Bound by Hatred

BATTLE

\"Harry, what is going on with you?\"

Several weeks had passed before Hermione finally confronted him after Charms, while Ron lingered in the background, clearly torn between the impulse to join her or drag her away.

Harry blinked at her slowly, his brain feeling muddled as though his thoughts were only now rising out of some swamp. \"What?\" he said tonelessly.

\"You didn\'t turn in your Transfiguration midterm, you skipped the DADA practical, you haven\'t been eating, you haven\'t been talking to anyone! What is WRONG with you?\"

Harry fumbled for an answer for a long moment, all too aware of the potential in this conversation to harm Draco Malfoy.

The DADA practical-- he furrowed his brow. When was that? Was that the day Draco raped him in the Room of Requirement, or that time he waited for him right outside of Gryffindor Tower?

His mind didn\'t seem to be working quite right. His conceptualization of time was entirely skewed, days and nights overshadowed by dread and horror that lingered relentlessly in the back of his thoughts.

\"Harry!\"

He looked absently at Hermione, and was alarmed to see tears spring into her eyes.

\"Please, just talk to me…\"

Harry stared at the stone floor, his throat caught as if in some vice. Anything he said would be wrong. Any answer would rouse suspicion. He couldn\'t… he didn\'t know what to do, what to say…

\"Harry--\"

Her hand on his arm made him skitter back, adrenaline jolting through his veins. But what killed him was watching her flinch.

Hermione flinched when he moved, as though he were about to hit her again.

Harry clamped his hand over his mouth, horror-struck. He was aware of Ron moving closer to them, and Harry\'s crazed mind could only rivet around the possibility that Ron felt the need to protect Hermione from him.

\"I\'m sorry!\" Harry cried. He staggered back a step, unable to bear their eyes on him. \"I\'m so sorry…\"

Whatever they said was lost on him as he walked mindlessly off down the hallway, feeling edgy, anxious, and dirty. His skin felt like a thousand bugs were creeping over him, and he had a feeling he was about to lose the food he\'d managed to choke down last night when his hunger had become a relentless force of its own and driven him down to the kitchens.

He closed his eyes, feeling dizzy, remembering how Dobby had looked at him with wide eyes rapidly filling with tears. \"Harry Potter can come to Dobby anytime he wants dinner… Dobby will be here.\"

For some reason, the thought of it hurt him. He couldn\'t go down there again. He couldn\'t bear the sight of those wide, teary eyes.

* * *

He\'d forgotten his Potions essay. Snape seemed extra vindictive in return, leaving Harry on the wrong end of a series of scathing insults that might once have galled him, but now barely registered in the thick, miserable fog over his mind.

He didn\'t feel the slightest bit of emotion until Snape partnered him with Draco out of sheer spite, and a cold, sickening shudder went through Harry\'s body. He remained at his desk as all the students rose, paralyzed.

\"Come on, scarhead!\"

Draco\'s voice washed over him like a poison, and it wasn\'t until he felt the blonde\'s presence right behind him that Harry scrambled convulsively to his feet. Malfoy smirked knowingly at the way Harry instinctively put the desk between them, and his eyes ran down Harry\'s form with contempt and a certain degree of ownership.

\"Get moving, Potter,\" he said coldly.

Feeling mindless and rather sick, Harry obeyed.

They went through the motions of brewing a potion, with mostly Draco doing the work and Harry trying to reign in that horrible sensation like his insides were festering. It was like some sick parody of his previous life, before that horrible night.

He was distracted and clumsy. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. Draco seemed incredibly amused by Harry\'s eroding composure, until the trembling resulted in a vial of the acidic Thestral Bile splashing over his hand. Then he let out an enraged and pained yelp, and might very well have hexed Harry then and there if Snape had not descended upon them.

\"Mr. Malfoy, control yourself!\" Snape said coldly.

Harry was still staring, riveted at Draco\'s burned hand, at the tears that had gathered in the blonde\'s eyes. Little whimpers issued from Draco\'s throat as Snape inspected the mangled hand.

I hurt him. HURT him. A foreign, vicious glee bubbled to life inside him. He couldn’t set out to hurt Draco, but it could happen accidentally. His heart thumped wildly, and his heart sang with sheer ecstasy at the sight of Draco\'s face scrunched up with pain.

\"Stop gloating, Potter!\" Snape snapped to him off-handedly, rubbing a salve on Draco\'s hands.

Harry felt the slightest tinge of bitterness at his words, watching Snape tend to Draco like he\'d tended to Harry all that time ago… But it faded beneath the relentless pleasure of having caused Draco pain.

I hurt Draco. Draco hurts. Draco is in pain. He hurts.

The words danced through his mind like a victory chant, and even once Snape retreated to the front of the classroom, and Draco pinned Harry\'s hand to the table, slowly and deliberately pouring an entire vial of the bile over his knuckles, Harry\'s heart still sung with that small victory. He couldn’t call Snape\'s attention to them--

--it would rouse suspicion, it would harm Draco--

but he could endure it without a pitiful, whimpering display.

Harry raised his eyes to Draco\'s, holding them with a hard green stare. Even as the pain spread through his awareness, he did not cringe or tear up. He stared determinedly, gritting his teeth, hoping his dry eyes and stoic response would impress upon the other boy just how pathetic his yelping and whimpering truly had been while enduring the same punishment.

You can\'t beat me here, you motherfucker… Harry thought angrily, suddenly feeling that tiny spark of life that had been muted over the last few weeks.

He couldn\'t beat Draco, but he could win right here. He could win here.

Draco finally seemed to give up, dropping the vial onto the desk, raking at Harry\'s skin with his nails before releasing his mangled hand.

\"You really think you\'re such a big man, don\'t you, Potty?\" Draco hissed.

Harry felt elated with victory. Bitter as it was, he\'d won. Just this once. And those words, the words Draco had always addressed to the old Harry, the strong Harry… it almost felt like regaining a piece of himself back.

\"You\'re pathetic, Malfoy,\" Harry retorted softly, sending Draco a look of seething fury.

He felt himself go cold at the speculative, calculating look he received in return. There was an odd sense of anticipation in Draco\'s eyes.

\"You\'ll be sorry,\" Malfoy promised softly, and set back to work.

A sick feeling churned in Harry\'s stomach. The words alone he could have shrugged off. What more could Malfoy do to him, that he hadn\'t done already? How could the other boy make him feel any worse?

But that look in his eyes… the anticipation… that terrified him.

His hands were shaking again when it came time to chop up the Murkweed, and the memory of his small victory was all too fleeting.

TBC