All He Had Left to Him

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

Title: All He Had Left To Him
Author: elucreh
Rating: Adult
Word Count: 3500
Warnings: Minor character deaths, angst, off-screen torture
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Summary: After his failure at Hogwarts, Draco is the lowest of the Death Eaters, demoted to prison warden, without hope. Then a prisoner arrives whom he never expected.
Author's Note: For silentauror in the HP Valensmut anonython. Thanks to my betas, Lara and Jenna, and to violet_quill who let me lift an idea from her fic.


It was late, and chilly, and that last, tenacious bit of Draco that was still an arrogant Malfoy felt mildly annoyed as he hurried to the study where his father had once held audience with Ministry members and school governors. The portraits on the wall turned away as he passed...this, the heir they had all guarded and advised through childhood? This slight, hollowed boy, with Cruciatus marks standing stark against the pale skin of his elbows and slipping beneath his robes? This creature summoned peremptorily from his bed to answer another's bidding? An insane half-blood's bidding? They turned to face the wall, rather than face what all their efforts had failed to do: keep him safe, keep him healthy, keep him proud. Keep him a Malfoy, impervious to the harsher things of life.

He didn't even notice anymore.

Draco knocked at the door to the study and came in when told to do so. He didn't look at his surroundings--the Dark Lord did not like to have attention focused away from himself. He knew what he would see, anyway--the small fire would gleam on the leather bindings that had been his father's prize possessions, but the candles and spell-globes that had once brightened the small, shelf-enclosed room were unlit, the cushioned chairs and soft carpets had been removed, leaving bare wood and one tall, angular piece of furniture, occupied by a tall, angular piece of humanity. If Draco had dared to look up from where he knelt, he would still have kept his eyes on his master, on the ground. He did not like to remember that his childhood sanctuary had become his master's audience chamber.

"Ah, Draco," the Dark Lord murmured, "We have a new guest. He will be kept alive over the next two months. At that time I will need him for a ritual spell. You will assist Avery with the early stages of the ritual. If you can manage that, perhaps we will be able to find a new duty for you, hm? Something a little more fit to earning back your mother, perhaps?"

"Thank you, my lord," Draco whispered, the floor digging into his knees.

"Go and make him welcome, Draco. He is a very important guest...he thinks he is special."

"Yes, my lord." He rose and padded quietly away, through the door of the study, down the long tangled hallways of Malfoy Manor. Headquarters for the Rise of Lord Voldemort. In residence: the Dark Lord, several of his right-hand minions, a good fifty prisoners, and Draco Malfoy--warden.

Draco's failure had been the end of his father's chance at rescue and his mother's half-freedom. He didn't know where she was now--he held only the faintest, vaguest hopes that she was alive at all. He lived and worked and prostrated himself at the mercy of the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters...even Wormtail spent his casual crucios on the last of the Malfoys. Draco spent his days feeding the prisoners and maintaining the wards and begging for his mother and his sanity and his life.



At the entrance to the dungeons, Draco paused briefly to press his wand to the handle and murmur the password. The door opened sullenly, and he shut it behind him as he made his way past the cells. None of the formerly empty cells had been filled, which surprised him a little…the new prisoner must be very important indeed—the high-security cells had only ever had one other occupant: Alastor "Mad-eye" Moody, who had screamed for a long time. He had cost many of the Death Eaters family and body parts, over the years, and they had been very, very glad to see him.



Draco hoped that the new prisoner would have a different kind of importance. The blood hadn't come out of stone without a good deal of scrubbing.



He came to the door to the second level, and smiled faintly as he spoke the password. He remembered Lucius sitting at the breakfast table, grumbling about the cost of maintaining the wards on the high-security cells, when none of the dungeons had been used in decades. Narcissa used to chide him about keeping up family traditions.



They were used, now.



Draco shut the door behind him and walked toward the cells, beginning the complex task of activating the spells on the dungeons. First to bind the prisoner's magic useless, then to inactivate any other magics he might have brought with him. To make him unable to move hostilely, to—Draco froze, spotting the wild black hair of the heavily robed figure—strip him bare.



The man's clothes vanished, leaving a lean, small figure that Draco knew only too well. With a groan, the prisoner stirred in his unconsciousness, rolling his head just enough to confirm what the warden already knew—Harry Potter was lying, naked, in Malfoy Manor.



And not that Draco hadn't often wished for this outcome, what with one thing and another, but he had never pictured it this way. Bruised, unconscious, and in the dungeons, not since he was very young; with himself as he was, never. Not once. He had always had power in his dreams.



The cold penetrated Potter's skin as Draco stared, and he began to shiver. His eyes fluttered beneath his eyelids, and he began to shift, trying to find a comfortable position on the stone floor.



Draco went on staring.



Potter curled himself into a ball with a pathetic whimper, shuddering so violently that the stone began to graze against his skin, leaving shallow, pink scrapes against the white of his skin and the dark, bloody purple of his bruises.



Draco walked over to the door of the cell. He opened the lock with his wand, and stood over Potter for a moment before taking off his cloak and covering the other man with it. He lay down beside Potter, curling close to share his body heat, and took an edge of the cloak for himself.



After two endless minutes, they were both asleep.



___________________





"Malfoy!" Someone was hissing at him and shaking his shoulder. "Malfoy! Malfoy, wake up! Wake up!"



Draco opened his eyes, turning towards the shaker, not making any move to imply anything other than compliance. Oh. Not Wormtail. Potter.



"Malfoy…" Potter trailed off uncertainly.



Draco raised his eyebrows inquiringly.



Potter gave him an exasperated look. "What the hell is going on?"



"You've been captured, Potter," he replied, simply.



"I can see that," the other man said, glancing warily at the walls and bars. "Where are we? How well warded is this place? Have you tried to escape before? How many Death Eaters are we going to have to take out to get out of here? Why am I naked if you get to wear clothes? Why are we cellmates, of all people?"



Distantly, Draco heard the outer dungeon door creak. Gratefully, he gathered up his cloak, slipped out the door, and locked it behind him.



"Malfoy?" Potter sounded bewildered now, and angry.



"Ah, Draco," Avery said, with a nasty smile. "Trying to get in early on the fun with young Potter? I don't believe you've been cleared for that."



"No, sir, I was only—"



"Crucio…"



When the begging stopped, Avery lifted his wand and gave Draco an inquiring look. "Checking on the prisoner, sir. His lordship was very specific that Potter was to live, sir."



"Very diligent. But perhaps the others need feeding?"



Draco nodded softly.



"Very well. Get along with you. I am to take Mr. Potter to his lordship."



Draco padded out towards the kitchens to give the house-elf his instructions.



__________________





They returned Potter late that night, sobbing and moaning, bruised so that there was almost no white skin left, shaking with the after-effects of the Cruciatus, fine red lines of sectumsempra scored across unimportant veins.



Draco waited until the rest of the castle had gone to bed, the Dark Lord brooding alone in his chamber, before he walked quietly down to the dungeons and let himself into Potter's cell.



Potter lay on the floor, curled around himself in cold and agony. Draco knelt beside him, wrapped his arms around him until the tremors lessened. Then he began to kiss each of the marks left across Potter's body, wiping away blood with tender fingers, softly laving bruises with his tongue, murmuring soft sounds of comfort and sympathy. Potter's shudders shrank, slowed, stopped as he slipped into unconsciousness, one last, bewildered "Malfoy?" breathing out between his lips before a sweet sea without pain overwhelmed him.



Draco sat beside him and watched him sleep for a long time before he wrapped himself around Potter to sleep for the night.



_________________





Draco woke the next morning to find Potter's eyes on him. His own eyes flew to his wand, but it was still in the pocket of his cloak. Looking more closely at Potter, he saw why…the other man's breathing was labored and his arms lay limply by his sides. It was obviously beyond Potter's power to do much more than go on existing…and watch Draco. Curiously. Desperately.



Draco stood up, wrapped his cloak around his shoulders, and padded out.



___________________





So the weeks passed. As soon as Potter began to be strong enough to stand on his own, Avery would arrive to bring him before the Dark Lord. After a day of that, he would return to lying limply, breathing hard, begging with his eyes alone while Draco spooned gruel and water into his open mouth. As he began to recover, he would go on to feeding himself, to sitting up, to pulling himself across the floor…to asking questions.



Draco never spoke to him, only put the spoon in his mouth with a little more force or—when asked one particular question—kissed him fiercely on the lips.



After six weeks…when he was nearly well enough to go before the Dark Lord again…Potter held out his hand when Draco came in with the gruel and accepted it thankfully. The last spoonful disappeared quickly and Draco took the bowl back, beginning to rise from his crouch by Potter's side.



"Malfoy…" Potter's voice was different this time, somehow, as he began to ask another question, though there was no reason it should be different from any other time he had asked any one of his dozen question. "Why are you doing this?"



Draco leaned in to kiss him, as he always did, but this time was different. Potter kissed him back. Draco fell forward in surprise, knocking Potter to the ground, and Potter grunted and put an arm around his neck. Draco's mouth fell open in shock and Potter's tongue—wet, warm, writhing—invaded it.



Draco moaned, and let his own tongue tangle with Potter's, his hand come up to rest on Potter's chest. Their mouths pressed against, caressed each other, Potter's thin beard scraping against Draco's smooth chin, Draco's nose prodding at Potter's cheek. Potter bucked his hips sharply and Draco rode against them, feeling both of them begin to harden as they chafed together, wool robe against bare, barely-healed skin. Potter made an inarticulate noise and slid his mouth across to Draco's earlobe, nibbling it as he pulled fistfuls of robe up until they were finally skin against skin, quickly-hardening cock against quickly-hardening cock. Draco whimpered and fumbled for the floor with his knees, stabilizing himself enough to push back as Potter thrust his hips at him. Wiry, coarse pubic hair scraped along his cock and tickled unbearably across the already-sensitive head. Both of them cried out when Potter's cock brushed against his perineum, and Potter came, squirming in pleasure, pulling Draco's orgasm out of him in long, shuddering pulses.



Draco collapsed on top of Potter, both of them panting in the aftermath.



"Draco?"



Draco pushed himself up and looked into Potter's eyes. "Mmm?"



"Why are we doing this?"



He kissed Potter and raised an eyebrow, sitting up. He got the bowl from the corner, where it had rolled, and slipped out into the dungeon hallways.



"…Not that I mind," he heard Potter add softly, as though to himself.



_________________





The next day Potter went before the Dark Lord again, and it was some time before he could speak, let alone seduce his jailer. Just as he was getting to the stage where Draco had hoped they might be able to do it again, the Dark Lord summoned Avery and Draco to his lair. It was time.



Avery strode along the corridors to one of the laboratories, where he waited impatiently for the house-elf to gather the ingredients they needed. Draco stood against the wall, in his shadow. Inevitably, the house-elf finished his task and Avery indicated with a jerk of his head that the two of them should follow him.



When they got to Potter's cell, Potter looked up hopefully. Draco glared at him just in time to get an expression of confusion on his face before Avery banged through the door and ordered the house-elf to set down the basket and begone.



"I trust you remember your instructions, Malfoy?" the older man demanded. "The penalties of failure increase with the importance of the mission, remember."



"Yes, sir," Draco murmured, lifting out a jar of viscous fluid and an albatross bone and going to stand next to Harry, who was watching them both warily.



"On your feet, Potter," Avery ordered, and Potter obeyed with an alacrity that Snape would have envied. Inside of him, behind his meek stance, a little bit of Draco broke to see that defiance destroyed. Shaking, Harry braced himself against the wall.



"Begin," Avery said, curtly, and Draco dipped the bone into the jar and knelt to begin drawing runes on Potter's feet. Avery's voice began to rumble in Latin, Greek, and Norse, the cadence of the language following the rhythm of Draco's tool as it swept cold, gooey potion over Potter's bruise-stained skin. He painted runes around Potter's legs, across his hips, over his chest and arms and shoulders, then turned him to go down his back, finally sketching a large, irregular shape across both arse cheeks.



Avery nodded at him in brusque approval, and he dropped the bone to his feet and dipped his shaking finger in the jar as Avery's words changed to rumbling Old German. As gently as he dared, he skated one slick finger down Potter's crack and rubbed the potion into his perineum, slipping a finger inside and working it deeper rhythmically, in time to the harsh cadences of the spell. At Avery's nod, he added a second finger, and then a third, and then he pulled his fingers out of Potter's arse and moved out of the way.



Avery aimed his wand and finished the spell, repeating the runes on Potter in the air. Potter gasped, but remained otherwise quiet. The blue gleam of the potion vanished from his skin.



"It is done," Avery announced. "The Dark Lord can reclaim his soul tomorrow. Check him over, Draco…make sure he will not collapse during the ceremony. The Dark Lord would not be pleased." He swept out.



Both of them listened to his footsteps petering away down the hall.



"Okay…that was…weird…" Potter said slowly, turning around. Draco began to nod before noticing that, weird or not, it had affected Potter. "What did he mean by that?"



Draco shrugged.



"Having your fingers up my arse helps Voldemort get his soul back?"



Draco shrugged again.



Potter stepped closer and said, in a low voice, "The rest of that potion may have vanished, but whatever that spell did kept me…loose. Does that interest you at all?"



Draco gave him a small smile.



"Well, then." Potter leaned forward and kissed him gently, tangling his fingers in his hair. Draco sighed and leaned into it, wrapping one arm around Harry's waist, pulling himself closer to catch up to Harry's half-hard arousal. Harry dropped to his knees and lifted Draco's robes, skating his hands up until he could see Draco's stiffening cock. He took it into his mouth and began to suck. Draco moaned and put his sticky hands in Harry's hair.



Harry's tongue made an even more beautiful thing of a blow-job than it did of kissing, and it wasn't long before he evidently felt satisfied enough with Draco's hardness to look up. There was a mischievous look in his eyes. He tugged on Draco's wrist until the other man was kneeling beside him, then leaned forward to tangle their tongues again. Draco moaned and pulled Harry's hips closer to his, brushing their cocks together, but Harry pushed him away.



Harry took one slow moment to lick Draco's throat before turning, dropping to all fours, presenting his stretched pink hole for fucking. Draco needed no further urging. Wrapping his hand around his cock, he walked forward on his knees until he could push into Harry's arse, and nearly came. He gritted his teeth and focused. There. Now.



Slowly, he withdrew, then pushed himself in again. Harry was making small, pleased noises in the back of his throat, so he began to fuck in earnest, thrusting harder and harder as Harry began to beg, to plead with him to go faster, to give him more. He dropped to his own hand to kiss Harry's neck and back as he used the other to pull on Harry's cock, and when Harry keened and his cock began to spurt, he let go of the last of his control and came too, both of them falling over in a heap of sweaty skin.



After a few long minutes of aftershock, Draco eased himself out of Harry's body and cast a spell to clean them both. Harry stirred from his blissful sprawl as Draco pulled on his robes, and looked at him inquiringly. They hadn't spent a night apart since Harry's arrival.



Draco looked at him wistfully and bent down to kiss him, lingering for a brief moment. Then he left.

______________



"…such a shame," one masked Death Eater told another as they walked to the ritual in procession. "She was a gorgeous woman."



"Waste of a beautiful arse, putting it in the ground like that," his companion agreed, shuffling along so slowly that Draco, behind them, was getting annoyed. "Just because her husband and son were so bad at their jobs, no reason to starve her to death. Narcissa Malfoy was wasted in a cell. Proof that he is far above us, really—anyone else would have kept her in his bedchamber."



Draco stopped dead. The Death Eater behind him rammed into him and cursed. Draco muttered an apology.



"Maybe not," the first one said. "Hear tell this ritual is going to involve buggering Harry Potter…and I do mean buggering. Perhaps he just doesn't lean towards breasts, even as fine a pair as Narcissa's."



"No…Avery says it's something to do with the Dark Lord putting a bit of his soul in young Potter just before his temporary setback. Not a carnal thing. Anyway, there's far better arse around here than a starved prisoner's, former archenemy or not."



His companion shushed him as they neared the entrance to what had been the ballroom, where a large dodecagram had been painted on the floor. The Death Eaters arranged themselves in a ring around it, and Avery came in, leading Harry by a rope around his wrists. He tied Harry to the altar in the middle of the floor, then joined the ring of robed figures, all of whom bowed as the Dark Lord swept into the room.



Draco bowed, too, numb with loss and shock and anger. He barely heard the Dark Lord's speech about claiming his own. He barely saw the ritual disrobing of the Dark Lord's skeletal body. He only managed to focus again just as the Dark Lord began to enter Harry.



The Dark Lord hissed and pulled out at once.



"What is this?" he demanded, glaring fiercely at Avery, who at once sank to his knees.



"What has gone wrong, my Lord?"



The Dark Lord glared at him and pulled out his wand. "Crucio."



When the screaming had stopped, he spoke. "The boy is tainted again! The ritual is spoiled. He has already been taken…taken in love! I cannot touch him! I cannot reclaim that which is mine…his soul has been mingled with another's, and they came away equal and inseparable. There is nothing I can do." He growled with anger and snapped his wand, reclothing himself.



"He is no further use to me. Draco—you may make up in some small way for this failure. Kill him, and I may yet restore your mother to you."



Draco's chin rose. He raised his wand and stepped into the circle, towards Harry. The Dark Lord turned to stalk out of the room.



Draco took hold of Harry's arm, and Disapparated.