Trapped
Title: Trapped
Word count: 500
Characters/pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Summary: Draco is punished for his hate speech.
Warnings: angst, switching POVs (at the drabble breaks)
Disclaimer: The boys belong to JKR, even though I’m often much nicer to them than she is.
Author’s Notes: This was written for the silence prompt at hd100. By the end I think this is the saddest situation I’ve ever put the boys in, if not the saddest fic I’ve ever written.
“What about free speech?” Granger had shouted at the Minister, but Draco’s speech had been taken from him and trapped: drawn from his lungs, up his throat, taking his air with it. The light that used to be his voice was put inside an unbreakable jar and hidden in the depths of the department of mysteries.
They said he was dangerous, he was a risk to the state, he’d committed hate speech. Pansy screamed at them, a virtuoso in diatribe, and Granger yelled about rights and precedent. Draco sat chained in the Wizengamot chair, and couldn’t make himself speak.
Sentenced.
~*~
The day the sentence was carried out, Harry was there outside Draco’s holding cell. Draco looked exhausted, his eyes blurred. His hand was cold and shaking as Harry held it.
Draco was obviously trying to keep calm. They took him into the dark room, with Hermione - his lawyer - and Harry, who wasn’t meant to be there but wouldn’t leave.
When the woman came at him, Draco screamed. The horrible, hoarse noise reverberated round the room, Draco’s blinding terror making itself horribly known. Harry choked on tears: he shouldn’t be standing here, doing nothing when his lover was screaming like that.
~*~
Then the scream stopped. Draco’s mouth was still open, horribly, and the Unspeakable - her face untouched by Draco’s screaming - was drawing a little light out of it.
She screwed the top onto a jar, and the light was gone.
Draco moved his mouth, his pale throat working. Nothing came out. The fear in his face was blind, unthinking. Animal.
It broke Harry’s heart when the shackles were removed. They didn’t consider Draco a threat any more. He was helpless.
The love inside him seared his chest. He waited desperately for Draco to look at him - to reach for him. “Sweetheart.”
~*~
We live our lives trapped in a swathe of silence. I try not to talk too much: it feels like sacrilege, working my vocal cords and tongue to communicate while he sits in white-faced, gagged shock.
I gagged him once, when we were lovers in the first flush of peace. I have nightmares about it now: about him crying and begging through the cloth.
I love him beyond anything, though. I will never abandon him. I don’t say “I love you” now, but I cuddle him after sex when it feels right to be quiet, and I’m sure he knows.
~*~
He doesn’t tell me he loves me any more.
He barely says anything, actually; he thinks it will hurt me more. He’s right, but it just adds to the weight. I never worried about being a burden to anyone before this, but - I can’t do most magic, or tell him I love him out loud.
I’m not me any more. ‘Draco’ meant being snarky, doing impressions, insulting people, never shutting up. This ghost isn’t anyone Harry could fall in love with.
And still I stay, because I can’t bear to stop clinging. And I always will.
I hope he doesn’t know that I know.
Word count: 500
Characters/pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Summary: Draco is punished for his hate speech.
Warnings: angst, switching POVs (at the drabble breaks)
Disclaimer: The boys belong to JKR, even though I’m often much nicer to them than she is.
Author’s Notes: This was written for the silence prompt at hd100. By the end I think this is the saddest situation I’ve ever put the boys in, if not the saddest fic I’ve ever written.
“What about free speech?” Granger had shouted at the Minister, but Draco’s speech had been taken from him and trapped: drawn from his lungs, up his throat, taking his air with it. The light that used to be his voice was put inside an unbreakable jar and hidden in the depths of the department of mysteries.
They said he was dangerous, he was a risk to the state, he’d committed hate speech. Pansy screamed at them, a virtuoso in diatribe, and Granger yelled about rights and precedent. Draco sat chained in the Wizengamot chair, and couldn’t make himself speak.
Sentenced.
~*~
The day the sentence was carried out, Harry was there outside Draco’s holding cell. Draco looked exhausted, his eyes blurred. His hand was cold and shaking as Harry held it.
Draco was obviously trying to keep calm. They took him into the dark room, with Hermione - his lawyer - and Harry, who wasn’t meant to be there but wouldn’t leave.
When the woman came at him, Draco screamed. The horrible, hoarse noise reverberated round the room, Draco’s blinding terror making itself horribly known. Harry choked on tears: he shouldn’t be standing here, doing nothing when his lover was screaming like that.
~*~
Then the scream stopped. Draco’s mouth was still open, horribly, and the Unspeakable - her face untouched by Draco’s screaming - was drawing a little light out of it.
She screwed the top onto a jar, and the light was gone.
Draco moved his mouth, his pale throat working. Nothing came out. The fear in his face was blind, unthinking. Animal.
It broke Harry’s heart when the shackles were removed. They didn’t consider Draco a threat any more. He was helpless.
The love inside him seared his chest. He waited desperately for Draco to look at him - to reach for him. “Sweetheart.”
~*~
We live our lives trapped in a swathe of silence. I try not to talk too much: it feels like sacrilege, working my vocal cords and tongue to communicate while he sits in white-faced, gagged shock.
I gagged him once, when we were lovers in the first flush of peace. I have nightmares about it now: about him crying and begging through the cloth.
I love him beyond anything, though. I will never abandon him. I don’t say “I love you” now, but I cuddle him after sex when it feels right to be quiet, and I’m sure he knows.
~*~
He doesn’t tell me he loves me any more.
He barely says anything, actually; he thinks it will hurt me more. He’s right, but it just adds to the weight. I never worried about being a burden to anyone before this, but - I can’t do most magic, or tell him I love him out loud.
I’m not me any more. ‘Draco’ meant being snarky, doing impressions, insulting people, never shutting up. This ghost isn’t anyone Harry could fall in love with.
And still I stay, because I can’t bear to stop clinging. And I always will.
I hope he doesn’t know that I know.