Promethean Fire

Note: This story is complete, but I will be posting it a chapter at a time instead of all at once. That said, I already know how it ends because I've finished it. Let me tell you all right now that if you think you know what's going to happen, you're probably wrong. This fic is not nice, I do not typically write anything where I pull a lot of punches, and this is a prime example of that. No fluff and bunnies here. Bad things happen to good people for no reason, love does not always conquer all, and some things don't end with a happily ever after. Knowing this, if you still wish to read, consider yourself warned. But... do enjoy yourself.

Part I: The Hubris


Draco sat back in his chair and waited to hear what Dumbledore would say. He had just given his report; the names of Death Eaters killed in the previous day’s battle. There were not that many, but there was one name, that of Fenrir Greyback, that the old bastard seemed to find particularly intriguing. Fenrir was not a Death Eater himself per say, except by association, but he had been one of the proverbial thorns in the collective sides of the Order for years.

What Draco found more intriguing than the untimely and well deserved demise of one shabby feral werewolf was the fact that the number of the dead on the side of the light far outweighed that of the dark. Oh yes, and Harry Potter was missing in action—presumed to be dead. He found that very intriguing indeed. That Dumbledore did not seem to find these things the least bit disturbing…well, it was disturbing, to say the least.

“We lost Longbottom,” Dumbledore said abruptly, breaking the silence. “Poor boy. After he’s been through so much, what with his parents gone mad and his grandmother passing on—”

Draco sighed and steepled his fingers. “I am not particularly interested in the woes that accompany the death of Neville Longbottom. He was of no significance to me whatsoever while alive. He is even less so now that he is dead.”

Dumbledore gave him a pitying look. As if Draco needed any further reminders of just how completely fucking jaded he had become in the last five years.

“If there is nothing more, I really should be getting back,” Draco said dropping his hands to the armrests of his chair and preparing to stand. “Is there something more?”

“Do you not want to hear the list of our dead?” Dumbledore asked.

“To what possible end?” Draco said. “I assure you, I will not torment myself over their passing, whoever they are. That time is gone.”

“Do you not even want the number?”

Draco sighed. “Dumbledore,” he said, “we do not deal in life. We deal in death. You can sit there behind your desk playing the wise oracle all you want, but it changes nothing. There will be more dead tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, ad infinitum. Knowing their names will not change that or help either of us to stop it. Knowing the number, I fear, will only give me something to count to as I lay awake at night. No, I do not want the number.”

“Then we are done here,” Dumbledore said sadly. “Next week then. On Friday this time.”

“Friday it is,” Draco said. He got up and walked out the door without a backward glance.

He needed a drink.

A big one.


********


Draco apparated into his private chambers at the Riddle House and poured himself a scotch. He drank it and poured another.

He was on his third glass when there was an excited pounding on his door.

“Go away!” he shouted. He did not care who it was. He had every intention of getting piss-faced drunk and whoever it was would undoubtedly do one of two things; they would try to join him, or they would prevent him from doing it at all. Bastards.

“Draco, open this door right now,” Lucius Malfoy said sternly from the other side of the door.

Draco ground his teeth and released the locking spell and wards so his father could enter. “You want a drink?” he asked Lucius.

“No, I do not want a drink,” Lucius said. “Come with me. There is something you will want to see.”

Draco noticed Lucius’ barely contained excitement and put his drink down. Most people would not have noticed it, but then, most people had not been raised by the man.

“What is it?” Draco asked. He was sure that whatever it was that could put that manic glimmer in his father’s eyes could be nothing good.

“Come downstairs to the dining room and see for yourself,” Lucius said evasively, then turned and walked back out of the room, fully expecting Draco to obey him out of curiosity, if nothing else.

Draco looked longingly at the bottle of scotch, then sighed and followed his father back down to the dining room.

The dining room in the Riddle Mansion was like the dining room of a grand palace. The walls were covered in expensive red silk wallpaper, the white marble floors gleamed, the ceiling was draped with candle chandeliers and little magic flameless lights. It was beautiful in a dark vampires-waiting-to-jump-out-and-gobble-you sort of way.

The first thing Draco noticed when he entered the room was that it seemed like every Death Eater to ever hold the title was there somewhere, gathered along the walls and circled behind the elaborate chair where the Dark Lord sat at the head of the table. For a moment he even thought he saw Fenrir Greyback, then he dismissed it as a trick of the light.

The second thing he noticed only instants after the first, making him suddenly halt inside the door frame as all the breath rushed out of him like he’d been clubbed in the solar plexus.

Rabastan Lestrange had Harry Potter bent over the dining room table and was violently raping him.

Draco closed his eyes and reached out to grasp the doorframe to steady himself. When he opened his eyes again, in the back of his mind, though he knew it was useless, he was hoping that he would see something else. Anything else.

But no.

Harry was grasping the table so hard that his arms were quivering, his head was bent forward, his midnight black hair falling into his eyes, his body jerking against the table as Rabastan thrust into him over and over. Harry made no sound, though it must have hurt him to keep silent, as Rabastan was being anything but gentle about it.

Draco could not see his verdant green eyes or that famous scar on his forehead, but he would know Harry anywhere. He knew that body more intimately than he knew his own.

No, Draco thought, unable to take his eyes off of the spectacle before him. No, no, no, no, NO!

“I told you you would want to see this for yourself,” Lucius said beside him.

Draco looked over at his father in time to see him run his tongue over his bottom lip, his cold eyes fixed on Harry’s lithe body as it was brutalized. Draco felt a sudden desire to strike him dead, and was only prevented from doing so by the sound of Harry finally crying out.

His head shot around and he narrowed his eyes. Oh Go, oh God… no, he thought frantically. That had been a sound filled with pain. He knew every one of Harry’s pleasure sounds by heart; they played themselves over and over in his mind like a favorite lullaby, and that—that had not been one of them.

Bellatrix cackled delightedly and walked up to the table. She looked over Harry’s head, along his back and met her brother-in-law’s eyes, then she bent down to stare into Harry’s face.

“He’s crying!” she said with unmistakable glee. She swiped one long finger under Harry’s eye, then held it up under the light, so that the liquid gleamed. “Poor baby Potter,” she crooned. “Don’t you like our sweet Rabastan? He likes you.”

The Death Eaters all laughed. Even Voldemort cracked a ghastly smile.

“You… fucking bitch,” Harry snarled at her.

Bellatrix caressed his cheek softly and he tossed his head and tried to bite her.

“No, you don’t,” Rabastan said. He twisted his fingers in Harry’s hair and roughly jerked his head back. Harry gasped at the unnatural curve his body had been forced into. Rabastan bent his head down by Harry’s ear and said, “Be nice.”

Draco thought he was going to be sick.

“Rabastan caught him,” Lucius said on Draco’s right. “The Dark Lord was very pleased.”

Draco did not care who had caught him or how. The only thing he cared about was that his ex-lover was being mercilessly fucked into the tabletop by one of his worst enemies and there was nothing Draco could do about it. He wanted to kill somebody—preferably his bastard uncle’s brother—but a part of him, a cold, calculating part of him knew that if he attacked Rabastan, or any of the Death Eaters now, both he and Harry would die painfully.

That part of him had not existed five years ago. Five years ago he would have drawn his wand, consequences be damned. Wonderful things, wars were, for making monsters out of the very best until they looked no different from the very worst. War was the great equalizer of men. The boy he had been five years ago had not known that, which was why he was dead.

Rabastan thrust into Harry’s body hard one last time with a grunt. Harry made an anguished, tortured sound of pain, and Draco closed his eyes too late. The image was branded on the backs of his eyelids and he wanted to claw his eyes from his own skull, anything to get rid of that sight.

With a satisfied sigh, Rabastan withdrew himself from Harry’s body and fastened his trousers.

“Was he any good?” his brother asked.

Rabastan gave Rodolphus a sly wink. “Why don’t you taste him for yourself?”

Rodolphus grinned back and exchanged a look with his wife. Bellatrix laughed, looking positively delighted with the idea.

Harry was still sprawled over the table, and at the sound of that laugh, he flinched.

Draco was pretty fucking sure that he was going to be sick now. No doubt about it.

“You would like it if I fucked the little brat, wouldn’t you, Bella?” Rodolphus asked her, his voice thick with affection.

Bellatrix looked at Voldemort and he nodded his permission.

Rodolphus walked over to the table and unfastened his trousers. He bent down and whispered something in Harry’s ear and when Harry whimpered, he grabbed his hips and pushed inside him to the hilt.

Harry bit down on his lip, trying to hold it in, but in the end, he screamed. He screamed a lot.

Draco wanted to leave. He wanted to turn around and run, run, run, and keep on going. He wanted to get away from those sounds—sounds he had never before heard from Harry, and had never hoped to hear. He did not want to have to see his uncle, and then his own father, and then more, others, all of them eager and violent and evil beyond measure, gang-raping someone that he cared about.

He did not want to stay, but he did. In the end, it was the least he could do. If Harry could endure it, if he could stand to have it done to him, then Draco could stand to watch. Perhaps, in a way, Draco was punishing himself for not being able to help him. Perhaps. But if so, it was better than he deserved.


********


When the rapes finally stopped, Voldemort ordered Harry brought before him. Walden McNair dragged him to the head of the table and forced Harry to his knees before the Dark Lord’s throne-like chair. Harry lay there, glazed with sweat and shivering in shock. He did not look up at Voldemort or utter a single sound.

“I have a question for you, Harry Potter,” Voldemort said. He had Harry’s wand in his hand and was examining the tip. He lowered his hand and stared down at Harry with a contemptuous curl to his lips. “Strictly out of curiosity—were you a virgin before tonight?”

Harry gasped and trembled, but he did not answer.

Draco knew the answer and he held his breath.

“Answer me. Now,” Voldemort said.

“No,” Harry said, so soft that it was almost inaudible.

“Repeat that please,” Voldemort said. He was enjoying himself.

“I said ‘no’, you twisted, sadistic, fuck,” Harry said, a little louder this time.

Voldemort ignored the insult to his character and laughed softly. “Really? Girls or boys?”

“Either—both,” Harry said.

“Both?” Voldemort said, his eyebrows shooting upward. “How very interesting. Too bad. I should have liked to have seen what Rabastan would make of a virginal Harry Potter.”

Harry didn’t say anything to that.

Draco was pretty sure that Harry had been damaged by the rough abuse and hoped that he was not bleeding internally. Physically, he looked like hell twice frozen and once thawed, but at least his spirit wasn’t broken. It was actually rather amazing that it hadn’t been, and Draco wondered fleetingly what manner of coping mechanisms Harry had developed in the last five years. Good ones, from the look of it.

“Take him,” Voldemort said to McNair. “Chain him in the room down the hall. You know the one.”

McNair did know, as much of his handiwork was done there. There were times in the past that the walls and the floor of that room were entirely painted in blood. They were clean now, but Draco was willing to bet that they would not be for long.

As McNair dragged Harry away, Draco turned and walked out of the room. He took the stairs to the second floor two at a time, opened the door to his room so forcefully that it crashed into the wall opposite, hurled the first thing he saw—the whisky tumbler—and watched it shatter in the fireplace.

What the hell was he going to do now? He needed to speak with Dumbledore, but they had agreed not to meet until Friday. Well, fuck that. The crazy old son of a bitch could just rearrange his goddamn schedule.

Draco had somehow managed to avoid scrutiny when he refused to join in on the Harry Potter gangbang, but he held out no hope that this would last for long. Someone would notice, someone would say something, and he doubted that professing to hate Potter too much to want to sully his dick with him would hold much water for long. After all, rape was an act of violence, not sex, and as far as everyone knew, he loathed Harry Potter’s guts.

Draco rubbed the bridge of his nose as he tried to think. Tried to think, and force that heavy constricted weight off of his chest. He was not—not—going to weep, damn it! He was not!

Oh yes, Dumbledore could just rearrange his entire fucking calendar. Right now. Right fucking now.

He grabbed a handful of floo power from the jar on the mantle, threw it in the fire, stuck his head in the flames, and prepared to have the most bizarre and aggravating conversation of his life.