Crime and Punishment

Author’s note: Please review and let me know what you think. As for those people who asked about Remus in the last story, this story doesn’t really focus on that, but the next one will go into it in more detail.

***


Harry woke to find sunlight glaring at him from behind the curtains and a foul taste in his mouth. He tried to remember what had happened and dimly recalled Sirius pouring what had felt like half a lake of water down his throat before tucking him into bed. He also remembered, now, Sirius’ stern order that he wasn’t to drink any alcohol. Or be back after ten.

Why hadn’t he remembered that last night?

It had slipped his mind when Ron had ordered wine with the meal and, by the time he realised, he decided he’d already disobeyed so he might as well enjoy the rest of the bottle. Then the alcohol had taken over. He tried to remember what had happened later on, but things got hazy after the second bar. He dimly recalled getting back. Sirius had lectured him for being late. Or started anyway, since Harry had interrupted with a fit of vomiting.

He was in trouble.

He looked around at his room and spotted the note on the bedside table, carefully weighed down with his glasses so he couldn’t miss it. A simple instruction to get washed, eat the breakfast that was laid out in the dining room and then wait in the playroom for Sirius.

He amended his earlier assessment by adding a huge in front of the trouble.

He washed and dressed quickly, hurrying to the silent dining room. He could barely swallow the toast, but didn’t dare make Sirius any angrier. Besides, he’d emptied his stomach last night of everything he’d eaten at dinner with Ron and needed the food now. As he ate, he tried to calculate just how bad the trouble he was in was. Drinking, that was disobeying a direct order and Sirius had told him the fixed punishment for that was fifty strokes. Being late was different. That was one stroke for each minute. Harry couldn’t remember how late he’d been, but he knew it couldn’t have been less than an hour and probably much more. Then, technically, he’d interrupted Sirius, but vomiting might be considered an acceptable excuse. Either way, he was well over a hundred strokes in punishment, possibly more than two hundred.

Swallowing against his nerves, he stood and walked to the playroom. For some reason, the journey seemed to have become twice as long as usual. Perhaps because he knew that there would be no play in store for him. Only pain.

He found the playroom empty and stripped without hesitation. The slightest pause now would only add to the punishment. His clothing was soon neatly folded in the patch of shelf set aside for it and he knelt on the carpet, the roughness more noticeable than ever beneath his exposed knees. His fingers laced behind his back and he bowed his head expectantly.

Time passed in unbearable eternities. He knew this was part of his punishment. Sirius wanted to make him worry, and worry Harry did. Occasions had come during their relationship when Sirius felt it necessary to punish Harry. That was a simple consequence of their partnership and one which Harry accepted as fully as he accepted the protection and love. But nothing he had done had put him in so much trouble before. Nothing he had done had been this bad.

He didn’t hear the door open, but he felt the subtle change in the room when Sirius entered. He knew that Sirius was waiting, watching him, and he tried to control the trembling that was seeping through his body. The fear was clinging to his gut. Fear of the pain, yes, but more significantly, fear of the disappointment that would be in Sirius’ eyes. Harry was glad he was to keep his head bowed. At least that way, he would be spared the expression on his lover’s face.

“I was afraid.” It took all Harry’s control not to spin round at this comment. This wasn’t the severe and cold master speaking. This was Sirius. This was the man who held Harry in his arms and whispered of love. This man didn’t belong in the playroom, in this scene of punishment.

“When you were late, I was terrified that something had happened to you.” Sirius went on. Harry suddenly realised this was far worse than any physical punishment. Disappointment was bad enough, but this admission made Harry’s guilt well up and squash any feelings of fear.

“There are still a handful of Voldemort’s followers who were never captured. They lost their hopes of glory when their lord died, and there’s no knowing what they would do to you if they could. When you didn’t come home for so long, I thought they might have you. I couldn’t bear it if that happened. I love you too much. I can’t lose you that way.” Sirius’ voice shook with tears, and moisture trickled down Harry’s cheeks. He remembered the time he thought Voldemort was torturing Sirius and he knew just how he’d made Sirius feel. The pain of guilt was a solid lump inside him, hurting him with love. He no longer worried about the punishment. Whatever Sirius did to him, it was no more than he deserved.

“I’m going to have to punish you, Harry,” Sirius told him, “and it’ll be bad. You understand?”

“Yes, master,” Harry tried to keep his voice steady, but he was sure it trembled slightly. Then Sirius was there in front of him, lifting his chin. Harry wanted to tell him how sorry he was, but didn’t dare speak without permission, not on top of everything else he’d done. But Sirius just looked at him and Harry knew he understood.

“I love you,” Sirius told him, brushing away the tears on Harry’s cheeks. Then he stepped backwards and instantly became the master.

“Why are you being punished?” He asked.

“I disobeyed your orders by drinking alcohol, master,” Harry answered, “and I arrived home very late.” He paused, but Sirius seemed to be waiting. “And I interrupted you by being sick, master.”

“What did you have to drink?”

“About half a bottle of wine,” Harry tried to remember, “two cocktails, a beer, six vodka shots, a rum and coke, a whiskey, no, two whiskeys and. . .” he tried to remember. The fuzzy end of the evening was struggling to evade his attempts to recall. “And tequila.” Now he came to list it all, it was no wonder he’d thrown up. If he was honest with himself, it was a wonder he hadn’t needed his stomach pumped.

“How much tequila?”

“Most of a bottle between us, master.”

“I’ll assume that was around five drinks of tequila, which is probably being generous, and two glasses of wine. Which means you disobeyed me nineteen times.” Harry went pale. If he counted each drink as a separate disobedience, that was almost a thousand strokes already.

“You arrived home at one twenty-three when I gave you strict instructions not to be back after ten. Then you interrupted me. And I do not recall giving you instructions to get dressed this morning.” He was right. The note hadn’t said anything about dressing, which meant Harry had disobeyed again. He didn’t dare calculate just how badly he’d messed up.

Sirius walked to the cupboard in which he kept equipment that was rarely used. Harry had only seen one or two items that were in there. He returned holding what looked like a little ball. Harry was curious and a little worried as to what it was, but Sirius simply took Harry’s right hand and put the thing inside. It was just a little ball.

“If you drop this at any time,” Sirius told him, “the punishment is over.” Harry knew that Sirius would keep that promise. Even if he dropped it right now, before the punishment was even begun, Sirius would end it. Knowing that, Harry clutched it tightly in his hands, as though it might slip through his fingers if his grip so much as slackened.

“Go to the frame,” Sirius ordered. Harry had been to the frame a couple of times in play and only once in punishment. He stood and went to the metal rectangle, leaning against the padded centre and feeling the straps wrap tightly around his waist. He held out his arms and the cuffs snapped about his wrists, the chains pulling tight. Then he did the same with his legs, until he was held entirely immobile in his restraints.

Sirius tilted the whole contraption forward slightly, then paused, letting Harry endure the silence, unsure of when the first blow would fall.

“You are to count the blows,” Sirius instructed. Then he hit Harry. It was with his hand, but far harder than most of the spanks he dealt out.

“One,” Harry counted, then the second struck, “Two.” Sirius wasn’t holding back. His full strength whacked into Harry’s ass with each blow. By the time he reached ten, his ass was burning and Harry was sure it must be glowing like a light bulb.

There was a pause. Harry wondered why for a moment, thinking perhaps that Sirius wanted to rest his hand. Then something hard and incredibly painful struck the already heated buttocks. It was a ridged paddle that Sirius had only used once because Harry hated it. It didn’t sting like the other toys, but left wide lines of torment on his skin that would hurt for days. He barely managed to gasp out the count between sobs of pain, tears flowing freely from his eyes. His relief was almost a solid force when Sirius set aside the paddle at twenty-five.

A many tailed flogger came next. This stung a lot more, but the residual pain was much less. After the paddle, it was a welcome change, but that didn’t stop each stroke laying new fire over his skin as the blows began to spread up his back and down his thighs. His voice was croaking over each number and each one was a plea for mercy. But no mercy seemed forthcoming and Harry clutched the ball so hard that it seemed to be becoming indented into his flesh.

At last the count reached fifty, and Sirius paused, running a hand over the burning flesh. The soft fingers seemed icy cold and hideously hard. They barely skimmed over the welts, but even that movement was enough to be agony over the handiwork of pain.
Sirius moved away again and returned with a new toy. This was stiff leather that struck in narrow lines that stung in their own right, but inflamed the pain already blossoming there. Harry didn’t even make it to sixty before his voice gave out and he could no longer count. The pain was all he could think about. A living, blooming thing flowing through his body and invading his entire consciousness. The world reduced itself to the two of them and the pain that bound them together. Harry sobbed helplessly, his fingers welded to the little ball in his hand.

At last, the rain of blows stopped. Harry guessed they were at about a hundred, given the way the number of strokes had increased with each new toy. There was a long pause, long enough for Harry’s sobs to still and a throbbing ache to set in as accompaniment to the burning torture that was his back and ass.

“There were forty-three blows that you didn’t count,” Sirius told him, “The ones I deal now are to make up for that lapse. I don’t expect you to count them.”

Harry was glad, since he didn’t think there was the slightest chance he’d be able to. When the first one fell, he realised that Sirius had gone back to the ridged paddle, though he covered Harry’s thighs and lower back this time as well. On top of what had been done already, each of these blows was unimaginable torment. It felt as though he’d never be free of this pain. He was a canvas and Sirius was painting him the hues of suffering, pain indelibly recorded. This was a punishment meant to never be forgotten.
It seemed as though time and count and had stopped and the rain of blows would continue to fall, each one multiplying the suffering already inflicted.

Then it stopped.

Cuffs and straps unfastened. Strong arms lifted him from the frame and he was laid gently on the bed. He sobbed into the covers as something cool and soothing covered his heated flesh. He heard Sirius murmuring words of comfort and love, but his mind was too trapped in pain to understand them properly. He let the ointment on his back and the warmth of the covers lull him into something between faint and doze.