The Lion and the Serpent

They had been Dark for so long, they no longer remembered anything else. The memories of light had faded, giving way to the shadows.



They never slept. They never aged. The oldest of them were still nineteen, and always would be, for as long as it went on. They were Dark, all of them. Hermione, Minerva, Calixa, and the rest of the Unforgiven. Their special skills grew more powerful every day under Harry\'s cruel tutelage. Layre knew how to trap and torment the magical creatures, and the groves shuddered in terror whenever he embarked on one of his excursions. Hermione\'s delicate hands learned the art of exquisite intricate cruelty. And Calixa... she was always by Harry\'s side, never wavering, always watching him with cold admiration.



Others had joined them in time. There was Arthur, whose calm, silent rage was deceptive, until it erupted into a deluge of fire, drowning his victims in it. There was Luna, whose pale alabaster face carried an enigmatic smile. She spoke in riddles and mysteries, alternatingly soothing and terrifying her victims, before the agonizing death claimed them. And there was Ginny...



Draco wasn\'t bothered by any of it. It was as if none of them even existed for him. Only his Master did, strumming his body and spirit like a musical instrument, eliciting melodies of unspeakable anguish and pleasure from it with every touch.



The world around them was Dark, too. Death was everywhere. Pain was the way of life. Draco wondered why people still kept bothering to give birth to children and raise them. Or did they? He wasn\'t sure of anything that was happening outside.



“How long has it been now?” Draco asked quietly. “How many years?”



Harry laughed contemptuously. “You think so small, my love. You still speak of years. I measure time in eternities.”



Draco opened his eyes and stared at his Master. Harry hadn\'t aged. He was still nineteen, as he would always would remain, but somehow, his face was timeless.



Draco sat up and stared at his own damaged, battered body. Deep scars had burrowed across his skin, going in different directions. Deeper scars lay within, invisible to everyone but his Master. Draco lowered his eyes. All at his Master\'s hand: so much pain, so much pleasure. Pain and pleasure, mingling, merging, forever inseparable.



The stench of death and decay permeated the air. All around him, on the floor, on the harsh, rough stones, there were little pools of blood. His own, or someone else\'s, Draco couldn\'t remember. It no longer mattered.



“What is this place?” Draco asked.



“My playground,” Harry said meaningfully.



“I was your first,” Draco whispered with grim satisfaction.



“Yes,” Harry agreed. “But there were so many before you.”



Harry\'s eyes glowed with ancient memories... memories of Voldemort, memories of others like him before him, memories of primordial chaos and darkness.



“I grew bored with you, my love,” Harry informed him coldly. “You gain too much pleasure from our games. It\'s time to end this.”



Even as the Master\'s harsh words pierced him to the core, in the midst of the final, awful rejection, a wave of unspeakable pleasure was born, overtaking Draco. He was being disposed of, he was about to be cast away, he was nothing, he meant nothing... he reveled in this realization, delighted in it.



He looked at Harry with a smile. “I am sorry.”



Harry shrugged. “Don\'t be. I took everything I wanted from you.”



Harry\'s foot kicked Draco in the chest, and he fell backwards, his head impacting against the floor. Harry stepped on his neck, constricting his breathing. A lacerated dagger pressed against Draco\'s chest, and then plunged into his flesh, where the serpentine Mark rested its head. Agony, ecstasy, terror and joy burst forth, overtaking him one last time.



And then Draco heard a soul-piercing scream. He was stunned by the sound of it.



People didn\'t scream anymore. They just died.



It was as if the scream came from outside of the world, somehow pouring in from another reality. It grew louder, more desperate, and somehow, more familiar. And then, everything shattered around him, and Draco found himself falling, falling back, through the abyss, through time, through eternity...



Draco woke up from his nightmare at the sound of Hermione\'s screams. He jumped up, dizzy and disoriented. Harry was faster. He leapt to his feet, and ran out, undressed, as he was, across the quarters, bursting into Draco\'s old bedroom. Draco followed him closely.



Harry\'s arms scooped Hermione up, and held her tight, rocking her. He put his hand over her mouth gently, whispering soothingly. She woke up with a start, and her scream died, buried in the palm of Harry\'s hand. She gazed at Harry in horror, and then at Draco, who now stood in the doorway, watching them.



“I saw.... I saw...” she said hoarsely, repeating it over and over again. “I was there. I saw.”



Harry did not let go of her. He sat on the bed, holding her, rocking her, as if she was a small child, his lips pressing to her forehead.



“Shhh...” he whispered softly. “I know. We all saw it. It\'s just night terrors, love. Don\'t mind them.”



She whimpered plaintively and withdrew from him.



“I\'m losing my mind,” she said weakly, burying her face in the pillow. Draco saw that her pajamas were drenched in sweat.



“Not much longer now,” Harry said quietly, placing his hand on her back.



“Harry,” she murmured. “I hate to say this, but I hope you die.”



Harry reached out to her, stroking her hair gently.



“Let\'s end this then,” Harry said decisively. “Draco... I wasn\'t going to ask you to do this... was going to figure it out myself... but if you help me, we can end it even sooner.”



Draco nodded. “Anything you say,” he said, and he meant it. The dream, no, the premonition, still lingered in his memory, and Hermione\'s primal scream still echoed in his mind.



Harry spoke quietly:



“It would have to be something irreversible. Not just a spell, or a curse, or a simple physical injury that could be healed... Draco?”



Draco looked at him, a question in his eyes.



“That poison... the one you had made back then... do you have any of it left?”



“Yes,” Draco said reluctantly. “Back at the Malfoy Manor. But... it\'s no good for what you are planning.. You need to take something that will give you a delay... enough time to draw Voldemort inside you before you die. This poison kills instantly. You won\'t even have the time to swallow it.”



“Well... you are the expert. Can you somehow arrange for it to be in a slow-release form?”



Draco frowned, and thought about it for a few minutes, running the figures in his mind.



“I guess. If I do, taken internally, it will give you about five minutes.”



“Five minutes,” Harry growled. “You call this slow-release?”



“It\'s basilisk venom, not a calcium supplement!” Draco snapped. “What do you expect?”



“I expect you to do better than that,” Harry said bluntly.



Suddenly, Hermione spoke up, her voice eerily calm and rational:



“How about this: take the lethal doze, break it apart into smaller pieces, crystallize into a slow-release structure, and then apply subdermally?”



Draco stared at Hermione, stunned, bewildered. The night\'s terror had changed her into someone else, someone that Draco no longer knew. Had this conversation taken place even a day ago, she would have argued. Certainly she would not have used her Healer expertise to plan for the death of her best friend. But it looked like Hermione had made peace with the darkness within, after all.



Realizing that they were both waiting for his answer, Draco spoke again:



“With subdermal application, Harry could have about twenty minutes. Transdermal... maybe forty-five minutes.”



As Draco said it, it finally dawned on him that he was about to repeat the crime that had sentenced him to the bond in the first place, this time, killing his lover, his Master. For a brief moment, he wondered idly if there might still be a way around it.



“Draco... no games,” Harry warned. “No sneaking around. No trying to reduce the dose, no trying to develop an antidote. I mean it. If you try to trick me, I will know instantly.”



“No tricks,” Draco agreed, forcing his voice to reflect the calm he did not feel. “I promised I would obey... I will. Even without the bond, I would. Honestly. I don\'t want to ... see you like that.”



“Good,” Harry said. He stood up and pulled a sheet off Hermione\'s bed, wrapping it around himself and Draco. Draco blushed slightly, only now realizing that both he and Harry had rushed to Hermione\'s rescue and burst into her bedroom completely naked.



“Don\'t worry about it,” Hermione said dryly. “Given the circumstances, the erotic value of this experience was minimal.”



Harry chuckled quietly.



Draco stared at him numbly, wondering if that was the last time he would ever hear him laugh.



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