he’ll die. If you had that kind of power you wouldn’t be where you are now.
Instead you see him quite unexpectedly. He shows up at Spinner’s End looking as self-aware as ever, but almost shabby. He’s been at Azkaban for so long you’d nearly forgotten how tall he was, and he’s paler than you are. He doesn’t look happy to be seeing you, and you’re not happy to see him at all. Your stomach clenches at the sight of him in a ball of conflicting emotions, but you let him in.
“So,” he says while you stare at him and feel like you did as a child, awed and scared and afraid. Afraid of him. “You really did it? You killed the traitor.”
You don’t bother saying yes. He knows.
“What are you doing here?” you ask, instead, and he just looks at you.
“The Dark Lord speaks highly of you,” he says in a soft tone that you scarcely recognize. “He’s told me that you are skilled with Unforgivables. He says that this skill doesn’t come from experience, though. He recognizes that you cast them with nothing but hate to make them so powerful.”
You swallow and shrug and say nothing.
“Draco,” your father says after a tense moment of silence, stepping forward. “You have done better for this family than I could ever have hoped. Don’t fail us now.”
Those words, spoken so casually, send a sharp spike of anger through your body. You look at your father, the man that you worshiped, the man that you saw fall from grace and the man whose place you took. You have him to thank and you do. You step forward and in sharp, angry movements you grab his face between your hands and press your lips to his. The contact is rough, harsh, and the meaning is clear.
“I am this family now, father,” you whisper into his eyes that are so like your own. “Me. You are nothing and I never want to see you again.”
You take a step back but not before your father can backhand you roughly. It’s not the first time. You think, though, as he walks out and away from you without a glance back, that it may be the last. And you’re right.
You spend hours curled up. No one comes to visit. They are too busy licking their wounds. Harry did it. He and his Order and their allies fell upon Azkaban as the Dark Lord led a futile attack on Hogwarts. They took Azkaban back and in the process your father died. You think that you should feel something and for a few hours you can’t. It isn’t until you catch sight of yourself in the mirror, you who look so like your father and so like your mother and so like a Malfoy, that you break.
There is no one there to pick up the pieces.
::
There’s no reason to contact Harry after that. Voldemort has been driven back and he is angry and looking for the one who told of his plans. There are whispers among the Death Eaters about just who the traitor really is. They look at you sideways and say Severus’ name in strange tones, but you don’t bother to listen to them or even to pause. You are too busy making sure no one dares to suspect you.
You have a reputation outside of the Death Eaters, now. The sight of you in wizarding households is enough to make fear spark in the eyes of your victims and you like it. You like the power. It makes you sick to think about, but at the same time you can’t help it. This is what you had always wanted and in the absence of anything better to want, you appreciate this.
Only . . . there are better things. Your revenge, the revenge you forgot about. And there is Harry. Harry whose face you can barely remember because it’s been weeks and then it’s been months. Harry who cared about you and who you cared about in return. You think to yourself that this is not the sort of thing you should be concerned about or that you should be wanting. Not because it’s Harry. If there were ever anyone to make you change your world-view it was Harry. You disobeyed your father for the first time for Harry when you were a boy. And now you yearn for Harry as a man.
But it’s another man. It’s not right. It’s inappropriate. It . . . doesn’t matter anymore, with your father dead and your mother gone.
The whispers start in May that it’s going to be over soon. One last march on Hogwarts, they say. One last stand against Harry and his Order and those who would dare get in The Dark Lord’s way. You can’t get away at first. You’re busy pretending, busy acting like you’re excited about this final battle. All the time you’re thinking about your guilt and your death and your impending doom because you are doomed whether Harry wins or not.
When you’re finally able to contact Harry, you arrange the meeting for the usual Muggle pub, but you don’t meet inside. Instead you meet in the alleyway which is dark and abandoned and smells damp and of rubbish. You show up a few minutes late and Harry looks unhappy and a dozen other things besides that and you can’t be arsed to care. Before Harry can say a word, you have him pressed up against the alley’s dirty wall and you’re kissing him.
It’s not even a kiss, not really. Harry’s lips are closed and you knows that this is desperate and you should pull away but you can’t. You need this because you’re going to die soon no matter what happens. You want this. You want Harry.
Forcing the panic away, you soften the kiss, molding your lips to Harry’s anew and sliding your tongue out to trace them in languid sweeps. Harry, who was rigid in your hold before, shudders now and parts his lips and, oh God, kisses you back. Harry’s tongue is hot and slick against yours, his mouth warm and it tastes sweet and spicy. Harry’s lips wrap around your tongue and he suckles and you moan and when Harry’s arms come up to pull you against his body, it’s the first time that you’ve felt anything since you killed Severus.
You’re hard in an instant, your blood pooling in your groin and leaving you light-headed and aching. And Harry’s hard too, his cock pressed against your hip. He thrusts his hips forward and creates a delicious friction on his cock and yours too. You break the kiss with a groan and thrust back against him and he thrusts back against you and you set up a grinding rhythm that is too much but not enough.
Harry’s lips attach to your throat, sucking and there’s his tongue licking and his teeth nipping and it’s so good. You want to enjoy it, to tip your head back let him explore the skin there. You don’t have much time, though, so you whisper harder and he complies, his mouth creating the sharpest suction and you can feel the blood surge beneath his lips as they contract in sharp pulls and it’s almost painful. You slip your hands beneath his shirt, find bare skin that is hot and smooth to the touch.
Your fingertips map out trails, commit them to memory before your hands slide forward and you’re making quick work of his trouser fastenings. You’ve got your hand down his pants, fingers wrapped tight and desperate around his cock, before you can even think about doing it and he makes the most delicious sound in your ear. He’s hot in your grip, long and thick and there’s slick fluid pearling at the tip. You smooth your thumb over the head and spread pre-come over the length of his cock, making the slide of your fist easier, smoother.
You’re jerking him hard and fast and he’s making high-pitched sounds in your ear on every exhale, his hips twisting and trying to control the movement of his cock through the circle of your fist. He leans his head against your shoulder and you feel his hands, shaking, at your trouser fastenings. You falter and that gives him enough time to slide his hand down the shivering planes of your stomach, past the waistband of your pants until his fingers brush and then curl around your erection.
You make a choked sound in the back of your throat and his lips are at your jaw and he whispers don’t stop as if you possibly could. Your hand tightens and you pull up and slid down and it’s as fast and hard as before but now he’s pulling you as well, his grip exquisitely tight and your entire body is clenching, waiting for something that’s just out of reach. You’re so hard it hurts now but there’s Harry’s hand, promising relief and he’s whispering things to you, faster, oh god, kiss me.
This last you do, dragging your lips over his cheek and your tongues meet before your mouths do, tangling and licking, and your chins are slick with spit and your forehead is sweaty and the kiss is sloppy and wet and so are your cocks and your hands are flying, your wrist is aching and your body is straining and you’re swallowing Harry’s whimpers and giving him back your own.
You don’t know what it is that shatters either of you. One moment your hips are bucking, cocks sliding through fists, and then you’re coming. Your entire body feels like it’s flying apart. You’re not breathing and all that you can feel is completion and perfection and Harry tears his lips from yours as he comes, head thrown back and lips parted on a silent scream. You feel him spilling over your fist, coating your fingers in sticky semen, but you don’t care. He’s just as dirty as you are.
It takes you both forever to catch your breath and you’re still twined around one another as Harry cleans you both up.
“You’re still alive,” Harry says dumbly and you want to say something like, “You were good, but not that good, Potter.”
You don’t, though. You just nod miserably against his shoulder and shiver when his hand cards through your hair.
“You should hear the things they’re saying about you,” he whispers.
“They’re all true,” you whisper back.
“No,” he says and you look up at him to see him staring down at you through the smudged lenses of his glasses. “Not all of them.”
You pull away abruptly, tuck yourself back into your pants and do up your trousers. Harry does the same and you try not to watch, try not to feel empty because this can never happen again.
“Draco,” he says and you shake your head, your throat tight and your eyes painfully dry.
“It’s coming soon,” you say instead and he nods. “I won’t . . . I’ll see you then.”
Harry says no as if he can stop you from doing this but you just twist your lips at him and lean forward, kissing the corner of his mouth.
“Goodbye,” you say and he barely has time to whisper it back before you’re gone.
::
“You scared?” Vince asks.
It’s quiet and dark in the earliest hours of morning. It’s cold as well, and you’re fucking terrified. You can taste the metallic tang of fear at the back of your throat but you’re not quite sure you want to admit it. So you say nothing, just sneer in Vince’s general direction.
“I am,” Greg says from your other side, and Vince nods.
“Think we’ll win?” Vince asks.
“‘Course we will,” Greg answers. “He’s the bloody fucking Dark Lord isn’t he?”
You can tell neither of them are very convinced and you aren’t either. You’re hopeful. You hope that this is the night it truly does end. But you don’t know who will come out victorious and you aren’t sure you care. Except that you do. The thought of Harry dying fills you with cold dread, the likes of which you can’t experience even at the thought of your own death. You’re such a pathetic bastard it’s sick, really, but you can’t stop thinking about the fact that Harry’s nearby, that you might have to see him, face him . . . and that you can’t kill him.
“‘s weird, isn’t it?” Vince says. “Seems like just yesterday we was walking in there, ickle firsties. All small and innocent like.”
“You were never small,” you say with a roll of your eyes and Vince retorts that you were never innocent.
“You were always in Potter’s hair, remember that?” Greg says, taking up this topic with relish. “Always talkin’ about him and trying to get his attention and all. Like a girl with a crush.”
You flush a dull red and order them to shut up, but this is better than thinking about dying or killing. Because none of you are really killers. Vince hasn’t done a job yet and Greg threw up all over your shoes when he killed for the first time. They don’t get sent to do much more than torture and you hate that they’re here, that they followed you after so many months when you thought perhaps they’d be smart and safe.
“I was not,” you shoot back but they both laugh their harsh, familiar laughs.
“Yeah, you was so,” Greg tells you and you can’t fight him, but you do give in to the childish impulse to stick your tongue out at him and he smiles at you and you barely have time to smile back before it all starts.
::
You went into this with your mind on revenge. You were filled with a hate that had no direction. You thought you might hate Severus, but he was all you had left so you couldn’t hate him really. You thought you might hate your mother, but your unconditional love got in the way. You thought that you might hat your father, but you were ill the first time you thought it and refused to think such blasphemy ever again.
You went through list after list and you tried to find a direction for your hate because it was so huge, so great that you couldn’t possibly live with it without having an outlet. You chose to blame the Dark Lord. You chose to hate him and you still do. But you realize that you hate yourself more.
You were a failure. A failure to your family and to your friends and to yourself. You were weak and you were incapable and that is why the idea of death doesn’t frighten you. Because when Harry wins (and he must win) there will be no Dark Lord to blame. There will be only yourself. And you won’t be cold anymore and you know it. You will be tracked down. You will be held accountable. Every thing you have done, everyone you have killed, will haunt you for the rest of your life.
Your ghosts will have your hate for company and nothing else and the thought of it makes you want to scream and cry and rip out your own throat. It’s terrifying.
Even more terrifying than that is the fact that you are scared of dying, on some level. You’re scared of wanting to die, scared of having nothing left to hope for. You’ve never lived a life absent of some kind of love before, no matter how destructive and you’re amazed at how much it made a difference before.
You suppose you have something of love now. Whatever you feel for Harry isn’t hate or apathy. But it hardly counts because he doesn’t care. And he never will and that is as it should be, or so you keep telling yourself as you lay on the ground, helpless, breathless and staring up at some Weasley’s face. If you could see straight, which you can’t because Cruciatus has that effect on a person, you might be able to tell if it’s one you know or if it’s one of the many you’ve just heard about.
You think, but you aren’t quite sure, that you’ve just been rescued. You wish you could concentrate on more concrete things long enough to figure it out. Instead your head is swimming with abstract thought and your body is in the kind of agony only Death Eaters could have left it in. You think you might sick up at any moment, but you can’t move, not even to blink.
“You’re fucking lucky Harry told us about you,” the Weasley growls and you screw your eyebrows up trying to see him more clearly.
Ah. It is the Weasel then, and there, at his shoulder, is the Mudblood. You wish they’d leave you alone and you wonder why they aren’t with Harry.
“Do you know what they’re saying about you?” he demands and you remember those words coming from someone else’s lips.
“It’s all true,” you choke out, your voice hoarse and your throat cracked and raw.
The Weasel makes a face.
“Yeah well, not all of it, apparently. Look,” he adds, more urgently this time. “We only helped you because you were there and it’s what Harry wanted, alright?”
You would raise your eyebrow and pull a face of ‘no, really?’ if you could manage any expression at all. Instead you cough, almost delicately. You can’t remember anything very clearly. You don’t even know where you are but you remember enough. You remember freezing up on the battlefield. You remember trying to run away and you remember being caught by Greg. You remember things like being called a traitor, or perhaps announcing that you were the one in a fit of madness. You don’t know because after that all you remember is pain and thinking that you had a long life of torture ahead of you before Aunt Bella granted you your death.
After that everything is fuzzy and you can’t recall much. You might have blacked out and that is how you’ve come to be in the presence of a Weasel and a Mudblood with them talking nonsense at you that you can barely grasp with a mind that’s foggy and really just wants to rest.
In fact, all of you really wants to rest. Everything is heavy and getting darker, or so it feels. That brief flash of fear of death from earlier is gone and you don’t care what happens to you.
“Stay awake!” the Mudblood practically screeches and you blink fuzzily up at her. “You could have internal injuries. You don’t want to die, do you?”
You frown and she makes a sound of frustration.
“If Harry dies in there it’s all your fault, Malfoy,” she says and you don’t quite understand how that’s possible. “He told us to stay back and take Bellatrix down while he went . . . and now we’re stuck here with you because anyone else would just murder you on sight.”
“Calm down, Hermione,” the Weasel says and she shoots him a ferocious glare. He backs down quickly and you cough again in amusement. Actually, everything is getting to be rather funny at this point. Funny and confusing.
“What’s happening?” you ask, almost against your will and almost too softly to be heard.
“Right about now,” Weasley answers in a hard voice. “Harry’s facing down V-Voldemort by himself and all of your little Death Eater pals are either dead or being rounded up. Your precious Dark Lord just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Not my precious Dark Lord,” you tell him with as much anger as you can muster. “Or my pals.”
Weasley makes another face and the Mudblood makes a small sound of disagreement.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “You’d better hope Harry makes it out of this alive to save your sorry skin, Malfoy, or else you’ll be convicted just like the rest of them.”
She spits out the word and you almost wince. You feel like you shouldn’t because you’re better than she is. But she’s not the one with her life on the line. Not now. And she’s not the one who is dancing in tantalizing circles with unconsciousness, either. She has friends and, presumably, a family. A place to go.
She’s a Mudblood, tainted and unworthy and she’s better off than you are. And it is with that thought in mind that you finally do pass out.
::
You never do remember that night clearly. In fact, when you first wake up you’ve forgotten a lot of things. You see your mum by your bedside, reading a book and dressed as impeccably as ever and you’re confused. She looks up and smiles more brilliantly than you’ve ever seen her smile and then she’s launched herself into your arms.
You’re stiff but you don’t hurt so you hold her as tightly as she holds onto you.
“Where are we?” you ask because your brain recognizes the fact that you haven’t seen her in over a year and that you weren’t
allowed to visit her after you ran away with Severus because it was too dangerous.
Your stomach twists at the thought of Severus and it floods back, that part and then other parts. You remember taking the Mark and you remember being a spy. Daily humiliation because of your last name and being forced to kill . . . . You remember killing Severus, the warmth of blood on your hands and the emptiness afterward. And after that there was so much death that you were the cause of because you knew true hate and true anger and the true desire to end life and to cause pain.
You pull away from your mother and lean over the side of the bed, vomiting all over the floor. It’s acidic and burns your throat and your nose and you’re a mess, sobbing with your sick hot and slick on your lips and your mother is there, spelling away the mess and wiping your face with her robes and she’s never done this before. She’s always so prim and proper and she loves you unconditionally, you know that, but there are always House Elves for this sort of thing.
Her kindness, the soft lull of her voice as she says your name over and over again breaks your heart in ways you hadn’t thought possible anymore and you fall forward against her, wrapping your arms around her thighs and burying your head in the softness of her stomach and you cry everything out. The pain and the fear and it hurts, your chest heaves and your voice cracks. You can hear yourself and you sound like a broken thing and below that you can hear your mum, her own voice breaking and she’s crying too, holding you tight and not letting go and the only words you hear are that it’s over.
“He’s gone, it’s over,” she says and you begin to sob with relief. “You’re safe. We’re safe. It’s over. It’s okay.”
::
You go back to England to stand trial. An agreement is made and you’re fairly sure Harry is behind it because the Wizengamot states that if you testify against known Death Eaters and if you provide Pensieve memories of your time as a spy, your charges will be dropped. You agree, but only if they promise to look in more than one Pensieve.
You testify against your aunt and a series of others. They stare at you with hatred burning in their eyes as if they would kill you given the chance. You aren’t afraid of them, though. You’ve faced down worse and they didn’t kill you when they had the chance, anyway. You stare at them and feel vaguely smug, almost vindicated. You relish their hate because you think they couldn’t possibly hate you as much as you hate them.
You feel almost good, but not quite.
Aurors review your Pensieve memories and there are a lot of sessions in dark rooms, you unable to lie and young witches and wizards moving up in the Ministry taking notes. Eventually they pronounce you legitimate and they look the other way when it comes time for you to stand trial for the murder of Muggles and witches and wizards alike. You’ve served your purpose and they settle for convicting your father in your stead. After the fact, of course, but its an excuse to freeze up the Malfoy vaults and seize Malfoy Manor.
You don’t care and your mother is still too happy to have you alive and whole to complain much. She has enough money from the Blacks for you to live comfortably in a flat in London. On the same day that Harry Potter is released from St. Mungo’s Severus Snape and Sirius Black are cleared of all charges, their names free of the guilt that they carried all through their lives, though you had nothing to do with the latter and everything to do with the former.
You think you should feel good about Severus, and you do, but it doesn’t change anything. Like the fact that you killed him. You’ll live with that for the rest of your life.
Almost five months go by before you run into Harry again. Not something you expected, really. You heard rumors that he was back together with his Girl Weasel and so you figured whatever bond you may have forged with him was dissolved as soon as he killed the Dark Lord. Only you must have been wrong because you see him standing outside of your building, speaking with your mother, looking out of place.
You raise your eyebrows, wondering first of all where your mum was off to in the Muggle clothes she’s taken to wearing more out of necessity than any true desire to do so. She hates the things. Hell, she hates living in Muggle London period, but there isn’t much you can do about it. You wonder, second, what Harry’s doing all the way out here. It isn’t until you draw even with them that you figure it out.
Or that your mum tells you what’s going on, anyway.
“Hello, dear,” she says, her smirk going from chilled to warm in an instant. “Look who tracked you down.”
She turns her smirk back on Harry, though it’s grown an edge to it. He looks sheepish but determined and you sigh and roll your eyes.
“Where are you going?” you ask your mother, ignoring Harry for the time being.
She shrugs delicately and adjusts the handbag on her shoulder. She looks positively Muggle and it’s frightening.
“Out. I’ll be back later. Don’t wait up.”
She kisses your cheek and is off, giving Harry a sarcastic wave of her fingers before you can kiss her back. Not sure what that was all about, you turn to Harry who is staring at you intently. It’s unnerving and it reminds you of the way he’d look at you like that while you gave him information on the Death Eaters. You don’t like how nice the familiarity is.
“What do you want, Harry?” you ask, pulling your keys from your pocket and making your way to large doors of the flat building.
Harry follows you and you see him shrug out of the corner of your eye.
“I wanted to see you,” he says and you stop, just short of the doors and turn to face him with a frown.
“Why?”
“I was kind of unstable for a while,” he says and you raise an eyebrow. That was hardly an answer you expected and he flushes and looks away from you. “It was . . . well. I killed Voldemort and then what was I supposed to do?”
“Get drunk and have fabulous sex?” you shoot back sarcastically and his eyes fly to yours, his mouth quirked up a bit.
“Is that what you did?”
You don’t answer which is answer enough. He doesn’t know that you spent the weeks following that with your mum in a house in France, learning to feel and live again. But you he knows what you weren’t doing and that’s all that matters.
“I thought you’d be halfway engaged to a Weasley by now,” you say, trying to regain some of your calm but finding it difficult.
It never was easy where Harry was concerned. He makes a moue of his mouth and you glance down at his lips, remembering the feel of them against yours, the taste of his tongue and spit. It makes your stomach clench and you’re staring so you tear your eyes away to find him studying a spot of asphalt intently.
“You and everyone else,” he says dejectedly. “Ron and Hermione are moving in together and then there’s Seamus and Parvati and Dean and Hannah. Everyone’s settling in like they’re already married or something and that’s what Ginny wants but . . .”
He trails off and you bite your lip. You hate the fact that your pulse leapt at the sight of him and has yet to slow down. You hate the sweatiness of your palms, the ball of anticipation in your stomach. You hate that he makes you feel this way and you hate that he’s here when you spent so much time convinced he never would be again.
At the same time, you’re selfish and if he’s here you aren’t going to turn him away. The war’s over and you’ve got a life. Not one you’d anticipated having, but it’s yours and you’re free, even if you are haunted by your demons. Although . . . you figure that Harry has demons of his own and perhaps his and yours could keep each other company.
“It’s not what you want,” you finish for him and he looks up sharply, eyes bright and focused and intent. You shiver and then cough delicately. “Do you want to come up?” you ask, not quite hesitantly but not with an overwhelming sense of confidence.
He’s silent, gazing at you and you aren’t sure what he sees, but you know those eyes reach past your blonde hair and grey eyes and sharp features. They linger on the collar of the hooded jumper that you’re wearing. His jumper. You aren’t sure what he sees but you’re not worried about it. You simply wait for him to say yes.
Author: Lady DeathAngel
Disclaimer: So totally not mine. Everything belongs to JKR.
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17 (eventually)
Warnings: violence, language, eventual slash, eventual sexual content
Spoilers: Through HBP
A/N: *gasps* I finished it! I finished one, period! This, ladies and gentlemen, is momentous. Anyway, this is for
orcatiff, my muse and my lovely lovely. It's H/D, HBP-compliant and written entirely in second person. It didn't end like I thought it would at all but I'm pretty happy with it. I hope you enjoy it and feedback is love.
In your wildest dreams, the nightmares that plagued you and brought Severus running to your side on several nights, you never imagined what death was really like. To you it was a horror, yes, something to fear. But never something to think about. Never something real. And now it’s more real than anything has ever been or ever will be. Death is in the air you breathe and it is in your blood, pumped into your heart in exchange for the hate that comes out and makes you into one of the most ruthless killers the Death Eaters have ever seen.
They think you have no remorse and they laugh. They call you the Ice Prince and they say your father would be proud if he would ever venture out of Azkaban. You ignore them the same way you’ve ignored everything for weeks because you feel like you don’t even exist on the same plane of existence that they do any longer. You are broken, ripped to pieces and you’re nothing but a ghost. You hate so much and so easily that you could torture someone for hours and not feel a thing. Everyone notices and while your Aunt Bella is happy for you and probably rather aroused if the way she looks at you is any indication, the Dark Lord is wary.
You notice it in the quiet way he questions you the next time you meet. The way that he says, slowly and carefully, “You’ve grown beyond my expectations, Draco.” The way that he’s really saying, “What happened to you?” You simply nod and he seems to think that you aren’t a threat. He is, of course, wrong. You are even more of a threat now because you are one of them. They like you, they respect you. They think you’re as mad as Bella and it means something good when they clap you on the shoulder and say ‘Malfoy’ in hearty tones.
They tell you things. You know more than Severus ever did because you know when to shut up and when to listen, when to be almost-friendly and when to ask the proper questions. They don’t mind telling you because, for all that you’re a killer, you’re hardly a threat to them. You’re too stupid to do much of anything right, aren’t you? Forgetting, of course, the fact that you killed Severus Snape with your bare hands just as you were commanded.
You contact Potter once more before the Dark Lord moves on Hogwarts. You tell Harry who will be at Azkaban and who will not and you leave before he can say anything to make you stay. It wouldn’t have taken much. Just the sight of him loosened something inside of you that you’d been ignoring for the last few weeks.
You-Know-Who plans to move in a week. You see Harry on Christmas Eve and you spend the next thirty-six hours curled up on Severus’ bed beneath a duvet that smells like him, clutching at your arm as it bleeds freely and then sluggishly and then not at all, trying to feel anything. You see your father for the first time in nearly two years three days before he will die.
Of course, you don’t know he’ll die. If you had that kind of power you wouldn’t be where you are now.
Instead you see him quite unexpectedly. He shows up at Spinner’s End looking as self-aware as ever, but almost shabby. He’s been at Azkaban for so long you’d nearly forgotten how tall he was, and he’s paler than you are. He doesn’t look happy to be seeing you, and you’re not happy to see him at all. Your stomach clenches at the sight of him in a ball of conflicting emotions, but you let him in.
“So,” he says while you stare at him and feel like you did as a child, awed and scared and afraid. Afraid of him. “You really did it? You killed the traitor.”
You don’t bother saying yes. He knows.
“What are you doing here?” you ask, instead, and he just looks at you.
“The Dark Lord speaks highly of you,” he says in a soft tone that you scarcely recognize. “He’s told me that you are skilled with Unforgivables. He says that this skill doesn’t come from experience, though. He recognizes that you cast them with nothing but hate to make them so powerful.”
You swallow and shrug and say nothing.
“Draco,” your father says after a tense moment of silence, stepping forward. “You have done better for this family than I could ever have hoped. Don’t fail us now.”
Those words, spoken so casually, send a sharp spike of anger through your body. You look at your father, the man that you worshiped, the man that you saw fall from grace and the man whose place you took. You have him to thank and you do. You step forward and in sharp, angry movements you grab his face between your hands and press your lips to his. The contact is rough, harsh, and the meaning is clear.
“I am this family now, father,” you whisper into his eyes that are so like your own. “Me. You are nothing and I never want to see you again.”
You take a step back but not before your father can backhand you roughly. It’s not the first time. You think, though, as he walks out and away from you without a glance back, that it may be the last. And you’re right.
You spend hours curled up. No one comes to visit. They are too busy licking their wounds. Harry did it. He and his Order and their allies fell upon Azkaban as the Dark Lord led a futile attack on Hogwarts. They took Azkaban back and in the process your father died. You think that you should feel something and for a few hours you can’t. It isn’t until you catch sight of yourself in the mirror, you who look so like your father and so like your mother and so like a Malfoy, that you break.
There is no one there to pick up the pieces.
::
There’s no reason to contact Harry after that. Voldemort has been driven back and he is angry and looking for the one who told of his plans. There are whispers among the Death Eaters about just who the traitor really is. They look at you sideways and say Severus’ name in strange tones, but you don’t bother to listen to them or even to pause. You are too busy making sure no one dares to suspect you.
You have a reputation outside of the Death Eaters, now. The sight of you in wizarding households is enough to make fear spark in the eyes of your victims and you like it. You like the power. It makes you sick to think about, but at the same time you can’t help it. This is what you had always wanted and in the absence of anything better to want, you appreciate this.
Only . . . there are better things. Your revenge, the revenge you forgot about. And there is Harry. Harry whose face you can barely remember because it’s been weeks and then it’s been months. Harry who cared about you and who you cared about in return. You think to yourself that this is not the sort of thing you should be concerned about or that you should be wanting. Not because it’s Harry. If there were ever anyone to make you change your world-view it was Harry. You disobeyed your father for the first time for Harry when you were a boy. And now you yearn for Harry as a man.
But it’s another man. It’s not right. It’s inappropriate. It . . . doesn’t matter anymore, with your father dead and your mother gone.
The whispers start in May that it’s going to be over soon. One last march on Hogwarts, they say. One last stand against Harry and his Order and those who would dare get in The Dark Lord’s way. You can’t get away at first. You’re busy pretending, busy acting like you’re excited about this final battle. All the time you’re thinking about your guilt and your death and your impending doom because you are doomed whether Harry wins or not.
When you’re finally able to contact Harry, you arrange the meeting for the usual Muggle pub, but you don’t meet inside. Instead you meet in the alleyway which is dark and abandoned and smells damp and of rubbish. You show up a few minutes late and Harry looks unhappy and a dozen other things besides that and you can’t be arsed to care. Before Harry can say a word, you have him pressed up against the alley’s dirty wall and you’re kissing him.
It’s not even a kiss, not really. Harry’s lips are closed and you knows that this is desperate and you should pull away but you can’t. You need this because you’re going to die soon no matter what happens. You want this. You want Harry.
Forcing the panic away, you soften the kiss, molding your lips to Harry’s anew and sliding your tongue out to trace them in languid sweeps. Harry, who was rigid in your hold before, shudders now and parts his lips and, oh God, kisses you back. Harry’s tongue is hot and slick against yours, his mouth warm and it tastes sweet and spicy. Harry’s lips wrap around your tongue and he suckles and you moan and when Harry’s arms come up to pull you against his body, it’s the first time that you’ve felt anything since you killed Severus.
You’re hard in an instant, your blood pooling in your groin and leaving you light-headed and aching. And Harry’s hard too, his cock pressed against your hip. He thrusts his hips forward and creates a delicious friction on his cock and yours too. You break the kiss with a groan and thrust back against him and he thrusts back against you and you set up a grinding rhythm that is too much but not enough.
Harry’s lips attach to your throat, sucking and there’s his tongue licking and his teeth nipping and it’s so good. You want to enjoy it, to tip your head back let him explore the skin there. You don’t have much time, though, so you whisper harder and he complies, his mouth creating the sharpest suction and you can feel the blood surge beneath his lips as they contract in sharp pulls and it’s almost painful. You slip your hands beneath his shirt, find bare skin that is hot and smooth to the touch.
Your fingertips map out trails, commit them to memory before your hands slide forward and you’re making quick work of his trouser fastenings. You’ve got your hand down his pants, fingers wrapped tight and desperate around his cock, before you can even think about doing it and he makes the most delicious sound in your ear. He’s hot in your grip, long and thick and there’s slick fluid pearling at the tip. You smooth your thumb over the head and spread pre-come over the length of his cock, making the slide of your fist easier, smoother.
You’re jerking him hard and fast and he’s making high-pitched sounds in your ear on every exhale, his hips twisting and trying to control the movement of his cock through the circle of your fist. He leans his head against your shoulder and you feel his hands, shaking, at your trouser fastenings. You falter and that gives him enough time to slide his hand down the shivering planes of your stomach, past the waistband of your pants until his fingers brush and then curl around your erection.
You make a choked sound in the back of your throat and his lips are at your jaw and he whispers don’t stop as if you possibly could. Your hand tightens and you pull up and slid down and it’s as fast and hard as before but now he’s pulling you as well, his grip exquisitely tight and your entire body is clenching, waiting for something that’s just out of reach. You’re so hard it hurts now but there’s Harry’s hand, promising relief and he’s whispering things to you, faster, oh god, kiss me.
This last you do, dragging your lips over his cheek and your tongues meet before your mouths do, tangling and licking, and your chins are slick with spit and your forehead is sweaty and the kiss is sloppy and wet and so are your cocks and your hands are flying, your wrist is aching and your body is straining and you’re swallowing Harry’s whimpers and giving him back your own.
You don’t know what it is that shatters either of you. One moment your hips are bucking, cocks sliding through fists, and then you’re coming. Your entire body feels like it’s flying apart. You’re not breathing and all that you can feel is completion and perfection and Harry tears his lips from yours as he comes, head thrown back and lips parted on a silent scream. You feel him spilling over your fist, coating your fingers in sticky semen, but you don’t care. He’s just as dirty as you are.
It takes you both forever to catch your breath and you’re still twined around one another as Harry cleans you both up.
“You’re still alive,” Harry says dumbly and you want to say something like, “You were good, but not that good, Potter.”
You don’t, though. You just nod miserably against his shoulder and shiver when his hand cards through your hair.
“You should hear the things they’re saying about you,” he whispers.
“They’re all true,” you whisper back.
“No,” he says and you look up at him to see him staring down at you through the smudged lenses of his glasses. “Not all of them.”
You pull away abruptly, tuck yourself back into your pants and do up your trousers. Harry does the same and you try not to watch, try not to feel empty because this can never happen again.
“Draco,” he says and you shake your head, your throat tight and your eyes painfully dry.
“It’s coming soon,” you say instead and he nods. “I won’t . . . I’ll see you then.”
Harry says no as if he can stop you from doing this but you just twist your lips at him and lean forward, kissing the corner of his mouth.
“Goodbye,” you say and he barely has time to whisper it back before you’re gone.
::
“You scared?” Vince asks.
It’s quiet and dark in the earliest hours of morning. It’s cold as well, and you’re fucking terrified. You can taste the metallic tang of fear at the back of your throat but you’re not quite sure you want to admit it. So you say nothing, just sneer in Vince’s general direction.
“I am,” Greg says from your other side, and Vince nods.
“Think we’ll win?” Vince asks.
“‘Course we will,” Greg answers. “He’s the bloody fucking Dark Lord isn’t he?”
You can tell neither of them are very convinced and you aren’t either. You’re hopeful. You hope that this is the night it truly does end. But you don’t know who will come out victorious and you aren’t sure you care. Except that you do. The thought of Harry dying fills you with cold dread, the likes of which you can’t experience even at the thought of your own death. You’re such a pathetic bastard it’s sick, really, but you can’t stop thinking about the fact that Harry’s nearby, that you might have to see him, face him . . . and that you can’t kill him.
“‘s weird, isn’t it?” Vince says. “Seems like just yesterday we was walking in there, ickle firsties. All small and innocent like.”
“You were never small,” you say with a roll of your eyes and Vince retorts that you were never innocent.
“You were always in Potter’s hair, remember that?” Greg says, taking up this topic with relish. “Always talkin’ about him and trying to get his attention and all. Like a girl with a crush.”
You flush a dull red and order them to shut up, but this is better than thinking about dying or killing. Because none of you are really killers. Vince hasn’t done a job yet and Greg threw up all over your shoes when he killed for the first time. They don’t get sent to do much more than torture and you hate that they’re here, that they followed you after so many months when you thought perhaps they’d be smart and safe.
“I was not,” you shoot back but they both laugh their harsh, familiar laughs.
“Yeah, you was so,” Greg tells you and you can’t fight him, but you do give in to the childish impulse to stick your tongue out at him and he smiles at you and you barely have time to smile back before it all starts.
::
You went into this with your mind on revenge. You were filled with a hate that had no direction. You thought you might hate Severus, but he was all you had left so you couldn’t hate him really. You thought you might hate your mother, but your unconditional love got in the way. You thought that you might hat your father, but you were ill the first time you thought it and refused to think such blasphemy ever again.
You went through list after list and you tried to find a direction for your hate because it was so huge, so great that you couldn’t possibly live with it without having an outlet. You chose to blame the Dark Lord. You chose to hate him and you still do. But you realize that you hate yourself more.
You were a failure. A failure to your family and to your friends and to yourself. You were weak and you were incapable and that is why the idea of death doesn’t frighten you. Because when Harry wins (and he must win) there will be no Dark Lord to blame. There will be only yourself. And you won’t be cold anymore and you know it. You will be tracked down. You will be held accountable. Every thing you have done, everyone you have killed, will haunt you for the rest of your life.
Your ghosts will have your hate for company and nothing else and the thought of it makes you want to scream and cry and rip out your own throat. It’s terrifying.
Even more terrifying than that is the fact that you are scared of dying, on some level. You’re scared of wanting to die, scared of having nothing left to hope for. You’ve never lived a life absent of some kind of love before, no matter how destructive and you’re amazed at how much it made a difference before.
You suppose you have something of love now. Whatever you feel for Harry isn’t hate or apathy. But it hardly counts because he doesn’t care. And he never will and that is as it should be, or so you keep telling yourself as you lay on the ground, helpless, breathless and staring up at some Weasley’s face. If you could see straight, which you can’t because Cruciatus has that effect on a person, you might be able to tell if it’s one you know or if it’s one of the many you’ve just heard about.
You think, but you aren’t quite sure, that you’ve just been rescued. You wish you could concentrate on more concrete things long enough to figure it out. Instead your head is swimming with abstract thought and your body is in the kind of agony only Death Eaters could have left it in. You think you might sick up at any moment, but you can’t move, not even to blink.
“You’re fucking lucky Harry told us about you,” the Weasley growls and you screw your eyebrows up trying to see him more clearly.
Ah. It is the Weasel then, and there, at his shoulder, is the Mudblood. You wish they’d leave you alone and you wonder why they aren’t with Harry.
“Do you know what they’re saying about you?” he demands and you remember those words coming from someone else’s lips.
“It’s all true,” you choke out, your voice hoarse and your throat cracked and raw.
The Weasel makes a face.
“Yeah well, not all of it, apparently. Look,” he adds, more urgently this time. “We only helped you because you were there and it’s what Harry wanted, alright?”
You would raise your eyebrow and pull a face of ‘no, really?’ if you could manage any expression at all. Instead you cough, almost delicately. You can’t remember anything very clearly. You don’t even know where you are but you remember enough. You remember freezing up on the battlefield. You remember trying to run away and you remember being caught by Greg. You remember things like being called a traitor, or perhaps announcing that you were the one in a fit of madness. You don’t know because after that all you remember is pain and thinking that you had a long life of torture ahead of you before Aunt Bella granted you your death.
After that everything is fuzzy and you can’t recall much. You might have blacked out and that is how you’ve come to be in the presence of a Weasel and a Mudblood with them talking nonsense at you that you can barely grasp with a mind that’s foggy and really just wants to rest.
In fact, all of you really wants to rest. Everything is heavy and getting darker, or so it feels. That brief flash of fear of death from earlier is gone and you don’t care what happens to you.
“Stay awake!” the Mudblood practically screeches and you blink fuzzily up at her. “You could have internal injuries. You don’t want to die, do you?”
You frown and she makes a sound of frustration.
“If Harry dies in there it’s all your fault, Malfoy,” she says and you don’t quite understand how that’s possible. “He told us to stay back and take Bellatrix down while he went . . . and now we’re stuck here with you because anyone else would just murder you on sight.”
“Calm down, Hermione,” the Weasel says and she shoots him a ferocious glare. He backs down quickly and you cough again in amusement. Actually, everything is getting to be rather funny at this point. Funny and confusing.
“What’s happening?” you ask, almost against your will and almost too softly to be heard.
“Right about now,” Weasley answers in a hard voice. “Harry’s facing down V-Voldemort by himself and all of your little Death Eater pals are either dead or being rounded up. Your precious Dark Lord just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Not my precious Dark Lord,” you tell him with as much anger as you can muster. “Or my pals.”
Weasley makes another face and the Mudblood makes a small sound of disagreement.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “You’d better hope Harry makes it out of this alive to save your sorry skin, Malfoy, or else you’ll be convicted just like the rest of them.”
She spits out the word and you almost wince. You feel like you shouldn’t because you’re better than she is. But she’s not the one with her life on the line. Not now. And she’s not the one who is dancing in tantalizing circles with unconsciousness, either. She has friends and, presumably, a family. A place to go.
She’s a Mudblood, tainted and unworthy and she’s better off than you are. And it is with that thought in mind that you finally do pass out.
::
You never do remember that night clearly. In fact, when you first wake up you’ve forgotten a lot of things. You see your mum by your bedside, reading a book and dressed as impeccably as ever and you’re confused. She looks up and smiles more brilliantly than you’ve ever seen her smile and then she’s launched herself into your arms.
You’re stiff but you don’t hurt so you hold her as tightly as she holds onto you.
“Where are we?” you ask because your brain recognizes the fact that you haven’t seen her in over a year and that you weren’t
allowed to visit her after you ran away with Severus because it was too dangerous.
Your stomach twists at the thought of Severus and it floods back, that part and then other parts. You remember taking the Mark and you remember being a spy. Daily humiliation because of your last name and being forced to kill . . . . You remember killing Severus, the warmth of blood on your hands and the emptiness afterward. And after that there was so much death that you were the cause of because you knew true hate and true anger and the true desire to end life and to cause pain.
You pull away from your mother and lean over the side of the bed, vomiting all over the floor. It’s acidic and burns your throat and your nose and you’re a mess, sobbing with your sick hot and slick on your lips and your mother is there, spelling away the mess and wiping your face with her robes and she’s never done this before. She’s always so prim and proper and she loves you unconditionally, you know that, but there are always House Elves for this sort of thing.
Her kindness, the soft lull of her voice as she says your name over and over again breaks your heart in ways you hadn’t thought possible anymore and you fall forward against her, wrapping your arms around her thighs and burying your head in the softness of her stomach and you cry everything out. The pain and the fear and it hurts, your chest heaves and your voice cracks. You can hear yourself and you sound like a broken thing and below that you can hear your mum, her own voice breaking and she’s crying too, holding you tight and not letting go and the only words you hear are that it’s over.
“He’s gone, it’s over,” she says and you begin to sob with relief. “You’re safe. We’re safe. It’s over. It’s okay.”
::
You go back to England to stand trial. An agreement is made and you’re fairly sure Harry is behind it because the Wizengamot states that if you testify against known Death Eaters and if you provide Pensieve memories of your time as a spy, your charges will be dropped. You agree, but only if they promise to look in more than one Pensieve.
You testify against your aunt and a series of others. They stare at you with hatred burning in their eyes as if they would kill you given the chance. You aren’t afraid of them, though. You’ve faced down worse and they didn’t kill you when they had the chance, anyway. You stare at them and feel vaguely smug, almost vindicated. You relish their hate because you think they couldn’t possibly hate you as much as you hate them.
You feel almost good, but not quite.
Aurors review your Pensieve memories and there are a lot of sessions in dark rooms, you unable to lie and young witches and wizards moving up in the Ministry taking notes. Eventually they pronounce you legitimate and they look the other way when it comes time for you to stand trial for the murder of Muggles and witches and wizards alike. You’ve served your purpose and they settle for convicting your father in your stead. After the fact, of course, but its an excuse to freeze up the Malfoy vaults and seize Malfoy Manor.
You don’t care and your mother is still too happy to have you alive and whole to complain much. She has enough money from the Blacks for you to live comfortably in a flat in London. On the same day that Harry Potter is released from St. Mungo’s Severus Snape and Sirius Black are cleared of all charges, their names free of the guilt that they carried all through their lives, though you had nothing to do with the latter and everything to do with the former.
You think you should feel good about Severus, and you do, but it doesn’t change anything. Like the fact that you killed him. You’ll live with that for the rest of your life.
Almost five months go by before you run into Harry again. Not something you expected, really. You heard rumors that he was back together with his Girl Weasel and so you figured whatever bond you may have forged with him was dissolved as soon as he killed the Dark Lord. Only you must have been wrong because you see him standing outside of your building, speaking with your mother, looking out of place.
You raise your eyebrows, wondering first of all where your mum was off to in the Muggle clothes she’s taken to wearing more out of necessity than any true desire to do so. She hates the things. Hell, she hates living in Muggle London period, but there isn’t much you can do about it. You wonder, second, what Harry’s doing all the way out here. It isn’t until you draw even with them that you figure it out.
Or that your mum tells you what’s going on, anyway.
“Hello, dear,” she says, her smirk going from chilled to warm in an instant. “Look who tracked you down.”
She turns her smirk back on Harry, though it’s grown an edge to it. He looks sheepish but determined and you sigh and roll your eyes.
“Where are you going?” you ask your mother, ignoring Harry for the time being.
She shrugs delicately and adjusts the handbag on her shoulder. She looks positively Muggle and it’s frightening.
“Out. I’ll be back later. Don’t wait up.”
She kisses your cheek and is off, giving Harry a sarcastic wave of her fingers before you can kiss her back. Not sure what that was all about, you turn to Harry who is staring at you intently. It’s unnerving and it reminds you of the way he’d look at you like that while you gave him information on the Death Eaters. You don’t like how nice the familiarity is.
“What do you want, Harry?” you ask, pulling your keys from your pocket and making your way to large doors of the flat building.
Harry follows you and you see him shrug out of the corner of your eye.
“I wanted to see you,” he says and you stop, just short of the doors and turn to face him with a frown.
“Why?”
“I was kind of unstable for a while,” he says and you raise an eyebrow. That was hardly an answer you expected and he flushes and looks away from you. “It was . . . well. I killed Voldemort and then what was I supposed to do?”
“Get drunk and have fabulous sex?” you shoot back sarcastically and his eyes fly to yours, his mouth quirked up a bit.
“Is that what you did?”
You don’t answer which is answer enough. He doesn’t know that you spent the weeks following that with your mum in a house in France, learning to feel and live again. But you he knows what you weren’t doing and that’s all that matters.
“I thought you’d be halfway engaged to a Weasley by now,” you say, trying to regain some of your calm but finding it difficult.
It never was easy where Harry was concerned. He makes a moue of his mouth and you glance down at his lips, remembering the feel of them against yours, the taste of his tongue and spit. It makes your stomach clench and you’re staring so you tear your eyes away to find him studying a spot of asphalt intently.
“You and everyone else,” he says dejectedly. “Ron and Hermione are moving in together and then there’s Seamus and Parvati and Dean and Hannah. Everyone’s settling in like they’re already married or something and that’s what Ginny wants but . . .”
He trails off and you bite your lip. You hate the fact that your pulse leapt at the sight of him and has yet to slow down. You hate the sweatiness of your palms, the ball of anticipation in your stomach. You hate that he makes you feel this way and you hate that he’s here when you spent so much time convinced he never would be again.
At the same time, you’re selfish and if he’s here you aren’t going to turn him away. The war’s over and you’ve got a life. Not one you’d anticipated having, but it’s yours and you’re free, even if you are haunted by your demons. Although . . . you figure that Harry has demons of his own and perhaps his and yours could keep each other company.
“It’s not what you want,” you finish for him and he looks up sharply, eyes bright and focused and intent. You shiver and then cough delicately. “Do you want to come up?” you ask, not quite hesitantly but not with an overwhelming sense of confidence.
He’s silent, gazing at you and you aren’t sure what he sees, but you know those eyes reach past your blonde hair and grey eyes and sharp features. They linger on the collar of the hooded jumper that you’re wearing. His jumper. You aren’t sure what he sees but you’re not worried about it. You simply wait for him to say yes.