My Beautiful Dragon

Disclaimer: Same as chapter 1, I don't own them.

A/N: This chapter was written solely by the wonderful Amazonia. I lost my muse for this fic and she has graciously helped me out. All reviews will be sent to her via me. Sorry for the huge delay between last updates, I promise you won't wait so long for the next chapters. This chapter mentions torture.

Beta'd by the wonderful shadow_samurai. Hugs and cookies, hun.

My Beautiful Dragon

Chapter Eight: Dreams that Haunt

Draco found a nice reprieve from the nightmares as Drakkon because, when he dreamed, the images were far away, hazy and removed from his personal subconscious. He was watching someone else’s life from afar, played out on a theatre stage. None of it was real. He was, however, forced to watch, riveted by the treatment the young blond was given as it replayed nightly in his mind. Though violent, it helped him to heal, more than anything. Being forced to watch, to hear and smell and feel, to a small amount, their-his-torture, he could learn to put it behind him. And little by little, night after night, feeling like this torture wasn’t only his to deal with, but someone else’s pain to share, he did put it away. He’d have to thank his father for that, he thought ironically as he shifted over, now tail to back with Harry.

Harry had no such luxury and, although his nightmares were less intense when Drakkon was there, on days of a lot of stress, a lot of things happening, it felt like the nightmares, whether Drakkon was there or not, came back stronger to make up for their previous wraith-like presence. Today, having confronted Draco, fought with Ron over Draco, and all that blood that had spilled, the nightmares were inevitable. He whimpered into the silence of the quiet room as his nightmares took the form of one of his most tortuous, hated memories. He couldn’t wake up, even as he willed his body to move, run away stealthily. It shifted him ever closer to the wide, blunt edge of Draco’s dragon tail.

It was a break from his usual torture sessions when he came to visit him. He hadn’t been able to visit for a long time because the Death Eaters were picking up the pace. Harry knew something was happening outside the dungeon walls by the furtive rate in which the Death Eaters switched roles: watchers and inflictors of pain, all laughing and brawling. Coming and going and yelling that it was their bloody turn next, like he was some game that kids rushed to play one last time before it was gone.

It reminded Harry strongly of Dudley when Piers came over with a computer game; just before Piers left, Dudley wouldn’t ever let Piers have a go. And how could Piers argue, with the size of Dudley? It frightened him, made him more aware of the pain that he was increasingly subjected to. Today, thankfully, no one had come, except for him. Except for Slithers.

Slithers was a Runespoor with two heads. Not unusual, as Harry had been informed. He had the dreamer and the planner; the critic had been overpowered when they were little. Not by the two heads left, as was usually the case, but by his little owner’s father. He’d killed the critic in rage because he had bit him and his son with tiny, but not yet poisonous, fangs. Slithers couldn’t help it, he was a newborn and scared of the looming hands hiding the surroundings, any means of escape.

The little owner, the Little Prince- as Slithers called him - hadn’t wanted his father to hurt his new pet. He’d begged his father not to kill the critic because he’d recognized that the snake was scared. The Little Prince always treated Slithers with respect, even after he’d been attacked. As a matter of fact, Harry noticed that Slithers never could stop talking about his owner in kindness. Slithers was apparently the owner’s best friend. The Little Prince would confide everything to him. He would tell the Runespoor amusing or sad or heartbreaking stories of his life. He would tell Slithers his greatest hopes and fears and dreams.

The Runespoor talked with much emotion about how their owner had always wanted to be friends with a scrawny boy with glasses, who wouldn’t even look at him, who had the world, who would never want to be friends back. The two heads would tell him all of these stories that Harry began to believe, that he and this prince were friends. He wanted to believe, no matter how heartbreaking it was for Harry, that he was the boy with glasses that this boy so wanted to befriend. Harry would sometimes whisper, at night when no one heard, that he would befriend him. He wanted to ask his name. Why the Runespoor was in the dungeons with Harry always baffled him. But he couldn’t, too scared of the answers that he would receive - what if this semi-imaginary friend he’d got was a Death Eater? What if he lay dead in a cell, his rotting smell mingling with the smell of the musty, humid dungeon?

Today the Runespoor didn’t come by to tell Harry amusing stories because, as far as the planner was concerned, they’d already lost one owner and they weren’t about to lose another one. After many conversations with the dreamer, they made a plan - a plan which involved a way to get Harry out…alive.

It was too bad that there wasn’t a fortune-teller head to tell them of the daunting, futile task that awaited them.

But when they got there, things were not looking good. At first they thought Harry was dead because he was lying so still and skeletal on the floor. But when they whispered a greeting and he replied hoarsely back, they knew that wasn’t the case. They slithered over so they could see his face, and immediately recoiled; it was barely recognisable with all of the black and red, but he smiled at them anyway and they inched closer. They’d have to plan quickly, Slithers thought, but the first task was to make Harry more alert, feel better so he could help with the planning. Make him more hopeful because they didn’t like the hopelessness that was in that lopsided, bloody smile. So Slithers talked to him about their dreams and Harry’s dreams, hopes that they could get out of here, maybe find the Little Prince who always gave them sunlight.

Harry again started to believe that no Death Eater would be this good to a familiar, shushing the nagging voice that reminded him of Voldemort’s anguished scream when Nagini was killed. He made himself believe that this must have been the smuggled Runespoor of another prisoner, or that the Death Eaters had taken over the mansion of some Light family, again shushing the voice that told him that he’d never heard of Light mansions having dungeons.

He was in pain and in desperate need for someone’s name. Harry's friend, the Little Prince, could be found and only known through the correspondence of a familiar. He needed his name, Harry thought urgently. The name was the key to making him not feel alone, and he needed to know it, to ask now before he lost his nerve - before someone came.

But unbeknownst to them, someone had been standing in the shadow, watching for some time and listening to the hissing that came forth from the Boy Who Lived’s bluish lips. Harry, senses depleted from the torture, couldn’t have heard him approach and Slithers was too excited to care; besides, he’d heard that no Death Eaters would be coming today. It was a heart stopping, pain jarring moment when the cell doors banged open and the Death Eater, entirely covered in his Death Eater garb and, as usual, unrecognisable, entered.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” the Death Eater, who Harry recognized as the one in charge, asked in a drawl. Harry gulped because this Death Eater was about as evil as Voldemort. “You,” the Death Eater bellowed when Slithers turned to face him, “what exactly are you doing here? I thought I told him to kill you, that insolent boy.” Harry’s heart dropped, his friend was a Death Eater’s child -this Death Eater’s child - maybe a Death Eater himself. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t asked Slithers for his name. His head drooped, hope of seeing the Little Prince, of wanting to see him, slipping.

Slithers began hissing and, although all that the Death Eater heard was threatening sounds, Harry heard words of defence about his friend. Things like ‘he isn’t like these people’; ‘he didn’t kill us, did he?’; ‘he went against orders’. It made Harry’s mood lighter and he hoped beyond all hope that Slithers was telling him the truth, not just trying to appease him.

Harry looked back at the Death Eater and saw that he was shaking, whether from fear or anger, Harry never knew. Never even thought it was important because, in the end, both emotions would make him act the same, and it would not be good.

“Get out of here,” he hissed at Slithers. “He hurts everyone who’s in his way when he’s like this. He’ll kill you, especially since he’s wanted you dead.” Harry had to say one last statement, but it was killing him trying to say it. He’d not only lose Slithers, but also his nameless friend. His hissing took on a whispering, intimate sound.

“Don’t come back, I probably won’t be here long anyway. Since they know we can talk and they don’t want anyone to communicate with me…you know, they’ll probably move me to another cell.” Or he’d be dead, which was more likely every day. But he wasn’t going to share that with Slithers. He was, as he assumed but was still glad to get, met with angry protests, ones that hissed of abilities to find Harry’s new cell…or wherever he was going to go. This only helped to further enrage the Death Eater because the urgent hissing was more pronounced, panicked. Harry, starting to tear up, tried fervently to warn Slithers. He’d never cried in front of the Death Eaters; he would do his best not to start now.

“Please, please, do this for me. I need you alive,” Harry said, hoping that this would make him listen. It did. Slithers dropped his heads and turned his body away, as if willing himself to leave. He was giving Harry one last look when his eyes froze on Harry’s at the eruption of sudden, maniac laughter. It was that hesitation which was one of the most painful moments of Harry’s life. That hesitation which gave the Death Eater just enough time to cast a strong Petrifying Spell on Slithers, making him stretch out straight and lie as still as a tree branch, with only eyes moving around the cell helplessly as the Death Eater bent to pick the snake up.

Harry had never begged any of them, either. But, unlike his crying, this was a matter of life and death for Slithers, and Harry would do anything so that he lived. He wasn’t going to lie there and watch as his only companion, the familiar that brought him another best friend, got killed. Harry started begging the leader that day for the first and last time.

But his, “please, sir, please don’t hurt him,” was obviously being ignored because the Death Eater laughed, waving Slithers in the air like a club. Harry could feel the Runespoor’s fear all over his skin as it erupted in goose bumps. He moved back as the Death Eater lunged at him with Slithers, like he was brandishing a sword. The Death Eater stopped halfway, though, and looked directly at Harry before stepping back. His laughter’s tone changed, rang victorious throughout the dungeon, and made the bars vibrate.

He reached forward and caressed Harry’s cheek, the scar from the last caress contracting under the Death Eater’s touch. He looked thoughtfully from Slithers back to Harry.

“What pretty, pure skin you have, Mr. Potter,” the Death Eater drawled lazily, spitting out Harry’s name. He raised Harry’s chin gently with his finger so Harry could look at him, but Harry still looked staunchly down on the dungeon floor, with the hem of the Death Eater’s dark robes on the edge of his vision. He laughed and yanked Harry by his hair until his eyes met the Death Eater’s, which still looked black against his white mask, covered by the shadow of the darkened dungeon and the hood on his cloak. “I shall enjoy destroying it.”

The Shadow lunged back, ripped his wand out of his holster and silenced Harry, as was usual before torture sessions, swung back Slithers and struck. Harry’s mouth opened in a silent scream.

The burning pain felt greater than anything he’d ever experienced. None of the other Death Eater’s hits would hurt so much, or leave a mark so deep and hurtful, as the one on Harry’s right upper thigh.

Harry endured it, closing his mouth from the gasps of pain it wanted to take, for Slithers. They were looking at each other - Slithers in absolute misery and guilt and pain, and Harry in compassion and forgiveness for sins not the snake’s own. Harry tried to keep the pain away from his eyes, but he couldn’t help it when he’d wince now and then, quietly watching, trying to project regret, as Slithers’ eyes widened in recognition of the emotion.

When Slithers and Harry couldn’t take one more whip, the Death Eater kept on going twice, three times more before he stopped. Harry slumped down in his shackles, tears in his eyes for Slithers, and watched helplessly as the Death Eater, the player of shadows, uttered those two dreaded words. Harry looked up at Slithers, wanting him to know that he watched the snake’s murder and it wasn’t in vain; their eyes met until Slither's four eyes lost their luminance, as his body stiffened with death, then Harry closed his eyes and retched. The Death Eater, however, was far from done…

Harry struggled to wake, his tossing and turning increasing as his nightmare wove itself with the end of this dreaded memory. Drakkon slept on, used to Harry’s restless sleep, and moved a little closer to Harry for comfort. He could not have chosen a more wrong time to do this because just as the Death Eater caressed Harry’s back with the tip of Slithers’ stiff tail, so too did the tip of Drakkon’s. Both tails moved lower and lower to the end of Harry’s tailbone, a lover’s touch but for the nightmare situation it was in.

The memory and Drakkon’s tail movements mirrored so much that Harry’s senses merged them in his mind. It was too much to take in as the Death Eater's hand became rougher, vibrating with excitement, as he travelled Slithers down the cleft of Harry’s buttocks. He couldn’t take it as the Death Eater’s movements increased; his over-sensitised body made Drakkon’s tail movements seem rougher as well, pressing in on the small of his back. He finally tore himself from the nightmare with a scream and landed bodily against the wall under the window. The Death Eater’s laughter rang reverberatingly in his ear.

Drakkon woke to Harry’s expression of absolute fear and betrayal directed at him.

Harry hugged his knees to his chest, unconsciously rubbing circles on his upper right thigh as he looked at Drakkon, on edge.

Drakkon swallowed internally, wanting to get closer to Harry, but hesitant for the expression on his pale face. But realizing that he had to do something for Harry, he decided that he had to get nearer. Just as he was going to, however, he was aware of a low moaning sound coming from Harry. He flinched as he finally realized that Harry was telling him ‘no’. A deep hurt spread throughout Draco’s dragon chest until it dawned on him - maybe he’d triggered something when he’d talked with Harry today. He knew he had to release Harry’s tension somehow. This was his entire fault after all.

An idea suddenly came into his head. He just hoped that it would work, and that Harry’s friends wouldn’t come up to investigate the noise from Harry’s fall. Dragon or not, Draco wasn’t about to embarrass himself in front of them.

Harry gaped at Drakkon, his shock forcing him to release his legs from their tight hold against his body. Drakkon was up on his hind legs, dancing - head rolling, tail swishing, arms swinging and twisting dancing. It was the strangest thing Harry had ever seen, and yet… it seemed strangely familiar too. As he watched Drakkon bouncing from one foot to the other and writhing his head from side to side like he was enchanted by a cobra enchanter’s flute, Harry realized how snakelike Drakkon was dancing, and it hit him. Slithers looked almost exactly like this when he was dancing, doing something silly just to see Harry smile through his pain and hopelessness.

Remembering Slithers in such a good way, having Drakkon remind him unknowingly, released all the Drakkon-induced tension from Harry’s body. Blood rushed back through his pale face. Suddenly, Harry found himself feeling glad that Slithers was dead before the Death Eater really began torturing him, telling him this was only a hint of what was to come just as he was about to drive Slithers’ thin body...NO! Harry forced himself back to the present, focusing tearfully on Drakkon again, giggling when he bent forward, teeth bared and tongue flicking sensuously as he shook his tail, as if he was on some kind of dance floor seeking someone out.

Drakkon looked up at the giggle and, seeing Harry’s smile, bared his teeth even wider as his lewd smile turned into a triumphant grin. Unfortunately, at that same instant, the door to the dorm banged open as people rushed inside and saw Drakkon, hunched over, wings unfurled, arms extending out and a feral looking grin that screamed victory. Ron, Hermione, Dean and Seamus looked at Harry, whose wide eyes expressed a shocked look, fear having suddenly sprung back in the green at their abrupt entrance, and instantly grasped what was happening. Ron exploded at Harry first.

“What did I tell you about that animal, Harry? The moment it has you in a room by yourself, it goes for the kill. I don’t care how small it is, it can obviously kill, just look at its teeth. I’m having it taken away for your safety, Harry! If anyone, the teachers especially, knew you slept with a dragon…” Ron was fuming red and everyone had backed away from the intensity in his voice. Harry, who had slowly been making his way to Drakkon when his dorm mates and Hermione came in, backed into the corner again, afraid of the familiarity to the Death Eaters’ voices to Ron’s at the moment.

Only two saw him do this, Hermione and Drakkon, as the rest were looking at Ron, who was looking at Drakkon with loathing. Draco knew he had to get away before they did anything to him, before he turned human again, he thought as he looked at the lightening sky. His eyes roamed around for an easy escape. The only one, though, was the entrance to the dorm room, and that was blocked. But it was the best way out, and so he had to take his chance. Thinking that the only eyes on him were Ron’s, he dashed for an opening between their bodies. But someone had been watching him, and, just as his leg muscles relaxed in the jump, Hermione’s had flexed as she brandished her wand and shouted a Body-Bind Curse.

Harry screamed a horrible, bloodcurdling sound as he saw his nightmare being played out in front of him. He clutched at his right thigh and pushed himself upwards. This was not going to be the same, he thought defiantly as he stood up straight, if still a little shaken. This time he would do something about it. Looking at Drakkon’s fearful grey eyes, Harry remembered the same look in Slithers’ eyes and knew it was time to avenge his friend. “This is for you, Slithers,” he silently acknowledged as he lunged into battle.

None of them were aware that Harry had got up as they were now staring in shock at Hermione, and he was able to quickly end the spell on Drakkon, who tumbled to the ground, turned and ran into Harry’s outstretched arms. Harry felt him shaking and his rage grew as he clutched Drakkon tighter. He looked at Ron and Hermione, fury in his tired, still scared, green eyes.

“Try finding out the whole story first, Ron. You too, Hermione; I’m frankly surprised that you, of all people, didn’t.” Hermione, looking ashamed, ducked her head for a second before bringing it back up with a defiant look in her eye. She opened her mouth to start saying something, but Harry cut her off.

“I had a bad dream, that’s all. And he was helping me forget it,” he said, looking at Ron pointedly. “He was not trying to kill me. Do not ever touch him again, magic or otherwise. Got it?”

They gritted their teeth loudly, still sensing something funny that they didn’t like about Drakkon. They knew better than to say anything to Harry as he stomped out of the room, not waiting to hear their answer. His every step made a thud like the one that had brought them up here in the first place.

When they finally got to the lake, Harry’s pyjama-clad legs were half soaked from the dew on the grass. Harry didn’t care, though, because the coldness was refreshing. And, besides that, the warmth of Drakkon as they cuddled was made even better by the chilliness Harry was feeling.

Draco knew he had to go, but the warmth was really nice, and it would be great to just transform in Harry’s arms and cuddle with him as a human. His now tradition of looking at Harry while he was human was going to be broken and he would not be giving Harry any phantom kisses. But he could give him a dragon one and he did just that, smiling inwardly at Harry’s sudden blush. And before the light came out and he transformed, before the temptation to just show Harry who he was made him irrational, he dashed off toward the forest to transform alone.

As Drakkon walked away, Harry yelled out, in a tone that surprised him in its shyness, “Gone to get breakfast, then? Maybe someday we can have breakfast together.” Drakkon stopped, turned around, got on his hind legs and gave a little half bow, wiggling his tail. He hurried back to the confines of the forest to the sound of Harry’s laughter, regretting that he couldn’t just sit and watch him laughing.

Harry stood up, leaned against the tree, and watched the sunrise, thinking that he saw a snake-shaped cloud, one reunited with its third head, on top of the distant tree lines. He smiled slightly, ruefully, and then shook his head. He should’ve asked who the Little Prince was. A giggle sprang up at the sudden, impossible, thought that it was Draco.

Draco, who had not killed Voldemort. Draco, who was missing for so long, who knows where. Draco, who would have tortured him like those other Death Eaters were it not for the goodness in his soul. Harry shivered and hugged himself. Suddenly the sunrise wasn’t as warm as he looked toward the Forbidden Forest, the shadows the trees made transforming into lingering images of Harry’s nightmare. He closed his eyes, unexpectedly remembering Draco’s hug and wanting it back.

TBC