Chapter Twenty-One of 'The Serenity of His Rage'- To Bathe
Chapter Twenty.
Title: The Serenity of His Rage (21/39)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Angst, minor character deaths, torture, violence, gore, magical bonding, AU
Rating: R
Summary: AU of HBP. Narcissa never made Snape swear an Unbreakable Vow, and in the end, Draco decides to accept Dumbledore’s offer of sanctuary. But when Narcissa dies and Dumbledore declares his intention to create a soul-bond between Harry and Draco mainly to get rid of the Horcrux in Harry, Draco becomes enraged. He’ll use the soul-bond and the sanctuary Dumbledore gave him. But not exactly in the ways that Dumbledore anticipated.
Author’s Notes: This story will be fairly dark and approximately thirty-nine chapters long. It should update every Tuesday.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-One-To Bathe
“Are you all right, Draco?”
Harry had to admit he was a little concerned, and he tried to keep an eye on Draco as he pulled off his shirt behind the half-open bathroom door. Draco had been almost entirely silent since they came upstairs. He’d been watching Harry with a funny little smile, but refused to explain himself. He nodded and exclaimed when Harry was talking about how they had to find out what made the Inferi rise from the lake, but even that was more absent-minded than Harry would have expected to get from him.
Now, he said nothing, either. Harry stuck his head around the door and saw Draco sitting in the middle of his bed.
He was watching the bathroom door, and thus Harry, the way he had been all evening. Harry frowned at him, and Draco shook his head and stood up.
The way he was acting, Harry thought he would leave. But instead, Draco walked towards the bathroom door and calmly pushed it open.
Harry stumbled a bit, twisting so that his shoulder and not his side hit the wall. He’d discovered when he started taking off his clothes that he had a huge bruise along his ribs, probably where the Summoning Charm had made Draco slam into him when Harry pulled him back from the Inferius.
Draco stood there and continued to be silent. Harry waved a hand in front of his face. “Did Dumbledore cast some sort of spell on you?” he demanded.
“No. You did.”
Harry opened his mouth-he didn’t cast a spell and Draco was starting to scare him, with how strange he was acting-and then Draco leaned forwards and kissed him.
Well, that’s more like it, Harry thought in approval, grabbing Draco’s head and immediately dragging them to the side so that his back could rest comfortably against the wall and avoid his bruise. Draco was moving his tongue back and forth as if he didn’t know what to do with it, and the bond hummed with contentment from both of them.
It was like wine, that contentment, going to Harry’s head. He kissed Draco harder and pushed him back. Draco stumbled in turn, but managed to sit down on the edge of the bathtub without tripping over Harry’s shirt or upsetting the little piece of soap in its dish.
Harry smiled and knelt in front of Draco. Draco’s eyes widened, and he half-trembled as if he was going to get up and run. The bond had snapped straight to a kind of tension Harry had only felt before when they were sneaking into Malfoy Manor. He shook his head and reached out to touch Draco’s knee.
“You’re the one who can refuse me if you want to,” Harry muttered. He knew he was already too far gone to resist what his body wanted him to do, but he wanted Draco to want this. Frightening him was a bad thing.
For one moment more, Draco hesitated. Then he smirked and spread his legs. “Well, what’s taking you so long?”
Harry nodded. “Thanks,” he said softly as he started to pull Draco’s robes off. “I can feel how much this is frightening you.”
“I am not frightened,” said Draco loudly, enough that Harry turned and kicked the door shut. The last thing he wanted was Ron or Hermione coming in here because they thought Harry and Draco were having an argument. “Who said anything about frightened? Who could be afraid of a little pleasure?”
“We have a soul-bond between us, Draco,” Harry had to point out, rolling his eyes a little as he unbuttoned the robes and pushed them back. Draco did wear a thin shirt underneath that, but it was long enough to cover him even down to below the waist. Harry’s breathing made him dizzy as he stared at it.
“That doesn’t mean it’s fear. It’s just-tension. The kind you can get rid of by blowing me.”
Harry bent and kissed Draco’s knee without answering. Yes, he knew what Draco was feeling, and he didn’t despise him for it. Even if he’d had a hundred partners, Harry thought, or Draco had, they had to be a little nervous the first time they touched someone they were soul-bonded to.
*
I wish he didn’t understand me so well.
But then Draco felt the careful way Harry framed Draco’s kneecaps, and knelt down to kiss the inside of his thighs, and had to take that wish back. Because there was no way he could wish for someone who didn’t understand him well to do this.
Maybe it’s strange to have someone you’re soul-bonded to be your first, Draco thought mindlessly, leaning back and back until his head was on the back wall of the shower. Harry was still parting his legs and kissing the skin until it felt tingling and as though Draco was going to faint from the pleasure. Maybe I should have had experience with someone who didn’t understand me well, to really appreciate the contrast…
But that thought faded under the tender pressure of Harry’s hands. No, he only ever wanted Harry.
Harry, who had finally apparently pushed open Draco’s legs to his satisfaction and now was just kneeling there looking at them. Draco gave a wriggle of his left foot, and Harry jumped. Then he grinned up at Draco.
“All right, all right, I’m doing it,” he said, and leaned forwards to take Draco’s cock in his smooth mouth without any more protestations.
Draco tried to grunt and moan and swear all at the same time. It was embarrassing. He ended up making a sound like an overexcited monkey or something. And he was losing his balance on the edge of the tub and sliding into the tub.
“None of that,” Harry chided him, and pulled Draco back up. Then his mouth fastened in place.
Draco lost track of the room and the rest of his body. Nothing existed except his cock and Harry’s mouth. That was the way it should always be. No spells, no anger, no war with the Dark Lord, no Horcruxes. Only this.
Harry seemed to agree, if the way he was taking his time was any indication. He licked and sucked and stroked along the bloody skin inside Draco’s thighs again, and then moved his hands further down, behind his knees. Draco found himself rising on his toes, even sitting down, as if that would convince Harry’s hands to stop.
It didn’t. Harry found his knees and shifted Draco’s hips a little. His tongue was making languid motions along the bottom of Draco’s cock at the same time.
“Were you always this good?” Draco whispered, delirious, not caring what he said now. “Were you always this good and I never thought to try you?”
“I might have had some objections if you’d decided to try me,” Harry said, pulling his head back.
The bond was smooth and glassy-colored with contentment, but that didn’t mean Draco wanted any interruptions. He pushed Harry’s head back down with one hand in the center of his brow, and Harry laughed and returned to what he was doing.
“It’s not fair you’re this good.” Draco felt too big for his skin now. He kept arching his shoulders against the back of the tub, pushing and shoving, trying to find some way to melt into the pleasure that circled around his body and become one with it. “I don’t think I’ll be this good.”
“You’re Draco. And that’s always good enough for me.”
Even though Harry had to pull back his head to say that and Draco huffed in irritation, at least he put his mouth right back. And at least Draco felt his own happiness multiply and grow like crystals once he understood the words.
Then he felt…
It was familiar, of course it was familiar. Harry was the first person who had ever sucked him off, but it wasn’t as if Harry was the first person he had ever come with!
Even if the other one was only me, Draco thought, in the brief moments before his vision seemed to close in from the sides and a glassy tunnel enveloped him. He caught his breath with a whoop, and then he was coming in Harry’s mouth, humiliation and satisfaction gripping him by turns.
He hadn’t given Harry enough warning to get out of the way. He hadn’t given him enough of anything, except come that had overflowed his mouth, Draco thought as he rolled dazedly to the side and then sat up. He was reaching out with one hand, already trying to caress Harry’s cheek as he babbled apologies.
“Saying you’re sorry sort of kills the mood,” Harry muttered, swiping at his cheek. There was a trickle of white there that Draco couldn’t keep his eyes off.
“But I am,” Draco said softly. “That you couldn’t swallow it all, that I didn’t do it to you first…”
“Was that an offer?”
Harry’s eyes were so wide and glazed that Draco felt some of his immediate conviction-that he wouldn’t be able to live up to what Harry had done to him-melt away. He smirked and slid down to his own knees. “Yes.”
Harry’s fingers fumbled as he reached for his trousers. Draco held his hand back and shook his head. He was going to take his time, and that meant taking time to enjoy the expanse of bare chest stretched before him.
I can’t believe I didn’t pay attention to it before now, Draco thought, and slid his hand around Harry’s old scars, and let his fingers circle Harry’s nipples. Harry was giving trembling little gasps, his mouth open as if he was running a race. He had one hand held out, gripping Draco’s wrist.
Like he wants to feel me touching him.
Well, that was one desire Draco had every intention of gratifying. And it didn’t have to be just touch, either. Before Harry could guess what he was going to do, Draco leaned forwards and bit him on the nipple.
“Ouch!”
Well, that went better in Draco’s fantasies than it did in reality. Or else he’d bitten too hard. Or Harry just didn’t enjoy biting. Judging by the way Harry was rubbing his chest and glaring a little, it could have been all of those.
“Sorry,” Draco whispered, and kissed Harry again. That went over just fine, and Harry snogged him enthusiastically back, pushing Draco onto his back on a bed that felt like it was made of his robes.
“Wait a minute here,” Draco finally said, when Harry had pulled back to catch his breath and was kneeling over Draco and eyeing his chest. “How am I supposed to return the favor if you’re looming over me like that?”
“Oh,” Harry said, and the bond paused for a minute. Draco blinked again, settling into what felt oddly like silence. He hadn’t realized how much of the whispering in the back of his head, telling him the right thing to do, probably came from the bond.
Then Harry shook his head and grinned. “I thought I would just feed you my cock as you lie there, actually.”
Draco gasped so loudly that he became afraid someone would come into the bathroom to investigate. But Harry, who was taking off his trousers finally, shook his head, probably catching a little spurt of his fear from the bond.
“I used the strongest Locking Charms I knew,” he muttered, and kissed Draco again, solidly on the lips before he moved on to the cheek. “Hermione could get through them, but she’ll know there’s something I’m doing that I really want to be private if I put those up. She’ll come back later.”
Draco swallowed the temptation to say that he would really prefer Granger not to come back at all, and opened his mouth instead. At least that got a gratifying gasp of his own from Harry, and then he yanked down his trousers the rest of the way.
Draco felt a little dazed as he stared at Harry’s dangling cock. It wasn’t that it was bigger than he’d pictured, because he’d never had reason to picture Harry’s cock before this year. It was that it looked incredible and nerve-wracking at the same time.
I’m going to have that in my mouth.
That made it a lot better. Draco wriggled himself a little closer, and then had to stop because his back was grinding on an uncomfortable little lump that was probably one of Harry’s discarded socks. Or his discarded sock.
Looking ridiculously proud and worried himself, Harry moved closer and then knelt over Draco’s hips. Draco sighed. He was too tired to respond the way he would have liked, but maybe they could do that later. For now, he settled for rubbing his knuckles over Harry’s hip and then flicking his tongue out.
That encouraged Harry to crawl closer, until he was sitting right over Draco’s mouth. Draco gasped once and then took his erection in and began to suck on it.
*
This is so wonderful.
What Harry wanted more than anything was to plow forwards and almost slam Draco’s head into the floor with his thrusting. Well, he wanted to thrust. Not keep it down to paltry little pushes that got him almost none of that delicious warmth.
Then again, he wanted Draco to speak to him tomorrow, too.
So Harry kept his hips, reluctantly, to soft little flexes, and the sensation got more intense as it thundered up and down his spine. He found himself gripping the crumpled shirt and robes next to Draco’s head, staring into his eyes. Draco stared back. Maybe he smiled around Harry’s cock, but if so, Harry couldn’t see it.
He was too busy feeling.
Draco’s mouth was warm, his lips were wet, his tongue was everywhere. Harry groaned and hunched forwards, making sure he was holding himself up on his hands. He would crush Draco if he fell over him, and Draco would stop sucking, and that was unacceptable.
Draco finally began to make noises, little grunts of his own, things that might have been words. Harry shivered. They were adding to the intensity, and the air between them was warm and thick with scent, and he had to finally admit that his thighs were cramping up something fierce.
But it didn’t matter. Not as long as everything stayed exactly the same, with Draco’s mouth on him and the bond between them humming and singing like a mad bird and Draco’s tongue lapping a steady path down and around him.
It shouldn’t matter. But Harry finally felt a stir at the base of his spine that told him what was happening, and what would change, although it had never felt so powerful before.
Already mourning, Harry opened his eyes. He was going to try to pull back, to see if he could overwhelm Draco less than Draco had overwhelmed him. Draco had seemed sorry about it. Harry didn’t want to be.
But Draco sealed his mouth stubbornly when Harry would have pulled out, and shook his head. His eyes were fierce. He reached up and slipped a hand between Harry’s bowed legs, wriggled between his thighs, and managed to find his balls.
Which he pulled.
Harry soared over the edge with no warning, but he supposed Draco had done that on purpose and it was its own kind of warning. Harry was lost in the hot, still, panting atmosphere that had enveloped him. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t think. All he could do was crouch there, and pump, and come, and feel drained at the end.
But because certain things were still unacceptable, he still managed to make himself collapse sideways at the end, and not hit Draco in the face or bruise him. Draco grunted when Harry settled on top of his chest, but, well, compared to everything else that had gone on, Harry didn’t think that was bad.
Draco stirred under him at last, but with no more than a token protest. Harry leaned over and slid his fingers languidly down Draco’s cheek. It was all the motion he was capable of making right now.
“I don’t want to spend the night,” Draco said, rolling over.
Harry blinked at him, not understanding what that meant. “You don’t want to stay with me?” The bond didn’t feel like that. The bond felt like it had eaten a huge meal and gone to sleep. But Draco might be uncomfortable or shy around him now that they had done this, Harry supposed.
I won’t be hurt. I won’t be. We’re going to be together no matter what, now that we have the bond.
“I don’t want to spend the night on the bathroom floor,” Draco finally said, getting the yawn and the words both out at the same time.
“Oh.” Harry could understand that. It took him a few seconds to feed information to his legs so that he could stand and shake out trembling arms, but he managed. Then he reached down for Draco, and nearly pitched back down.
“I don’t expect you to carry me,” Draco said, laughing, and slid his hands beneath him. Harry still had to help him to his feet, but Draco blamed that on the awkward position he’d been in, not their weakness.
Together, they cast a few Cleaning Charms and staggered out of the bathroom. Harry collapsed on the bed with his arms wrapped around Draco, and only then sighed. He’d meant to take a shower.
“Later,” Draco said, either reading his emotions through the bond or just the shift of his legs towards the side of the bed.
Harry nodded and curled up again. The strength of his clasp around Draco’s chest made him smile. So did Draco’s arms wrapped so tightly around him. So did the softness of the sheets beneath them, and the way they started breathing in unison almost at once, and the way Draco sighed out and made Harry shiver as his breath warmed Harry’s skin.
Stop smiling already.
That sounded like Snape’s voice. But not even Snape, Harry thought as he buried his head beneath Draco’s chin, could have soured his mood right now, not if he came striding through the door.
*
“There is no other way to destroy the Horcrux than Harry’s death, Severus.”
Severus stood looking out the window in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, and didn’t respond. He would have liked to say that Potter appeared not to prefer that, and there was Draco to consider. But Albus knew those arguments already, and was making this one anyway.
“Are you listening to me, Severus?”
Severus turned around and nodded. But still he said nothing. He was not certain what Albus meant by pulling him here to speak about the Horcrux in Potter’s soul. As far as Severus knew, nothing had changed since the last time they’d talked about it.
“I want you to speak to Harry, Severus. To tell him-if you must-the history of your friendship with his mother.”
Severus coughed. It felt as though someone had blown ash into his mouth. “What?”
“I know how hard it is for you,” said Albus, laying his blackened hand on the table, the one that was going to kill him. Not soon, Severus knew; his potions were good for that much. But he would die of it. “How much you love and mourn Lily still. But I would not ask a greater sacrifice of you than I plan to give myself.”
“I have no idea why you think hearing about that will make a difference,” Severus said. “The details should not move him except to more love of his mother. And she died to save him. Why would this make him more eager to lose that life?”
Albus glanced at Severus chidingly. “I am not after that, Severus. What I am after is for Harry to gain some understanding of sacrifice, and a life lived in pursuit of duty. I think he might have known it better before he lost Sirius.” Albus sighed. “Not that I think his grief has overwhelmed him, but that he was looking around for someone else to take Sirius’s place, and found young Mr. Malfoy.”
Severus found good places for his teeth in his tongue, and held onto it. He was familiar, after all, with Albus’s need to convince himself of some of the strangest things, to build up a good base of that belief before he asked someone else to do as he wanted. This was only another strange thing.
“Perhaps I should not have allowed them to bond,” Albus whispered. “It seemed the best way to keep Mr. Malfoy loyal to us, and to save Harry from the Horcrux. But the one purpose may be lost beyond reckoning, and the other has failed.”
Severus could keep silent no longer, even knowing he would be punished by that chiding turn of the Headmaster’s chin that he hated so much. “Draco is not a replacement for Black, Albus. Unless you think Potter was fucking his godfather.”
And yes, there it was, the smothering of light in Albus’s eyes, and the turn of his head, that made Severus feel as if he was shouting down an eager child. But he held onto his own perspective, forged in the heat of a terrible fire. No, Albus was not a child. And he ought to be long past the sort of interference that drove him now.
“Then I have given Harry an even greater chain to life,” Albus sighed.
Severus decided he might as well keep replying now that he had started. “What did you think would happen, Headmaster? That the soul-bond would leave them unaffected? That Potter could sacrifice himself if he had no one he cared for?”
“Oh, I know that he cares for young Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley.” Albus waved a hand that had started to tremble as if with arthritis. “And their friendship is true and has sustained Harry through his massive struggles. But it was never so strong that I thought they would die with him. Harry had to understand love and happiness and the part of the world that has them so he would love them enough to die for it, but he couldn’t be the part of it the same way everyone else would.”
Severus closed his eyes. The only way he managed not to snap at Albus was because he knew Albus believed those words-and grieved over them. Albus didn’t want Potter to die. He was accepting it as a necessity and then trying to come up with a way to achieve it with the least modicum of grief.
Albus would die filled with horror and self-hatred over his sacrifice of a child. He would probably decline all the faster once Potter was gone, because he did love the boy. But he would do it all the same.
Sometimes Severus thought he had never known anyone more terrifying than Albus Dumbledore.
“Speak to him, Severus. Promise me. Show him that someone can have a great love and yet do what they must in pursuit of that duty.”
And that only shows how little you understand me, Severus thought wearily. Because I would never be here if Lily was alive. And I made every attempt to preserve her. Not sacrifice her.
All he could do was say aloud, “I promise, Headmaster.”
And watch the moment come closer and closer, the moment of his inevitable choice.
Chapter Twenty-Two.
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