Kneeling

Finally, another chapter. I know, I\'m slow. Sorry - part of that is my perfectionism, but part of it is just sheer lazyness, which not a good thing. Feel free to poke and prod me occasionally, it really does help me get off my lazy butt and do some work on the story.
Anyway, enjoy!

(Edited for totally embarassing typo. I\'m glad that one hasn\'t popped up in the reviews yet... oops.)


********

So that’s what it it took to finally break him, Draco thought numbly. He felt strangely detached from his own body, only vaguely aware of the cold creeping into him from the floor. He touched a hand to his face, noticing absently that it was shaking, and shuddered when it came away wet with semen. He used his sleeve to clean himself cursorily, but it didn’t make the slimy feeling go away.

He couldn’t do this anymore. All this time he’d put up with Harrys behaviour, with his indifference, the contempt, the way he would fuck him like a cheap whore, with little concern for Draco’s pleasure. There were no kisses, no caresses, no loving words - which, admittedly, he’d always known better than to hope for, because that just wasn’t the way their relationship worked at all. But it still would have been nice… better than nice… if Harry had occasionally bothered to make him feel good beyond jerking him off when they were fucking.

Harry wouldn’t tolerate much of Draco’s attempts to do something nice for him, either. He’d tried it, in the beginning, but everything other than the most basic acts was met with barely covered distaste, badly concealed flinching, and once he’d gotten his hands slapped away sharply when he’d tried pinching nipples clearly much less receptive to stimulation than his own were.

And still, despite all of that, he hadn’t even considered giving up on it until today. If that was all he could get from Harry, it was still better than nothing at all, he’d kept telling himself, trying to be satisfied with what he could get: The little gasping noises Harry made when Draco put his mouth on Harry’s cock, the half-suppressed cries when he climaxed, and, especially, the intimacy he could almost convince himself was there when they fucked, Harry’s chest pressed against his back, a strong arm wrapped around his middle, firm hold on his cock.

In a way it was made easier by Harry’s refusal to look at him, because that way he didn’t have to see the evidence of his dreams being… well, nothing but dreams… in Harry’s face. It had been worth the secrecy, the pains he took to conceal their encounters from everyone. The Slytherins, being who they were, noticed that he was hiding something, of course, but their attempts to find out what it was failed in the face of the careful precautions he took.

Still, it estranged him even more from his peers, who he hadn’t been all that close to in the first place. He couldn’t bring himself to care much. There was no-one to turn to with his his worries, but then that wasn’t an option his pride would have permitted him, anyway. Letting anyone come that close to him went against anything he’d been taught from childhood: To be strong, and self-sufficient.

Harry was the first one Draco had ever wanted close to him, and wasn’t it ironical that it was Harry, who didn’t seem to have any problems letting everyone else get close, who was keeping this distance between them?

He sighed, shifting uncomfortably on the hard stone floor he was sitting on. There were little twinges of pain arrowing out from his ass again. The cleaning spell he used to prepare for sex had always left his insides tingling, but lately that feeling had been turning into something more like pain. Sometimes, when he touched himself there, pressing hesitant fingers against the itch, they came away wet with droplets of blood.

He suspected that he probably did the spell wrong, but it wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted to look up in Hogwarts’ library, in full view of everyone else, and his own books on the subject were at home, out of reach - unless he wanted to owl home and ask for them, which would have led to questions he didn’t want to answer, so that was not an option. Harry had never noticed, so it didn’t matter so much, anyway.

And now - well, it was a moot point now, wasn’t it? It looked like everything good he’d had with Harry was over. He couldn’t even begin to guess what had made Harry so horribly angry - at times he’d wondered if the anger was directed at him at all, what with the way Harry kept snarling things that made no sense to him.

How could you do that to him?, he remembered Harry saying, without any idea what might have prompted it. He couldn’t think of a thing he’d done recently that might have triggered such a reaction.

He was used to Harry’s resentment about the things he had done before they the had… gotten together - oh, how he regretted them now - but there had been nothing new.

He hadn’t exactly been nice to Harry outside of their secret meetings - they both couldn’t afford to make people wonder what might have brought on such a change of attitude - but there had been no more hateful taunts from his side, either. Draco had even made sure to stay away from Harry’s friends, knowing how protective he was of them. He simply didn’t know what had happened to shatter their fragile truce.

All that had made today’s events completely unexpected. This hadn’t even been the anger he knew from Harry from before they had started their relationship - if one could call it that -, this had been pure, untempered hate and icy contempt. Draco felt sick with the memory of it. Harry had obviously been trying to punish him, deliberately humiliating him, hissing spiteful words, worse than an angry blow could have been.

And Draco had gone along with it. He couldn’t quite explain that to himself, the strange mixture of shock and dread that had numbed his mind, and buried under it all the helpless hope that maybe if he went along with this, he might manage to appease Harry enough for things to get back to what they were before.

How stupid could he have been, anyway? Really, he was so fucking pathetic, it was sickening. He tried not to hate himself for it, but it was hard to reconcile the image he had of himself with the sniveling weakling he had become. He wasn’t like that, he couldn’t stand it. He was a Malfoy, he had been raised to be proud of himself, of his strength and his intelligence and the noble line of wizards he descended from.

He had soiled all that, spitting on it with his willingness to let himself be treated like that, like he was nothing but a cheap whore for Harry’s convenience. He deserved better than that. He deserved to have all the things he wanted from Harry - the loyal friendship, the protectiveness, the care he bestowed on those close to him.

He thought of Harry facing down Snape to protect Neville. He thought of the way he had seen Harry touch Hermione’s shoulder when she came out of the library, pale and stumbling with fatigue, remembered the tenderness that made his stomach clench because he knew he couldn’t have that. And even more than all of that, he still wanted his love, even after everything Harry had done to him, wanted it so much he could feel it like an ache deep in his bones. He deserved that. And now he was desperate enough, willing to get it the only way he could.

When he walked out of the secret room, head held high, he had made up his mind.