Amnesty

A Terret For You, My Precious
Part One

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to JK.

Rating: R.

Author's Note: Takes place after Please. Part two will be out next week. Terret is a ring on an animal's collar, used for attaching a leash.

Also, um. I just noticed this today and I feel absolutely horrible about it, but the last chapter had a very important word cut off from the end. :) I'd advise you to click the back button and read the last few paragraphs of the last chapter. It'll make a sentence or two in this one less confusing.

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He shivers and averts his eyes, staring at the slim curve of Harry's left shoulder. He's never able to match Harry's gaze for long. It's too intense, too shrewd and knowing. It makes him feel as if his soul is bared, ready to be picked apart and scavenged. Harry prefers he doesn't meet his gaze anyways, so he can feel more in control.

"You are to keep this collar on until I say it may come off, Draco." Harry's rumbling baritone interrupts his thoughts, accompanied by the slightest of caresses on his neck. Fleeting and gentle, it leaves him wanting more—wanting to please Harry as he knows that only he can.

This new collar is just another way Harry will keep him under control, even though he has learnt his lessons well in that aspect. "Yes, of course, Harry." He cautiously reaches a hand up to touch the collar, uncertain of whether Harry will allow it. When no punishment is forthcoming, he runs a finger along the band. About the width of a dog's collar, it is simple leather, with no spikes, studs, or any adornments at all—save for a small metal loop on the back. Curious, he turns to face the bathroom mirror. The loop glitters innocently through the fine strands of his hair, and the simple black colouring of his collar is stark against the bruise-mottled pallor of his neck. As always, he is attracted to those vivid splashes, vivid splashes. He can't help pressing on them, drawing a hiss between clenched teeth and a dull flicker of pain to awake his senses.

"I'll get those covered up, of course," Harry says from behind. "Can't have everyone thinking I abuse you." A pause. An inhalation. "Although, I don't think anyone'd care, really."

He licks his lips and glances at Harry in the mirror. Is Harry angry with him for bruising so easily? He doesn't mean to. He opens his mouth to say that he doesn't mind the bruises and, truly, he likes how they look on him, but Harry is already speaking again. Harry doesn't like to be interrupted, so he swallows his words and an unusual sigh of discontent.

"Breakfast will be ready soon. You're going to take extra care washing yourself this morning. We have an important day ahead of us and I want you to look your best. Be quick about it, though. I still have to dress you, and I will not be made late to breakfast."

A warning glance and Harry is gone with a click of the bathroom door.



He is dressed in his finest robe. The one that swishes and moulds perfectly around his body; the one that is made from the most exquisite materials and has the most stylish design. The one that reminds him of when he was a Malfoy. Of high-society galas and betrothals and money. Of cruelty and obsession and betrayal.

The fact that he is dressed in this particular robe worries him in a way he hasn't worried in a long time. Like when Harry had first started pleasuring him and he'd been afraid without knowing why.

He's never worn this one before. Harry usually prefers him to be naked so he can fulfil the urges he gets more easily. Months earlier, Harry had come home with this expensive robe and hung it in the back of their armoire. When he'd questioned Harry about it, Harry had simply smirked and said it would be needed eventually.

Today is clearly eventually and this worries him in a way he hasn't worried in a long time. Two unusual events and he hasn't had breakfast yet.

Change is never good. Change brings instability and uncertainty, physical and mental anguish. And this is why he thinks,

Today will be a bad day.

"You aren't eating, Draco."

He blinks and looks up from his idle fork. Straight into swimming green eyes of the darkest colour. He averts his gaze, back down to his untouched plate and the suddenly unappetizing food on it. "No, Harry, I am, I promise. I was just thinking, Harry." To prove this, he cuts off a section of his fried eggs and brings it to his mouth. They taste rubbery and dusty, but he keeps eating them, one mouthful at a time.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Harry raising an eyebrow and giving him a long look. "Really?" And he hears the disinterested interest in Harry's rumbling baritone. "What bothers that pretty little head of yours?"

He blushes, swallows too quickly in his nervous reaction. A broken cough escapes him and he grabs his glass of orange juice, taking a desperate gulp that throbs as it slips down his throat, past the collar that constricts and then loosens. He always manages to embarrass himself when Harry says that. In the beginning, he'd vehemently protested it because he'd thought it derogatory, but Harry had been patient. Repeatedly, gently, explained to him that he didn't mean to be so insulting. Eventually he had believed him.

But, now he's caught in a quandary of sorts. Will Harry be angry with him for wondering about his new collar or why he's wearing his most elegant robe? He has been taught that the only necessities in his life are food, sleep, and Harry. Independence and free thought are not rights—they are privileges. He finds this to be very much true, but so far today, he hasn't had the opportunity to earn those privileges. And yet, there have been instances in which he spoke his mind without permission or reprimand. An indulgent smile, a ruffling of his hair (which he always used to hate, in the beginning, but doesn't really mind now), and that was that. Sometimes, even, Harry had responded and they had discussed what troubled him.

"It's nothing," he mumbles, erring on the side of caution. Today will be a bad day, and he doesn't want to make a bad day worse.

Harry smirks and chuckles. "Come, Draco." He indolently waves his fork in the air. "Everything you say is important to me."

The words plummet to his gut with a whistle of wind and a hollow plunk. Ripples bloom and disperse, thrumming impatiently in a familiarly unfamiliar way. "No. Really, it's nothing, Harry," he says, gaze flicking to the side, arbitrarily to a painting hanging on the opposite wall.

"Draco."

One word. Simple and blunt, and he knows he has crossed the line. The line is rather blurry nowadays, wavering like the invisibly visible currents of heat that radiate from the fire a dragon breathes. As elusive as this line is, this simple, blunt, demanding word trips it. Sends it quivering with tension, like the ripples rapidly gaining speed in his mind. They undulate wildly across the expansive lake of his mind, growing and swelling until they are foaming waves crashing against the shores of thought and emotion.

Anger, anger, he realises, staring at the vivid splashes of the painting hanging on the opposite wall. The familiar unfamiliarity that is his anger. Dampened beneath his need to avoid punishment and then to—to blindly please Harry, he has almost forgotten what it feels like to grapple with such strong emotion. It swirls and burns higher—blistering along the back of his hand, along the flayed edges of his skin—enveloping him in its greedy clutches, hoping to drag him down into its vindictive lair.

Insanity. It is insanity that waits for him down that long path of righteous fury. Of boiling rage for his situation, of crushing despondency because this is his lot in life. Harry has shown him the truth—just once, long months ago, he wished to touch the truth—and this is why he trembles and resists his surprising anger. He has no one besides Harry. Harry who is now a necessity in his life. The one he looks to for protection. For right and wrong and normalcy and sanity. The one who has given him a place in a life he'd thought he had lost.

He doesn't want to lose his precious sanity, oh no. Harry has shown him the truth. He has been pieced back together with deft and calloused and gentle hands, this he knows. He should be—is­—grateful.

He watches the strength of the waves increase on the expansive lake of his mind, but he can't allow them to drag him under. He needs some control, and so he lets Harry's truth shine through the storm. He finds himself on his island surrounded by the sea, with the sun shining down and the lone palm tree waving in the gentle breeze. The breeze carries his soothing nursery song to him and he grins, humming along as he tilts his head and raises his arms up to the sun. He wiggles his toes, his feet, deeper into the warm—white, Whitey, white—sand, giggling as the silken grains tickle the soles. Their soles, his soul, their souls. He misses his island. He wants to stay and draw happy faces and laughing faces and goofy faces into the sand, but he can't. Harry doesn't like it when he goes to his island and Harry needs him now. Just a little reminder, a little control, and he is spiralling back into awareness.

His fingers briefly clench around his fork before he sets it down with a delicate tink of metal and glazed stone. He can still feel the stinging salt, the waves crashing against the shores of thought and emotion, but he thinks he can ignore them now. Their presence has dulled in his mind until now, now, now, they are like the vaguest of feelings in your gut that you have forgotten something.

His eyes skitter away from the painting hanging on the opposite wall, to Harry's implacable expression, and down to his plate. He has finished eating his eggs. All that remains is the greasy shadow where they once were and the yellow smears of their yolk. They had rested so innocently, he muses—just like he had those few short days ago. He sighs at his bacon and their limp, unappetizing appearance, and then, quite by accident, his eyes slide to the right.

A small, red pill lies quietly on his white napkin.

He takes that small, red pill every morning because Harry says it will prevent him from going mad. Harry always speaks the truth, so when Harry says that he has gone mad before, and that he is only the smallest of steps away from doing so again, he believes him.

"Draco?" he hears Harry ask.

He blinks, glances up at Harry, but his attention is already being dragged back to the small, red pill lying quietly on his white napkin.

The liquid inside of it gleams through the plastic encasement, through to early morning light that floods the room from behind him. Gleams quite sinisterly, he imagines. Imagines correctly, he imagines. Imagines correctly. And an errant thought suddenly wiggles and nibbles itself to the front with a startling ferocity.

If he is sane and normal, like Harry has said, then why does he need to take the small, red pill, like Harry says? If he is sane and normal, he shouldn't have to take the small, red pill to prevent insanity because he is sane and normal. This possible realisation confuses him, makes him want to frown and frown, but Harry doesn't like it when he frowns. Harry says that frowning makes him look petulant and spoilt and, because of this—because he doesn't like to make Harry angry, he has learnt how to frown on the inside where Harry can't see. But that niggling thought …

He glances up at Harry again, from the small, red pill, to a minimally curious face. His newest thought, spawned from the confusion of his first, is confirmed. He shivers and averts his eyes, staring at the small, red pill lying quietly on his white napkin instead. Waves crash in his mind, fling salt into his wounds, and he can never match Harry's gaze for long. It's too intense, too shrewd and knowing. And this is why, perhaps, that he is just now—for the first time ever—doubting his ability to frown on the inside, where Harry can't see.

"Draco! Pay attention," Harry loudly demands.

His body twitches in surprise and his hands, nervously resting on the white tablecloth to either side of his place setting, take flight like birds startled from the brush. Whilst his left knocks into his glass of orange juice, sends the bright orange liquid surging over the table, his right runs along the side of the table, inadvertently snagging the white tablecloth as well. The quickly thinning puddle of his juice heaves to and fro, and the unlit, gaudy candelabra that dot the middle length of the table wobble dangerously before toppling over with multiple thunks.

For a moment, it is still. Frighteningly so, after such a rush of movement. Almost as if the entire world has stopped on its axis, waiting, just waiting and anticipating whatever is to happen next.

Then, the world is moving again, in time with Harry's yells and slashing arm movements as he jumps up from his seat and rounds the corner of the table. And with this frightening turn of events, with Harry advancing on him and red, vivid splashes searing his emerald eyes, all he can think of is avoiding the punishment he knows is coming. He accidentally knocks over his chair—thumpthumpthump—as he jumps up and quickly grabs his white napkin, mopping up the spilt orange juice with frantic, flighty movements, babbling his apology over and over and over and over. Hunched shoulders, an air of expectation, fear, arousal that shouldn't be felt.

He shrieks as a firm hand lands on his shoulder, throws him back and over his chair, away from the table to the windows. Flying, flying, flying he is.

Tink-a-link-link, tink-a-link-link in his ears and bitter, stinging waves cutting into his mind like Harry cuts into his body and his vision is a shower of crystallised fear, falling, falling, falling as he.

"Midgey, Midgey, Midgey, clean up this mess," he hears from a distance, a distance, an impenetrable distance away.

He finds himself curled up on the floor, a crunching, painful floor that glitters seductively. Little prisms of light that dance and sing and call to him and, as he reaches out, takes one of the larger ones in hand and watches it dance and sing and call to him on his palm, he begins to wonder if he really is insane. Harry says he is sane and normal, but he remembers a time when his thoughts were not like this, when they didn't circle around and around and repeat and repeat. And then there is his island, his wonderful, beautiful, soothing island surrounded by the sea. He created it, built it up and around to protect him when he could no longer protect himself, but is it normal to have an island in your mind? Harry says he is sane and normal, but he doesn't remember having an island, an island surrounded by the sea, in his mind beforebeforebefore.

As his grip on the little prism of light begins to slip, becomes wet and sticky and red like the vivid splashes in Harry's swimming green eyes when he is angry, he feels the bitter, stinging waves swelling up on the expansive lake of his mind and knows that if he doesn't sit up, they will drag him under. He can't be dragged under though, because Harry needs him—even though he did something bad, ruined breakfast for Harry, who thinks breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and he feels horrible and wretched—so he looks at his crystallised fear in his red, pale hand and wonders where to put it. Where do you put your fear when you know you must have the courage to continue on despite the odds? And his little island wavers into view like the invisibly visible currents of heat from a dragon's fire. He smiles and laughs, edgy, rough, and knows where he must put his crystallised fear.

Inside, inside. You put your fear inside where no one can see it and then you travel to your island, built up and around you to protect you when you can't protect yourself.

He slowly sits up, places his hands flat against the crunching, painful floor, and heaves himself up. He wobbles dangerously, like the candelabra he knocked over, before he rights himself, unlike the candelabra he knocked over. He smiles at his achievement and then searches for his crystallised fear. It is glittering all round and round him, but he is looking for one in particular and then he finds it in his hand, glittering, gleaming a sinister red like the small, red pill resting quietly on his white napkin. The shard of crystallised fear looks strange, he thinks and frowns, forgetting that Harry doesn't like it when he frowns because it makes him look petulant and spoilt. The shard of crystallised fear isn't laying flat against his palm, but is sticking out at an angle, and other, smaller, shards of crystallised fear surround it. Like his island surrounded by the sea! Surprised by this connection, he giggles and hums. He has a physical manifestation of his island now, that he can look at whenever he—

"Draco? Draco, what the—"

And a shadow is cast over him before it shrinks and disappears into the crouching form of Harry, Harry, his necessity. He giggles again and looks up at Harry, from his crystallised island by the sea. He carefully, proudly, waves it in front of Harry. "Look! Look, I have my island in my hand! You can see it now, can't you?"

But, right before his eyes, he sees his island surrounded by the sea disappear. Shard by shard, quickly and efficiently, they zip out of his hand. His eyes widen, dismay bubbling up like the foam of the waves crashing against his mind, like the sticky redness in his palm that overtakes his pale hand. "No, no, wait—where is it going? I saw it, did—I saw it. I saw it, I did, I swear!" he says firmly, desperately, and he hugs himself, anchors himself and begins to rock back and forth. He looks up at Harry, who is looking down at him with an emotion similar to pity, but he doesn't need Harry's pity. "I saw it, Harry," he says fiercely, scowling up at him. "I know you did, too! I know it, because I am not mad. I am not, I am not, I am not, I am not."

Hands cover his own and peel them away from his arms, draws his attention back down to the sticky redness that is overtaking his own. He watches the darker hands, the tanned and calloused hands, intermingle with his and the sticky redness oozes out from between them.

Drip, plip, plop. Drip, plip, plop.

Suddenly, the sticky, dripping redness is gone, as if it had never been there. He blinks and blinks and almost frowns, but remembers this time that Harry doesn't like it when he frowns and so he doesn't. Instead, he looks back up at Harry and stares at him for a few moments, before saying, "I'm insane, aren't I?" He blinks, looks back down at their intermingled hands, and says again, "I'm insane, aren't I? Just like the fucking Longbottoms." And, like the waves that burn and sting and swell, this realisation makes him cry out and collapse, sobbing his anguish into the protective inferno that is Harry, that is his necessity.

"No, shh," Harry croons to him, rubs his back, pets his hair and rocks him back and forth. "No, of course not, my precious. The last few days have been hard on you, is all."

He shakes his head and nuzzles into Harry's comforting embrace. "No, no," he cries, hands clinging, gripping Harry's robe, "I am, I am, I am, I am. I can tell. It's the way you—you look at me and treat me and—and … Why? Why do I have to be insane, Harry? Why can't I be normal?"

Harry squeezes him closer and returns his nuzzle to the top of his head, his sigh gusty and warm and fetid along his left cheek. "You are not insane, Draco," he says firmly, stroking and petting his back. "Don't you think I would have committed you to St Mungo's if you were?"

He freezes, a million little thoughts rushing and crashing through his mind, like the waves flinging salt into his wounds. "Really?" he whispers, voice wet and cracking slightly as he contemplates this fact that he is not at St Mungo's.

Sometimes he wonders if Harry tells him the truth, sometimes he—he knows things, can feel them in his gut, in his mind beneath the crashing waves and the expansive lake and his island surrounded by the sea. Sometimes the faintest of breezes filters through the fog in his mind and he knows, knows things like manipulation and wrongness and insanity. Always, always though, that faintest of breezes disappears. Drifting away as if it had never been there at all, and he is left with the fog and the crashing waves and the expansive lake. His island surrounded by the sea is always left as well, but he isn't allowed to go there very often because Harry knows when he goes there, knows as he.

"Yes, really," he hears Harry's soft reply, and he is cradled still closer to him, closer to the inferno that he has always welcomed. "You are not insane, in the least, my precious. You are perfect." And a kiss is dropped onto his head, light and errant and meaningful. "Now, let's get a warm cloth for your face and we can go to the Ministry."