Kneeling

Author\'s note: A big thank you to all those who took the time to read the first chapter, and an even bigger one to all the people who commented. All feedback is still very much appreciated!
Disclaimer from chapter 1 still applies, of course.
On to chapter 2, now...


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Harry stumbled back to the dorm in a daze. What had he done? How could he have been so fucking stupid? God, he was tired. Every bone in his body ached with fatigue, more so than even the late hour and the copious amount of alcohol he had drunk could account for.

For a moment he considered falling straight into bed, but his mouth tasted as if something had died in there, and his whole body felt sweaty and disgusting.

The washroom looked eerily deserted at this time of night. One of the lights was flickering on and off, complete with the disharmonic buzzing sound that meant that the spell was about to wear off completely. Harry shook his head, for a second amused despite himself. Hogwarts might not have neon fixtures, but their washroom lighting was no damn sight better than the one in any old muggle communal washroom.

He brushed his teeth quickly, and then stepped under the shower, making it as hot as he could stand. Not for the first time he was glad for Hogwarts’ thick walls that would prevent any sound from leaving this room. Late-night showering wasn’t exactly forbidden, but still he was supposed to be sound asleep by now, and he just didn’t feel like fabricating some lie about how he’d awoken from a nightmare all sweaty, or something. Especially not as that would probably entail a questioning session on his dream and if it had anything to do with Voldemort.

Harry stayed under the shower a long time, scrubbing his skin vigorously until it was red and itchy. Even then it was an effort of will to step out of it, and if he hadn’t been so deathly tired, he didn’t know if he could have brought himself to leave the cleansing spray. Not that he felt all that clean afterwards, strangely enough.

Weith a grimace of disgust he slipped back into his jeans, but decided to leave the sweaty, butter-beer-stained sweater. He really didn’t want to put that one back on.

He tiptoed up into his room. The sound of soft snoring greeted him. Probably Ron, who had been a bit tipsy as well, though nowhere near as drunk as Harry. At least this meant he wouldn’t wake up. No danger of that with Neville or Seamus - they slept like the dead, anyway. It always needed a major commotion to wake them.

Harry stripped quickly, pulling on his pajama pants, and, after a moment’s thought, pulled an undershirt and a lonsgleeved T-Shirt out of his drawer and put them on as well, even though it wasn’t all that cold, and the heavy bedcurtains were well able to keep Hogwarts’ chilly drafts away from him.
He pulled the curtains firmly shut and buried under the covers. He had thought he would fall asleep immediately, as tired as he was, but for a long time that night his mind kept going round in circles, and it was only in the early hours of the morning that he finally succumbed to an exhausted sleep.

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It took a long time for Draco to find the energy to get up from the floor, and even longer for him to drag himself through the silent corridors back to the Slytherin dorm.

Speaking hurt, he noticed as he whispered the password. His face was sore - the lip that he had split on the statue, and the slowly darkening bruise that he could feel blooming on the corner of his mouth. The bruise Harry had given him.

Pain lanced through him again at the thought of how the evening had ended. The sight of Harry, vomiting on the floor, so disgusted at the thing Draco had tried to give him… The look on his face as he turned to Draco, the contempt, the hate in those green eyes… Draco shivered.

In his room he undressed quickly, accompanied by Goyle’s sonorous snores and Crabbe’s little sniffles. Familiar sounds, almost comforting right now, as often as he had complained about them before.

He slid under the slick, luxurious silk covers he had brought from home, and buried his face in his hands. If he breathed deeply, he thought he could still smell a faint trace of Harry’s scent on his skin. It was a good, warm scent, and he fell asleep with that little bit of stolen warmth easing its way into his dreams.

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The man sighed, disappointed, as the boy went straight to sleep. A pity - he had hoped Draco would contact his father right away. This meant he would have to make another batch of the potion, to make sure the spell didn’t wear off too soon. Damn - unicorn’s heartblood, even in the small quantities he needed for this, was expensive, and paying the boy, a son of an old associate of his, to smuggle it into Draco’s drink even more so. Still, it would be worth it - he had spent too much time plotting this particular revenge to give up so easily. He was nothing if not patient, after all.