Only through the pain

Disclaimer: I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts deedily dee, but I don’t own anything in here. I don’t even own the computer I’m typing on today….its my husbands >.< and if he knew I was writing angsty slash fiction on it….well…he wouldn’t be psyched. He’s just slightly homophobic, sadly enough, but I’m still working on him, and I’ve got plenty of time, because I DO own him. But I do NOT own the music, the characters or the Zohan…..erm….The Zohan is not in this story.

Warning!!: Bad language, angst, slashy yumminess, abuse, drugs, and a tiny amount of non-con. If you don’t like non-con (and really, neither do I, but it’s essential to the plot) then skip ahead to the next chapter if I’ve posted it. If not, then twiddle your thumbs, watch happy fluffy movies and rent Pirates ™ because it is the funniest movie ever. And I’m not talking the Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom movie either **wink**

A/N: Ok! So today, we were actually going to have a little bit of non-consensual (aka: Rape) in this chapter, but then I decided to split the chapter in two (because the phone rang, I got distracted and when I came back I just started a whole new chapter). But it will just be a teensy bit, there will be no permanent scarring to the audience and no great detail, simply because I do not like writing non-con unless it’s the consensual kind of non-con. You know, the one where both parties are aware and willing to have sex, but they like to spice things up a bit, so one of them pretends to be a house robber or something and quote “rapes” un-quote the other. It’s silly, but if it’s your cup of tea, then go for it, so long as BOTH of you are willing. I do not endorse rape, molestation or and other kind of unwanted sexual contact and in fact, I think all offenders of the sexual nature should be locked up forever and ever. Vote Yes on the Three Strikes Law people! That being said, today’s title is once more from Trapt, ‘Black Rose’ a very sad, angsty kind of song that I think fits the chapter well. Don’t worry, tomorrow’s chapter will be much fluffier.

Chapter 4- Black Rose part 1 (Draco)


As I lay in bed, after eating the entire delicious tray of sandwiches and chips that Ginny had sent up for me, I thought back to the train ride and Harry. I remembered how Harry had exploded at his friends and how they hadn’t chased after him or gone looking for him at all, wondering if that was another dangerous thing to do, or if he just needed to be left alone to calm down as I had suspected earlier. I frowned at the canopy of the four-poster and remembered Harry saying something about living in a wasteland since he’d been forced to live with his relatives. At the time, I had assumed that he meant it sucked living with muggles and hadn’t pressed it…should I have? I didn’t know what exactly was wrong with Harry, in medical terms, but I did know that holding in all that bad crap wasn’t healthy. I actually knew about that specialist in St. Mungo’s, Shelly. She was a counselor of sorts and I’d gone to her a couple of times because of things father had done to me. She’d wanted to take me out of that house, but I couldn’t leave my mother, and unless Narcissa herself said something to someone, no charges could be pressed against Lucius.

And what was up with Dumbledore? You’d think the old coot would be happy that Harry and I were getting along; it’s what all the teachers in this damn place had wanted for years, simply for the peace and quiet it would bring to the Gryffindor/Slytherin shared classes. Even my godfather, Severus, had told me to at least try to get along with the golden trio this year, so why was Dumbledore freaking out? It almost seemed like he didn’t want Harry and I to get along. And for that matter, why wouldn’t Dumbledore take Harry to see Shelly? Did he want his Golden boy to be a basket case?

“Of course,” I realized as I turned on my side and stared at the wall instead, “the only person who would really be willing to answer these questions is Harry. The Weasel and Granger might know, since they’re so close to him, but I doubt they’d tell me anything without Harry’s permission…But I don’t particularly want to wait for Ginny to come find me and tell me whether or not Harry wants to talk to me. I know I didn’t hex him, and I’d kind of like to apologize…somehow. I’m not quite sure how that’s to be accomplished, but I’ll figure it out….Wow…Harry’s right. I do talk to myself a lot.” I sighed, “I’ll find him tomorrow morning at breakfast….” And so I tried to sleep. Tried being the keyword. As soon as I did drift off someone pounded on my door.

“Malfoy!” the person called, “You’re on patrol tonight! Get up!” And they continued to pound on the door until I accio’d my robes and shoes and stumbled to the portrait. “There you are. Why’d you fall asleep? Did you forget that you patrol on Wednesdays?” The Ravenclaw Prefect, (one of the Patil twins, I couldn’t tell which) asked, glaring at me. “I’d been covering your shift all night until Granger found me and told me you were staying up here now. So hurry up, you can walk me back to my dorms.”

I rolled my eyes and slipped out of the door, mimicking Padma (I was almost sure it was Padma) behind her back as she marched around the corner to the Ravenclaw dorms. “Night Patil.” I yawned as she answered the door’s question and slipped through without responding to me. I shrugged and began my patrol, managing to catch three inter-house couples that had snuck out for a bit of alone time after the summer vacation. I gave them all detention and sent each one back to bed then decided to swing by the Hospital wing, just to make sure I hadn’t killed Harry or anything.

As a prefect, it was perfectly within my duties to check on the students in the Hospital wing at night to make sure the injured ones weren’t sneaking out and the non-injured students weren’t sneaking in to use the beds. All the same, I felt like I was doing something wrong, so I tip-toed to the door and peered through the window as stealthily as I could manage. All the beds were empty, but one looked like it had just recently been vacated since the sheets were thrown every which way and the pillow was lying on the floor. Madame Pomfrey would never leave a bed like that over-night. I frowned and waited. Maybe Harry was in the bathroom. Ten minutes went past, then twenty but still Harry didn’t reappear.

I sighed and turned to do another round. I’d come back to the wing when I was done and check again, and if Harry still wasn’t there, I’d inform Pomfrey; at least if Harry was up and about then he wasn’t seriously injured or anything. That was good. And maybe I’d bump into Granger and get her to tell me something about that PTSD thing-a-ma-bobber. Granger usually patrolled outside, and since I was on the ground floor it was easy to go to a side entrance and step outside…except for some reason all the doors were locked tight.

“Granger must be finished with her rounds outside then…” I thought as I pulled on the last exit and found it locked like all the rest. This wasn’t really surprising, since that particular door was always locked unless Granger was out there checking it out. “Oh well…Guess I better go look for Harry again.” I said aloud and turned to go when the door clicked open and swung out. I turned again and raised an eyebrow at the now cracked door. I peeked around it, expecting to find Granger coming back in, but there was nothing on the other side of the door except a moon-lit path into some sort of private, walled off garden. “To venture into the creepy garden or not?” I asked myself, looking around at all the overgrown rose bushes and night blooming jasmine and various sorts of vines. They all looked like normal flowers though so I shrugged and stepped out into the night, heartened by the fact that nothing tried to attack me in my first few steps.

I froze suddenly though when I saw a hunched something on a bench around the bend and I ducked behind a rosebush. Hagrid was pretty well known for setting loose weird creatures in the castle, and it was too dark to see whatever it was on the bench. I decided to back off and go back inside but my robe and hair got stuck on the thorns of the rose bush and I couldn’t pull myself loose without making a lot of noise and alerting the thing on the bench. I set about trying to untangle my hair from a particularly nasty vine when the thing straightened up and tipped its face towards the night sky.

I gasped and forgot all about my hair. The thing on the bench was Harry, and Harry had a huge bruise on his cheek. He was also holding his arm rather awkwardly, probably in a sling, I guessed, and it looked like he had a few shallow cuts on his face along with the bruise, and, worse then the injuries, was that Harry seemed to be crying. Was this what Ginny had been talking about when she said that previous injuries showed up again, or had Harry gotten his ass kicked sometime between the ride up to school and twenty minutes ago? Somehow the latter of the two seemed less likely since I was the only person to ever get into physical fights with Harry. Also, somehow, I became suddenly extremely pissed at whoever had done this to Harry. I even inexplicably felt some weird urge to hold the other boy and make everything better. “I must have been hanging around Harry too long,” I thought, “His Gryffindor-ness is rubbing off on me.”

I didn’t want to startle Harry anymore then I would have wanted to startle anything Hagrid was keeping as a pet, so I went back to pulling loose my hair and robes, keeping one eye on the Gryffindor to make sure he didn’t pass out again or something. I had finally gotten loose all of my hair and was working on my robes when Harry started humming something. I recognized the melody as one of the songs from the weird little contraption Harry and I had been listening to on the train. It was one of the sadder, more depressing songs, something about a black rose wilting. I sang along a little in my head,

“I saw you in the garden,
I wanted you so much,
I really thought that you were different,
Oh I couldn’t get enough.
I tried to save you from yourself,
I felt every high and low,
But the lows have drowned the highs away
And there’s nowhere else to go.
Black rose your thorns are cutting into me,
For the last time,
Black rose I watched your petals wilt away,
I couldn’t bring you back to life.”

As always with the music Harry seemed to listen to, this one seemed very appropriate to me, except it was Harry who was the rose in the song, not the one trying to save it. “Maybe that’s why he’s sitting in the garden.” I realized, tugging the last bit of cloth free. I blinked, looking at Harry who was still humming and I felt that weird feeling of wanting to protect him again and sighed, “Guess that makes me the one who wants to bring him back to life then….Now, how to approach him without him freaking out?” I frowned and then it came to me. Music calmed Harry, so if I announced my presence by singing along then Harry shouldn’t go all wonky again. Maybe. So I sang.

“You were always where the sun could never go,
I never wanted you to have to be alone,
But I couldn’t find a way to help you to grow,
Black rose,
You never tell me how you feel
And your moods they always change
I always tried to make it real,
But you never had the faith
I tried to give you something good
To take the pain away,
I tried to make you understand, you don’t have to be this way,
Black rose
Your thorns are cutting into me
For the last time
Black rose
I watched your petals wilt away,
Couldn’t bring you back to life.
You were always where the sun could never go
I never wanted you to have to be alone
But I couldn’t find a way to help you to grow
Black rose
I’m not the one who hurt you,
So why are you so scared
All that you’ve been put through
Couldn’t be repaired
I’m not the one who hurt you,
I’m the only one who cares
You’ll need someone to turn to
And I will not be there
Every time I held you
I knew that it would hurt
Only through the pain
I could find a way to learn.”

Harry stopped humming when he realized someone else was singing but I finished the song and stepped forward, smiling a little. “Hey Harry, what’s up?”

“Draco? What are you doing out here?” Harry frowned, “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

I rolled my eyes and pointed at the Prefect badge, “Prefect, Harry, remember? It’s my night to patrol. You’re the one who should be in bed.” I crossed my arms and put on the Malfoy smirk, “you know, technically I could give you a detention for being out here, Potter.”

Harry sighed and stood up, “As if I’d ever show up for a detention you gave me, Malfoy.” He gingerly touched the bruise on his cheek and winced, “but I guess I should go back to bed so these things can finish healing.” He started to walk past me, rolling his sleeves down carefully as he went and in the dim light I saw quite a large number of scars and cuts on the other boy’s arms. Harry caught my frown, but not the direction of my stare. “Sorry if I scared you earlier Draco, but it’s nothing you should worry about. I’m handling it.”

“Sure you are Harry,” I shrugged, “But you know, if you ever do need me to worry about it, then I think I got in some pretty good practice today.” By the way Harry was completely ignoring the cuts on his arms I guessed that they must be the same as the bruise and were just a magical manifestation of whatever had happened to him before, so I wouldn’t say anything just yet about them. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to the hospital wing so you don’t get in any more trouble. Plus, you look like your dead on your feet and I don’t need you passing out in the hall from exhaustion on my watch. I’d never get any sleep if you did because Dumbledore would have a bloody field day.”

Harry snorted, “Ginny told me he gave you some trouble over what happened. Stupid old fucker isn’t he?”

“Understatement of the year Harry,” I rolled my eyes, “It’s going to be hard convincing him that neither of us wants to kill the other anymore….You still don’t want to kill me right?”

Harry laughed, “And ruin this beautifully blossoming pot-based friendship?” he shook his head, “Nah, I have too few friends to get stoned with to go killing one of them off just because the Headmaster doesn’t approve. Dumbledore can go fuck himself for all I care.”

“Ew. Not a mental image I needed to see right before bed.” I groaned, holding the door to the ward open and letting Harry pass me. “Alright, now I don’t think Pomfrey’s noticed you were missing,” I whispered, “So if you just go back to bed I can pretend I never caught you out and you won’t get in trouble with Dumble-fuck and I can just go to bed and sleep until noon tomorrow.”

“Sounds good to me,” Harry yawned. “Night Draco, see ya around lunch time, eh?”

I just nodded and sighed and waited until I was sure Harry was in bed and sleeping before leaving the ward and finally heading back to bed. “Well…at least I didn’t kill him.”


A/N: Thank you thank you thank you for all the lovely reviews!!!! **throws out bushels, yes bushels, of random chocolate covered smexy characters with marshmallow toys** I'm glad you guys like it, I really am ^^, so I will do my best to continue my daily updates!! **huggles everyone** and once I get back on my comp, I will probably start my old habit of replying to reviewers, but for now, you know who you are and you know I love you all! And everyone else, shame on you for reading and not reviewing! don't you know how RUDE that is on a peer-review site?! **pulls out the bopping stick** don't make me use this!