Promethean Fire

Part VI: Garden of the Hesperides


Draco didn’t know where he was most of the time, and he didn’t know how long he had been there. Mostly, he didn’t think about it. When he did think about it…well, he tried not to, but when he did, he saw Harry being burned, Harry kneeling by the Dark Lord’s chair, Harry being raped, Harry being whipped, Harry biting down on his own arm to keep from screaming in pain.

Harry’s back, smooth beneath Draco’s palm as Draco fucked him over the dining room table at Riddle House, murmuring softly, Now, Harry, knowing that Harry would. Because Harry always had before.

But that had been years ago, and they had been innocent then. Harry had come to him willingly—even gladly—then, and what they did was out of love, or infatuation, or just the novelty of being able to touch and be touched. There was no anger in it, no fear, no despair, and very little desperation. They were young and foolish, and they had all the time they would ever need. All the time in the world. Harry hadn’t married Ginny Weasley yet, and so Draco had not yet gotten drunk on their wedding night and sold his soul to Voldemort. That was long ago. When all he had to do was ask; and a gentle word or a kiss in the dark were enough to get him whatever he wanted.

And when he wasn’t remembering Harry…Draco remembered his father. His sneering, twisted lips, his hateful, angry eyes that were so like Draco’s own, his aristocratically haughty voice…a flash of green from his own wand and dead eyes (so like his own) staring past his face.

And Lupin holding his chin between thumb and forefinger, forcing him to meet those wolf’s eyes, and saying, stay with me… Lupin telling him to remember…things that would be so much easier if he could forget.

Draco had no concept of time passing him by. Such things were meaningless to him. He remembered Granger prodding him with a stick…her wand. The serpent on his hand that she had tried to heal. He’d snarled at her and driven her away. He didn’t know when that had been, only that it had occurred some time before Snape had come to see him.

Even in his foggy, half-deranged state, that had shocked him. As far as anyone knew, Severus Snape had vanished after the death of Luna Lovegood. Draco himself had thought him lost or missing and seriously believed him to be dead. By his own hand, most likely.

It had surprised Draco even more when Snape knelt on his heels before him, brushed the sweat-damp hair back from Draco’s face, then leaned forward and kissed him tenderly on his brow. “I know,” Severus whispered. “More than any of them, I know.”

And that was all. He didn’t say that he was sorry or promise that it would get better. He said he understood, and though Draco didn’t know the specifics of Severus’ story, he could see that Severus really did understand.

“I loved her,” Severus said. He closed his eyes briefly. “There are those who say I didn’t, but I did. And in the end…there was nothing else I could have done.”

Draco stared at him with wide eyes and said nothing.

Severus stood and moved toward the door. With his hand on the knob, he stopped. “There was nothing else you could have done, either,” he said with his back to Draco. “I doubt it will comfort you now, but think of this; he’s alive. That’s more than I can say for her.”

********
There were days when Draco did nothing but sit on the floor beside the bed in the corner, as far from the door as he could manage to get without going through it, and stare at the serpent on the back of his hand, watching the way it moved when he opened and closed his hand. It was healed now, though it had been done naturally, so it had scarred.

Sometimes he could almost hear the creature speaking to him—whispering in its hissing voice like the sound of charring flesh—but he couldn’t make out the words. They must be in Parseltongue, he reasoned, and didn’t that make sense? It was a snake, after all.

There were days when Draco would creep from his corner by the bed and move toward the door. He could hear voices, people talking, discussing things, and it comforted him to hear it, even if he couldn’t understand what they said. Once, he even thought he heard Dumbledore’s voice, raised in anger, and he’d hurriedly scrambled back to hide against the wall, gently rocking himself for comfort.

Hermione always slid food and water inside the door every morning, noon, and night. He drank the water, but wouldn’t touch the food—even the smell of it disgusted him—and she always ended up throwing it away. That didn’t stop her from bringing it to him, though.

Draco didn’t mind it when Hermione came, as long as she didn’t try to touch him with that stick thing of hers, and he didn’t mind it so much when Snape came to see him either, though the man carried sadness with him like a stench and usually never had anything to say. But Draco hated it when Harry would come to see him. Because Harry smelled like sadness and despair, he looked tired and scarred and broken, but Harry was never content to be silent.

“Draco?” Harry whispered, sitting on the side of the bed and leaning over him.

Draco blinked up at him.

“Say something to me, please?” Harry asked. He looked weary, but he also looked hopeful and Draco wanted so badly to touch him, but he didn’t dare. “Say my name,” Harry urged. “Say just that, if nothing else. Give me that.”

Draco felt tears sting the back of his eyes and he closed them. He said nothing.

“It’s not your fault,” Harry said. “I know what you think, and you’re wrong. It’s not your fault.”

When Draco dared to look again, he was alone.

Harry didn’t come to see him as often as Hermione did, but he came often enough that Draco had come to expect him on certain days. On those days, he would try to hide from him, but Harry was clever. Harry always found him.

The closet door slid open and Harry crawled inside the little space and sat down beside him. He reached out a hand toward Draco’s face, but Draco cringed and hissed at him like a wounded cat. Harry held up his hands, palms out, to show that he had meant no harm and wasn’t going to touch him if he didn’t want him to.

He didn’t.

“Draco…you have to know I don’t blame you,” Harry said.

Draco flicked his eyes at him, then quickly away. He didn’t have to know any such thing.

“And I’m…I’m alive. That’s what matters. You got me out; you shouldn’t blame yourself like this for—”

“I raped you,” Draco said in a breathy whisper.

Harry went very still and silent and blinked at him rapidly. “What did you say?”

Draco shivered and made himself look into Harry’s face. “I said I raped you.”

“No you—”

“Did,” Draco said. “Lie to the others…to yourself…I don’t care. But not to me. I was there…inside you. I—all the times I’ve wanted you since…since then. I never raped you, though. I never would have. But then…I couldn’t stop it. And when he told me to…to…Gods help me, I did every fucking thing he wanted.”

“It wasn’t rape,” Harry said. Draco made a scoffing sound and wrapped his arms around himself. “It wasn’t,” Harry insisted. “And…I’m alive because of it. Because of you.”

“You’re alive because the Dark Lord neglected to set a guard,” Draco said. “And because Granger and Lupin are shagging each other’s brains out. You’d be dead if it had been left to me.”

Harry reached out and grabbed Draco’s face in his hands, ignoring the way he flinched away from his touch. “Look at me,” Harry said. “Draco, look at me.”

Draco sighed and met his eyes again.

“You did not rape me,” Harry said. “No more than I raped you.”

Draco, his skin crawling, shoved Harry away and retreated to the darkest corner of the closet, where he buried his face against the wall and trembled.

“Draco…”

“Go away,” Draco murmured. “Just…please. Please, go away.”

He didn’t open his eyes until he heard Harry leave. When he was gone, Draco pulled an old cloak over himself, curled up on the floor of the closet, and went to sleep.

********
Draco came awake fast when the hand closed over his mouth and his first instinct was to fight. That stopped quickly when the person to whom the hand belonged climbed on top of him, straddled his hips, and shined a wand light in his face.

“Draco, stop it,” Lupin said, voice soft and even.

“Lupin?”

“Yes.”

“Get your fucking wand out of my face,” Draco snapped.

Lupin snorted laughter and dropped his wand to the bed where it glowed faintly up at them. “Sorry.”

“Lupin…?”

“Yes?”

“What…what do you want?”

Lupin smiled in the dark and slowly eased himself full length on Draco, his face propped up on his hands on Draco’s chest. “Maybe I wanted to see just how crazy you really are,” he said. He ran the dense nail of one finger down Draco’s cheek, his smile broadening when Draco shivered. “Not very, I would say.”

“I…” Draco swallowed and looked away from him across the room.

“Maybe you’re getting better,” Lupin said. “And maybe not. You’re not eating.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Lupin lowered his mouth to Draco’s throat and lightly scraped his teeth along the tendon there until Draco’s breath hitched. “Are you not? Harry tells me that you won’t let him touch you.”

Draco took a deep breath and looked Lupin in the eyes. He saw the way the man’s animal eyes caught the light and reflected it, but he was strangely calm about it. “No, I…I don’t want him to. I don’t want anyone to. I don’t need his forgiveness.”

Lupin twined a lock of Draco’s platinum hair lazily around his finger and grinned down at him. “I think you’ve already resigned yourself to not being granted his forgiveness. That doesn’t mean you don’t want it, though, does it?”

“I…no,” Draco said softly. He said it like it hurt him to say it, but he made himself say it anyway. “No…I want it. But I don’t deserve it.”

“Ah, well, as he’s already forgiven you…I think that’s really up to him,” Lupin said. “And since you were the first person he asked for when he woke, I don’t think he did it to make you feel better.”

Draco had nothing to say to that, so he just lay there with Lupin stretched out on top of him and tried not to notice the unusual interest Lupin had suddenly developed in the smell of his skin. It didn’t work, he still noticed.

“Lupin, what are you really doing here?” Draco asked. “You’re not here to see how crazy I am. You could smell that on me if you wanted. What do you want?”

Instead of answering, Lupin shifted on top of him so that he could move his arms and slide his hands under Draco’s shirt, fingers dancing over his ribs and back down, caressing until Draco let out an involuntary moan and moved against him. Lupin made a low growling sound in the back of his throat, yanked Draco’s arms up so he could pull the shirt off, and threw it on the floor.

Draco gasped at the feeling of Lupin’s shirt against his bare skin. “Lupin?”

“What?” Lupin asked, sitting back to take off his own shirt, then bending forward again and nipping Draco’s bottom lip lightly with his teeth. “What now?”

“I thought…” Draco hesitated. He hadn’t expected this. Even with Lupin stretched out on top of him without a spare breath between them, he had never expected this…but he didn’t want him to stop. “I thought you were trying to convince me to…to let Harry…”

Lupin barked out a laugh. “Is that what you thought?”

Draco cocked his head curiously at the sound of that oddly canine laughter. “Lupin, how close is it to the full moon?”

“Close enough, I suppose,” Lupin said, grazing his fingernails down Draco’s belly to the flies of his trousers. “Why?”

“You’re not…You’re not here because of some stupid fucking werewolf thing, are you?”

Lupin laughed again, then lowered his face to Draco’s and dropped a quick kiss on his mouth. “You mean am I going to eat you?”

“Er…actually I was thinking it might be some weird animal mating thing…”

Lupin snorted and shook his head. “If all I wanted was to perform some ‘weird animal mating thing’, I could do that with Hermione, don’t you think? And it would certainly save me having to answer all these damn questions.”

“You still haven’t answered my question, Remus,” Draco said.

Lupin quirked a brow at him. “Remus, is it now?” he asked, shoving Draco’s pants down his hips.

“Lupin,” Draco said, shoving at his shoulder and trying to sit up. “You’re avoiding the fucking question.”

Lupin sighed. “I am not avoiding the fucking question, you whelp. The answer is no. It’s not some werewolf thing. It’s quite simply me wanting you like this…half insane…half afraid…craving human contact any way you can get it—as long as it’s not him touching you. You being broken.”

Draco stared at him levelly for a long time, then pushed him off and sat up, hugging himself. Lupin allowed it. “It is a werewolf thing then. A…predator/prey thing…”

“I guess it is,” Lupin said indifferently. “Though I’ve never fucked anything before I ate it, so it’s also not.”

Draco nodded, then said, “I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“I’m not…not broken,” Draco whispered.

Lupin pushed the fallen hair back from Draco’s face. “You are,” he said. “Damaged beyond repair…broken.”

“And that’s why you want me,” Draco said.

“It’s one of the reasons, yes,” Lupin agreed. “Not the only one. Does it matter?”

No, it really didn’t. “And if I say no?”

Lupin caught the back of his neck and pulled him close. Close enough to kiss, but not quite touching their lips together. “If you mean it…Say no to me and really mean it, then I’ll go.”

Draco closed his eyes so he wouldn’t be staring into Lupin’s chatoyant wolf eyes. He could feel Lupin’s mouth hovering over his, his hot breath over his teeth, waiting for him to say the word. Go or stay, and whatever he decided, the other man would abide by his choice. If he said stay, then Lupin would stay…and if he said go, then he would go.

It was that choice, that freedom of choice, that power to say no that Draco had been without for so very long, which finally decided him. He closed the last half an inch separating his mouth from Lupin’s and kissed him. Kissed him with tongue and teeth and desperate passion like he hadn’t kissed anyone in more years than he liked to remember.

And Lupin kissed him back. And, still kissing him, pushed him down on the bed and pulled off the rest of his clothes until Draco was naked beneath him and tugging at Lupin’s belt.

“Off,” Draco hissed. “Now.”

Lupin brushed his hands aside and unfastened it himself. He shoved his trousers down and kicked them off. Draco was wrapped around him, licking his shoulders, nibbling along his neck and collar, fingers threaded through his hair, before Lupin was even finished. He laughed softly and shifted so Draco was on his back beneath him again, his legs bent and wide apart on either side of Lupin’s hips.

Lupin cupped Draco’s face in his hands and kissed him slowly. He watched Draco’s silver eyes darken in the light of his fallen wand and smiled.

“I don’t suppose you have anything to—”

“Not my room, remember?” Draco said. “Not really.”

“No then,” Lupin said, and picked up his still glowing wand. He hesitated. “Draco…how long has it been since you…?”

Draco just looked at him and inclined his head, saying nothing.

Lupin understood anyway. “That long, huh?”

Draco took a breath and put his hands over his eyes with a heavy sigh. “Is that a problem?”

Lupin murmured a soft word and Draco smelled magic a moment before he felt two of Lupin’s slick fingers push inside him. “No problem at all.”

Draco gasped as Lupin twisted his fingers and spread them, stretching him. It was painful, but only a little, and Draco knew from past experience that it would pass. It had been almost five years since he’d allowed anyone to touch him like this, and Draco was torn between wanting Lupin to go slowly and be careful, and the urgent need for him to hurry, please, gods, hurry.

Draco opened his mouth to urge him to do just that, but before he could, Lupin gripped his hips and thrust inside him. Draco arched off the bed with a surprised shout. Lupin chuckled softly against his shoulder and held him down, not moving until Draco settled back on the mattress and looked at him.

“Are you alright?” Lupin asked. Draco’s muscles were contracting around his cock and he was gritting his teeth and doing his very best not to pound him roughly into the mattress.

Draco moaned and pushed his hips up, encouraging him to move. “I’m fine…I…Oh god, Lupin, fuck me…”

With a feral growl, Lupin pulled out of him and thrust back inside, moving in slow, deep strokes that made Draco’s breath hitch. Draco fisted his hands in the sheets, tightened his legs around Lupin’s waist, and tried to push up and meet his thrusts, but Lupin dug his fingers into his hips and held him down. “Don’t,” he murmured.

Draco laughed breathlessly and stopped. “What? You want me to…just lay back…and take it?”

Lupin grinned at him and licked his mouth. “Yeah.”

Lupin moved inside him again and slid over something that made Draco’s eyes go wide and his fingers claw at the bedspread. “Shit! Oh, holy shit…there!”

Lupin caught Draco’s bottom lip in his mouth and sucked on it lightly as he thrust into him over and over, wolfish eyes gleaming in the faint wand light. “There?” he asked, thrusting against the spot again.

“Yes, there…Oh, god…Fuck, Lupin…Don’t stop. Don’t you dare…” Draco cried out and let go of the sheets to drag his nails down Lupin’s shoulders.

Lupin laughed softly and tilted Draco’s hips up to get a deeper angle. When Draco came, he set his teeth into Lupin’s shoulder and his little cries, moans, and whimpers vibrated deliciously along Lupin’s skin.

Lupin licked along Draco’s collarbone, pausing to dip his tongue into the hollow of his throat and scrape his teeth over a nipple. He thrust once more and with a harsh gasp, climaxed.

They lay there, trembling and gasping, both of them suddenly terribly tired. Draco ran his fingers lazily through Lupin’s hair and down his back, caressing now, instead of wounding. Lupin nuzzled Draco’s shoulder and swiped his tongue along the side of his neck just below his ear. He could taste sex on Draco’s skin now, mingled with the sorrow and guilt, and it wasn’t precisely all that he wanted from Draco, but it was start.

********
Later, much later—after they had slept for a little while, then woke up and Lupin had fucked Draco again—Lupin asked Draco about Mandara.

“Harry told you about that?” Draco asked. He had his eyes closed and his cheek resting on the cool cotton sheet. There was sweat and cum drying on his skin, making him shiver a little, but he didn’t cover up. It was kind of nice.

“He mentioned it,” Lupin said. “What is it?”

“A place,” Draco said. “A tree on a hill.”

Lupin lifted his head and looked at him. “Where?”

Draco shrugged and smiled a little. “Nowhere.”

Lupin grunted. “If it’s a real place, then it has to be somewhere.”

“It’s not a real place,” Draco said. “Not really. Harry and me…we created it.”

Lupin cocked his head to one side and regarded him curiously for a moment, then put his head back down on the bed and sighed. “Snape showed you how to do that?”

“Yeah,” Draco said. “But Snape didn’t know about Mandara. That was just ours. Ours and no one else’s.”

“How romantic,” Lupin said, and Draco thought he heard amusement in his voice.

He smiled and shifted, pressing his face into Lupin’s shoulder. He flicked his tongue over Lupin’s skin, tasted the musk of his sweat, and nipped him lightly. “It was…once,” he said softly. “But that was a long time ago.”

“Five years isn’t so long,” Lupin murmured.

“Sometimes it is,” Draco said. “Sometimes five years can be a very long time.”

********
When Draco woke again, it was morning and he was alone in his bed. He pressed his face into the sheets and ran his fingers over the spot where Lupin had been sleeping. He could still feel the heat of his body on the bed. Draco had missed that. He’d missed a lot of things while doing Dumbledore’s dirty work for him, but he’d missed that a lot and until that moment, he hadn’t quite realized how much. He’d missed that heat after the person in his bed was gone. Remembering that they had been there. Knowing that they would come back.

It was nice to have it back again, and if it wasn’t Harry’s heat in his bed, Harry’s smell on his skin, the imprint of Harry’s body on the mattress, and bruises from Harry’s fingers in his flesh…Draco had made peace with that years ago. When Ginny was murdered mere months after she and Harry were married, he hadn’t been invited to the funeral, but he’d taken her a flower and placed it on her casket. He’d said goodbye, and that goodbye had been for her, because even in his rage at their marriage, he’d cared about her, but he’d been saying goodbye to more than just Ginny Weasley. He’d been saying goodbye to a piece of his innocence, a great chunk of his past and his joy, and goodbye to Harry as well. With Ginny gone, he could have tried to do something…but like Draco had told Dumbledore, there was just too much between them and never enough time to set it right.

And now…now it was too late anyway. Even if Draco had wanted to attempt something with Harry now, he couldn’t. Whatever Harry said to the contrary, it had been rape. It had been rape and so much more than rape, and some things…for some things, there just was no reconciliation.

Draco got up and got dressed. He needed a drink and he needed a shower. Not necessarily in that order.

He was still buttoning his shirt when he stepped out of his room and he almost ran right into Granger on her way to bring him his breakfast. He reached out a hand to steady her. “Whoa, Granger,” he said. “You alright?”

“Draco, what are you doing?” she asked, staring at him like he’d just sprouted a third eye in the middle of his forehead.

He ran his fingers through his hair. “I was going to take a shower. Why?”

“I just…” She hesitated and stared at him some more.

Draco grinned at her. “Everything’s fine, Granger,” he said. He snagged a piece of toast with marmalade on it from the plate she was holding and started down the hall to find the nearest bathroom.

“But…but…Draco, are you sure you’re alright?” Hermione called after him.

“Fine, Granger. Thanks for breakfast.”

********
Draco had been in the shower for about ten minutes when there was a sharp knock on the bathroom door. “Go away!” he shouted. He couldn’t be bothered to care who the hell it was, but he was enjoying his solitude and having all the hot water all to himself so whoever they were, they could fuck off and come back later.

However, whoever it was had other ideas.

The door opened and someone said Draco’s name, but he couldn’t tell who it was over the sound of the water spray.

“I said go away,” he snapped.

“Draco, I want to talk to you.” It was Harry.

Harry was in the bathroom with him…while he was naked…while he was pleasantly sore, mellow, and satiated from really incredible sex with someone else. Well this was just fucking fantastic.

“Go away, Harry, I’m busy,” Draco said.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked, Draco,” Harry said wryly.

Draco rolled his eyes and stuck his head out of the shower. “What do you want?”

Harry blinked at him, then grinned. “Just to talk.”

Draco could just imagine what about. “Couldn’t it wait maybe ten more minutes?”

Harry frowned. “Yes, I guess so…I just thought…Never mind. I’ll see you at breakfast then.”

Draco watched him leave and close the door behind himself, then he stuck his head back under the water and groaned. “Fucking hell,” he muttered.

********
Harry and Hermione both stared at Draco in hurt surprise. Draco stared into the bottom of his whisky glass and sighed. “I’m sorry, Granger.”

“You’re…” Hermione began, then stopped. She took a deep, calming breath and tried again, “Why?”

Draco was sitting at the kitchen table with Harry, and Hermione looking between him and Lupin. Lupin was leaning against the countertop, saying absolutely nothing.

“Yes, Draco,” Harry said softly, angrily, “why?”

Draco narrowed his eyes at the accusation he saw in Harry’s eyes. “Oh no, you don’t get to ask me that,” he whispered. “I apologized to Hermione, because she has a right to it. But you have no right at all.”

“Draco, I…”

“You love me?” Draco asked, lifting a sardonic brow at him. “Is that what you were going to say?”

Harry swallowed and looked down at the tiled kitchen floor between his feet. “Yes. You know I do.”

Draco laughed. “I know you did. And I know that you married someone else anyway.”

“I loved her, too,” Harry said. Now he was glaring as well. “But that never meant that I stopped loving you! Why could you never see that?”

“Well you didn’t marry me, though, did you?” Draco hissed. “Not that I would have accepted anyway, but that’s not the damn point!”

Lupin snorted at that and tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling. He was grinning.

Draco glanced at him quickly, before returning his gaze to Harry. Harry was pale and trembling, but he had little spots of color high on his cheeks. “You gave up any right you ever might have had to me when you married her, and you know it.”

“You bastard,” Harry said. “After everything that…”

Draco downed the rest of his drink, put the glass down on the table, and stood up. “Yeah, I know. I’m a complete fuck and I blame myself for everything that happened to you while they had you. I probably always will. But I’ve decided that I’m not going to drive myself mad over it. Sorry if that disappoints you.”

“Draco…We…” Hermione said brokenly.

Draco looked at her and his expression softened a little. “I really am sorry, Granger.”

She smiled at him, and it was a bit shaky, but it was still a smile. “You’re forgiven.”

“Thank you.”

Draco sent Lupin one last, thoughtful look before he turned and left the room. He didn’t doubt that there would be a hell of blow up the moment he was gone, but he thought that was one lover’s spat that he would happily just stay the fuck away from.