Promethean Fire

Part IV: Chariot of Helios

Draco had always loved Spain. Cartagena in the summer was always damnably hot, but there were few places in the world more beautiful.

Today that beauty was the backdrop of a battlefield, just one more stop among hundreds in a war that had spanned three generations and was slowly damaging the future of a fourth.

Lupin’s camp was a gathering of quaint, pretty little villas on the beach, right there on the Costa Calida. It was one of the many sanctuaries the Order had established all over Europe. A safe haven for the innocents.

There were no innocents in the camp today though. Draco’s message had been passed on, and Lupin, always careful, always ready, had listened. He had sent the children, the injured, the mad, and the defeated, somewhere else. He had gotten them out in time.

Thank God.

So it was that the blood spilled into the sand was the blood of warriors. The blood of men and women who lived every day with the full understanding and resigned knowledge that it very well could be their last. The blood that soaked the white sand red belonged to men and women who walked hand in hand with Death every day. Men and women who had come to look on Death as a fond and constant companion.

And no muggles died. That was always a good thing. One thing that Dumbledore always insisted upon: do not let harm come to the muggles.

No, we certainly wouldn’t want that.

Draco did what Hermione told him. He tried to stay away from Lupin. He knew that Lupin would not kill him, just as Lupin knew that Draco would not kill him, but if they came face to face, and did not draw down on one another…if anyone saw them…it would look very suspicious. Best to just stay away.

Draco ducked another killing hex and blindly shot a stunning spell at the nameless witch who had just tried to kill him. One thing he absolutely fucking hated about being Dumbledore’s little lapdog; he was always stunning people who were trying like mad to kill him. He had not used an Unforgivable Curse in nearly three years, and sometimes… sometimes he was tempted.

He hit the sand as another green blast of sparks barely missed him—he felt it ruffle his hair, for fuck’s sake—and hit the sneaky little bastard who had just so admirably tried to end his life with a blasting spell. The wiry little wizard was knocked out cold.

Sometimes, like now, he almost wished he really was as evil as the world still believed. If he were, he’d have no qualms whatsoever about killing the aggravating pillocks.

And then, somehow, he came face to face with Lupin—quite literally. To say that Lupin fell into his lap…well, it would only be the flat truth.

“Lupin, you mangy old fuck,” Draco snarled, shoving the man off of him.

“Nice to see you too, Draco,” Lupin said with a sly wink.

“Lupin, this is really not the best time for catching up,” Draco muttered, getting to his feet and looking around to make sure nobody was paying attention to them. Nobody was. They were all too busy fighting or dying.

Draco and Lupin instinctively moved so that they were almost back to back. In the heat of battle, all pretension forgotten.

“So, I hear you’re shagging Granger behind her dear hubby’s back,” Draco said. He shot a man who was charging them with another stunning spell, not sure whether it was a Death Eater or one of Lupin’s people.

“She hates that idiot, coward husband of hers, you know that,” Lupin said. “She just needed someone.”

Draco laughed and watched a witch in Death Eater robes go down under Lupin’s quick wand. “That, and you’re probably an animal in the sack,” Draco said.

Lupin laughed. “That too—duck!”

“What—?” Draco was thrown to the ground. He rolled over and saw a man in Death Eater robes—Tibalt…Tishbolt, something like that—leveling his wand at Lupin.

Fuck, Draco thought, resigned. There was no way Lupin was going to make it. He had used that moment when he should have been turning his wand on the bastard to knock Draco out of the way.

But Draco’s wand was trained right on him from his position on the ground. “Avada Kedavra,” he said, almost casually, and watched the black robed figure topple to the ground.

“Thanks,” Lupin said, holding out a hand to help him up.

Draco took it, then he sucker-punched Lupin and watched dispassionately as he hit the sand. “You fucking twit,” he snapped. “What were you thinking?”

Lupin looked up at him, rubbing his jaw, then threw his head back and laughed.

“What’s so damn funny?” Draco demanded.

Lupin flipped over and got to his feet. “I’ve never been laid out for saving anyone’s life before,” he said.

“You didn’t save my life,” Draco said. “He wasn’t trying to kill me. He was trying to kill you. I’m one of them, remember?”

Lupin lifted his head and sniffed the air, then glanced around. The battle had moved up the beach, and it looked like it was coming to an end. There were Death Eaters apparating, and some of Lupin’s people were starting to check the fallen to see which ones were dead.

“Not for long,” Lupin said. “You should go now. Before they miss you and become suspicious.”

Draco nodded and started to turn and disapparate, but Lupin caught his arm. “Be by your fireplace at midnight. No matter what.”

“Are we going to get him out tonight?” Draco asked, trying to keep the hope out of his voice, and failing miserably.

“We are going to try,” Lupin said. “That is all I can promise.”

Draco nodded again. He couldn’t expect anything more.

He disapparated.

********

Draco ducked as another water glass flew by his head. It smashed into the wall behind him and shattered into crystal dust.

“How many?!” Voldemort shouted.

“Twenty-three,” Draco said. It was not the first time he had answered the question. Not even the second.

“You lost twenty-three of my Death Eaters?!”

Draco almost pointed out that it had not been him leading the raid, but Rodolphus, then decided that would probably be suicidally stupid and kept silent.

“How many injured?” Voldemort demanded.

“Fifteen minor injuries; cuts, burns, broken bones, lesser hexes. Eight serious injuries.” Draco said this like he was reciting a list from memory.

“Including Rabastan,” Voldemort snarled, like it was all Draco’s doing.

“Including Rabastan,” Draco agreed. If he had thought of it, it probably would have been his doing. If it had been him, Rabastan would be counted among the dead, not the dying.

“Will he live?”

“I doubt it,” Draco said indifferently. He ducked a flying dinner plate.

“You doubt it! YOU DOUBT IT!”

“Yes.”

“What happened?!”

“Entrail-Expelling Curse,” Draco said.

“I meant with the raid, you idiot!”

Draco closed his eyes and prayed that that was not a headache he felt coming on. “It seems that they were ready for us,” he said. “They knew that we were coming. They evacuated the camp.”

“I have suspected for a while now that there is a spy among us,” Voldemort said in an angry grumble. “Someone warned them.”

Draco did not bother ducking the teacup that came hurtling toward him. He lifted his hand and caught it, almost casually, a centimeter from his nose. “My Lord, do you have any suspicions as to who the traitor might be?” Draco asked. He set the cup aside on the table.

“No,” Voldemort hissed. Then, “Where is Wormtail? Send him in here to clean this mess up,” he said, then with a swirl of robes, walked out of the room.

“Master is very displeased,” Wormtail said, coming into the room before Draco had a chance to shout for him.

Sometimes Draco suspected that the twitchy little man was just as psychically connected to the Dark Lord as that repulsive serpent Nagini.

“Clean this up,” Draco said. He turned to go.

“But now he has the boy to keep him happy,” Wormtail went on as though Draco had not spoken. “Having the Potter boy makes him very happy.”

Draco clenched his fingers together tightly and strode from the room before he started throwing crockery himself.

********

When Rabastan Lestrange breathed his last, Draco was sitting by his bedside.

Rodolphus had been in earlier and sat beside his brother for about an hour, then left, looking strained and careworn. Rabastan was unconscious, had been since they brought him back to the Riddle House, and it was doubtful that he would wake up.

Not a bad way to go, Draco decided. Too fucking good for the likes of Rabastan Lestrange.

Bellatrix had poked her head into the room about ten minutes after her husband left. “How is he?” she’d asked.

“He’s dying,” Draco said flatly.

She nodded, her mad eyes dancing, and left.

So now he was alone with the bastard. He was alone with him and the only thing he could think of was Rabastan holding Harry down on the dining room table as he pounded into him, then leaning forward and whispering, “Be nice,” in that silk and whisky voice of his. Draco thought of that, and knew that he was no better. He was no better, no different, just as evil, just as cold, and a hundred times more jaded. That he understood this did not make him hate the man any less.

But it made him hate himself just a little bit more.

Rabastan made a shallow rattling sound in the back of his throat and Draco felt his skin crawl. ‘Death rattle’ it was called. It was an appropriate name for the sound. And it was about fucking time too.

Draco watched the slow, uneven rise and fall of the dying man’s chest, waiting for it to stop. He wanted to see it stop. He had something he wanted to say to Rabastan before it happened. Just before it happened, so that the son of a bitch took it with him beyond the veil.

Rabastan made that rough rattling sound again and breathed out. Draco waited, but he did not breathe in again.

Smiling grimly, he bent his head so that his lips were almost touching Rabastan’s ear. “The lowest circle of hell is reserved for men like us. There are some things for which there can be no absolution. I will meet you there, and you better be prepared, old friend.”

There was no response from Rabastan. Draco had not thought that there would be.

He stood up and walked out of the room. Rodolphus was standing just outside the door, waiting.

Draco looked at him dispassionately and said, “He’s gone.”

Rodolphus sighed and went in to see for himself.

Draco went back to the kitchen to find Wormtail. There was another mess for him to clean up.

********

The Death Eaters returned from the raid in London in no better shape than the rest, though with slightly fewer losses.

The Dark Lord went through three whole tea sets before he calmed down.

Draco did not eat dinner that night either. He had not eaten since Harry was captured. Not a crumb. He badly wanted a strong drink though. In fact, he had wanted one of those since Harry was brought here, and had not dared to drink a drop for fear that he would do something exceptionally stupid if he did.

“You are not eating,” Lucius said from across the table. “Are you ill?”

“Yes,” Draco said, and it was the absolute truth.

Lucius nodded and took a sip of his tea. “The Dark Lord has something planned tonight that should cheer you up. He feels that the men’s spirits are low.”

Draco took a deep breath. “Oh?”

Lucius smiled. “I’m not telling you what it is. It’s a surprise.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

“It was my idea, of course.”

Of course.

“Where is the Dark Lord?” Draco asked. He had not been at the table when Draco came down, and his chair was still empty.

“He is playing with the Potter brat, I believe,” Lucius said, sounding uninterested. “He was quite wroth with the way things turned out today.”

It went unspoken that the Dark Lord was venting his anger on Harry.

Draco did not even want to contemplate what the Dark Lord might be doing with Harry. He would not rape him—there was that at least. As far as Draco knew, Voldemort had no interest in such things. His interests ran more toward torture. However, he did understand that rape was a form of torture, especially to one as proud as Harry Potter, and he had no reservations whatsoever about watching his followers do it. In fact, Draco rather thought he got off on it a little.

Someone from behind him reached over Draco’s shoulder and set something on the table before him. It was a little rod with a flat circular thing on the end. He turned around and saw Wormtail making his way down the table, placing one of the things in front of each Death Eater.

Draco looked across the table at Lucius, who merely quirked a brow at him and gestured for him to pick it up. Draco did, and he had to put a hand over his mouth to keep from dry heaving.

It was a very small, highly detailed branding iron.

“What the fuck is this?” Draco snapped at Lucius.

Lucius merely smiled serenely and accepted his own from Wormtail as he passed by. “It is the Malfoy crest,” he said. “Surely you recognize it.”

Draco had not even noticed. He turned the iron in his hands and, sure enough, the brand was a winged serpent with its tail between its jaws. The Malfoy family crest since time immemorial.

Draco stood up. “I’m going to bed,” he said.

“The Dark Lord will not like it,” Lucius said.

Draco gritted his teeth and sat back down. “Father, what is going on?” Draco demanded.

“I told you, it’s a surprise.”

“Two guesses what the surprise is,” Draco muttered.

Lucius heard him and thought he was making a joke. He laughed.

Draco had never been less facetious in his life.

Even though he had a fair idea of what the brands were for, Draco still felt his stomach curl up on itself when McNair led Harry out into the dining hall. Harry had an iron collar around his neck and manacles on his wrists, all attached to thick chains. McNair led him out into the room by those chains, then dropped them and ordered Harry to kneel.

Eyes blank, face expressionless, Harry obeyed.

The Death Eaters all watched with keen interest as McNair conjured a heavy wooden contraption against one wall, then went about checking it over to make sure everything worked on it the way it was supposed to.

It was a heavy dark wood table, the surface of which could be raised or lowered. McNair moved it so that it was tilted up at a fifty degree angle, then locked it into place.

He grabbed the chains hooked to Harry’s arms and pulled him over to it. He shoved Harry face down on the flat of the table, jerked his arms over his head, and locked the chains around a thick steel loop at the top. Harry was effectively laid out flat and unable to move.

Not that he was trying to move. He just lay there.

It was a position he was quickly becoming accustomed to.

McNair left the room then and the Death Eaters all erupted in animated conversation. What was going on? What delightful new treat did the Dark Lord have for them?

Draco didn’t have to wonder. He had a pretty damn good idea. He wondered why he didn’t feel nearly as horrified and sick as he knew he should. He decided that he had probably reached his limit in that area and his mind had just up and said ‘fuck this’ and shut down on it. He was becoming desensitized.

He looked at Harry and Harry appeared to be almost relaxed. He lay there, his sleek back to the Death Eaters, his arms raised over his head, his head turned and resting in the curve of one of his elbows, his eyes shut so the dark fan of his lashes rested on his cheeks. He did not even look afraid.

Draco wondered if the Dark Lord had told him what was going to happen. Then he dismissed this idea as foolish. Of course the Dark Lord had told him. The anticipation of the pain was half of the torture.

Voldemort walked into the dining room then. He looked at Harry stretched out on the table contraption and smiled happily. “Wormtail,” he said.

Wormtail approached him and held out another iron. Voldemort took it and waved him away. The little man scurried off.

Voldemort walked over to Harry and ran one of his hands over the curve of Harry’s shoulders. Harry didn’t even flinch.

“As you will undoubtedly have noticed, Wormtail has provided you each with a branding iron, upon which is your sigil,” Voldemort said. He held the branding end of the thing up to his lips and blew on it. It immediately flared bright yellow hot. “Let me demonstrate.”

Draco wanted to close his eyes. He did not want to look. He tried not to look, but it was like his body would just not obey him. It was like watching a car crash. Horrible beyond description, but still so fascinating.

Voldemort once again ran his hand over the smooth expanse of Harry’s back, unblemished despite all that Draco knew had been done to it. “I wouldn’t move, if I were you,” Voldemort warned. Then he pressed the iron into Harry’s back, just between his shoulder blades.

Harry’s hands tightened into fists against the chains, his body tensed, and he made a short strangled sound of pain, but that was all.

Voldemort, the fucking sadist, held the brand there for almost half a minute, until the sick, sweet scent of burned flesh was heavy in the air. When he took it away, there was a small dark imprint of the Dark Mark imbedded in Harry’s flawless skin. A little curl of smoke rose off of it, then was gone.

“Now then,” Voldemort said. “Who would like to go next?”

There were some, Draco knew, who found pleasure in pain and torment. Things that were torture to anyone else could bring them shuddering to climax and have them begging for more. Harry was not one of these. Draco had known him to delight in a little rough sex, but it never became anything else. But this…this…he did not think anyone could find pleasure in this.

And this was something that Draco knew, he knew he could not stand to watch it. Maybe he should, maybe he deserved to…he probably did. It was another of those things that, if Harry could endure, the least Draco should do was stay and watch. Stay because he was the only one who did not hate Harry, who did not wish him ill, or dead, or worse. He should be able to stay and give what little comfort he could by his presence, but he knew…he knew that this would break him. He could not stay and watch this.

“My Lord, I will,” Draco said.

Lucius laughed and Voldemort smiled and gestured for him to proceed.

Draco walked around the table and approached Harry. He could feel the weight of the Death Eaters’ eager gazes on his back and he wanted to cringe in revulsion.

Draco put the branding iron to his lips as Voldemort had done and blew on it until the iron flared brightly. He was once again repeating I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, over and over inside his head, but now it was coupled intermittently with please forgive me, please forgive me, please forgive me, and it repeated again and again like a mantra.

It was inevitable that he do this. He knew that, which was why he had spoken up so quickly. It would have come to this anyway in the end, but only after he was forced to watch over fifty others go before him. Voldemort would heal the wounds when there was no more smooth space to brand, and then it would start all over again.

Draco could not watch that. He could not. His mind—what little he had left that he could still claim as sane—would shatter like finely spun glass.

Draco touched Harry’s back lightly and felt him shiver under his hand. He gently caressed the space just below Voldemort’s Dark Mark, both to soothe and to give Harry forewarning of where he was going put the iron. He chose that spot because it was so near to the burn that was already there, and so already hurting. It was a small mercy, and when it got right down to it, pointless in the extreme, but it was mercy nonetheless.

Draco took a deep breath and pressed the hot brand into Harry’s skin.

Harry did not try to control his reaction this time. He sank his teeth into the curve of his own arm and screamed. It was muffled against his flesh, but it was loud enough that it almost didn’t matter.

Draco held the hot iron there for less than ten seconds—long enough to please Voldemort and the rest of his audience so that he would not have to do it again—then he pulled it back, leaving a small, perfect impression of the winged serpent behind.

Harry slumped in his bonds and lay there, breathing heavily.

Draco turned back to Voldemort and bent his head in a short bow. “My Lord, with your permission, may I retire?”

Voldemort steepled his fingers in front of himself on the table and tapped his fingertips together. “You did well, Draco. Please sit down.”

Draco blinked at him. He felt like hot bands of steel were crushing his heart. “My Lord, I—”

“Sit. Down.”

Draco sat down. What else could he do?

Lucius went next, and then Rodolphus, then his whack-job wife, and so it went. So it went, on and on, for hours. Sometime around eight o’clock, Harry passed out from the pain and McNair revived him with an Enervate spell. Sometime around nine o’clock, they ran out of unblemished skin to burn and Voldemort cast a couple of rapid healing charms so they could begin anew.

Draco sat there, staring blindly at his clenched hands on the tabletop. Every once in a while, Harry would cry out or, more rarely, curse and scream, and Draco would look up.

Harry’s back was spotted with the myriad sigils of more than twenty wizarding families. They looked like the rosettes on the pelt of a leopard. They almost looked pretty, if you didn’t think of the canvas upon which they were being placed as a living, breathing, feeling human being.

Draco was beginning to suspect that he was going crazy.

He was almost certain of it when he stopped trying to not watch, when the cries, screams, curses, and whimpers Harry made no longer caused his heart to skip a beat.

He was absolutely certain of it by the time he started praying for midnight.