ravenna_c_tan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ravenna_c_tan) wrote2008-12-04 01:18 pm
ravenna_c_tan) wrote2008-12-04 01:18 pm
Entry tags:
Part Three
Title: Balanced on the Sword's Edge, part 3 of 3
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
Pairing: Lucius/Harry (with some other side pairings that I won't list for fear of spoilers)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Consensual sex, nonconsensual sex, and dubious consent (yes, all three). Rape, sexual slavery, piercing, whipping, bondage, blood, forced exhibitionism, double penetration, first time.
Summary: Harry Potter never escaped Malfoy Manor after being brought there by the snatchers (though Ron, Hermione, and the rest did, taking Draco with them). Without Harry there, the Battle of Hogwarts went quite differently, and now, after several months as Lucius Malfoy's personal pet, Harry's mind, body, and soul are quite different than they were as a schoolboy. He clings to his prophesied purpose, though, and knows he must stay alive to have a chance to fulfill it.
Disclaimer: Non-commercial fanfic.
A/N: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clauclauclaudia and strickens_girl for beta-reading! The needles are there as a tribute to Sanguine, a Serpent Knotted Sable by Amanuensis, the granddaddy of all Lucius/Harry fics. Originally written for HP Darkfest.
Prompt:
"For the sword outwears its sheath, and the soul wears out the breast. And the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest." -- Lord Byron
Part One: on LJ on IJ
Part Two: on LJ on IJ
Part Three: on LJ on IJ
Harry wakes in the morning to golden light and the gradual realisation that he is bound and suspended. He is stretched as if on a spider web of rope, just as Lucius is finishing the knot on an artistic wrapping job of Harry's erect cock and balls.
"Good morning," Lucius says cheerily, as if buttering a croissant. He holds up a glittering thing in his fingers—still half-asleep, to Harry it looks like a silver pine needle.
Oh, a needle. Harry is suddenly less sleepy. He finds himself kissed before anything dire happens. And then Lucius says softly, lips brushing lips as he speaks, "You must tell me if it hurts and I shall rub it better."
"A-all right." I asked for this, didn't I... Harry thinks as Lucius steps back. He is fully robed, black and dark blue a contrast to his pale skin and hair. The needle flashes malevolently in the morning sun as Lucius's careful fingers choose a spot on Harry's upper arm to bite. He sets the needle in place and then speaks a quiet charm that drives it under Harry's skin.
It bites, it stings, it sears... he doesn't have a good way to describe it. A sharp pain, he thinks... but of course it is sharp; it's a needle.
Another needle follows that one, and then a third, all in his upper right arm, and he lets out a whimper. Then he remembers what Lucius just said. "It hurts," he says, tears springing to his eyes at the admission.
"I know," Lucius whispers, brushing his lips across Harry's cheek, and then wrapping warm fingers around his cock. He strokes Harry five times, then five more times, and amazingly, it does seem to hurt less. "Now how about the other arm?"
Lucius puts three needles into that arm before stroking Harry again, fifteen strokes this time, and Harry finds the words a balm, too. "Very good, you're doing very well."
And so it goes, as Lucius draws a rustic design in stitches across Harry's chest, spiralling toward his nipples. It is only after looking down at the design for the umpteenth time that Harry suddenly sees the inevitability of the pattern.
"Oh, no," he says, hyperventilating suddenly, "oh, no, please not that."
Lucius looks into his eyes for a moment, solemn and silent. Then he bends and suckles at Harry nipples, one, then the other, and Harry cries out as if he were biting them or piercing them, his senses so confused between pleasure and pain. Lucius sucks each one, worrying the nubs of flesh with the tip of his tongue until they stand out quite eagerly, swollen and pink. Then he faces Harry again. "Please not what?"
But Harry has mastered his moment of cowardice and he closes his eyes. He trembles, but the next thing he feels is Lucius kissing him, a serious kiss, his tongue demanding entrance and his passion demanding pliancy. One hand is stroking steadily at Harry's erection, as well, and when Harry is utterly breathless, Lucius presses his leg between Harry's thighs, touches a needle to each tender nipple, and speaks the charm.
Harry comes so hard he blacks out.
When he comes to, it is just in time to see Lucius wiping away a streak of semen from his cheek. There is some in his hair. Harry finds himself laughing. Lucius' smile comes more slowly, but he says lazily, "Was it good for you?"
Harry laughs harder, shaking the web of rope. "I suppose I can't deny it." Then he gasps as Lucius vanishes the needles, and a new rush of warmth akin to orgasm seems to rush through his body. He throws his head back, eyes shut, a breath caught in his throat.
In another instant, Lucius charms him free of the ropes and he falls limp into his robed arms. Harry feels the gentle descent to the floor, until he is cuddled in Lucius' lap.
"Is this really going to help me beat V-- the Dark Lord?" he asks, head spinning pleasantly as if he'd just drunk two firewhiskeys in a row.
"Who knows?" Lucius says with a grin. "I enjoyed it."
It is only later that it will occur to Harry that before their declaration of allegiance, Lucius would never have tolerated Harry begging for mercy. Any hint of it and whatever it was Harry had flinched from would have been doubled. Something has changed. Or maybe everything has changed. Somehow, until now, Harry hadn't quite realised it.
* * *
When there are two days left until the night of the entertainment, Lucius pulls Harry into bed directly after dinner. His mouth tastes like wine, rich and sweet, and Harry finds himself luxuriating under the sweep of Lucius' robes. He has had some wine himself, directly from Lucius' lips, but it is not the alcohol that makes his head spin. He tries to decide which he likes better, making love with Lucius when they are both naked, or when Lucius keeps his robes on. He cannot decide which one to hope for.
"This is the last time I'll fuck you..." Lucius says, then forestalls Harry's protest with a finger to his lips. "Tomorrow your hole should rest. In fact, I think I shall plug you, to ensure you are readied for Lestrange."
Harry nods, remembering the way Draco had been split open on the dais. He wonders what else Lestrange will do to him. Will he feminise him? At least that won't hurt. Will he use the burning potion? Make him act like a dog? Right now Harry feels confident that he can ride out any pain Lestrange sees fit to dish out. He gasps as Lucius' robes disappear, but his hair still falls all around him, enveloping him.
"I'm going to take you without preparation, Harry," Lucius says then, the words moist in his ear, Lucius's cock lying heavy against his belly like a hot, steel dagger. "Hush, now, hush."
Harry lies still, heart hammering, tense under Lucius's kisses, but trusting that if Lucius splits him open now, it's with good reason. Lucius moves slowly, gradually insinuating himself between Harry's legs, and rubbing his cock against Harry's until they are both harder than hard.
And then begins the gentle probing of Lucius' spongy head at Harry's arsehole, so slow and deliberate. After some time, Harry forgets his fear, and he hears Lucius groan. Lucius is teasing them both, and Harry feels the flesh grow slippery with precome.
It is agonising for them both, Harry realises, this relentless but gradual tease, Lucius' back taut with suppressed energy, as he resists just plunging in. Harry's hands search up and down his arms, his back, his arse, settling on the clenching muscles there. Oh, he wants Lucius inside him, and the pain be damned, but pulling on him does nothing to hurry Lucius along.
Push and push and push, but the head never goes more than partway in, painless and slick but not really what could be considered fucking. Harry tries to relax, to loosen himself with his will, so that Lucius will have no choice but to slip in if he presses just the tiniest bit harder.
And then it begins to feel a lot like fucking, even though Harry knows the whole head isn't penetrating, but it's so close, so close, and he feels how much he opens to take him in each time. He groans and begs with a wordless, needy sound, only to be hushed with a breath. Oh, it is so slick now, Lucius' precome never slackening and painted all over Harry. Lucius slicks his shaft too now as he now begins to alternate each push toward the inside with one gliding stroke up the crevice.
Harry is not sure why at one point he gives in and decides it's too much, he can't take it anymore, and he begins to beg. Begging Lucius to take him, to bury himself in him, to fill up the empty place inside him. Lucius breathes into his ear, whispering that he will when he thinks that Harry will come just from a single penetration. Harry whimpers, pulling at him, but he may was well be pulling on a marble statue. Lucius is immovable except for the never-ending motion of his hips, grinding and grinding, teasing and teasing...
And just when tears spring to Harry's eyes, his desperation has been pushed that far, Lucius wraps his arms around him tight and takes him, fills him with one brutal thrust, and Harry comes in explosive spurts, loosing a night-shattering animal cry. His own orgasm is so strong it is not until his head clears some that he realizes the jerks and twitches of Lucius' own body are from Lucius coming himself, deep inside him and nearly not moving at all as he does.
* * *
The next day, after breakfast, Lucius inserts a steel plug into Harry's anus. He kisses him much before doing it, and coats the slim thing generously with lubricant before slipping it in. Harry sighs with pleasure as it goes in, but Lucius growls unhappily.
"It doesn't feel like much...?" Harry says, curiosity in his voice.
Lucius' grin is wicked. "It will enlarge by the hour until I remove it tomorrow," he says. "And the tighter you clamp down on it, the faster the rate of enlargement."
Harry squeezes experimentally, then gasps as it expands inside him. He blushes suddenly. "I wish..." But says nothing more.
Lucius caresses his cheek. "What is it you wish?"
Harry looks up. "That it was just another one of our games. That you weren't using it because... because bad things are about to happen."
"Eloquently put," Lucius says, and kisses him. "Now let us practice in mime how you will use the knives."
And this, this is torture, Harry thinks, as they go through the motions again and again, of Lucius atop Harry, pretending to fuck him, when actually their hard cocks rub against one another and find no relief.
Harry wonders if he'll come when Rabastan fucks him. Or when Voldemort does. It's silly but he finds himself hoping that he won't.
* * *
That night, they prepare for bed as if nothing is different. Harry brushes out Lucius' hair, hangs his robes, and washes him, gasping once in a while as the charmed plug expands or moves inside him. Lucius is rampant and Harry wonders if he should offer to suck him or what, since his arse is not available by Lucius's own decree.
He is frankly shocked when Lucius puts the jar of lubricant into Harry's hand and tells him to prepare Lucius's own arse for fucking. He talks him gently through the process, teaching Harry step by step what to look for, what to feel for. At last Lucius's hole is supple and gaping and Lucius lovingly strokes Harry's cock with oil. He lies back and beckons Harry into him, and Harry does his best to hold himself up with his hands and thrust first just the tip, then the whole head, and then finally his whole shaft.
He is overwhelmed by the sensation, the plug inside him shifting as he clenches reflexively. He feels Lucius's legs wrap around him, and he does his best to move in the rhythm that Lucius sets, his own groan sounding far away while Lucius's sounds close.
Then he feels a hand tugging at his, and shifts his weight to the other, as Lucius lifts his hand to his hard cock, Harry suddenly flashing back to that night in the blue bedroom, to Lucius putting his hand on his erection, and it being a promise and not a threat, and recognising now that was the moment everything changed.
No sooner has he thought this than Harry begins to come, pulling quickly on Lucius, gratefully releasing the pent spurt of come in the organ, both of them crying out and then falling into soft grunts and groans.
They are falling into sleep when Harry manages one sleepy question, just a single word. "Why?"
Lucius's answer is a kiss, and then, "Because I trust you. Only you."
* * *
Everything goes far too quickly the next day. Breakfast, owls, a light supper, they say little, though Harry enjoys all of Lucius' possessive little touches, as if each one brings him luck, girds him somehow against what will happen tonight.
Lucius washes and prepares Harry himself, using the scented water, brushing his hair and charming it to lie along his neck, removing the plug as the final step. Harry leans over the basin, trying to relax, Lucius's hand stroking his back, the other grasping the plug and pulling it free. Harry cries out a moment later, as how very empty he is sets in, a feeling of loss that is far more about Lucius than it is about the physical bulk that had been in his body. He is still gasping and speechless as Lucius squirts a bit of cold liquid inside him, sets the knife cuffs in place, presses a kiss to his forehead, and envelopes him in his robes, Disapparating them to the Dark Lord's cloister.
They are nearly late, and Harry wonders if that was deliberate, as every eye in the place tracks them as they cross the courtyard to their usual place. Voldemort is already on his throne, pretending to listen to what Bellatrix is saying to him.
Harry tries not to be dismayed by the unpleasant smirk on Rabastan Lestrange's face. And he tries not to laugh out loud when Lucius wipes the smirk away by slapping Lestrange hard with a leather glove.
"You insolent cur. You think I don't know what you've been up to?" Lucius' voice is clear and rings off the stone. All chatter ceases. Harry sinks to his knees at Lucius' side without being prompted, finding himself at eye level with Draco. Draco has a determined gleam in his eye, but Harry does not dare nod to him. "Very well, Rabi, if you're so eager to prove which of us has the bigger stones, I propose a contest. Let's see which of us can land the other's bird first."
Rabastan's eyes flash. This is not quite what they had agreed, and yet the idea excites him. "To penetration, or to orgasm?" he asks, trying to sound suspicious, but he comes off merely eager in Harry's ears.
"To orgasm, of course," Lucius sneers. "If we should tie, then the slave's orgasm would be the tie-breaker."
Rabastan considers a moment, then speaks. "Sounds like a lovely romp you have planned for us, Lucius, but the stakes are not high enough. Are you ready to give up your pretty toy if you lose?"
Harry dares not look up, but he hears the ice in Lucius's voice. "Are you?"
Rabastan laughs. "And if I give you my pretty slut, will you treat her right? We'll all be very disappointed if you keep her locked away like Potter. She needs a cock every day or she'll wither away, you know." His laugh turns cruel and Harry wonders what expression is on Lucius' face now. "No, seriously, I've bound her magically to need semen to live. You should see how she goes at me if I withhold it for a day or two."
Lucius turns to the Dark Lord as if he has not been listening to this last bit. "My Lord," he says, voice perfectly smooth, "would our little contest please you?"
Harry feels something slither down his spine when Voldemort speaks. "Yes, Lucius, yes. You know I do love the spirit of competition."
The next thing Harry knows, he is being pushed toward the dais. He climbs on the stone circle and kneels facing the Dark Lord, trying to keep his face blank. Draco takes the place next to him, and he can feel the edge of someone's robes brushing his back. But is it Rabastan who stands behind him, or Lucius?
"Gentlemen, you may disrobe," says Voldemort, and Harry hears the sound of cloth rustling, belt buckles clacking. He feels magic rising around him and knows they are trapped upon the dais. "You have one minute to ready yourselves."
Harry then hears the distinct wet and rhythmic sound of wanking. A hungry groan behind him confirms his suspicion that Rabastan is the one there.
"And now, begin."
He tries to turn at the command, but Rabastan is atop him before he can complete the motion, bearing him to the stone floor. Harry's head knocks painfully against the stone, but he frantically twists his hips away from Lestrange's cock and manages to wriggle free completely.
He crouches, facing his opponent, caught up in the fight, trying his best not to let Lestrange defeat him, or Lucius. Instinct takes over and he goes down again, scratching and clawing, catching Rabastan in the stomach with a luckily placed kick. He can hear Voldemort laughing, and he doesn't want to be amusing, but then at least it is Rabastan who is getting laughed at.
Lestrange growls and launches another attack, this time catching Harry in the side of the head with his elbow—too late Harry realises the hit was deliberate, and in his moment of vertigo loses the advantage of position, as Lestrange grabs him from behind, one arm around his neck, the other bending his arm back. He feels the hot, hard cock against his tailbone and finds it does not matter whether he draws his legs under him or not, his anus is exposed.
Still, he fights. He cannot just let Lestrange rape him, even though a voice in the back of his head is screaming at him that that is exactly what he is supposed to do. Lestrange, then the Dark Lord, remember? It might not even hurt that much. Lucius has stretched him, lubed him...
Made it all too easy for Lestrange to take him? No. The doubt flickers only for a moment and then Harry laughs, twisting this way and that. Lestrange tightens his grip and Harry sees stars and black spots before his eyes. Lestrange could choke him to unconsciousness and then rape him and still win, Harry realises. And if he is knocked out when Voldemort takes his turn, he will have lost his chance. But he cannot give in. He cannot.
He looks up suddenly, they all do, as a bloodcurdling scream seems to freeze the air and then suddenly cease. It is Draco, or was, as Lucius's cock finds its target only a few moments before father's hand clamps tight over son's mouth. As Harry sees Lucius's hips moving in unmistakable rhythm, he finds the fight suddenly goes out of him.
A moment later, Rabastan's cock breaches him, and then Harry is doing all he can to just lie there and take it. His fingers scrabble at the stone, trying to protect his face, as Lestrange's thrusts scrape him across the dais. At least it should be over with quickly, he thinks. It is a race, after all. Perhaps Lucius had that in mind when he planned this. The sounds of fucking seem to echo off the shield charms that enclose the dais. Harry feels slightly sick, telling himself that the slick motion of Rabastan's cock inside him feels nothing like Lucius, nothing good at all... his stomach turns, but he holds himself together.
Harry looks up again, Lucius just close enough on the dais that he can see the halo of his hair in the bright light from above, the feral expression on his face as he lets loose a bellow that Harry knows means he is coming. Lucius pulls out, stroking a few triumphant pearly spurts into the air as he rears back on his knees. Harry sees the drops fall upon Draco's stomach, then shuts his eyes as Draco, making an urgent keening sound, scrambles to all fours to attach his lips to his father's cock. The last thing he sees is Lucius stroking Draco's hair lovingly.
Rabastan's hands grab handfuls of Harry's hair then, ramming his head once more against the stone. He has not stopped fucking even though he has lost the race. And it suddenly dawns on Harry that he is facing the wrong way to attack with the knives. Now what?
All he can do for the moment is take what Rabastan dishes out. He tries to get his knees under him, to push back into the penetration, to try to speed things along, but Rabastan is having none of it, cuffing him hard on the ear when he tries.
Then he hears Lucius' voice from above them. "It was a bad bet to take, Rabi," he says, clucking his tongue. "Everyone knows you always take an hour to come. Perhaps you need a little more stimulation?"
Harry's stomach flips as he feels the levitation spell, and quite suddenly he is on his back, atop Lestrange with the other man's cock still deep in him. Rabastan makes a choking noise and Harry wonders what spell Lucius is using on him.
But then Harry's attention is on Lucius, his pale skin flushed with anger and lust, as he kneels between Harry's splayed legs, stroking his erection. Harry never has found out how it is that Lucius gets hard again so quickly. "Here you go, Rabi," Lucius says, as he presses the head of his cock against Harry's already filled hole. "A bit of frottage ought to help you along. I'll rub my cock on yours until you come. Inside Potter."
And then Harry cannot help but cry out, as Lucius' cock forces its way inside him. The first thrust is slow, and that is the closest thing to mercy he receives, as the second one is not. Lucius fucks like it's his vengeance, like his cock is the sword with which he stabs his enemies again and again and again. And Harry has a sudden moment of doubt, a sudden moment of is this what I've been waiting for all this time? Has he been nothing more than a tool to get Draco back? All along he expected Lucius to take him, to rape him, to...
He looks up at Lucius' bare throat, though, and realises with a sudden flash that this is why Lucius wouldn't fuck him until Harry trusted him. Because if Harry didn't trust him, he'd kill Lucius when he had the chance. Because Lucius had to trust Harry back.
He reaches not for the knives, but for his own cock, stroking it in time with Lucius' brutal thrusts, the only way he can think of to tell Lucius that he is still with him, and he hears Lucius hiss "yes."
Harry comes first, seeing stars and nearly losing consciousness, his body's spasms sending Lucius over the edge, too, with another bellow. Lucius pulls free quickly and Harry can barely feel Lestrange's cock still inside him. All he feels is wet and slimy and loose, but he can hear the man whimpering under him.
"My Lord," Lucius is saying. "Your humble servant Rabastan could use your assistance, I think."
Harry steels himself, panting hard but barely able to move in post-orgasmic bliss. And then the Dark Lord is there, staring down at him and stroking his cock eagerly. Harry swallows, seeing the size of Voldemort's prick. It is oddly misshapen, almost wide and flat rather than more cylindrical, but Harry cannot see any way around what is coming next. "I see the rumours are true, Lucius," Voldemort says, "that you have trained the Chosen One to crave sexual use."
"Yes, my lord," Lucius says with a bow. "Forcing myself on him earlier would have only reinforced him in his resistance. Instead, it has been a gradual seduction, a gradual moulding to my gratification. You saw him grasp his own cock; he could not help himself."
Harry's blood runs cold as he realises everything Lucius says is true.
Voldemort's smile is equally chilling. "And he is not multi-orgasmic, is he?" Almost as chilling as the fact that Voldemort holds his wand in his hand as he kneels between Harry's limp legs. That was not in the plan.
If Lucius is distressed by this fact, his voice does not betray it. "No, my lord. His pleasure is done now."
"Excellent. I would not want him to enjoy this part, of course." And with that, the Dark Lord pushes his too-large cock into the still-occupied hole. Harry clenches his teeth. "Ah, Harry Potter, such a singular pleasure this is. I am disappointed you did not scream when I penetrated you. No matter. Crucio."
And Harry's world explodes into agony. He screams, of course he screams, as he writhes and jerks and there is so much pain he cannot tell how ruined his body is becoming. When the curse ends, though, he finds the pain of the penetration sharper, as if there are knives inside him and not cocks. He has a feeling he is bleeding, not because of the wetness, but because of the grey edges to his vision. Rabastan is whimpering under him, and he wonders if the Death Eater was caught in the curse, too, or if it's a more sexual sound. It could be the sound of a man held too long on the edge of orgasm but denied release, but Harry cannot tell.
Harry wonders if Rabastan will kill him when he strikes with the knives. Or if Voldemort will, just a quick Avada Kedavra. And if Voldemort will fuck his corpse, then. At least Lucius will have Draco back, Harry thinks. And Lucius will be restored to a place of power with the Death Eaters.
And for a third time, doubt flutters up. He closes his eyes as Voldemort's cock moves inside him like a gristly bone, tearing at him like an ogre's club. Was this what Lucius planned all along? If Harry makes the attempt, Voldemort will surely kill him, and Lucius will have everything he wanted, his son returned safe, his position secure with his rival humiliated, and Harry himself out of the picture...?
There is a moment when it seems as if it must be true, as if the entire long mind game must have been coming to this.
But then Harry remembers their final night together, and Lucius' final act of trust, reversing their positions, teaching Harry how to be the active rather than receptive partner. There's still something that doesn't add up, but it isn't Lucius betraying him for his own interests. Harry won't believe that.
He does not even open his eyes now, keeping them closed against the darkening of his vision. He just feels the predictable rhythm of the Dark Lord's penetration, and waits for his moment, praying that he does not die or lose consciousness before he gets his chance. Voldemort's hips begin to snap forward faster, and although the agony sharpens, Harry concentrates instead on his own breathing, on the slow rise of his hands, so slow--too slow? is he slipping away into death after all?--and then with a final burst of strength he brings himself to the one moment he has anticipated for so very long, driving both knives into the soft flesh behind Voldemort's ears.
And under him Rabastan Lestrange cries out, not in dismay over his lord's demise, but because he is coming, finally.
And then someone else screams, Bellatrix by the pitch of the voice, and Harry finds his head knocked against the stone one final time as the struggle ensues between Lestrange and Lucius. He can smell the hexes in the air as he slips down into darkness where there is no pain.
* * *
He is lying face down, alone in the silence. He is not sure how he knows he is alone, but he is. Alone and naked, and lying on some flat surface, not at all like the stone he is expecting. Since he can feel the surface, he decides he exists, and can feel, and maybe he can even see. He opens his eyes and finds himself in a world of formless mist.
No sooner does he consider the mist and where he must be, when it appears he is somewhere, with a high domed ceiling of glass, like a shopping mall, or perhaps a train station. With a start he realizes he is not, in fact, alone, and that a small, flayed looking creature no bigger than a house elf is clinging to his leg. He shakes himself free of it and makes a disgusted noise.
"Well, at least that is taken care of," comes a sardonic voice, and he whirls around to find Severus Snape standing there, applauding slowly.
"Snape?" Harry says, incredulous. "I'd heard you'd been killed."
"And what, Mr. Potter, about waking up in a formless void makes you think you have not been?"
"Er, well..." Harry notices that Snape is in his usual black robes and suddenly wishes for some of his own. He is startled to see some exactly like the ones he used to wear at Hogwarts appear a few feet away, and he pulls them on hastily, feeling rather like he is about to be served detention. "Um, care to explain?"
Snape sighs. "Not really, but Dumbledore left me to take care of loose ends, so I suppose I may as well. I was working for him all along."
Harry swears, then kicks at the flayed thing, which is trying to grab onto him again. He listens through Snape's explanations, about the cursed ring, and pledging himself to help the Order in remorse over Harry's mother's death, and about how everything was more or less going according to Dumbledore's plan until, well, until it all went wrong.
Harry blinks at the end of Snape's lecture, his head spinning. "And this is it? I'm dead? But what happened? Is Voldemort dead, too?"
Snape fairly snarls. "Yes, he's dead. That's what's left of him there." Snape grabs the flayed thing out of the mist and holds it up by the neck. He begins to recede into the whiteness even though his feet are not moving. "I'll make sure even this bit won't be going back again this time. Whereas you, of course, have a loophole. Because you're Harry bloody Potter and you always do."
"A loophole? What?"
Snape's voice seems to be coming from farther and farther away. "Because someone loves you more than they love themselves."
"What?"
"Goodbye, Potter."
* * *
Harry wakes face down again, this time on the familiar stone. There is the sickening smell of burnt flesh and hair in the air, and he can taste blood in his mouth.
He can hear Draco's voice somewhere above him, more nasal and high than Lucius, but no less commanding. "Rodolphus, you have a choice. Throw down your wand or break it under Imperius."
"But my brother..."
"Shut up, you snivelling cur. You were there when he came to the Manor and challenged my father. Can you deny it?"
"No. No, I cannot."
Harry hears the sound of a wand clattering to the stone.
"Then on your knees. All of you."
There is the sound of robes rustling as the assembled Death Eaters do as he commands. Harry wonders where Lucius is.
"Mother, please check that the Chosen One is well and truly dead this time? As you know, I put no stock in prophecies."
Harry feels Narcissa's hand on his back, her fingers slip around his neck as if searching for a pulse. "He is gone," she says.
"Very good," Draco says, his voice rough but forceful. He tries to open his eyes, makes out only a dim outline of Draco holding a wand up in front of him. "I claim the body for my own, as well. Take it back to the Manor, if you please."
Harry feels himself being lifted, as Narcissa takes hold of him and Disapparates them, Harry's stomach and head lurching sickeningly into the spell.
* * *
When Harry comes to he looks around and his first thought is that the room is familiar. Then he places it, the blue bedroom. And in the next moment everything comes flooding back, Lucius, Draco, the Dark Lord... he sits up hurriedly and regrets it, the world seeming to spin and the non-existent contents of his stomach coming up as he heaves with nausea.
Draco's voice comes from a few feet away. "Lie still. You've taken a few too many blows to the head. I'm amazed you're awake."
Harry feels a cool hand on his brow, then, and he looks up to see the younger Malfoy, hair cut almost brutally short, in very proper-looking full robes, wand in one hand and a pair of gloves held in the other. Malfoy sets the gloves down and twitches the wand impatiently over Harry. He clucks his tongue. "Nothing to do but wait, I'm afraid."
Harry hears the words for a sleeping spell as the door opens. He struggles to stay awake, thinking for a moment it must be Lucius who comes through the door, but at the last moment before he slips under the spell, he realises it is Narcissa, closing the door behind her. But he is asleep before he can say anything to her.
The next time he opens his eyes, he is alone in the room. It appears to be early morning, if he remembers what morning looks like in there, the sun bright but not yet shining on this side of the manor.
There are clothes folded on a chair near the bed. He blinks at them. He can make out a folded white shirt with starched collar and buttons. And atop that something he has not seen in many many months, which is a pair of glasses. That seems to indicate beyond any doubt that the clothes are for him, and that his tenure as Lucius's property is over.
He swallows. Of course. He cannot very well go down to breakfast with the Malfoy family and beg naked for treats at Lucius's feet like a dog, can he? The feeling of dislocation is as painful and disorienting as the concussion. If he did not imagine what he heard, then Draco Malfoy is the new Dark Lord. What, then, is Harry? The other Death Eaters believe him dead. And what the hell did Snape mean about someone loving him more than himself?
And who would have thought that Severus Snape was a good guy all along? Harry's head is already spinning with disbelief. Maybe the entire thing was a hallucination.
And where is Lucius, anyway? Harry blinks.
No. No.
A creeping shiver makes its way down his spine, but he forcibly sets aside any thought but that Lucius must be busy. Or, injured? Maybe injured in the fight. Perhaps it is Harry who should try to go see him.
He sits up slowly, makes his way carefully to the chair, and tries on the glasses. He'd never noticed the subtle pattern in the wallpaper before. He fingers the collar of the shirt, but cannot bring himself to put it on. He's not ready to accept that it's over, whatever "it" is. If Lucius tells him to get dressed, then he will, but not before.
He tries the door and finds it opens to his touch. He pads in bare feet along the carpeted corridor, but he hears the voices as they come up the wide staircase.
"Who is going to know? Mother, honestly, you don't know what it's been like here while you were gone."
"As if that should matter to me?"
Harry hurries back into the room, sets the glasses atop the clothes, and quickly feigns sleep under the covers.
Narcissa is still talking as she opens the door. "No, Draco. We'll hire you someone if that's what you need. Mr. Potter has been molested enough, as have you." Her voice is so motherly, so matter-of-fact, it nearly makes Harry smile, as if she were scolding her son over a school prank, and not sexual abuse.
"You didn't see what they were doing, Father and Potter..."
"Draco!" her voice cracks sharply like a whip. "I know perfectly well the extremes to which your father was capable of going. But I will not have you perpetuate the perversion or the violence. We owe Potter our lives. I did not preserve him from the horde so that you could degenerate into a power-mad sadist yourself."
Draco's voice is soft. "I wouldn't be cruel to him. He'd always get to come, after all..."
"Enough! No more talk about the subject. If I'd known you were going to send them all to Azkaban, I wouldn't have bothered with the ruse and I would have left him at St. Mungo's instead of bringing him here." Harry hears the rustle of Narcissa's robes, feels the tingle of a few spells. "Now come along. You need your own wand, so let us go and get you a new one without delay. We may have to go elsewhere than Ollivander and I want to be here if he wakes."
There is silence for a moment, though. Then Draco speaks. "Perhaps we should send him to St. Mungo's."
Narcissa sighs. "Maybe later. For now, let everyone think he's dead. After all, if he returns from the dead, well, everyone will just think that's Harry Potter for you."
After they leave, Harry tries to count to one hundred before getting up, but his thoughts keep returning to things Draco and Narcissa said. Does Harry belong to Draco now? Or would he, if his mother would allow it? And Draco apparently sent all the Death Eaters to Azkaban? Does that make him a hero, or just the head of a different type of coup?
What about Lucius?
Harry finds his heart hammering in sudden fear, the suppressed thoughts breaking free. No. He can't be dead...
Harry moves carefully out of the room, trying not to jar his own tender head. Still naked, he tiptoes toward Lucius' bedroom. Surely if he were sick or injured, that's where the man would be, right?
The door is open. For a moment, Harry's breath catches in his throat, his chest squeezing painfully as he sees Lucius is atop the coverlet, covered only by a thin sheet, his face as pale as a corpse. But when he touches his fingers to Lucius' neck, he can feel a weak pulse fluttering there.
Not dead. Harry lets out a breath. The side table is littered with potions bottles, most of them empty, some of them on their sides atop the Daily Prophet. He can't quite make out the headline between all the bottles, but if he supposes his own name is the part that has the P, and the V is for Voldemort, then the other words he can see are probably "vanquished" and "sacrificed."
It should just say "The End," Harry thinks. All done now.
He takes one of Lucius's hands in his, rubs his cheek against it. "I think... I think I'm in love with you. Please wake up."
The sound of a door slamming somewhere in the Manor startles him, and he lets Lucius's hand go. He hurries back into the corridor, hides in a niche as a wizard in Healer's robes goes into Lucius's room. After several minutes he does not emerge, and Harry slips back to his own room to think about things.
What if it wasn't Lucius that Snape was talking about? What if Harry's reprieve from the afterlife was Hermione or Ron's doing? or Ginny's?
He hasn't thought about Ginny in... months, he realises. He doesn't even know if she's alive. Meanwhile, everyone in the wizarding world thinks him dead.
His thoughts move quickly back to Lucius. If Lucius wakes up, if he doesn't wake up... Harry cannot imagine what will happen either way. Exhaustion eventually claims him and he sleeps again.
He wakes some hours later, in darkness. It is night then, a moonless night. He listens but hears nothing. Perhaps the whole household is asleep? He hopes so. The Manor is so vast that Draco could be playing midnight Quidditch in the ballroom and he'd never hear it from here, but...
He slips from the room anyway, ignoring the pile of clothing still sitting folded neatly on a chair, leaving even the glasses behind.
As he makes his way toward Lucius' room, he can see the light cutting a stripe across the corridor. And he hears the crying before he even recognizes the voice as Lucius's, great sobs of pain and grief that tear at Harry's own heart.
He runs the last few yards to the doorway and then stands there, his own shocked expression matching the one on Lucius's face. He has never seen Lucius cry.
"But you're dead," Lucius says, wide-eyed, the much-stained newspaper on his lap atop the bedclothes. But disbelief is giving way to hope on his face as Harry moves slowly toward him, staring into Lucius's eyes the entire time.
"Apparently not," Harry says softly, unable to explain that perhaps he actually was dead, for a time, before he returned. He takes Lucius's hand in his. "Narcissa lied to the Death Eaters to protect me."
Lucius seems to weigh what Harry has said, and not said. "Those that were still alive, that is."
Harry chews his lip.
Lucius states it plainly. "Will you send me to join them for killling Rabastan Lestrange? After all, they were all witnesses. And the Ministry may want more blood."
Harry feels a moment of vertigo, a sudden flashback to Rabastan under him, the Dark Lord above him – both of them inside him – making his knees weak. He shakes his head. "I won't let them take you. Even if I have to come back from the dead to do it."
"Likewise," Lucius says, and lifts up the bedclothes, inviting Harry in. The ravages and aches in Harry's body seem to fade away as he breathes deeply of the scent of Lucius' skin. His mouth seeks out a kiss, and he finds Lucius's tongue and lips seeking back, more tender and careful than he's ever known him to be. But the flavour under it all is Lucius, sweat and smoke unchanged. He wants to ask, what happens now? What about Draco and Narcissa? What about everyone else? But Lucius's hands are mapping his skin, sparking hunger in Harry's belly. Lucius hushes him, pulling him close, running his palms softly over Harry's arse. "Tomorrow," he breathes, as if in answer to all Harry's unspoken questions, or maybe just the one that is rising wordlessly between Harry's legs. "You need another day to heal."
Harry's hand finds Lucius' cock hard and eager, but Lucius murmurs again, "Tomorrow. We need to rest. Let us lie down like we used to."
They settle spoonwise, with Lucius' cock between Harry's thighs, the bedcovers pulled up to their chins. Harry thinks they'll never get to sleep, but he is wrong. Lucius falls first into an exhausted, heavy slumber, and Harry finds himself drifting soon after, worn out, yet never having felt better.
-end!-
There are also the author's notes and a follow-up fic, retelling from Draco's POV: Draco's Balance.
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
Pairing: Lucius/Harry (with some other side pairings that I won't list for fear of spoilers)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Consensual sex, nonconsensual sex, and dubious consent (yes, all three). Rape, sexual slavery, piercing, whipping, bondage, blood, forced exhibitionism, double penetration, first time.
Summary: Harry Potter never escaped Malfoy Manor after being brought there by the snatchers (though Ron, Hermione, and the rest did, taking Draco with them). Without Harry there, the Battle of Hogwarts went quite differently, and now, after several months as Lucius Malfoy's personal pet, Harry's mind, body, and soul are quite different than they were as a schoolboy. He clings to his prophesied purpose, though, and knows he must stay alive to have a chance to fulfill it.
Disclaimer: Non-commercial fanfic.
A/N: Thanks to
clauclauclaudia and strickens_girl for beta-reading! The needles are there as a tribute to Sanguine, a Serpent Knotted Sable by Amanuensis, the granddaddy of all Lucius/Harry fics. Originally written for HP Darkfest.Prompt:
"For the sword outwears its sheath, and the soul wears out the breast. And the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest." -- Lord Byron
Part One: on LJ on IJ
Part Two: on LJ on IJ
Part Three: on LJ on IJ
Harry wakes in the morning to golden light and the gradual realisation that he is bound and suspended. He is stretched as if on a spider web of rope, just as Lucius is finishing the knot on an artistic wrapping job of Harry's erect cock and balls.
"Good morning," Lucius says cheerily, as if buttering a croissant. He holds up a glittering thing in his fingers—still half-asleep, to Harry it looks like a silver pine needle.
Oh, a needle. Harry is suddenly less sleepy. He finds himself kissed before anything dire happens. And then Lucius says softly, lips brushing lips as he speaks, "You must tell me if it hurts and I shall rub it better."
"A-all right." I asked for this, didn't I... Harry thinks as Lucius steps back. He is fully robed, black and dark blue a contrast to his pale skin and hair. The needle flashes malevolently in the morning sun as Lucius's careful fingers choose a spot on Harry's upper arm to bite. He sets the needle in place and then speaks a quiet charm that drives it under Harry's skin.
It bites, it stings, it sears... he doesn't have a good way to describe it. A sharp pain, he thinks... but of course it is sharp; it's a needle.
Another needle follows that one, and then a third, all in his upper right arm, and he lets out a whimper. Then he remembers what Lucius just said. "It hurts," he says, tears springing to his eyes at the admission.
"I know," Lucius whispers, brushing his lips across Harry's cheek, and then wrapping warm fingers around his cock. He strokes Harry five times, then five more times, and amazingly, it does seem to hurt less. "Now how about the other arm?"
Lucius puts three needles into that arm before stroking Harry again, fifteen strokes this time, and Harry finds the words a balm, too. "Very good, you're doing very well."
And so it goes, as Lucius draws a rustic design in stitches across Harry's chest, spiralling toward his nipples. It is only after looking down at the design for the umpteenth time that Harry suddenly sees the inevitability of the pattern.
"Oh, no," he says, hyperventilating suddenly, "oh, no, please not that."
Lucius looks into his eyes for a moment, solemn and silent. Then he bends and suckles at Harry nipples, one, then the other, and Harry cries out as if he were biting them or piercing them, his senses so confused between pleasure and pain. Lucius sucks each one, worrying the nubs of flesh with the tip of his tongue until they stand out quite eagerly, swollen and pink. Then he faces Harry again. "Please not what?"
But Harry has mastered his moment of cowardice and he closes his eyes. He trembles, but the next thing he feels is Lucius kissing him, a serious kiss, his tongue demanding entrance and his passion demanding pliancy. One hand is stroking steadily at Harry's erection, as well, and when Harry is utterly breathless, Lucius presses his leg between Harry's thighs, touches a needle to each tender nipple, and speaks the charm.
Harry comes so hard he blacks out.
When he comes to, it is just in time to see Lucius wiping away a streak of semen from his cheek. There is some in his hair. Harry finds himself laughing. Lucius' smile comes more slowly, but he says lazily, "Was it good for you?"
Harry laughs harder, shaking the web of rope. "I suppose I can't deny it." Then he gasps as Lucius vanishes the needles, and a new rush of warmth akin to orgasm seems to rush through his body. He throws his head back, eyes shut, a breath caught in his throat.
In another instant, Lucius charms him free of the ropes and he falls limp into his robed arms. Harry feels the gentle descent to the floor, until he is cuddled in Lucius' lap.
"Is this really going to help me beat V-- the Dark Lord?" he asks, head spinning pleasantly as if he'd just drunk two firewhiskeys in a row.
"Who knows?" Lucius says with a grin. "I enjoyed it."
It is only later that it will occur to Harry that before their declaration of allegiance, Lucius would never have tolerated Harry begging for mercy. Any hint of it and whatever it was Harry had flinched from would have been doubled. Something has changed. Or maybe everything has changed. Somehow, until now, Harry hadn't quite realised it.
* * *
When there are two days left until the night of the entertainment, Lucius pulls Harry into bed directly after dinner. His mouth tastes like wine, rich and sweet, and Harry finds himself luxuriating under the sweep of Lucius' robes. He has had some wine himself, directly from Lucius' lips, but it is not the alcohol that makes his head spin. He tries to decide which he likes better, making love with Lucius when they are both naked, or when Lucius keeps his robes on. He cannot decide which one to hope for.
"This is the last time I'll fuck you..." Lucius says, then forestalls Harry's protest with a finger to his lips. "Tomorrow your hole should rest. In fact, I think I shall plug you, to ensure you are readied for Lestrange."
Harry nods, remembering the way Draco had been split open on the dais. He wonders what else Lestrange will do to him. Will he feminise him? At least that won't hurt. Will he use the burning potion? Make him act like a dog? Right now Harry feels confident that he can ride out any pain Lestrange sees fit to dish out. He gasps as Lucius' robes disappear, but his hair still falls all around him, enveloping him.
"I'm going to take you without preparation, Harry," Lucius says then, the words moist in his ear, Lucius's cock lying heavy against his belly like a hot, steel dagger. "Hush, now, hush."
Harry lies still, heart hammering, tense under Lucius's kisses, but trusting that if Lucius splits him open now, it's with good reason. Lucius moves slowly, gradually insinuating himself between Harry's legs, and rubbing his cock against Harry's until they are both harder than hard.
And then begins the gentle probing of Lucius' spongy head at Harry's arsehole, so slow and deliberate. After some time, Harry forgets his fear, and he hears Lucius groan. Lucius is teasing them both, and Harry feels the flesh grow slippery with precome.
It is agonising for them both, Harry realises, this relentless but gradual tease, Lucius' back taut with suppressed energy, as he resists just plunging in. Harry's hands search up and down his arms, his back, his arse, settling on the clenching muscles there. Oh, he wants Lucius inside him, and the pain be damned, but pulling on him does nothing to hurry Lucius along.
Push and push and push, but the head never goes more than partway in, painless and slick but not really what could be considered fucking. Harry tries to relax, to loosen himself with his will, so that Lucius will have no choice but to slip in if he presses just the tiniest bit harder.
And then it begins to feel a lot like fucking, even though Harry knows the whole head isn't penetrating, but it's so close, so close, and he feels how much he opens to take him in each time. He groans and begs with a wordless, needy sound, only to be hushed with a breath. Oh, it is so slick now, Lucius' precome never slackening and painted all over Harry. Lucius slicks his shaft too now as he now begins to alternate each push toward the inside with one gliding stroke up the crevice.
Harry is not sure why at one point he gives in and decides it's too much, he can't take it anymore, and he begins to beg. Begging Lucius to take him, to bury himself in him, to fill up the empty place inside him. Lucius breathes into his ear, whispering that he will when he thinks that Harry will come just from a single penetration. Harry whimpers, pulling at him, but he may was well be pulling on a marble statue. Lucius is immovable except for the never-ending motion of his hips, grinding and grinding, teasing and teasing...
And just when tears spring to Harry's eyes, his desperation has been pushed that far, Lucius wraps his arms around him tight and takes him, fills him with one brutal thrust, and Harry comes in explosive spurts, loosing a night-shattering animal cry. His own orgasm is so strong it is not until his head clears some that he realizes the jerks and twitches of Lucius' own body are from Lucius coming himself, deep inside him and nearly not moving at all as he does.
* * *
The next day, after breakfast, Lucius inserts a steel plug into Harry's anus. He kisses him much before doing it, and coats the slim thing generously with lubricant before slipping it in. Harry sighs with pleasure as it goes in, but Lucius growls unhappily.
"It doesn't feel like much...?" Harry says, curiosity in his voice.
Lucius' grin is wicked. "It will enlarge by the hour until I remove it tomorrow," he says. "And the tighter you clamp down on it, the faster the rate of enlargement."
Harry squeezes experimentally, then gasps as it expands inside him. He blushes suddenly. "I wish..." But says nothing more.
Lucius caresses his cheek. "What is it you wish?"
Harry looks up. "That it was just another one of our games. That you weren't using it because... because bad things are about to happen."
"Eloquently put," Lucius says, and kisses him. "Now let us practice in mime how you will use the knives."
And this, this is torture, Harry thinks, as they go through the motions again and again, of Lucius atop Harry, pretending to fuck him, when actually their hard cocks rub against one another and find no relief.
Harry wonders if he'll come when Rabastan fucks him. Or when Voldemort does. It's silly but he finds himself hoping that he won't.
* * *
That night, they prepare for bed as if nothing is different. Harry brushes out Lucius' hair, hangs his robes, and washes him, gasping once in a while as the charmed plug expands or moves inside him. Lucius is rampant and Harry wonders if he should offer to suck him or what, since his arse is not available by Lucius's own decree.
He is frankly shocked when Lucius puts the jar of lubricant into Harry's hand and tells him to prepare Lucius's own arse for fucking. He talks him gently through the process, teaching Harry step by step what to look for, what to feel for. At last Lucius's hole is supple and gaping and Lucius lovingly strokes Harry's cock with oil. He lies back and beckons Harry into him, and Harry does his best to hold himself up with his hands and thrust first just the tip, then the whole head, and then finally his whole shaft.
He is overwhelmed by the sensation, the plug inside him shifting as he clenches reflexively. He feels Lucius's legs wrap around him, and he does his best to move in the rhythm that Lucius sets, his own groan sounding far away while Lucius's sounds close.
Then he feels a hand tugging at his, and shifts his weight to the other, as Lucius lifts his hand to his hard cock, Harry suddenly flashing back to that night in the blue bedroom, to Lucius putting his hand on his erection, and it being a promise and not a threat, and recognising now that was the moment everything changed.
No sooner has he thought this than Harry begins to come, pulling quickly on Lucius, gratefully releasing the pent spurt of come in the organ, both of them crying out and then falling into soft grunts and groans.
They are falling into sleep when Harry manages one sleepy question, just a single word. "Why?"
Lucius's answer is a kiss, and then, "Because I trust you. Only you."
* * *
Everything goes far too quickly the next day. Breakfast, owls, a light supper, they say little, though Harry enjoys all of Lucius' possessive little touches, as if each one brings him luck, girds him somehow against what will happen tonight.
Lucius washes and prepares Harry himself, using the scented water, brushing his hair and charming it to lie along his neck, removing the plug as the final step. Harry leans over the basin, trying to relax, Lucius's hand stroking his back, the other grasping the plug and pulling it free. Harry cries out a moment later, as how very empty he is sets in, a feeling of loss that is far more about Lucius than it is about the physical bulk that had been in his body. He is still gasping and speechless as Lucius squirts a bit of cold liquid inside him, sets the knife cuffs in place, presses a kiss to his forehead, and envelopes him in his robes, Disapparating them to the Dark Lord's cloister.
They are nearly late, and Harry wonders if that was deliberate, as every eye in the place tracks them as they cross the courtyard to their usual place. Voldemort is already on his throne, pretending to listen to what Bellatrix is saying to him.
Harry tries not to be dismayed by the unpleasant smirk on Rabastan Lestrange's face. And he tries not to laugh out loud when Lucius wipes the smirk away by slapping Lestrange hard with a leather glove.
"You insolent cur. You think I don't know what you've been up to?" Lucius' voice is clear and rings off the stone. All chatter ceases. Harry sinks to his knees at Lucius' side without being prompted, finding himself at eye level with Draco. Draco has a determined gleam in his eye, but Harry does not dare nod to him. "Very well, Rabi, if you're so eager to prove which of us has the bigger stones, I propose a contest. Let's see which of us can land the other's bird first."
Rabastan's eyes flash. This is not quite what they had agreed, and yet the idea excites him. "To penetration, or to orgasm?" he asks, trying to sound suspicious, but he comes off merely eager in Harry's ears.
"To orgasm, of course," Lucius sneers. "If we should tie, then the slave's orgasm would be the tie-breaker."
Rabastan considers a moment, then speaks. "Sounds like a lovely romp you have planned for us, Lucius, but the stakes are not high enough. Are you ready to give up your pretty toy if you lose?"
Harry dares not look up, but he hears the ice in Lucius's voice. "Are you?"
Rabastan laughs. "And if I give you my pretty slut, will you treat her right? We'll all be very disappointed if you keep her locked away like Potter. She needs a cock every day or she'll wither away, you know." His laugh turns cruel and Harry wonders what expression is on Lucius' face now. "No, seriously, I've bound her magically to need semen to live. You should see how she goes at me if I withhold it for a day or two."
Lucius turns to the Dark Lord as if he has not been listening to this last bit. "My Lord," he says, voice perfectly smooth, "would our little contest please you?"
Harry feels something slither down his spine when Voldemort speaks. "Yes, Lucius, yes. You know I do love the spirit of competition."
The next thing Harry knows, he is being pushed toward the dais. He climbs on the stone circle and kneels facing the Dark Lord, trying to keep his face blank. Draco takes the place next to him, and he can feel the edge of someone's robes brushing his back. But is it Rabastan who stands behind him, or Lucius?
"Gentlemen, you may disrobe," says Voldemort, and Harry hears the sound of cloth rustling, belt buckles clacking. He feels magic rising around him and knows they are trapped upon the dais. "You have one minute to ready yourselves."
Harry then hears the distinct wet and rhythmic sound of wanking. A hungry groan behind him confirms his suspicion that Rabastan is the one there.
"And now, begin."
He tries to turn at the command, but Rabastan is atop him before he can complete the motion, bearing him to the stone floor. Harry's head knocks painfully against the stone, but he frantically twists his hips away from Lestrange's cock and manages to wriggle free completely.
He crouches, facing his opponent, caught up in the fight, trying his best not to let Lestrange defeat him, or Lucius. Instinct takes over and he goes down again, scratching and clawing, catching Rabastan in the stomach with a luckily placed kick. He can hear Voldemort laughing, and he doesn't want to be amusing, but then at least it is Rabastan who is getting laughed at.
Lestrange growls and launches another attack, this time catching Harry in the side of the head with his elbow—too late Harry realises the hit was deliberate, and in his moment of vertigo loses the advantage of position, as Lestrange grabs him from behind, one arm around his neck, the other bending his arm back. He feels the hot, hard cock against his tailbone and finds it does not matter whether he draws his legs under him or not, his anus is exposed.
Still, he fights. He cannot just let Lestrange rape him, even though a voice in the back of his head is screaming at him that that is exactly what he is supposed to do. Lestrange, then the Dark Lord, remember? It might not even hurt that much. Lucius has stretched him, lubed him...
Made it all too easy for Lestrange to take him? No. The doubt flickers only for a moment and then Harry laughs, twisting this way and that. Lestrange tightens his grip and Harry sees stars and black spots before his eyes. Lestrange could choke him to unconsciousness and then rape him and still win, Harry realises. And if he is knocked out when Voldemort takes his turn, he will have lost his chance. But he cannot give in. He cannot.
He looks up suddenly, they all do, as a bloodcurdling scream seems to freeze the air and then suddenly cease. It is Draco, or was, as Lucius's cock finds its target only a few moments before father's hand clamps tight over son's mouth. As Harry sees Lucius's hips moving in unmistakable rhythm, he finds the fight suddenly goes out of him.
A moment later, Rabastan's cock breaches him, and then Harry is doing all he can to just lie there and take it. His fingers scrabble at the stone, trying to protect his face, as Lestrange's thrusts scrape him across the dais. At least it should be over with quickly, he thinks. It is a race, after all. Perhaps Lucius had that in mind when he planned this. The sounds of fucking seem to echo off the shield charms that enclose the dais. Harry feels slightly sick, telling himself that the slick motion of Rabastan's cock inside him feels nothing like Lucius, nothing good at all... his stomach turns, but he holds himself together.
Harry looks up again, Lucius just close enough on the dais that he can see the halo of his hair in the bright light from above, the feral expression on his face as he lets loose a bellow that Harry knows means he is coming. Lucius pulls out, stroking a few triumphant pearly spurts into the air as he rears back on his knees. Harry sees the drops fall upon Draco's stomach, then shuts his eyes as Draco, making an urgent keening sound, scrambles to all fours to attach his lips to his father's cock. The last thing he sees is Lucius stroking Draco's hair lovingly.
Rabastan's hands grab handfuls of Harry's hair then, ramming his head once more against the stone. He has not stopped fucking even though he has lost the race. And it suddenly dawns on Harry that he is facing the wrong way to attack with the knives. Now what?
All he can do for the moment is take what Rabastan dishes out. He tries to get his knees under him, to push back into the penetration, to try to speed things along, but Rabastan is having none of it, cuffing him hard on the ear when he tries.
Then he hears Lucius' voice from above them. "It was a bad bet to take, Rabi," he says, clucking his tongue. "Everyone knows you always take an hour to come. Perhaps you need a little more stimulation?"
Harry's stomach flips as he feels the levitation spell, and quite suddenly he is on his back, atop Lestrange with the other man's cock still deep in him. Rabastan makes a choking noise and Harry wonders what spell Lucius is using on him.
But then Harry's attention is on Lucius, his pale skin flushed with anger and lust, as he kneels between Harry's splayed legs, stroking his erection. Harry never has found out how it is that Lucius gets hard again so quickly. "Here you go, Rabi," Lucius says, as he presses the head of his cock against Harry's already filled hole. "A bit of frottage ought to help you along. I'll rub my cock on yours until you come. Inside Potter."
And then Harry cannot help but cry out, as Lucius' cock forces its way inside him. The first thrust is slow, and that is the closest thing to mercy he receives, as the second one is not. Lucius fucks like it's his vengeance, like his cock is the sword with which he stabs his enemies again and again and again. And Harry has a sudden moment of doubt, a sudden moment of is this what I've been waiting for all this time? Has he been nothing more than a tool to get Draco back? All along he expected Lucius to take him, to rape him, to...
He looks up at Lucius' bare throat, though, and realises with a sudden flash that this is why Lucius wouldn't fuck him until Harry trusted him. Because if Harry didn't trust him, he'd kill Lucius when he had the chance. Because Lucius had to trust Harry back.
He reaches not for the knives, but for his own cock, stroking it in time with Lucius' brutal thrusts, the only way he can think of to tell Lucius that he is still with him, and he hears Lucius hiss "yes."
Harry comes first, seeing stars and nearly losing consciousness, his body's spasms sending Lucius over the edge, too, with another bellow. Lucius pulls free quickly and Harry can barely feel Lestrange's cock still inside him. All he feels is wet and slimy and loose, but he can hear the man whimpering under him.
"My Lord," Lucius is saying. "Your humble servant Rabastan could use your assistance, I think."
Harry steels himself, panting hard but barely able to move in post-orgasmic bliss. And then the Dark Lord is there, staring down at him and stroking his cock eagerly. Harry swallows, seeing the size of Voldemort's prick. It is oddly misshapen, almost wide and flat rather than more cylindrical, but Harry cannot see any way around what is coming next. "I see the rumours are true, Lucius," Voldemort says, "that you have trained the Chosen One to crave sexual use."
"Yes, my lord," Lucius says with a bow. "Forcing myself on him earlier would have only reinforced him in his resistance. Instead, it has been a gradual seduction, a gradual moulding to my gratification. You saw him grasp his own cock; he could not help himself."
Harry's blood runs cold as he realises everything Lucius says is true.
Voldemort's smile is equally chilling. "And he is not multi-orgasmic, is he?" Almost as chilling as the fact that Voldemort holds his wand in his hand as he kneels between Harry's limp legs. That was not in the plan.
If Lucius is distressed by this fact, his voice does not betray it. "No, my lord. His pleasure is done now."
"Excellent. I would not want him to enjoy this part, of course." And with that, the Dark Lord pushes his too-large cock into the still-occupied hole. Harry clenches his teeth. "Ah, Harry Potter, such a singular pleasure this is. I am disappointed you did not scream when I penetrated you. No matter. Crucio."
And Harry's world explodes into agony. He screams, of course he screams, as he writhes and jerks and there is so much pain he cannot tell how ruined his body is becoming. When the curse ends, though, he finds the pain of the penetration sharper, as if there are knives inside him and not cocks. He has a feeling he is bleeding, not because of the wetness, but because of the grey edges to his vision. Rabastan is whimpering under him, and he wonders if the Death Eater was caught in the curse, too, or if it's a more sexual sound. It could be the sound of a man held too long on the edge of orgasm but denied release, but Harry cannot tell.
Harry wonders if Rabastan will kill him when he strikes with the knives. Or if Voldemort will, just a quick Avada Kedavra. And if Voldemort will fuck his corpse, then. At least Lucius will have Draco back, Harry thinks. And Lucius will be restored to a place of power with the Death Eaters.
And for a third time, doubt flutters up. He closes his eyes as Voldemort's cock moves inside him like a gristly bone, tearing at him like an ogre's club. Was this what Lucius planned all along? If Harry makes the attempt, Voldemort will surely kill him, and Lucius will have everything he wanted, his son returned safe, his position secure with his rival humiliated, and Harry himself out of the picture...?
There is a moment when it seems as if it must be true, as if the entire long mind game must have been coming to this.
But then Harry remembers their final night together, and Lucius' final act of trust, reversing their positions, teaching Harry how to be the active rather than receptive partner. There's still something that doesn't add up, but it isn't Lucius betraying him for his own interests. Harry won't believe that.
He does not even open his eyes now, keeping them closed against the darkening of his vision. He just feels the predictable rhythm of the Dark Lord's penetration, and waits for his moment, praying that he does not die or lose consciousness before he gets his chance. Voldemort's hips begin to snap forward faster, and although the agony sharpens, Harry concentrates instead on his own breathing, on the slow rise of his hands, so slow--too slow? is he slipping away into death after all?--and then with a final burst of strength he brings himself to the one moment he has anticipated for so very long, driving both knives into the soft flesh behind Voldemort's ears.
And under him Rabastan Lestrange cries out, not in dismay over his lord's demise, but because he is coming, finally.
And then someone else screams, Bellatrix by the pitch of the voice, and Harry finds his head knocked against the stone one final time as the struggle ensues between Lestrange and Lucius. He can smell the hexes in the air as he slips down into darkness where there is no pain.
* * *
He is lying face down, alone in the silence. He is not sure how he knows he is alone, but he is. Alone and naked, and lying on some flat surface, not at all like the stone he is expecting. Since he can feel the surface, he decides he exists, and can feel, and maybe he can even see. He opens his eyes and finds himself in a world of formless mist.
No sooner does he consider the mist and where he must be, when it appears he is somewhere, with a high domed ceiling of glass, like a shopping mall, or perhaps a train station. With a start he realizes he is not, in fact, alone, and that a small, flayed looking creature no bigger than a house elf is clinging to his leg. He shakes himself free of it and makes a disgusted noise.
"Well, at least that is taken care of," comes a sardonic voice, and he whirls around to find Severus Snape standing there, applauding slowly.
"Snape?" Harry says, incredulous. "I'd heard you'd been killed."
"And what, Mr. Potter, about waking up in a formless void makes you think you have not been?"
"Er, well..." Harry notices that Snape is in his usual black robes and suddenly wishes for some of his own. He is startled to see some exactly like the ones he used to wear at Hogwarts appear a few feet away, and he pulls them on hastily, feeling rather like he is about to be served detention. "Um, care to explain?"
Snape sighs. "Not really, but Dumbledore left me to take care of loose ends, so I suppose I may as well. I was working for him all along."
Harry swears, then kicks at the flayed thing, which is trying to grab onto him again. He listens through Snape's explanations, about the cursed ring, and pledging himself to help the Order in remorse over Harry's mother's death, and about how everything was more or less going according to Dumbledore's plan until, well, until it all went wrong.
Harry blinks at the end of Snape's lecture, his head spinning. "And this is it? I'm dead? But what happened? Is Voldemort dead, too?"
Snape fairly snarls. "Yes, he's dead. That's what's left of him there." Snape grabs the flayed thing out of the mist and holds it up by the neck. He begins to recede into the whiteness even though his feet are not moving. "I'll make sure even this bit won't be going back again this time. Whereas you, of course, have a loophole. Because you're Harry bloody Potter and you always do."
"A loophole? What?"
Snape's voice seems to be coming from farther and farther away. "Because someone loves you more than they love themselves."
"What?"
"Goodbye, Potter."
* * *
Harry wakes face down again, this time on the familiar stone. There is the sickening smell of burnt flesh and hair in the air, and he can taste blood in his mouth.
He can hear Draco's voice somewhere above him, more nasal and high than Lucius, but no less commanding. "Rodolphus, you have a choice. Throw down your wand or break it under Imperius."
"But my brother..."
"Shut up, you snivelling cur. You were there when he came to the Manor and challenged my father. Can you deny it?"
"No. No, I cannot."
Harry hears the sound of a wand clattering to the stone.
"Then on your knees. All of you."
There is the sound of robes rustling as the assembled Death Eaters do as he commands. Harry wonders where Lucius is.
"Mother, please check that the Chosen One is well and truly dead this time? As you know, I put no stock in prophecies."
Harry feels Narcissa's hand on his back, her fingers slip around his neck as if searching for a pulse. "He is gone," she says.
"Very good," Draco says, his voice rough but forceful. He tries to open his eyes, makes out only a dim outline of Draco holding a wand up in front of him. "I claim the body for my own, as well. Take it back to the Manor, if you please."
Harry feels himself being lifted, as Narcissa takes hold of him and Disapparates them, Harry's stomach and head lurching sickeningly into the spell.
* * *
When Harry comes to he looks around and his first thought is that the room is familiar. Then he places it, the blue bedroom. And in the next moment everything comes flooding back, Lucius, Draco, the Dark Lord... he sits up hurriedly and regrets it, the world seeming to spin and the non-existent contents of his stomach coming up as he heaves with nausea.
Draco's voice comes from a few feet away. "Lie still. You've taken a few too many blows to the head. I'm amazed you're awake."
Harry feels a cool hand on his brow, then, and he looks up to see the younger Malfoy, hair cut almost brutally short, in very proper-looking full robes, wand in one hand and a pair of gloves held in the other. Malfoy sets the gloves down and twitches the wand impatiently over Harry. He clucks his tongue. "Nothing to do but wait, I'm afraid."
Harry hears the words for a sleeping spell as the door opens. He struggles to stay awake, thinking for a moment it must be Lucius who comes through the door, but at the last moment before he slips under the spell, he realises it is Narcissa, closing the door behind her. But he is asleep before he can say anything to her.
The next time he opens his eyes, he is alone in the room. It appears to be early morning, if he remembers what morning looks like in there, the sun bright but not yet shining on this side of the manor.
There are clothes folded on a chair near the bed. He blinks at them. He can make out a folded white shirt with starched collar and buttons. And atop that something he has not seen in many many months, which is a pair of glasses. That seems to indicate beyond any doubt that the clothes are for him, and that his tenure as Lucius's property is over.
He swallows. Of course. He cannot very well go down to breakfast with the Malfoy family and beg naked for treats at Lucius's feet like a dog, can he? The feeling of dislocation is as painful and disorienting as the concussion. If he did not imagine what he heard, then Draco Malfoy is the new Dark Lord. What, then, is Harry? The other Death Eaters believe him dead. And what the hell did Snape mean about someone loving him more than himself?
And who would have thought that Severus Snape was a good guy all along? Harry's head is already spinning with disbelief. Maybe the entire thing was a hallucination.
And where is Lucius, anyway? Harry blinks.
No. No.
A creeping shiver makes its way down his spine, but he forcibly sets aside any thought but that Lucius must be busy. Or, injured? Maybe injured in the fight. Perhaps it is Harry who should try to go see him.
He sits up slowly, makes his way carefully to the chair, and tries on the glasses. He'd never noticed the subtle pattern in the wallpaper before. He fingers the collar of the shirt, but cannot bring himself to put it on. He's not ready to accept that it's over, whatever "it" is. If Lucius tells him to get dressed, then he will, but not before.
He tries the door and finds it opens to his touch. He pads in bare feet along the carpeted corridor, but he hears the voices as they come up the wide staircase.
"Who is going to know? Mother, honestly, you don't know what it's been like here while you were gone."
"As if that should matter to me?"
Harry hurries back into the room, sets the glasses atop the clothes, and quickly feigns sleep under the covers.
Narcissa is still talking as she opens the door. "No, Draco. We'll hire you someone if that's what you need. Mr. Potter has been molested enough, as have you." Her voice is so motherly, so matter-of-fact, it nearly makes Harry smile, as if she were scolding her son over a school prank, and not sexual abuse.
"You didn't see what they were doing, Father and Potter..."
"Draco!" her voice cracks sharply like a whip. "I know perfectly well the extremes to which your father was capable of going. But I will not have you perpetuate the perversion or the violence. We owe Potter our lives. I did not preserve him from the horde so that you could degenerate into a power-mad sadist yourself."
Draco's voice is soft. "I wouldn't be cruel to him. He'd always get to come, after all..."
"Enough! No more talk about the subject. If I'd known you were going to send them all to Azkaban, I wouldn't have bothered with the ruse and I would have left him at St. Mungo's instead of bringing him here." Harry hears the rustle of Narcissa's robes, feels the tingle of a few spells. "Now come along. You need your own wand, so let us go and get you a new one without delay. We may have to go elsewhere than Ollivander and I want to be here if he wakes."
There is silence for a moment, though. Then Draco speaks. "Perhaps we should send him to St. Mungo's."
Narcissa sighs. "Maybe later. For now, let everyone think he's dead. After all, if he returns from the dead, well, everyone will just think that's Harry Potter for you."
After they leave, Harry tries to count to one hundred before getting up, but his thoughts keep returning to things Draco and Narcissa said. Does Harry belong to Draco now? Or would he, if his mother would allow it? And Draco apparently sent all the Death Eaters to Azkaban? Does that make him a hero, or just the head of a different type of coup?
What about Lucius?
Harry finds his heart hammering in sudden fear, the suppressed thoughts breaking free. No. He can't be dead...
Harry moves carefully out of the room, trying not to jar his own tender head. Still naked, he tiptoes toward Lucius' bedroom. Surely if he were sick or injured, that's where the man would be, right?
The door is open. For a moment, Harry's breath catches in his throat, his chest squeezing painfully as he sees Lucius is atop the coverlet, covered only by a thin sheet, his face as pale as a corpse. But when he touches his fingers to Lucius' neck, he can feel a weak pulse fluttering there.
Not dead. Harry lets out a breath. The side table is littered with potions bottles, most of them empty, some of them on their sides atop the Daily Prophet. He can't quite make out the headline between all the bottles, but if he supposes his own name is the part that has the P, and the V is for Voldemort, then the other words he can see are probably "vanquished" and "sacrificed."
It should just say "The End," Harry thinks. All done now.
He takes one of Lucius's hands in his, rubs his cheek against it. "I think... I think I'm in love with you. Please wake up."
The sound of a door slamming somewhere in the Manor startles him, and he lets Lucius's hand go. He hurries back into the corridor, hides in a niche as a wizard in Healer's robes goes into Lucius's room. After several minutes he does not emerge, and Harry slips back to his own room to think about things.
What if it wasn't Lucius that Snape was talking about? What if Harry's reprieve from the afterlife was Hermione or Ron's doing? or Ginny's?
He hasn't thought about Ginny in... months, he realises. He doesn't even know if she's alive. Meanwhile, everyone in the wizarding world thinks him dead.
His thoughts move quickly back to Lucius. If Lucius wakes up, if he doesn't wake up... Harry cannot imagine what will happen either way. Exhaustion eventually claims him and he sleeps again.
He wakes some hours later, in darkness. It is night then, a moonless night. He listens but hears nothing. Perhaps the whole household is asleep? He hopes so. The Manor is so vast that Draco could be playing midnight Quidditch in the ballroom and he'd never hear it from here, but...
He slips from the room anyway, ignoring the pile of clothing still sitting folded neatly on a chair, leaving even the glasses behind.
As he makes his way toward Lucius' room, he can see the light cutting a stripe across the corridor. And he hears the crying before he even recognizes the voice as Lucius's, great sobs of pain and grief that tear at Harry's own heart.
He runs the last few yards to the doorway and then stands there, his own shocked expression matching the one on Lucius's face. He has never seen Lucius cry.
"But you're dead," Lucius says, wide-eyed, the much-stained newspaper on his lap atop the bedclothes. But disbelief is giving way to hope on his face as Harry moves slowly toward him, staring into Lucius's eyes the entire time.
"Apparently not," Harry says softly, unable to explain that perhaps he actually was dead, for a time, before he returned. He takes Lucius's hand in his. "Narcissa lied to the Death Eaters to protect me."
Lucius seems to weigh what Harry has said, and not said. "Those that were still alive, that is."
Harry chews his lip.
Lucius states it plainly. "Will you send me to join them for killling Rabastan Lestrange? After all, they were all witnesses. And the Ministry may want more blood."
Harry feels a moment of vertigo, a sudden flashback to Rabastan under him, the Dark Lord above him – both of them inside him – making his knees weak. He shakes his head. "I won't let them take you. Even if I have to come back from the dead to do it."
"Likewise," Lucius says, and lifts up the bedclothes, inviting Harry in. The ravages and aches in Harry's body seem to fade away as he breathes deeply of the scent of Lucius' skin. His mouth seeks out a kiss, and he finds Lucius's tongue and lips seeking back, more tender and careful than he's ever known him to be. But the flavour under it all is Lucius, sweat and smoke unchanged. He wants to ask, what happens now? What about Draco and Narcissa? What about everyone else? But Lucius's hands are mapping his skin, sparking hunger in Harry's belly. Lucius hushes him, pulling him close, running his palms softly over Harry's arse. "Tomorrow," he breathes, as if in answer to all Harry's unspoken questions, or maybe just the one that is rising wordlessly between Harry's legs. "You need another day to heal."
Harry's hand finds Lucius' cock hard and eager, but Lucius murmurs again, "Tomorrow. We need to rest. Let us lie down like we used to."
They settle spoonwise, with Lucius' cock between Harry's thighs, the bedcovers pulled up to their chins. Harry thinks they'll never get to sleep, but he is wrong. Lucius falls first into an exhausted, heavy slumber, and Harry finds himself drifting soon after, worn out, yet never having felt better.
-end!-
There are also the author's notes and a follow-up fic, retelling from Draco's POV: Draco's Balance.