Promethean Fire

Part II: Prometheus in Chains

“Dumbledore?”

Draco blinked and shifted his eyes around, but the office appeared to be empty.

“Dumbledore?!” He said again, louder this time.

A witch in a painting just opposite the fireplace shifted in her sleep and made a soft snorting sound.

“DUMBLEDORE!”

“Yes, yes, what is it?” said Dumbledore, coming into view. “Good God man, keep your voice down.”

“Dumbledore, something’s happened, I—”

“Scoured the entire countryside,” Dumbledore muttered to himself, seeming to not hear him. “Nowhere…nothing…just vanished…”

“Shut the fuck up and listen to me you old nutter,” Draco snapped, then, “Who’s vanished?”

Dumbledore looked at him and blinked rapidly like he was surprised to see Draco’s head floating in his fireplace. “Vanished? Harry Potter, of course, I thought you knew—”

“I did know,” Draco said. “I thought he was dead, but this—Listen to me. I know where he is. He’s here, at the Riddle House.”

“Is he really?” Dumbledore said. “How did he get there?”

“Not by choice, I can assure you,” Draco said. “I can get him out, but I’ll need—”

“You can’t do that,” Dumbledore said, his voice becoming firm.

Draco gaped at him. “Excuse me? I can’t—this is Harry fucking Potter we are talking about here, Dumbledore. I have to get him out of here or—”

“If he is a prisoner there, as I assume he is if he is not there under his own volition, then you must not help him,” Dumbledore said gravely. “You risk both of your lives, and your own invaluable position as our spy, if you do anything at all to arouse suspicion.”

With a furious growl, Draco climbed all the way through the fire and stood up, brushing his robes off on the pristine floor of Dumbledore’s office. “What the hell are you babbling about?” he snapped.

Dumbledore lifted one shaggy white eyebrow at him, walked around his desk, and gestured for Draco to take a seat. Draco thought about refusing, then decided that was both childish and a waste of valuable time, and sat.

“What do you mean, I can’t help him?” Draco demanded. “What am I there for then, if not to help the Order? And who in the world could possibly be more important to the Order than Harry Potter?”

“I will answer your questions in the order that you asked them to simplify things,” Dumbledore said.

“Oh please, simplify things,” Draco said with biting sarcasm.

“First, you may not help him because, as I have said, to do so would endanger you both and the Order would lose yet another valuable spy. We cannot afford that. Not after Severus. It has taken too long to get you secured within the inner circle. We would never be able to do it again in time for it to matter,” Dumbledore took off his half-moon spectacles and cleaned them on the hem of his robe, then put them back on before he continued. “I believe that actually answers two of your questions. As to the last one; what is more important to the Order than Harry Potter? The world is more important than Harry Potter, and that is what we stand to lose if we lose this war. We cannot risk the lives of so many to rescue just one man, no matter how important he may be.”

Draco stared at him and felt the blood drain out of his face. He lifted one hand to his forehead, and it was shaking, and he didn’t care in the least that Dumbledore saw it.

“You cannot ask this of me,” he whispered.

Dumbledore’s blue eyes flashed like ice. “I am not asking. I am telling you what you will do.”

“What the hell is wrong with you, Albus?” Draco said, a note of despair in his voice that he did not even attempt to disguise. “I thought Harry Potter was supposed to be your savior, not a blood sacrifice…And that is exactly what he will become if we leave him there. It may not happen right away, and he will be tortured well into madness before it does, but he will fucking die there. Please…Please do not make me…”

“You will do as I say,” Dumbledore said, and there was steel in his voice that not many would believe he possessed. “You will not interfere.”

“I know that I owe you,” Draco said. “I know that…I know…but not this. This is too much…you can’t ask me to do nothing. You can’t.”

“I have already told you that it is not a request. It is a command.”

“You know what he was to me,” Draco said. He was shaking so hard now that even his breath trembled. “How can you demand that I stand by and do nothing? Do you know what they did to him? What they are doing to him right now? I had to watch…I couldn’t stop it…And now you are asking me to go back and watch it all over again. Not just once, but…”

“Yes,” Dumbledore said, and he did not waver. War had hardened him just like it had hardened all of them. It had not helped his sanity one iota either. “That is what you must do.”

Draco surged to his feet, then stood there looking down into Dumbledore’s cold pitiless eyes. “If you leave him there—for whatever reason—you’re the one whose soul needs to be saved, not me. He will die there,” Draco repeated, trying to force Dumbledore to understand what this meant.

“A very wise man once wrote that death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not,” Dumbledore said.

“Yeah?” Draco said. “Well, I’m betting when he wrote that he wasn’t dead, was he?”

“I am trying to illustrate a point,” Dumbledore said patiently.

“I get the fucking point,” Draco snapped. “I just happen to disagree with it.”

“Why?” Dumbledore asked, and he sounded genuinely curious.

“Why?” Draco stared at him. He wanted to throttle the life right out of him. He wanted to maim him, beat him, shoot him with a Cruciatus Curse and watch him squirm in agony. “Because there are an unlimited number of horrendously painful things that can be done to a person without killing them, and the Dark Lord is a master of every fucking one of them. I would have thought you knew that by now,” he said.

Dumbledore looked down at the top of his desk to conceal some flicker of emotion. “There is nothing I…You will do as I command,” he said, forcing his gaze back up to Draco’s. “That is the end of it.”

“Is it?” Draco said. “Is it really? Well, we’ll just see about that, won’t we, Albus? My absolution is important to me, but I think—I know—that there are things more important. Harry Potter is one of them.”

“You have not been together for years,” Dumbledore said. “Why would you still care?”

Draco smiled grimly. “Trying to appeal to my selfish, heartless, Slytherin side, Dumbledore?”

Dumbledore just stared at him.

“We did not have a falling out,” Draco said, “Neither of us walked away. It was this war, as you should well know. It’s torn others apart, just like us. At first, it was because I chose my duty to my father and my family name over him, and he chose you because, really, he had no choice. Then later, after you got your hooks in me, it was because there was too much between us and never enough time to set it right. There was too much to say that we left unsaid because it was easier. So don’t sit there and ask me how I can still care. I never stopped caring. Never.”

“I am sorry, Draco,” Dumbledore said softly. “But it changes nothing.”

“No,” Draco said with a humorless laugh. “No, it never does, does it? Nothing ever fucking changes. Nothing matters. Jesus, I have to get out of here before I hex you.”

He turned and grabbed the little ornate box of floo powder off the mantle. He took a handful and threw it into the fire. The flames turned green and just before he stepped into them, he said, “You might want to start training your new spy.”

He walked into the fire and was gone before he could hear Dumbledore’s response.

********

Draco did not want to go to him. He could imagine all the horrible things that McNair, and whoever else the Dark Lord happened to be favoring at the moment, had done to him. He could imagine it, and he did not want to see it. He had a very fertile imagination.

He went anyway. He walked down the stairs and through the corridors until he was standing outside the room. McNair’s torture room. The room where Harry Potter was chained.

He could not make himself go in. It was so simple, an action that he performed countless times every day. Reach out, grasp the doorknob, turn it, and push. Easy. But he could not do it.

He heard a muffled cry from inside the room and he closed his eyes. If only it were that easy to shut it out. If only.

The door opened on its own as he stood there and Lucius came out, wiping blood off of his hands with a small towel.

Draco stared at the white cloth. It was pristine white, blotted with deep, dark scarlet. The color of blood. That dark red color, almost umber, only happened when there was a lot of blood, otherwise blood was just red. Candy apple red.

Oh fuck, it’s started, Draco thought. I’m losing my mind.

“Come to have a go at him yourself, Draco, or just watch McNair perform his craft?” Lucius asked.

Draco hid his emotions behind an impenetrable mask of nothing. He forced his mind to go blank and numb. Years of tedious, often painful, Occlumency training allowed him to do this. Occlumency; it was a good thing.

“I just wanted to spit in his face,” Draco said, adopting his customary sneer. “And perhaps see how McNair is treating him.”

Lucius chuckled. “Talented man, McNair,” he said with appreciation. “Go right in.”

As if Draco needed his fucking permission. They were on a level within the inner circle, and technically, Lucius had no power over him. Still, he was careful to never point this out as it galled his father to no end, and Lucius Malfoy had a wicked temper.

The door was already open; all he had to do was walk through it. It was easier than he had anticipated.

Draco closed the door before he turned.

He expected to see blood, and there was blood, but most of it was on the floor around Harry’s feet, not on him.

Harry was naked, in the center of the room facing away from the door, held there by manacles around his wrists, which were attached to thick chains, holding his arms up and out from each other. Draco had once seen a crucifix when he was in Milan with his mother, and this position they had put Harry in was almost like that, except his arms were raised up over his head a little, not straight out from his shoulders. There was a thick pool of blood around his feet and trickling down his back. There was blood splattered on the wall in front of him, but Draco didn’t see any wounds.

“He doesn’t have any wounds. Where did all this blood come from?” Draco asked McNair, who was cleaning one of his instruments, an evil hooked thing that looked like a small sickle.

“Lucius healed them. Said the Dark Lord ordered it,” McNair said without looking up. “So we can keep him longer.”

And damage him as much as they wanted to, Draco thought and felt his stomach clench in disgust.

“Can I be left alone with him?” Draco asked, making his voice calm, even though he wanted to scream.

McNair looked up then and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully for a moment. “Yeah, I suppose. Guess you want to work out some personal issues with him, eh?”

McNair grinned like they were co-conspirators and Draco made himself smile back.

“You could say that,” Draco said.

McNair put down his little hooked sickle, brushed his hands together as though getting rid of dust, and left.

Draco stood there silently, unmoving, staring at Harry’s back. He knew what his father had done to Harry. Knew it as though he had been standing right there when it happened. Lucius Malfoy liked whips. His favorite whip was a cat o’ nine. A cat o’ nine with barbs on the tips of each lash like wicked little fishing hooks.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

“Draco?”

Draco jumped at the sound of his name being spoken in that rough, strained voice.

“I know …you’re there. I heard…” Harry trailed off.

“I thought you were unconscious,” Draco murmured. He walked around Harry so he could face him. Every step was like walking barefooted over slivers of glass.

Harry’s head was slumped forward on his chest. He made a soft gasping sound that horrified Draco down to his wretched, tattered soul because he knew that Harry had meant it to be a laugh. “Lucius wouldn’t …let me. He …put a charm…”

“A hex is more like it,” Draco said, furious. “They made you stay awake for it.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh God, Harry, I’m so sorry,” Draco whispered, knowing just how useless it sounded, but unable to help himself. “For everything. For all of it. I—” He touched Harry’s chest, just a light brush of his hand, but Harry hissed in pain.

“Don’t,” Harry whimpered. “It still …hurts. I can still…feel it…please don’t.”

Draco lifted one shivering hand to his face and made a hopeless sound of grief.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and it sounded twice as useless as before.

“Dumbledore,” Harry said, lifting his head just a little. Draco was pretty sure that it hurt because Harry’s arms trembled. “You have to …tell him…Tell Dumbledore where…I am…”

“I already spoke to him, Harry. He—” Draco hesitated. He didn’t want to tell Harry that he’d been abandoned, that those he should have been able to look to for salvation had decided that he was worth more to them as a sacrifice. He did not want to tell him that, but he also didn’t want to lie to him.

Harry saved him from having to do either.

“He’s not going to …try to help me…is he?” Harry asked brokenly.

“No,” Draco said softly. “He—he ordered me not to do anything either. He said…it would risk my place as their spy.”

Harry didn’t say anything for a while, then he said, “I understand.”

Draco felt like his heart was going to whither up and die right there and then. He almost wished that it would. If he didn’t have a heart at all, he wouldn’t have to feel this…torment. Funny thing about hearts though, they’re a hell of a lot stronger than people give them credit for. They usually don’t break. They endure, they thrive, they keep living despite everything because they lack the sense to just quit beating.

“Harry,” Draco said. He wanted to touch him. He wanted to comfort him, but he didn’t dare. He didn’t want to hurt him. “Harry, listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Harry, I’m going to get you out of here,” Draco said. “I’m going to find a way. I …shit. I can’t do it now. Maybe not for a day or two. Can—can you hold on that long for me, please?”

Harry forced himself to lift his head just enough so he could look through his disheveled hair and meet Draco’s eyes. “What about…Dumbledore? What…about what he said?”

Draco’s grey eyes flashed. “I told Dumbledore to shove it up his arse.”

Harry’s lips quivered. “Yeah? What did he …say?”

“No idea. I didn’t stick around to listen.”

Harry blinked rapidly a couple of times, like he was forcing back tears. “I’ve missed you,” he said.

Draco caught his breath and looked away. “I’ve missed you too,” he said.

“Draco?”

“What?”

“Will you …kiss me?”

Draco’s gaze shot back to Harry’s face. Harry’s eyes were closed. “I—won’t I hurt you?”

“No,” Harry said. “Just don’t …touch me.”

Draco swallowed, then bent down and pressed his lips to Harry’s so gently that it was barely a kiss.

Harry called him on it as he had known that he would. “That’s not …a kiss.”

Draco’s lips twitched a little in reluctant amusement. “Lift your head up a little if you can,” he said. “The angle’s wrong.”

Harry tilted his head up a little, just enough, and Draco captured his mouth with his in a deep kiss. He did not have to urge Harry to open his mouth, he did so gladly, and Draco’s tongue slid over his and along the roof of his mouth, drawing a small whimper from his throat.

That was a pleasure sound. Draco doubted very much if this despicable room had ever been witness to such a thing or heard such a sound, but it was so sweet.

God, he was going to cry.

He broke the kiss reluctantly and stepped back. “I have to go, Harry,” he said. He did not want to go. He knew that the moment he left, McNair or someone else would come in after him and the torture would start all over again.

“I know you do,” Harry said.

“Harry,” Draco said. “Harry, do you remember when we were learning Occlumency and Snape told us we could build a place in our minds, a neutral place, and if we went there, we could be safe? Do you remember our place?”

Their place, the place where they had always been able to return, no matter what, and wait for the other. Eventually, the other would come and find them there. They could be in the middle of a battle, they could have had a horrible fight the night before, they could have gone for a year without speaking to each other, and still, if one of them went to that twisted old tree on the hillside where Draco had first kissed Harry six years ago, the other would come and find him.

“I remember,” Harry whispered. How could he possibly forget?

“Go there,” Draco said softly. “Go there and wait for me.”

Harry nodded a little. “Alright. I’ll—I’ll try. Just…hurry.”

“I will, I promise,” Draco said.

He left then, before he could lose it completely and start to cry. With everything that Harry had gone through, was still going through, for Draco to cry in front of him just felt obscene.