Author: curia_regis

Rating: NC-17

Challenge: #25. Lucius holds Harry captive and conditions him to have certain needs. When Lucius is recaptured and Harry is freed, he seeks out Draco to help him.

Warnings: Blood-play.

Notes: Thank you to Aja (wayfairer on LJ) for the beta! <3

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Twenty-three.

Each day a new scar is added, fresh blood still oozing where Harry presses his finger down on it and counts.

Forty-two.

He begins to enjoy the flash of silver, the sharp pain, the feeling of a trickling wetness. The smell isn't nearly as strong as it once was and Harry finds himself lingering over the healing cuts with his nose so that he can catch the last hint of copper.

Fifty-one.

The feeling of long, soft hair brushing his shoulder as the knife is pressed into his back is almost too much for Harry to bear. His breath catches in his throat and he both hears and feels the vibration of laughter that follows.

Harry leans into the blade and hears a soft exhalation of satisfaction behind him.

The wooden door opens with a creak and Harry sees a flash of surprise in the grey eyes.

"Help me," he whispers.

Harry tries not to look at his hands.

The first few days were the hardest. They always are.

Harry beat his fists raw and bloody as he tried to break the walls down. His nails broke and filled with blood as he scratched at the mortar holding the stone together. He even tried breaking through the small barred window, but the rust only seeped into the cuts and made them ooze pus.

They're healed now. "For every cut I give you, I will heal one of yours," was what was promised to him.

That promise is kept.

A sneer curls his mouth. "Come to taunt the fallen, Potter?" Draco asks, anger and pride flashing in those familiar, yet unfamiliar eyes.

Harry shakes his head. "Help me," he repeats and leans against the doorframe. His voice is dry, raspy from screams of agony and pleasure. "Please."

Harry still doesn't know how he was captured. It all flashes by his eyes like scenes from those old movies his aunt used to watch. Freeze frames of grey. One minute Diagon Alley. The next Malfoy Manor.

Only it wasn't minutes. More like hours or days. Harry isn't sure.

The blood still stains the ground in front of Madam Malkin's. They've tried spells, tried Muggle cleaning products, even tried acid, but there is still a faint smudge of red in the now pockmarked stone. Nobody likes going there anymore and Madam Malkin is slowly going out of business. Harry tries to feel sorry for her, but then he sees the flashes of grey, all still like Muggle pictures, and can't.

Malfoy Manor was freezing cold in the first few days.

It still is, but Harry is used to it. He huddles under the blankets and nurses his scars, angry red lines of blood, dried blood and raised skin.

It's all he has left that's his.

Harry is inside Draco's apartment. It's small and shabby because that's all the Ministry will allow for ex-Death Eaters who spied for the Order. Ex-Death Eaters who didn't were immediately given the Kiss, their empty shells hung up outside Knockturn Alley as examples to other Dark wizards.

Don't dare to threaten the power of the Ministry, the still-alive bodies seemed to whisper as the wind whistled through the tattered robes. This is what happens to anybody who tries.

Harry thinks that he perhaps ought to care about these new laws because this wasn't what they envisaged when they won the war. But then he thinks back to the days he spent curled up counting scars and decides that they're far more useful than anything nice and democratic that the Order thought would happen.

Lucius Malfoy is one of those bodies. Harry isn't sure what he thinks about that.

He sits down on the old couch with the stuffing falling out and Draco sits opposite him. Harry can't bring himself to look up into those eyes because then he knows what he'll ask.

Flash of silver, the sharp pain, the feeling of a trickling wetness.

"Potter," Draco asks sharply. "Are you alright?"

Harry stops himself from staring. "I'm fine," he says, and brushes his hair away from his face.

An inward breath. "What are those?" Draco asks, and Harry realises that the long sleeve of his robe have fallen down, revealing red lines spiralling, tracing their way down his arm.

The first time that knife is raised against Harry, he looks up defiantly, green eyes glittering, and spits, "You disgusting fuck."

Lucius simply smiles coldly, and Harry gets his first scar.

"Nothing," Harry says quickly, too quickly, drawing the sleeve back down to cover his scars, his memories, his salvation. He evens out his breathing.

In breath.

Out breath.

In breath.

Draco is still staring at his arm. Harry can almost feel the warmness of the other man's gaze as it travels up his arm.

His other hand moves to cover up the offending sleeve. The pressure makes the scars itch and he resists the urge to scratch them. Some of them bleed at the slightest irritation and Harry doesn't know whether he can bear seeing blood trickling down his arm. Especially with those grey eyes still watching him so carefully.

“It didn’t look like nothing to me.” Draco's eyes narrow. "What exactly happened to you while you were in Malfoy Manor, anyway?"

Harry doesn't know how to answer that question.

The newspapers say:

Harry Potter Rescued from Malfoy Manor!

There are no pictures.

Harry knows this is because when they pulled him out of the dungeon he was a babbling mess. Lucius, Lucius, Lucius, he kept on whispering while the mediwizards looked on in bewilderment.

The wizarding world doesn't have a term for Stockholm syndrome.

Harry ends up researching it himself because he wants to know why he wants needs Lucius so much. He even tries to pull the body down from the entrance of Knockturn Alley so that he can put a knife in that limp hand and slice into his own flesh; but it's tied up too high, and there're too many people.

Understanding, Harry realises, isn't a cure.

"You hate me," Harry tells Draco. "You must hate me." He knows what he wants Draco to do, but he can't say the words. They just don't come out. And he doesn't know what the other man would say.

Draco just stares.

Harry feels in his pocket for the knife he always carries nowadays. As he draws it out, he sees the fear, then horror, and then a sort of shocked understanding flitting across Draco's face.

He presses the knife into Draco's unmoving hand.

In the end, Harry looks up, anticipation in his eyes whenever he hears the door click open. The knife cuts into his body as it arches up to meet the steel. Blood trickles down into Lucius's waiting tongue.

In the end, Harry doesn't even need the handcuffs to keep him there. He doesn't want to leave.

In the end, Harry moans Lucius's name in his sleep.

"Potter, you are fucked in the head," Draco says. He drops the knife as if it's hot. "What you're asking is... "

Ridiculous.

Insane.

Stupid.

Dangerous.

Harry fills in the blank himself.

"Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease," Harry begs, and doesn't know whether he's saying the words aloud or in his head. "I need this." And he does. He needs to feel the blade against his skin, to feel the blood draining away from him, to rid himself of the feeling of Lucius on his skin.

Draco just stares.

On the fifth day... "Nobody is ever going to rescue you."

On the seventeenth day... "We're winning the war. Soon we'll be hanging our flag over Diagon Alley."

On the thirty-third day... "We've won the war. As I speak, Death Eaters are ridding the Ministry of the unworthy. Mudbloods are being sent to Rape Centres. Their children will be our servants."

On the fifty-sixth day... "The Dark Lord has given you to me to keep. You're never going to see your friends again."

There was always a gleam in Lucius's eyes.

Harry now realises that it was insanity. He still wishes Lucius could have kept that last promise, and then wonders whether insanity is catching.

"I will not cater to your self-destructive desires," Draco snaps. "You ought to see a mediwitch, Potter. You're crazy."

But they're not self-destructive, Harry thinks, as he stares at the knife lying on the ragged carpet. I'm trying to save myself. He knows he can't tell Draco this, though. He tried seeing a mediwitch, but she stared and stared and stared until he simply said that he was over it, and thank you very much for your help.

Draco follows Harry's line of sight, and with one swift motion kicks the knife away.

"It isn't healthy," Draco tells him, in the tone of voice one uses to speak to somebody either very young or very stupid.

Harry knows this. He just can't help himself.

Lucius only ever deliberately touches Harry with the knife, and Harry wonders why. He watches the long, slender fingers with their slightly pointed ends, those manicured nails, and wonders what they would feel on his skin. Would there be calluses or would it feel smooth like baby skin?

He doesn't dare to lift a hand to stroke the skin like he wants to. It's forbidden. Lucius may only touch him with the knife. Sometimes, if his long hair brushes Harry's shoulder, it's only by accident, isn't it?

Harry wonders whether there are any accidents in the world.

"I helped you once," Harry says to Draco, and hates himself for it.

I helped you once; dare you refuse my request now?

Something flickers in Draco's eyes, and Harry wonders whether it's hurt. "Promises are apparently made to be broken," Draco says lightly.

Harry wonders what Draco's thinking. What is going on behind those smooth, expressionless features, those doll-like glazed-over eyes? Draco's mouth is folded into a thin line, but even like that, his lips are thicker than Lucius's. Harry finds himself wanting to run his finger lightly over that top lip that is so unmoving.

And then Harry remembers.

He remembers that he once promised Draco that he would never use that against him. That he would never ask Draco for anything in return for his decision to switch sides, to spy for them, to become their eyes and ears inside the Death Eaters, because Draco was doing the right thing and that was all that mattered. He repeated his words in front of the entire Order meeting, defending Draco from the accusations of almost every other Order member.

Harry wonders now whether it was the right thing after all. Perhaps... perhaps if he didn't do that then Draco would have gone back to his father and Lucius would still be alive.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

He can't bear to see the expression in Draco's eyes as he takes up the knife. "If you must," Draco says his voice flat. "Where shall I?" He gestures with the knife.

"Anywhere," Harry breathes, his body tensing as he closes his eyes. His muscles relax as he feels the cold steel on his cheekbone. Lucius never cut his face before.

"Shall I mark you here," Draco whispers, his breath warm on Harry's ear. "Shall I claim you, mark you, so that whenever anybody sees you in the future, they'll know that you belong to me and me only?"

"Please," Harry gasps, not knowing whether he agrees but wanting the steel, cold, cold steel, to be slicing into his flesh.

Draco makes a noise of disgust and draws the knife away from Harry’s face. Harry hears a clunk and realises that Draco has thrown the knife into the corner of the room. He opens his eyes and touches his fingers to his face, but feels no opening of the flesh and no blood.

"I won't do this," Draco grinds out. "I will not become my father." His eyes are darker, darker than Lucius's had ever been. "You can do what you will. Go to the Ministry; tell them I'm a traitor. But I won't do this." He turns away his head and Harry can't read the emotions flickering through those eyes any longer.

Harry swallows loudly and doesn't know what to say.

"You're very pale," Lucius tells him as he lightly traces the blue vein up Harry's arm. At some places, the knife pressure is so soft that no blood is drawn. At other places, the knife seems to simply slice through Harry's skin and he feels wetness trickle down his arm. All the colour in his skin is draining away into the cotton bedspread.

Draco stares at him. "Well?" he asks. "What are you going to do?"

Harry shrugs, with his hand still on his face. The sleeve of his robe has slipped down again and he can see the scars on his arm from this angle. His nails of his other hand dig into his palm, until, with a tiny sound, one penetrates the thin skin. Blood trickles down his palm. He lifts his hand up and stares at the delicate drip of blood down his arm.

A part of his mind screams that Draco's right, that he's insane. The emotions bubbling up inside him, like a cauldron with the wrong ingredients, have subsided with the tiny dab of blood.

"Why?" Draco asks as he sees the blood.

Why, why, why, and why?

One question never asked by the mediwitches. They only stared and glared and were horrified.

As Harry looks at Draco, he can only see curiosity (and maybe, a hidden part of him hopes, just maybe a little compassion) in his eyes.

No horror and he’s glad.

"Why are you doing this?" Harry demands the second time Lucius enters his cell. The scar on his chest still hurts and stings with the cold air. "What kind of fucking sick pleasure do you get from hurting me?"

"No pleasure," Lucius says. "But you will."

Harry realises now that Lucius was both wrong and right.

"I don't know," the words tumble from his lips. "I just don't know. I've asked myself the same question every day."

"You can't keep doing this," Draco says.

"I know that," Harry whispers. He bites down on his lower lip, hard so that it hurts but not hard enough that he draws blood, and wonders why he came here today. It was so useless, so stupid, and so insane. Whatever made him think that Draco would help him? What a ridiculous thought.

Harry looks up into Draco's eyes. "I won't tell the Ministry anything. You've done so much for our side. I cannot betray that." He pauses and looks around. "I should go. I'm sorry I came."

Draco frowns. "Where are you living?"

"In Hogsmeade," Harry says. "By myself," he adds, not knowing why. Maybe he just wants the sympathy, or maybe he wants something else.

Draco shakes his head. "You can't expect me to let you go home in this state, Potter," he says.

Harry isn't sure why not. The Ministry did. They let him go with his robes still streaked with blood and the dust of Lucius's dungeon. Without even an explanation as to why they took so long with the rescue.

All his old friends turned away when they saw his hollow face.

Or perhaps, something says inside of him, perhaps they turned away because you couldn't stop thinking about Lucius. Perhaps they turned away because you didn't contact them. Perhaps they just wanted to give you space. Harry isn't sure anymore.

Still, he doesn't see why Draco should care.

Hesitation flashes across those thin, pointed features. "If you want," Draco says quietly, "you can stay here. I won't be my father, but," his lips twist into a wry smile, "they say I'm a good listener."

That's an understatement. Draco's efforts at spying, his listening at doors, turned the tide of the war. For better or worse, Harry isn't sure.

He opens his mouth to say no. "Thank you," Harry says instead, not knowing why he said it.

As Harry sits in Draco's spare bedroom that night, counting his scars, he isn't sure of anything anymore.

Perhaps...

Perhaps this will be the start of something different, something new, something better.

Perhaps Draco will be able to be everything that his father was not.

After all, scars heal and people recover.

Or perhaps this will just be just another spiral inside a never-ending circle and everything will be exactly the same.

The door opens a crack, and Draco looks in. "Are you alright?" he asks. Harry nods.

He's fine. Even if he's just pretending.

Draco stands by the door, quietly, and watches Harry count his scars. He can see words mouthed:

One

Two

...

It goes on until Draco loses count and is mesmerised by the motion of Harry's mouth, and the finger that traces the lines on his body.

Draco feels a bit like a voyeur standing here in the shadows every night watching. Harry always begins with the scars on his left arm and ends at the wrist of his right arm so Draco knows to slip away when the trembling finger reaches the crook of the right elbow. He always walks quickly back to the kitchen and sits down with his cup of tea, feigning to read a book.

Somehow, it doesn't feel right that he should be standing there watching such a private act.

Draco thinks that maybe it is akin to wanking and then feels a flush rise up in his cheeks as he thinks of Harry's pale hand working its way up and down. He wonders what Harry's face would look like while wanking. Maybe the intent, almost frowning, expression on Harry's face as he counts the angry red lines would be translated to a slight flush on both cheeks, an open mouth and a slight moan.

He can feel himself hardening just thinking about it.

Giving himself a mental shake, Draco backs out of the half-opened doorway, walks into the kitchen, sits down and begins reading.

Almost on cue, Harry walks in half a minute later and goes over to the cabinet. It's almost an unspoken routine for them in evenings for them to do this. Draco suspects that Harry doesn't know that he watches and he doesn't want him to know. He doesn't know what Harry would say.

The sound of pouring tea and Harry sits himself down in front of the fire and picks up a Muggle novel.

It's been a month since Harry first showed up at his door and Draco is beginning to realise that he doesn't want the other man to leave.

Draco still remembers the day he decided that he wouldn't follow the Dark Lord any longer. The memory of the unusually warm October morning and the leaves crunching under his feet are still vivid in his mind. So is the decision he made to take his offer to Harry Potter.

Not to the Ministry.

Not to Albus Dumbledore.

Not to anybody else, but to Harry Potter.

Draco still isn't sure why he made that decision, but he knows that it was the right one.

When Harry looks up one evening in the middle of counting his scars, Draco isn't surprised. It is, after all, inevitable.

"Draco?" he says and Draco hears a flicker of hurt in that voice. "Why?"

Draco pushes open the door fully and enters the room. He opens his mouth to say 'I'm sorry' but what comes out is, "Can I help you?"

Harry stares at him. "You can't help with this," he says and then pauses. "I don't want you to help with this, Draco."

"Why?"

Draco still remembers the expression of disbelief on Harry's face when he cornered him in a quiet Hogwarts hallway. "Potter," he had said. "May I speak with you?"

"Whatever for?"

And when Draco explained, after he had followed Harry into an empty classroom, he watched the distrust and scepticism grow on the other boy's face.

"Why should I believe you?" Harry said bluntly, after Draco had finished.

Draco's only response had been. "My mother's dead, Potter. He killed her."

Draco watches as a succession of expressions flicker over Harry's face, each gone too fast before he can analyse it, and tries not to think about what the other man wants.

"You refused to a month ago," Harry says bluntly and Draco sees his eyes flicker over to the knife sitting by his bedside table.

Temptation.

"Have you asked again since?" The words are out before Draco can stop himself and he tries not to think of that pale skin opening like a flower.

The surprise is evident on Harry's face and he reaches over, fingers curling around the top of the knife handle and slides it towards Draco. "Will you?" he asks quietly.

Draco still remembers being mesmerised by the motions of Harry's mouth as he half spoke, half shouted at the Order.

"Sometimes," he snapped, "you just need to trust someone. Draco's not spying for Voldemort."

Draco stares at the silver handled knife sitting on the bed beside him and wonders what he has gotten himself into. But, a tiny traitorous voice tells him, this is what you've always wanted, isn't it?

He licks his suddenly dry lips.

Reasons.

What are the reasons for Harry asking?

Draco suspects that they aren't the right ones.

He picks up the knife anyway.

Draco still remembers the first time he gave information to the Order. Suspicion was evident on everybody's face even from across the room. Everybody except Harry, that is. Even now, Draco still doesn't know why Harry trusted him so easily. He suspects he doesn't want to know.

Cutting into somebody else's flesh isn't as easy as Draco imagined. He holds the knife silently for several minutes while Harry sits across from him, patiently waiting, eyes closed. A shiver runs down his back as he watches the placid expression on the other man's face. Almost on impulse, Draco lifts up a hand and runs it along Harry's bottom lip.

Harry's eyes fly open and he stares at Draco with dark green eyes. "What was that for?" he asks, surprise evident.

"I'm not my father," Draco tells him, and pushes Harry down onto the bed. He leans over and kisses the other man on the lips. He feels Harry tremble slightly under him.

Lifting himself up slightly, Draco grasps the knife firmly and pushes aside Harry's shirt. He presses the blade against the pale scarred shoulder skin and is perturbed when it doesn't slide straight in. A little more pressure and Draco sees a small trickle of blood slide down the knife. Instinctively, he leans forward and catches the drop on his tongue before it falls onto the bed sheets.

It tastes slightly salty and coppery, rather like what his own blood tasted like the last time Draco accidentally cut himself but still... different slightly. Draco thinks that perhaps it tastes better.

Harry moans slightly and Draco realises that he has pressed the knife in a little too far. There is now a steady flow of red, staining the white bed sheets. "Are you okay?" he asks but the only reply he gets is the heavy breathing of Harry.

Draco is worried for a second but then as he looks down, he notices a distance bulge in Harry's trousers. His own cock gives an answering strain.

He puts the knife aside and begins to unbutton Harry's trousers.

"W-what are you doing?"

Draco looks up and sees the surprise in Harry's eyes.

"I told you, Harry," he says, his own breathing rather uneven, as he yanks down Harry's underwear. "I'm not my father." He runs a finger down the length of Harry's cock, watching as Harry's eyes close again. "Surely my father never did anything like this?"

"N-no, he didn't," Harry's voice is shaky as Draco's mouth encloses around his cock.

Draco suppresses a mental grin as he feels Harry's hips buck slightly as he runs his tongue firmly over the head of his cock. As Draco scrapes his bottom teeth over the tender underside, he feels Harry's breath becoming more uneven. His own cock hardens in response.

"Oh god," Harry moans as Draco runs his tongue over the head of his cock.

Again and again.

When Harry comes, he comes down Draco's throat all salty, sweaty, and sweet and Draco realises what he's been missing out on all these years.

Draco still remembers the day the war ended and the excitement mingled with hope. Maybe they would finally find Harry Potter who has been missing for so long.

Draco still remembers his own frantic search for Harry.

Draco still remembers hearing that Harry was found in his own father's dungeon.

Draco still remembers seeing Harry staring up at his father's empty shell hanging over Knockturn Alley and he remembers wondering what lay behind those green eyes.

"Lucius certainly didn't do that," Harry says quietly when it's all over.

Draco rolls over and looks the other man in the eye. "I'm not my father," he repeats.

"You're not," Harry replies. And then, so quietly that Draco thinks that maybe it is his imagination, "I'm glad."