Erlestoke

III. Greengrass

"Darling," Mr Greengrass whispers, "I am so sorry, my little darling. So very, very sorry." He is crying as he holds the girl in his arms.

The silk is so soft the girl can hardly feel it. With each breath she takes, the ribbon tightens around her throat. She feels light-headed, and rainbow-coloured specks shimmer before her eyes. In a distant part of her mind she registers the stale stink on her father's body, the Confunded look in his eyes. But he is warm, he is safe. He looks at her with such love. He will never hurt her.

She tries to take another breath and can't. The ribbon tightens. Her legs twitch.

"Soon, my darling, soon it will be over." Mr Greengrass' voice is so gentle. "A bit longer and you'll be safe, Astoria. My poor sweet girl. They won't be able to hurt you anymore."

Astoria? This is not her name. Her name is Draco, Draco Malfoy. She kicks and struggles, grabs at Mr Greengrass' hands and tries to pull them away from her throat. The ribbon tightens horribly; it cuts into the girl's skin. Cuts off the air from Draco's lungs.

"No!" he rasps, "No!" Darkness hovers at the edges of his vision as the walls of the cell come closer. With all the strength of this delicate body he arches up and twists around. Mr Greengrass is not Fenwick. The ribbon goes slack as he lets go of it with a desperate wail. Draco kneels on the bed, gulping in air and pressing his broken arm to his stomach. It hurts like hell. When his lungs stop burning, he turns to Mr Greengrass.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," he yells, or tries to yell. His throat is too raw for anything but a croaking whisper. "I'm Lucius Malfoy's son. I'm Draco Malfoy. I'm Draco." His voice breaks on the last words and he coughs.

Mr Greengrass stares at him. The wand in his hand is shaking like a leaf in the wind. Its tip is trained upon Draco.

"They've Polyjuiced me. For weeks now. That locket Astoria gave you? That's where they got her hair from." Draco can only hope Mr Greengrass has not lost his marbles. All those long hours he watched what the bastards did to Draco, thinking he was Astoria. Looking at him now, Draco sees how much the wizard has changed. He's lost two stone at least since they were committed to Erlestoke. His skin is sallow underneath a straggly beard. Something is wrong with his eyes. His pupils are dilated when bright daylight fills the cell. His eyelids blink too slowly, as if it takes conscious effort to do so. Perfect for Legilimency, Draco thinks and wonders whether he should try.

Slowly Mr Greengrass drops the wand. His lips quiver as he tries to shape words, but no sound comes forth. Draco moves away from him and wraps himself into the blanket. The wool is unyielding with the dried blood all over it.

"He ... he said they abducted Astoria." His voice is so soft Draco can barely hear him.

"Who told you that?"

"Jake. Jake did."

"Fenwick's lying," Draco grinds out. "The bloody bastard is playing his little games with us."

Mr Greengrass gasps with obvious shock. Draco is baffled. Does Greengrass actually believe anybody in Erle will tell him the truth? Then he understands: he's used language Mr Greengrass has never heard coming from his darling daughter's mouth. He is tempted to utter curses in the foulest language he knows. But he is Narcissa Malfoy's son. A small smile is all he allows himself. Inwardly he rolls his eyes at the man. It's ridiculous that Mr Greengrass can still be affected by words after the things he's been forced to watch.

"He ... he showed me a pamphlet from the Ministry. It had your picture on it. No, I ..." Mr Greengrass drops his staring eyes. "Astoria's picture, that's what I mean. They were looking for her." He looks up again and searches Draco's face. Draco pulls Astoria's features into a smirk of his own. The effect is both startling and satisfying: Mr Greengrass jumps and backs away towards the foot of the bed.

"Fenwick must have fabricated it," Draco says. "He's a powerful wizard."

Mr Greengrass nods. "Top of his class at Hogwarts." He's toying with the ribbon in his hand.

Top of his ... Draco leans carefully against the wall. His arm hurts and the fuzzy pain in his belly is still there, but he feels better than he has in days. A memory tickles in the back of his mind, something Fenwick mentioned when he sat at the very spot where Draco is sitting now. He knows he should have paid more attention. Every small detail counts. He's got all of their names but one. Draco lets his mind drift back to the twilight hour when he had his body back. Light glints off the flask of Firewhisky as Fenwick drinks. The sleeve of his jacket hitches up to reveal milk-white skin. A scar shaped like a ragged star wraps around the first knuckle of his left hand. ... gave me that. And again, a name, lost in an inarticulate moan of pleasure.

Mr Greengrass' mind is wide open to Draco's muttered Legilimency spell. He is Confunded all right, making it harder for Draco to find the memory he is searching for. But then he stumbles upon it, right near the surface of Mr Greengrass' thoughts. He must have been thinking of it recently, or maybe it's on his mind even now.

A moonlit hallway in Hogwarts. The boy's just turned fifteen. He is holding hands with another boy, who's older than him, strong and funny, a Ravenclaw Beater. Jake. They run towards the Armoury Gallery, the thrill of sexual excitement all around them. They shed their robes and Transfigure them into soft thick blankets. Jake's hot hands touch him everywhere. The boy rips his shirt open, fumbles at his fly so that Jake can reach his naked skin, his hard prick. They've been fucking for weeks now and still he gets so randy when Jake is close. The boy never knew sex could be like this. He moans into Jake's kisses, rubs himself against Jake's belly and groin, wants Jake to take him and make him come. He turns around and pushes his bum back. Fuck me, he moans into the darkness, and Jake does. Their bodies seem to be made for each other, the way Jake thrusts into him slowly and surely, hitting that spot every time, that spot that makes him go crazy with need. Desperate, dirty words tumble from his lips. He's too loud but he can't help it. Jake puts the back of his hand against his mouth, and he bites into the knuckles, bites as hard as he can to stifle the screams. Love you so much, Barney, so much, Jake moans against his neck. At the sound of his lover's voice the boy comes hard, Jake's blood on his lips.

Mr Greengrass twitches at Draco's gaze. Barnabas Greengrass. His skin is flushed underneath the beard. Absent-mindedly, he's been rolling the blue ribbon into a small coil and now shoves it into his pants underneath the too-loose trousers. He doesn't realise Draco is in his head; his Occlumency is non-existent. But he remembers what Draco just saw.

And yet there's more to the flush than the memory of a schoolboy's stupendous fuck. Draco prods a bit and a memory of his mother appears, her face younger and softer, the Prefect's badge glinting on her robes. Sleeping with a blood traitor, Greengrass, she says in the stern, judgemental tone Draco knows quite well. He's not heard it much since the fall of the Dark Lord. But this is the Slytherin common room, back in the seventies, Draco assumes. His father, younger, prouder, is standing at the fire-place, watching with a sneer. A blood traitor queer, Salazar, Narcissa says, disgust open now in her voice. What were you thinking? A half-blood like you ... And the boy's world collapses around him, all his plans, his parents' wishes, his own high-flying aspirations. He's been Sorted into Slytherin for his single-minded ambition. He won't throw it all away for a schoolboy's crush. He will tell Dumbledore --

"You're doing it again, blondie."

Both Draco and Mr Greengrass jump and the connection breaks. Fenwick is standing in the door, a stack of clean sheets on his arm, a bottle of water on top.

Mr Greengrass shakes his head to get rid of the cobwebs in his mind. Draco knows the feeling all too well. Then Mr Greengrass turns towards the door, and Fenwick notices the wand in his hand.

"Accio wand!" he shouts, holding up his arm. With a solid smack the wand returns to the hand of its master.

Fenwick walks to the desk and drops the sheets onto it. He looks from Mr Greengrass to Draco. Somehow he seems disappointed.

"Why don't you let the boy go, Jake?" Mr Greengrass says all of a sudden. "He has nothing to do with it."

"Which boy, prisoner? D'you see a boy here? For if you do, then I can only assume there's brain damage from those Confundus Charms after all." Fenwick turns to McKinnon and crouches beside him. "Ennervate," he says and casts the spell.

McKinnon starts moaning and he clutches his groin. Carefully he sits up. He looks at Fenwick with daggers in his eyes, but he keeps still. The raised wand in Fenwick's hand may have something to do with that.

"You can stop with your games," Mr Greengrass says. "He's told me what you've done to him. Let him go, Jake. You have me. You can do whatever you want with me. But let him go."

Draco is touched by how fiercely the wizard fights for him. Offering his own life for Draco's, he's braver than he's given him credit for. But it's no use; he can see it in Fenwick's cold eyes. He has a plan and he's going through with it. Nobody can convince him otherwise, least of all Barney Greengrass. Draco reaches for Mr Greengrass' arm to make him stop trying. To give thanks of some kind. The wizard turns to him in surprise. His lips twitch ever so slightly when the girl's small hand takes his, a daughter's hand taking her father's.

Mr Greengrass whispers, "I'm so sorry, my boy. So very sorry." There are tears in his eyes.

The raw pity in his voice is almost Draco's undoing, even when he knows Mr Greengrass is apologising to him as much as to Fenwick who stands at the desk and watches their every move. Draco is so terribly afraid all of sudden. What will happen when Mr Greengrass is gone, when he's alone with Fenwick in the cell? He wants to curl up against Mr Greengrass, wants to be held by him like before, when he thought Draco was his daughter. A fearful sob threatens to rise in his throat but he bites it down. He won't cry, he won't.

McKinnon scoffs and stands. He is still a bit shaky on his legs. "What now?" he asks Fenwick, voice hoarse and scratchy.

"You take the prisoner back to his cell. I'll get the girl ready for Pepper." Fenwick hauls Mr Greengrass up to his feet.

"You have a very clever daughter," he says, his voice so devoid of emotion that shivers run down Draco's back. "And she loves her daddy very much. Do you think she would want him to know what is done to her here? How she gets her pussy stuffed every day? How those rough blokes just love to shove their big dicks into her? Can you believe that she wants you to know that? When she can tell it drives you out of your mind, seeing all that? Don't you think she'd rather tell you it's some Polyjuiced boy? The Malfoy boy, too, when she knows how much you hate the Malfoys." He shoves Mr Greengrass against McKinnon, who grabs him by the arm.

Fenwick is a brilliant actor, Draco has to give him that much.

Mr Greengrass is white as a sheet. "You're sick, Jake," he whispers, but Draco can hear the doubt in his voice.

"You have a very clever daughter, is all I'm saying. Slytherin, isn't she?" Fenwick turns towards the desk, and McKinnon pushes Mr Greengrass out the door. Draco hears him shuffling down the corridor, with McKinnon yelling at him to walk faster.

He says, "I am Draco Malfoy," and wishes that his girly voice wouldn't shake so much.

Fenwick looks at him in surprise, then barks out his bitter laugh. "Of course you are, pretty boy."

He comes close and because he clearly doesn't want to hurt him, Draco lets him lift the girl's thin body off the bed to change the sheets. Fenwick gives him water, then heals whatever perverse thing McKinnon has done to the girl's vagina. He gently mends Draco's broken arm and the bruised wrist. He even takes Draco to the bathroom and lets him wash up. When they are back in the cell, he gives Draco a wool blanket that smells clean and only a bit like mould. With the soiled sheets balled-up under his arm, he walks to the door. There, he stops and turns to Draco.

"You really hate me now, don't you, blondie?"

Draco is taken aback by the question, the first personal words Fenwick said to him since that afternoon. "I've hated you since the first moment I saw you," he says and wonders if that reply will finally bring down the Killing Curse on him.

But Fenwick chuckles and leans back against the door. "I don't think that's true. You were shitting your pants, but you didn't hate me."

Fuck him. "All right, so how about, I've hated you since you made me suck Elliot's dick. Or maybe since you gave me nothing to drink but Polyjuice. Or even better: I've hated you since you've allowed that swine Pepper to fuck me raw, night after night!" Draco's sitting up on the bed as he shouts at the guard. He is playing a risky game. But Fenwick hasn't killed him yet and that can only mean killing Draco is not part of Fenwick's plan. Not for now at least. And it feels good that for once it's him doing the shouting.

Fenwick watches Draco's outburst with a look of faint surprise. Well, fuck him! Draco lets himself fall back onto the mattress, eyes on the ceiling. As he catches his breath, it hits him that in Fenwick's twisted little world the worst he has done is to make Mr Greengrass believe Draco is his daughter Astoria. Draco himself is just another puppet in Fenwick's plan of revenge. Everything that was done to Draco at Erlestoke is just a means to another end. It's like Mr Greengrass said: Draco has nothing to do with it. This, this is the moment when Draco truly starts hating Jake Fenwick.

He's still staring at the ceiling when Fenwick sits down on the foot of the bed. He's curious about something, something that has to do with Mr Greengrass.

"You're a very accomplished Legilimens," he says. "Wandless, too." It doesn't exactly sound like a compliment.

"I've learned from the best." He doesn't mention that all his teachers died on the same day, a day that Draco considered one of the worst in his life not two months ago.

"So you think you know all about Barney and me." It's a statement, not a question.

"I know what I saw."

Fenwick's eyes don't twitch; his lips don't quiver. His features remain deceptively calm. And yet, there's something in the way he hides his left hand in the soiled sheets, the way he leans slightly forward. It tells Draco without words that Fenwick's never used Legilimency on Mr Greengrass. He doesn't know what Draco has seen. And he wants to know. And he doesn't. Legilimency is tricky business. You always only see what the person remembers, never the whole truth of it. In the blink of a moment Draco sees the means of his revenge beautifully laid out before him. And unlike Fenwick, he won't even have to lie.

"I never did any of the things they said I did." Fenwick is offering him bits of the story for bits of what Draco's seen in Mr Greengrass' mind. Oh, but he won't play that game.

"What things?" he asks, all innocence.

"That I fucked him against his will. That I Imperioed him."

Draco can just see his parents devise such accusations to clear Barney Greengrass' good Slytherin name. He loves them dearly, but he would never want Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy as his enemies.

"He was very young." Draco tries for non-committal.

"Barney was fifteen. I wasn't even his first lover. He knew exactly what he wanted." Fenwick pulls his left hand from the pile of sheets. "The scar? They said his bite marks were evidence I forced him. That he was fighting me." His bitter laugh has a frantic edge to it. "God, he was coming when he bit me. He loved it so much that he couldn't keep quiet. He was biting into my hand to not give us away."

Draco shrugs, wondering if Fenwick told all that to Dumbledore and the Hogwarts Board of Governors. Abraxas Malfoy and Druella Black would have ripped such a naive defence to shreds. Looking at Fenwick now, Draco cannot help thinking that they did.

Fenwick gets up and grabs the sheets. He leans over Draco. "No matter what you've seen, you know nothing about Barney and me."

Draco edges to the wall. Fenwick's upset and entirely too close. He waits until the guard is almost at the door. Then he goes in for the kill.

"He loved you, you know."

Fenwick stops. His shoulders slump as if he's clutching the sheets to his heart. He doesn't turn when he whispers, "You're a bloody liar, Malfoy."

Something drops to the floor. It's the empty tube of lavender toothpaste that Draco has all but forgotten underneath his sheets. Fenwick stoops to pick it up and stick it into the pile with the other rubbish.

Turning to Draco, he says, "I'm not going to kill you, blondie," casually as if they were discussing what's for dinner at Erle tonight. "But you better not get Pepper mad at you again."

*

Outside, the Wiltshire winter has settled in. Gentle snowstorms shake Erlestoke at night and transform the park into a white world of glittering wonders. Draco stands for hours at the window and imagines clouds of snow-dust in the air, snowflakes dancing on his skin. It's freezing in the cell and ice flowers bloom on the window pane. The girl shivers all the time. Draco can hardly remember how it felt not to be so cold. Fenwick brings him more blankets, but never clothes. Clothes increase Draco's chances of escape, and they're not taking any chances.

Within Erlestoke, the guards settle into their old routine: Polyjuice four times a day, and whoever brings it stays until Draco dutifully swallows it.

Pepper comes for Julie at night. He has started talking to her, telling her long stories about the home he's made for them. If it's not all just figments of his crazed mind, then he's even added magical space for a nursery to his flat. It makes Draco sick to his stomach to listen to this shite. But he heeds Fenwick's warning, never speaks up and says as little as possible. During the long hours that Pepper lies beside him, big hands groping the girl's tits while he talks and talks in his pinched voice, Draco hopes and prays that Fenwick does not Obliviate him to this: Polyjuiced as Julie for the rest of his life without any memory of what was before or who he is. The thought makes Draco's throat constrict and his heartbeat quicken painfully.

Fenwick shows up twice a day to bring water and food and heal whatever damage has been done to Draco. Sometimes he brings Barney Greengrass to the cell when it's McKinnon's turn with the girl. Since Fenwick has warned him off, McKinnon does take it easier on her. His rapes are perfunctory, no more elaborate torture games. Easier, of course, means it takes much longer. McKinnon can barely get it up without his toys. He takes some sick pleasure from spurting all over the girl's body when he finally does come. Even Petrified in his corner, it's obvious the sight drives Mr Greengrass out of his mind.

Ever so often Fenwick leaves Mr Greengrass alone with Draco. These are the most dangerous times. Fenwick will end the Binding Spell, help Mr Greengrass to his feet and lead him to the bed. He is setting them up as puppets in his game, and Draco tries very hard to not play along. They barely talk, and when they do he makes sure Mr Greengrass knows whom he is talking to. But the girl cannot refuse for long the comfort Mr Greengrass is so willing to provide. Draco may manage a few awkward minutes sitting apart, but then she curls up in Mr Greengrass' lap. His strong, warm hands smooth out the tangled strands of her hair. Small soothing noises spill from his lips, wordless animal sounds that promise warmth and safety. Draco knows they are not for him, but he soaks them up and lets them fill his mind. With the bells gone, it is something to hold on to.

He struggles not to fall asleep in Mr Greengrass' lap. In sleep, the girl takes over. But his lids drop, his thoughts go wandering, his body nests deeper into Mr Greengrass. Draco dreams of lavender fields, of a blonde girl running through them on bare feet, hair and skirts flowing. He wakes to the memory of light cloth that clings and sways around his naked thighs. My little girl, Mr Greengrass whispers and Draco is too tired to tell him he's six feet one and has never in his life worn a skirt.

Fenwick casts dark, jealous looks at them when he comes to take Mr Greengrass away. Does he envy Draco the touch of Mr Greengrass' hands? Would he want to comfort Barney like Mr Greengrass comforts the girl? Draco doesn't know.

One night he wakes with Fenwick in his cell, a dark shadow sitting in Mr Greengrass' usual spot in the corner. Draco is so taken by surprise he scrambles against the wall, for fear of what Fenwick will do to him. The glint of the flask tells him the guard is drunk again. But Fenwick just looks at him, eyes bright in the dim light. He looks and looks and drinks. He doesn't speak, doesn't come close; he doesn't touch Draco. After what seems like hours, Draco is so exhausted he falls asleep again. The next morning Fenwick's gone. It might as well have been a dream.

Days and nights flow into each other with the soft howling of the wind and the ever-present white outside. Draco's stopped counting the days. Sometimes he hides underneath the desk and looks at the scratches and nibs in the wall. There are eighteen scratches for the first eighteen days of February. Has he been at Erle three times as long? Or longer? Is it March outside? Or still February? The ice flowers on the window grow every day.

*

Draco has his first period the day his father is executed in Azkaban.

Lucius Malfoy's death makes the front page of the Daily Prophet. They've chosen an older photograph showing Father in his magnificent, silk-trimmed robes, making an appearance before the Wizengamot. He is all polite smiles as he waves to someone on the gallery.

Draco crouches to pick the paper up that someone -- McKinnon, he suspects -- has thrown into his cell. That's when he notices the red smears on the insides of his thighs and the clods of blood on the sheets. At first he thinks Pepper hurt him again with his long, useless prick, then he remembers Fenwick came by at midnight and took care of him. Draco's been feeling shitty all day yesterday with a headache and his nerves raw. When Fenwick gave him the potion, he started crying again, and he's not done that in weeks.

His head spins with what the blood on his thighs might mean. He forces himself for the umpteenth time to remember all he knows about Polyjuice Potion. Lacewing flies, leeches, bicorn horn ... He's been Polyjuiced for weeks without taking breaks. Nothing he remembers from Potions class tells him exactly how long the potion can be abused without lasting effects. Knotgrass, fluxweed ... fluxweed picked at the full moon ... If only they had let him keep his Potions book. Draco needs it now. Shredded boomslang skin, yes. And a bit of the one you want to turn into. Who do you want to turn into? A girl?

Lucius Malfoy is dead. He's been executed on the second of March, less than a year after the downfall of the Dark Lord whom he followed for most of his life.

So it's March already, Draco thinks. And wonders whether this is why Mother doesn't come anymore on Sundays.

At lunchtime McKinnon shows up with the Polyjuice Potion. Draco hopes that at least he will leave him alone when the girl's on her period. No such luck. McKinnon is strangely intrigued with the menstrual blood that soaks the sheets between the girl's legs. He smears it all over Draco's belly while he jerks off and spurts his spunk onto Draco, too.

Humiliation burns in Draco's stomach; anger rises like acid in his throat. He tries to reach for it, but the girl could not care less. The cramps in her belly are so bad, she wants to curl up into a ball and sob. But McKinnon is not yet done with her. He takes a Knut from his pocket and Transfigures the coin into a bronze-coloured glass that he shoves into her bleeding pussy. It doesn't hurt much, but then he casts a Reducto and the glass shatters within her.

Draco lies completely still, dreading what sick thing will come next. But McKinnon moves away from the bed. He stares curiously at the girl, an expectant look on his face. Draco knows it's not even sexual for him. It's simple experimentation. What will happen if I do that, what if I do this? He sees the girl's body but not Astoria. Draco Malfoy? The Death Eater brat? Prisoner number 3168? He's not even in this cell. Draco's invisible, a ghost already.

Clutching at the last shreds of hate -- at McKinnon, but even more at Fenwick, for where the fuck is he when Draco needs him? -- Draco closes the girl's legs so McKinnon cannot stare any longer at her pussy. Immediately dozens of knife points stab at him from the inside. The girl clutches her belly, but the knives just slice deeper. Draco tells her not to move, not an inch, to lie absolutely still. But the girl's instincts scream to pull out whatever's scissoring her insides. She reaches into the shards. Draco's hands come away all cut up and bleeding.

With a smirk McKinnon pushes his wand up his sleeve. The experiment was successful; the results appear to be satisfying. Draco wants to tap into his last reserve of hate again and throw insults at the bastard, useless as they are. But the girl tells him to stop wasting energy and focus on lying still and not bleeding to death until Fenwick comes. She is right. Stray thoughts fill Draco's mind: that he is a half-orphan now, and a half-man, too, a Polyjuiced boy on the rag.

McKinnon mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like, "Fuck Fenwick," then he opens the door to leave. Right at this moment, a familiar voice is shouting down the corridor.

"Let go of me," it yells, obnoxious as ever. "I know he's here. Mrs Malfoy said he's in a cell under the roof. And this is the one corridor the Aurors weren't allowed to search."

McKinnon stands frozen at the door he's just opened.

"Damn it, Harry. You've heard what the Governor said. The cells up here are evacuated because of Dragon Pox."

Draco doesn't recognise this darker voice. It's not someone he's ever met. But he would know Harry Potter's voice anywhere. He is here, at Erlestoke, searching for Draco! Mother must have got in touch with him when they would no longer allow her to visit. Potter owes the Malfoys. Mother did save his life, after all.

All of this flashes through Draco's mind, but paramount is this: someone is here, looking for him. The door is open if only a fraction. Whoever is out in the corridor will hear him. Already McKinnon inches the door shut, very slowly, very carefully. In another moment Draco's chance at rescue will be gone.

Cut fingers forgotten, Draco pushes himself up from the bed. The knives in his belly only make him cry out louder. The sound fills the cell and pushes against the door, but the girl's voice is too soft to carry the full force of how much Draco wants out of here, this body, this cell. His voice cracks in a high-pitched squeal as McKinnon's hand clamps down on him. Draco struggles to get free, bleeding all over McKinnon's face as he claws the bastard's face with long fingernails. McKinnon snarls at him, wand drawn, as he rams his knee into the girl's abdomen. The splintery sound of glass crunching into glass reminds Draco to not again let an enemy know what he wants. Not even McKinnon's hard grip can stifle the girl's agonised screams of pain.

Yet his "Silencio!" cuts them short. The Spell closes around Draco's throat and he struggles to breathe. McKinnon is at the door again. They both listen intently. There's a shuffle at the stairs, then light footsteps come running towards the cell, followed by more forceful, heavier ones. Potter must have heard something.

"The little fucker," McKinnon growls under his breath.

He shuts the door but for the bolt sliding home into the latch. The voices outside are too muffled to make out what they're saying. For a couple of minutes there's stomping and loud banging on doors.

Draco wants to scream for help again, but the Spell won't allow him to even cough. His body is shaking with the pain of the splinters within the girl. Why can't Potter find the cell? Why doesn't he come banging on his door? He concentrates, trying hard to not let the girl distract him, and sends out the shapeless markers of his magical presence. Potter felt it before, in every hateful curse and spell Draco hit him with. He seems to sense it now, for he shouts, "Malfoy! Where the fuck are you?"

The door bolt latches shut as McKinnon whirls around, face white with fury. A muttered curse; magic blazes. His Stunning Spell sends Draco into blind oblivion.

*

Mr Greengrass has his arm wrapped around the girl's waist. He strokes her head again and again, weaving in and out of the strands of her long hair that catch, softly, on the rough calluses of his palms. Father's dead, Draco thinks and he longs for a memory of his father, holding him with such love as Mr Greengrass holds the girl. But all he recalls is a misty morning, Astoria clinging to Mr Greengrass' robes when her sister tries to take her away. As if thrown into a Pensieve, Draco can see in vivid detail Mr Greengrass' broad smile and the way his strong hands pat Astoria's blonde head.

From the crumpled Prophet on the floor, Father smiles at him politely, then waves at someone on the gallery.

But Merlin, how can that be, Jake? She's on her ...

I told you. This is no Polyjuice trick.

Did he really hear them talking? He feels warm with blankets all around. Draco stretches carefully, and there is no pain. The splinters in his pussy are gone. Instead they've stuffed a soft cloth between his thighs.

Mr Greengrass pulls him closer. "Shh, my star. It's all right, darling. Go to sleep." His voice is smooth and dark like the night shadows that fill the cell. "Close your eyes," he whispers into Draco's hair.

Draco keeps his eyes open for another moment. Potter was here, in Erlestoke, running along his corridor. It can only mean not much longer now and they will find him, they will get him out of here. Just a bit longer, another day, another night ... But the girl doesn't believe Draco any more. She's at home already in her father's arms, enfolded by his familiar smell of polishing potions and chives. She closes Draco's eyes and tells him to stop thinking.

"Night, daddy," she mumbles, nestling tighter into Mr Greengrass' lap. For a heartbeat his hand tenses in her hair, then he resumes his gentle stroking.

*

In the morning light the glass bottle gleams a brilliant blue. It glitters like the cut stones from Narcissa Malfoy's jewellery. Mr Greengrass lies beside it. The sconce is halfway ripped out of the wall. The magical candle has fallen to the floor, and he seems to reach for it with his right hand. Its thick fingers are muscled rather than fleshy, with blue veins standing out from the freckled skin. There's dust and small pieces of plaster in his hair and on his clothes. It looks as if flour was sprinkled on the black and maroon stripes of his prison garb. His head is turned unnaturally far to the side so that his chin touches the back of his shoulder. A bruised band winds around his throat, deeply etched into his skin, its colour a purple blue like violets. Blue like his daughter's eyes. His own eyes go to the window. They stare wide open into the brilliant rays of the rising sun.

*