Swan Song
"Want a bit of wine to take the edge off? We've got some elderberry – nasty stuff, harsh, but something tells me you're not looking for taste."
"Fuck off, Malfoy."
"You know, that's really starting to irritate me, Potter. I try and be civil – well, as civil as the situation lets me – and you just say 'fuck off, Malfoy' or 'I'm tired of your games, Malfoy.' Really, let's end the charade. You're here, you're mine, and you're not going anywhere. So suck it up."
"Leave me alone."
The open-handed slap came quickly and fiercely. It left a white imprint on Harry's cheek, which quickly turned a speckled red. Harry groaned in recoil, though his body didn't move, having been tied quite securely to a straight-backed chair.
"Now," Draco said, opening a lacquered cabinet, "if you're interested, I have a 1980 bottle of Brunello di Montalcino, and a 1982."
"I'm not."
"Well, I'm opening it anyway, so speak up if you want some."
"Go fuck yourself."
The second slap landed nearly perfectly on the impression of the last, and it stung even more fiercly. Harry hissed in pain, and brace himself for another strike, but it didn't come. He opened his eyes when he heard the cork being pulled from the vessel.
"I'm not an unreasonable man –"
"– boy," Harry interjected.
"I'm not unreasonable, Harry." Draco pulled two glasses from the cabinet and turned to Harry. "I'm not unreasonable. No one on my side is, not the Dark Lord, not Aunt Bellatrix, not even Fenrir. We're all rather rational people, so why do you resist us so?" Harry spat on Draco's leather shoes, and Draco grimaced. "If anything," Draco said, pouring two glasses of the red liquor, "you're the unreasonable one. We've given you a choice – a rather reasonable choice. We're even going to let you live if you choose the right option. So please, my dearest partner in greatness, tell us your secret. We know you were made secret keeper to the Order – to every order, actually, that ever resisted the Dark Lord. If you just tell us those secrets – the locations of the New World's enemies, we'll let you go; alive."
"Fuck off, Malfoy."
In two quick strides Draco was by Harry's side. He raised his hand and made to slap Harry, but stopped at the last second, grinning as Harry flinched. Instead, the hand came down in a gentle touch, cupping Harry's cheek – now covered in pinpricks of broken blood vessels.
Draco said: "Please, just take some wine. It's not poisoned, or drugged, or anything." Draco took a sip from his own glass. "Please, Potter, I'd feel better if you did."
Harry coughed shakily, then spoke. "My hands are tied up. I – I can't drink."
"Oh," Draco said, clearly having realised this earlier, "I guess I'll have to help you." Draco walked over to Harry's bound form, and with a gentle hand tipped Harry's head back. Harry resisted half-heartedly, but in the end let Draco tip the drink down his throat, and he swallowed it eagerly – it was the first drink he'd had in three days, not counting his own blood.
"It's good, isn't it?" Draco asked, pouring back another draught into Harry's mouth, one of his hands playing absently over the bound boy's smooth throat. "Father only keeps the best."
"I know what you're trying to do," Harry said, finally having finished the glass. "Hurt and comfort. Standard. Rulebook. Dumb. That's why I'm naked, right? Vulnerability, which you're sure to take advantage of sooner or later. You're an idiot."
"Again with the hate. If I'd known you'd be an angry drunk, I'd never have given you wine."
Harry coughed, and it sounded like blood bubbling; a disgusting frothing noise emanating from the back of his throat. He sniffed, and coughed once more. Draco refilled the glass.
"I am curious though," Harry said, at length, "why you seem so – so confident now."
"Huh?"
"Well, back in sixth year, when you were going to kill Dumbledore – you lost your nerve."
"Don't bring that up," Draco hissed.
"Well, you did, didn't you? You couldn't do it. You were afraid, maybe even felt a shred of compassion. Or disgust, I don't know. But you couldn't do it."
"Yeah, so? Did you see me kill McGongall? Did you see my face then, Potter?"
Harry nodded, for indeed he did see Draco's face, and it looked like it did now: red, lined, and furious, murderous pale blue eyes glinting with malice. "But," Harry said, "you were – you were ready then."
"I liked it." Draco smirked and leaned against the black oak wall, taking a long draught from his wineglass and swilling the ruby contents absently.
Harry was silent, lost in thought, then he said: "No you didn't." He spoke slowly, deliberately. "You don't get used to it. You get good at it, yeah. But you'll never get used to it."
"Well, since we're on the subject, Doctor Freud, I've been having a recurring dream about a treacle tart and a pine cone, perhaps you could –"
"You know it's true."
"Oh, you arrogant prick. Don't think you can analyse me. You're the prisoner here."
"It wouldn't bother you so much if it wasn't true –"
It wasn't a slap this time. Instead, Draco delivered a sharp, heavy punch to Harry's naked stomach. Harry was winded, and coughed up dark blood onto the white tile floor, bent as much as his restraints would allow him. He groaned and tasted the coppery stuff on his teeth and tongue. He spat red on the ground, and looked up to Draco, glaring. Draco would have no more of him though, so he grabbed a hold of Harry's sweaty, dirty hair and wrenched his head back painfully.
"Now listen to me, you dirty cunt," Draco whispered viciously, his lips hardly an inch from Harry's bloodied ear, "tell me where the Order is, and you can keep your pathetic life." Harry whimpered, but said nothing. "Tell me, Potter. Spill your guts. Before I do."
"F-fuck off, Malfoy."
"Tell me!" His spare hand came down in a thundering slap against Harry's bruised chest, leaving a five-pointed imprint where it struck. Harry nearly cried out, but bit down on his lower lip, drawing blood, tears streaming down his eyes. "Your life is worthless! Tell me, or you're dead!"
Harry half-laughed and half-sobbed, but no words came from his bloodied lips. Draco struck him again, and again, with punches, slaps, scraping and scratching with too-sharp nails. Harry took the beating, turning his lips into a bloodied mess, holding everything inside until it began to creep out his eyes in terrified tears.
Draco immediately shifted gears. His fingers left Harry's knotted hair, and he walked round to the front of the chair, so he was facing the naked boy. Draco glanced over Harry's form, from cut and bruised chest and stomach, to raw rope-worn wrists and feet, to flaccid cock and frightened green stare.
"Potter… Harry," Draco said, sliding a hand between Harry's thighs, "we don't have to be enemies. The Dark Lord, he's given me powers you can only dream of. Not magic – we all have that – but actual power, power to change things. I can give you all you want, and more." His hand slid up and took a hold of Harry's cock, which twitched pleasantly under his grip, growing hard under Draco's persuasion.
"The bloody fuck do you think you're doing? One minute you're going to kill me, the next you're jerking me off? You're mental, Malfoy." Tears continued to slip down the younger boy's face, though it was presently contorted in rage, disgust, and perhaps most subtly, but pleasure.
Draco took no notice of his words, and continued his seduction. "Come on, Harry. You can't fight forever. There will be wizards after us. And more after that. You and your precious Order can't kill them all. Give it up, and join me." Draco was uncomfortably close to his prey now, and Harry's cock was hard in his grasp, one white and agile hand working it up and down. Draco noticed the flush beginning to creep over Harry's face, and the slight hitch in breathing. He smiled; no matter how much angry passion was held in that heart, his hands were wiling it away easily.
"Malfoy – what – what do you think you're doing?" Harry said. His breath was short, his words coming in choked gasps. His cheeks were bright red, and his eyes contained a glimmer they lacked earlier. Draco's persuasion was having an effect, and no matter how much Harry tried to avoid it, his body was enjoying it.
"I'd think that was quite obvious," Draco growled. Suddenly, the dominant boy leaned in and placed a chaste kiss on Harry's lips, which quickly became a series of less chaste kisses. Harry tried to refuse them, tried to bite at Draco's lips, but torn skin and coppery blood only seemed to fuel the blond boy.
Draco sped up, and Harry closed his eyes. He was lost, lost in a miasma of pain and pleasure, of bleeding pain, aching muscles and bones, snapped tendons and slit flesh. He was aflame, and drinking a liquor – a violent remedy to his wants and hates. Draco's hands were sinuous and reflexive – no longer the hands of a boy, or a captor, but an angel, and then something more. A feeling. They weren't touches or twists or thrusts and pulls; the touch was a concept, an ideal; devouring him from the inside out, from the outside in. It was darkness and light, dull explosions and cruel illness. The pleasure was disgust, and the pain was euphoric. Harry was lost, lost in a tangled web of what he shouldn't enjoy, and what he plainly did.
And then, he didn't refuse when Draco kissed him, all teeth and tongue and unpleasantness. He let the boy take control, consume him, mind and body, until he came, painfully and wonderfully, his mind torn apart into half-formed thoughts and expressions; fragments of the same star, rotating, gravitating; each a shard of pain, pleasure, misery, embarrassment, indulgence, and lust.
Harry indulged, if only for a moment. He let the numbness of the afterglow pour over him like pools of sunlight warming his aching body. Then the curtain lifted, the haze of sex was gone, and Harry was still a prisoner, and Draco was still a sadistic keeper. The game was gone, the board and pieces knocked aside. This was life or death, and Harry wasn't about to let sex loosen him.
"Harry," Draco nearly purred, "please. Tell me where the Order is."
"You've got the hands of an angel," Harry said languidly.
"So I've been told. Now – give me the location, Harry. I can be yours. We can be – we can. The Dark Lord wishes it, and we can be together. Princes, the two of us." Draco grinned a comfortable, close kind of grin.
"No," Harry said slowly, savouring each syllable as he spoke them, "I don't think I will."
"You what?"
"You give good head, Draco, but not that good." As he said it, Harry felt suddenly empowered. He was in control of the situation now. Draco had gone down on him, and doing such had lowered himself. Harry grinned. He wasn't the prisoner anymore.
The slap came hard, and expected. What Harry didn't expect was the knuckle-crack to his cock. The pain exploded in his groin violently, and immediately spread like wildfire to his bladder and belly. It was crippling, vomiting pain, and it was all Harry could manage not to scream out blue murder. The pain did not subside either; it lingered like the smokiness of a good whiskey, remaining as sharp and argentine as if Draco had just hit him. Harry felt short of breath, and soon found it hard to expand his chest from the creeping pain in his body.
"Hurts, doesn't it?" Draco taunted from across the room. "Your cock is still sensitive, having just been sucked off. Must hurt like a bitch, getting hit like that."
"It –" Harry grappled for breath, "– does. Yeah."
"Listen, I'm going to tell you something, Harry," Draco said, toying with his prey's name, like it was Draco's personal nickname for the boy. "This?" he waved vaguely about the room, "this isn't about getting information. This isn't about where your precious Order is. Fuck that. We'll find them, and kill them. No doubts about that. Sure, if you gave us the names, that'd be lovely, really. Would get the job done faster. But this? No, I don't care about names. I care about you, Harry. My lovely little Harry Potter, that's who I'm concerned about."
Harry snorted, despite his pain. "Y-yeah, sure – of course – of course you care about me."
"Oh, I do." Draco smiled, a sinister smile that never made it to his eyes, and stayed sticky and violent in his lips. "I care very much. Because I'm going to break you. I'm going to turn you into the shell of the boy people once knew. You'll be alive – mostly – but you'll be hollow. Pathetic. Destroyed. I will crush you. Maybe not today, but eventually. You and I? We've got all the time in the world. You'll resist me, as you've shown before. But you're bending. Remember earlier? When I kissed you, and you kissed back? Remember that? When I was jerking you off and you slipped your tongue in my mouth? It wasn't that long ago, surely." Draco grinned even more brightly. "You're bending, Harry. And after bending comes breaking. Oh, you'll be alive, but trust me, better to be dead."
Harry swallowed. He was afraid. Of course he was. Draco might hate torturing and killing people. In fact, Harry knew he was terrified, from the sweat beaded on Draco's forehead to the lines wrought in his face. But fear was just an emotion, something Draco had pushed aside before. And Draco would kill him, if he needed to. Draco might be scared, he might hate himself for doing it, but he would do it. He was trained to do it, and he was remarkably good at it. Fear didn't stop efficiency.
"Tell me, Harry," Draco said, leaning against the wall across from Harry's chair, once again sipping on his wine, "have you heard of the term 'swan song'?"
Harry swallowed the blood pooling on his tongue, and nodded. Draco was grinning manically, too-pale eyes glowing unnaturally, like diamonds catching a cold winter's light. He nodded, which was a mistake as he began to hear ringing in his ears, muted bells clanging in his head.
"Know where the saying comes from? A swan song?"
Harry shook his head. His vision was becoming blurry and unfocused. His fingers began to tremble, and his throat felt swollen and hot. Draco saw the glazing in Harry's eyes and approached the wounded boy, sliding over the ground like an overgrown cat.
"Well, my dear, there was a myth, a long, long time ago about the mute swan – that's a type of swan, you know. Rumour had it that the swan remained mute for its entire life, except for the one beautiful, haunting song it sang right before it died. The swan song."
Harry felt faint. His vision was blurring, twisting, dissolving and turning into a mess of blurry black shapes, sparking and shuddering in his mind. He felt cold, with pinpricks of white-hot heat tingling down his arms to his numb fingertips and shaking feet. He saw shapes, faint and indistinct, until he could see nothing at all, grasping and struggling for breath that wouldn't come. His fingers clutched, and his throat burned, tears were streaming down his cheeks. He couldn't cope, couldn't manage; could only feel the beat of his heart; slow, slow, slow.
"Harry," Draco said softly, "I suggest you start singing…"