Strange Flowers

Strange flowers bloom in the dark.

Brugmansia is Narcissa’s favourite. Out in the garden, she has charmed the air warm, and it grows year-round. It is also known as Angel’s Trumpet. It is tall and graceful and white, with blooms like bells and leaves that feel like fur. Its scent is lemony and lush. It smells expensive. All parts of it are lethal. The trumpet its name recalls is the trumpet heralded by the angel of death.

Draco likes it, too. As a child, he wandered with his mother through the paths lined in it, running the pads of his fingers over its petals. Narcissa would tell him how they reminded her of her husband, these flowers. Draco always wondered why but never asked.

Strange flowers bloom in the dark. Draco has known this since he was small.

War is perfect darkness. Draco has known this, also, since he was small. His body has always been a battleground; his body has always been a war. War is about darkness. War is about secrets. War is about small concessions, little barters: your soul buys your life; what is invisible buys what is visible; your silence buys your honor.

When the war spread outside of his skin, then, Draco understood how it worked; it was just a macrocosm. The darkness of his father’s bedroom became the darkness of the cellar, and the secrets were planted there, in someone else’s skin, like seeds, and traded for breath.

Those seeds grew and bloomed. Brugmansia. Beautiful and dangerous, rising out of the darkness; this strange flower. Tonight, Draco intends to make Lucius swallow it.

It is late, and Draco follows the steps down to the cellar, treading carefully by the light of his wand. When he reaches the door, he unlocks it quietly and steps inside, closing it behind him.

Ron is sitting in the corner, shirtless and dirty, his arms propped upon his knees. He lifts his head at the sound, equally ready to glower or to nod. Seeing that it is Draco, he nods. Ron does not greet him, because Ron no longer speaks. Ron does not make any sort of sound, actually, and this fascinates Draco.

Ron never screamed. Not even the first time. Draco knew that he fought, because his father would come out of the cellar with injuries: bruises, scrapes, a broken nose. Ron fought, but he never screamed, never cried, never begged, never swore.

Draco knows how furious this probably makes his father, who likes to coo and coddle, who comes as hard as you yell. Draco has never been able to maintain his silence, though he has tried, and he has respect for the difficulty of the task.

This respect is what brought him through the cellar door alone the first time. This respect is what made him close it tightly behind him, clasp his hands behind his back, and say, “He does it to me, too.”

Ron did not respond aloud, because Ron does not speak. Ron refuses to plead or cry or show pain: he is afraid that if he opens his mouth, the screams will never stop. He will give no one the pleasure of hearing him scream, and so he says nothing. He intuits, also, that his silence is what is keeping him alive. As long as he is not broken, Lucius must continue to try to break him. Once he is broken, he holds no value.

No, Ron did not respond aloud, but he met Draco’s eye, and Ron looked startled. Something passed between them, then, and they have been tending it carefully ever since.

Tonight, when Draco enters the room where Ron is kept prisoner, he joins him on the floor, disregarding the dirt. “Are you ready?” he asks.

Ron nods.

Draco touches his hands, and Ron does not pull away. This trust took a long time. Ron had thought Draco a spy, and somewhere inside of his head, a twisted voice had laughed at the absurdity. They’re sending Malfoy in here to soften me up? I guess they are as stupid as they look.

The trust came more quickly when Draco stripped off his clothes and Ron recognized his scars. When Draco described the acts in cold detail, the thing was cemented. After those words, it had been Ron who held out his hand.

Tonight, Ron closes his dirty fingers around Draco’s clean ones and squeezes. Draco stands and motions for Ron to do the same. He does.

Draco goes over Ron's body with the meticulousness of a Healer. His father has taught him to take pain, but he has also taught him the spells to soothe it. Because I love you, he croons, but Draco knows it is so that Narcissa does not see. The visible wounds are the only ones he is permitted to make disappear.

These skills are useful, though, and Ron allows it, holding his arms straight and watching the bruises around them fade under the tip of Draco’s wand. The sensation is cool, and it reminds Ron of his mother’s fingers. He closes his eyes and pretends, and then there are real fingers on him: Draco’s fingers, firm but gentle. The tenderness in Draco’s hands is always surprising; everything about them looks cold and hard, but they are unfailingly warm, and he uses them well.

Ron keeps his eyes closed, and Draco traces the shape of his arms, the sharp outlines of his ribs, the fragile skin of his neck. He is looking for things that are broken, but there are none tonight. Ron knows this but does not push him away. Instead, he catches Draco’s hand as it slides down his clavicle, holds it there, breathes. Draco pushes harder against the rise and fall and watches Ron’s fist clench and relax, clench and relax: the beating of a heart.

Draco’s hand moves to rest against Ron’s narrow hip. Ron does not open his eyes, but he walks into Draco’s arms, and they close around him like a shield charm. Draco brings his mouth to Ron’s ear and says, “It’s over now. For both of us.” Draco’s eyes close, too, and they stand in silence, in the dark, in the center of a war that is a fractal.

________________________


Outside of Lucius’s bedroom, Draco drops Ron’s Disillusioned hand and motions for him to stand against the wall. He knocks on the imposing wood. The sound is submissive, hesitant. It is well-practiced.

The voice that calls back is musical and sickly sweet, and bile rises up in Ron’s throat. He fights it back down, digging his jagged fingernails into his palm, and he is torn between the necessity of listening and the revulsion with which it fills him. But Ron is nothing if not brave, if not strong, and so he digs in and holds on and listens.

Draco walks through the door, his wand pressing at the small of his back. “You wanted to see me, Father?”

Lucius is lying in his bed, bare-chested with the covers at his waist. In the bedroom down the corridor, Narcissa and Bellatrix sleep twined together like vines. Draco finds it curious that his aunt, who has killed men double her size, refuses to sleep alone, but he is not at all surprised that it was his mother who volunteered to keep her warm. Draco understands the lengths to which one might go to stay out of Lucius’s bed; thinks that he, too, would feel safer pressed against Bellatrix’s blade. At least her touch is honest.

Lucius beckons Draco to his side with one finger. Draco casts his eyes downward and obeys, wrestling hard against the moths that flutter in his belly. A clock on the wall ticks gently, and this is calming; this is a reminder. At the corner of the bed, Draco catches his foot purposely and throws his hip against his father’s bedside table.

When Lucius looks away in distraction, Draco is swift and cruel and efficient. He Silences the room, and Lucius’s eyes go wide with surprise and become dangerous with alarming speed. He moves to stand, to speak, but he has taught his son too well. Draco shuts down his father’s scream before it begins, and ropes catch his legs before he can lunge.

Ron sees the Incarcerous from the doorway where he now stands invisible and takes his cue. He shuts the door carefully behind him and secures the lock. He comes to stand beside Draco and observe his handiwork. It is both magnificent and terrible.

Ron watches Lucius’s face as Draco drags the wand over his body and he materializes in front of him. It is written across with confusion, mostly, but there is rage and contempt and a shadow of something that resembles fear.

At Ron’s side, Draco twirls his wand through his hands, nervous but gratified, and stares at his father, bound and silenced on the bed. His lip curls in disgust as he watches Lucius’s erection deflate. “Surprise,” he says, and his voice drips with malice. The tone makes Ron shudder. Draco feels it and moves a hand to his arm.

Draco orders his father to stand. Lucius narrows his eyes and stays where he is. It is clear that he is trying to speak, trying to break the hold on his vocal cords, but his straining is worthless, and his face goes red in fury. With a flick of his wand, Draco has compelled his father’s movements, and he seats him clumsily in an armchair opposite the bed. Lucius is still struggling. Every time he flings himself out of the chair, Draco calmly returns him.

Over Draco’s skinny shoulder, Ron watches, fixated. He cannot look away. He wants to be revolted, to cringe at the humiliation, but he cannot make himself. Watching this feels as viscerally satisfying as the scratching of a maddening itch. He rolls his back and feels the muscles loosen.

When Ron’s chin bumps Draco’s shoulder blade, it seems to bring Draco out of his trance, and he becomes practical. With an irritated sigh, he adds more ropes and binds Lucius to the chair, solving the problem.

Ron moves closer, suddenly cold, and he can feel the energy that vibrates around Draco’s body. It is fierce and crackling and hot, and he warms his skin by it. When the front of his body is pressed firmly to the back of Draco’s, Draco leans his head back so that their cheeks brush. Together they stare into Lucius’s face, contorted in rage and shock, and Ron feels rather than sees Draco’s smile.

Draco can feel Ron’s heart leaping against his back. Its rhythm matches his. They have done it. He leans back further and brings his lips to Ron’s ear. They brush lightly as he speaks, and the hair on Ron’s body prickles. “Look at him. He’ll never touch you again.”

Ron’s eyes close. Draco takes Ron’s earlobe between his teeth so gently that it feels like breath and pulls it between his lips. His tongue follows the curve all the way to the top. Ron’s breath quickens, and his muscles go tight. His eyes locked on his father, Draco whispers, “Do we let him watch?”

Ron’s hand clutches at Draco’s arm, and Draco understands. He turns on his heel until they are face to face and takes Ron’s head between his hands. At first, the kiss is almost chaste. It is closed lips; it is permission asked; it is hesitant and inelegant.

This is not the first time they have kissed, but it is the first time that it feels like something other than a substitute for weeping. Ron keeps his eyes closed and lets Draco open his mouth, nudging at his lips with the tip of his tongue; not insisting, just suggesting.

The sweetness is strange and almost unbearable, so Ron responds, encourages. He opens his mouth wider; he pushes forward with his tongue; he takes Draco’s hips in his hands with a possessiveness that feels foreign. In his life, there has been little that has belonged to him; in these past few weeks, that little has become nothing. All that remains has been his voice. But now, under his touch, Draco is somehow becoming both hard and pliant, both claimant and claimed, and Ron can feel his heat rise and rise and rise. He ignores Lucius, and the world shrinks down to a manageable size.

Draco’s hands are on Ron’s skin again, but they are not searching out injury. They are searching out reaction; they are finding the places that make him arch his back and draw breath, that make him bare his throat and jerk his hips. These places still exist; they have not, miraculously, collapsed into numbness under the weight of pain. As Ron has protected his voice, his dignity, so too has he protected the parts of himself that say yes, and Draco finds them, untangles them, makes them sing.

Still, Ron makes no noise. He does not moan. He does not sigh. The sounds are incidental: the slick, wet sound of a kiss; the whisper of flesh across flesh.

Draco makes enough noise for both of them. He is needy and almost feral; he hisses like a snake when Ron cups him through his trousers. There is a part of him that wants so badly for his father to see what it looks like when he is willing; to see how much better he could have made it if he had wanted to. He does not need to look at Lucius to know what this is doing to him.

Ron does not mind the noise. It is nothing like Lucius's sadistic, patronizing growls; his sick murmurings of pretty and darling. No, Draco's sounds are not demands; they are a conversation full of yeses; they fill Ron's mouth and become what he cannot say.

Behind them, they can hear the rustle of Lucius fighting impotently with his bonds. It is the sound of rope against skin, familiar to them both, but it is as harmless as a ghost now. Draco moans louder to mask it, pressing himself to the groove at the inside of Ron's hipbone.

Draco smiles against Ron's lips. "See?" he says, and he guides Ron's hands. "You make me so hard. I'm so hard for you." He makes sure that he is loud enough for his father to hear. He wants him to hear the words, to hear the way he smiles around them; he wants Lucius to sit in the knowledge that what he could never do is so simple, so easy for the boy he could not break. "See what you do?"

Ron's lashes bat frantically as Draco takes himself carefully from his trousers and settles against Ron's thigh. Their hands come together around his cock. They lace their fingers into one another, sweat on their palms and heat everywhere, and Ron feels like he is holding Draco's heart in his fist. Blood pounds like music, heavy and full. It fills the room. It is louder than the chaos of war.

"Come lie down," Draco whispers, running his thumb across Ron's knuckles, and Ron presses his assent to the corner of Draco's mouth.

The bed is large and looming. Ron has never seen it, but it gives Draco a second of pause. Ron squeezes his hand, and Draco tears the duvet from the mattress with savage finality and shoves it to the floor. It is heavy and sumptuous, and their feet catch in it as they slide onto the sheets. Draco considers them, too, as though he might shred them, but he does not. Instead, he covers them with Ron's body.

Ron is tall. He takes up the length of the bed, which feels alien against his back; too soft, too yielding. He is used to the scrape of stone. He closes his eyes and lets Draco use him as a shield against the memory of these sheets; lets Draco line up their bones like a mirror. They are nearly the same height; nearly the same width. Draco settles over him, warm and bare now, his clothing shucked into a pile with the duvet. Some of their scars kiss one another.

Draco licks his way down Ron's body, slow and languorous like the way Ron remembers the sun. The warmth curls around his bones, and with his eyes closed, he can feel grass beneath him, and this is what freedom feels like. Through the fence of his lashes, he watches Draco's shock of silverwhite hair slide down his freckled belly, all silk and birdwings.

Ron's body responds with more enthusiasm than Draco has yet seen. Draco slides the thin fabric of Ron's worn trousers over his hips, and Ron lifts his bottom so they come free. All skin now, pale as Brugmansia, both of them, against sheets the colour of blood.

Draco lays his cheek against the path of hair beneath Ron's navel and presses his lips to Ron's cock in an open-mouthed kiss. His tongue comes through, slippery and soft, and he sucks a love mark there. Draco opens his eyes and sees his father, his face twisted into a grimace, and he hopes that this hurts him.

Draco takes his time. He licks and he nuzzles; he kisses until pre-come slicks his lips. He listens carefully to Ron's breathing, faster and faster, the loudest sounds he has heard him make in weeks. Ron catches handfuls of the sheets and pulls; he lifts his hips to meet Draco's mouth, but never too hard, never too fast; just small little tilts of pleasure. Everything becomes slippery and hot.

Ron knows the plan. He knows that he cannot come yet, so he tugs urgently at Draco's hair, signals him to stop. Draco lets go and kisses his way back up to Ron's ear. Ron reaches down to hold him, to stroke him as he speaks.

"All right?" Draco asks, and there is a hitch in his voice as Ron swirls his thumb around the head of Draco's cock, feather-light.

Ron nods into Draco's neck and sucks in a breath. He is all-over taut; he is trembling violently. Some of it is anxiety, but most of it is desire. He latches onto Draco's throat and sucks; his hand moves faster. Draco's hips shrug up and he moans, loud, before reaching down to halt Ron's jerking wrist.

"Do you want me to cover his eyes?" he asks, his voice a shaky gasp.

Ron nods. Days before, he had taken parchment and quill from Draco's hand, and this was his one request, written in block print: I DON'T WANT TO LOOK AT HIM.

Draco sits up and fumbles for a pillow with clumsy hands, yanking it from its case. He retrieves his wand from the floor and walks over to where his father is tied to the armchair, his eyes two smoldering slits.

Ron props himself on his elbows and observes. With one hand, he maintains his erection, drawing his fingertips up and down, watching the sharp, graceful lines of Draco's body as he blindfolds Lucius, who tries to throw his head from side to side.

Ron feels like he is watching from very far away, though the scene is playing out only a few metres from him. Before he can stop himself, he notes the parts of Draco that come so obviously from his father. It is not so much the physicality; they are not so alike as they seem at first glance. Draco is mostly Narcissa, really, save for the eyes: willowy and angular where Lucius is more solid; delicate through the cheeks and chin; thin-veined and precise. No, it is his mannerisms now; it is the way that Draco closes his hand around Lucius's throat and throws his head into the wall that strikes Ron as eerily inherited. It is at this point that he looks away.

Draco does not speak to his father, though there are many things he would like to say. He has taken this cue purposely from Ron, who seems to unnerve Lucius with his silence. Draco likes the power in that, so he wields the quiet like a weapon.

He holds his wand to the small of his father's back and pushes him towards the bed. Lucius hops, his ankles bound together, and the sight is absurd. Draco laughs. He uses a spell to keep Lucius moving, to keep him from toppling over and having to be corrected.

When they reach the bed, Ron rolls to his side and stares at the wall, stroking himself more intently now. Lucius's new proximity is endangering his arousal. He wants Draco back.

He gets him, but not before he hears a murmured Imperio and feels the mattress still; feels Lucius go vacant and motionless.

His father now mollified, Draco crawls across the sheets and stretches his body behind Ron's. He licks along the cords of his neck and nips at his jaw. Ron uncurls and hooks his legs through Draco's; he allows himself to be pulled onto his back. Beside them, perched on the edge of the bed, wrapped in ropes that are reddening his white skin, Lucius stares at nothing.

This moment is Draco's, and he knows it. The little battles went to his father, but this war is his. He looks down at Ron's body -- shockingly thin, battered, used -- and sees what he has wished for himself since he was six; he sees strength, sees resistance, sees Ron's sharp elbows snaking between Lucius's ribs like a spear, and in his head, he hears his father howl in rage.

Draco closes his eyes and feels the sound of it well inside of him. His thumb crawls absently across Ron's face, and Ron takes it into his mouth. There is a vibration then, like a hum, and Draco feels the force of the words fighting to come back. It makes him shiver; he grinds into Ron's thigh and opens his eyes. Ron is smiling, and Draco smiles back.

"Are you ready?" Draco asks for the second time tonight.

Ron's eyes suddenly go hard, turn the colour of gunmetal. His lips lose their curve and grow thin as a blade. The nod of his head is sharp and straight. He reminds Draco of a soldier, of the knights in the portraits at school.

Draco cups his face and nods back. "Lie back, then."

Ron complies. Draco leans down across him again, and they kiss. It is different now. It has the quality of a benediction or a vow, but there is heat to it, too; their mouths clutch at each other and then come free.

Draco narrates as he works, his voice businesslike but soft. "You don't have to look," he says, waving his wand and commanding Lucius to his knees. Lucius follows dumbly.

Ron does not have to look; Ron does not even want to look, but he does. He watches everything, and his unfaltering erection makes him uneasy. He does not even have to touch it now. He listens to Draco's voice, and he watches their revenge unfold, and he feels the steady ache of his own arousal.

"I'm going to let his legs go now." The ropes disappear, and the puppet Lucius does not move. Draco brushes Ron's calf. "Spread them a little," he says, and Ron opens his legs to let Lucius shimmy between them.

Draco keeps his hand wrapped around Ron's ankle and squeezes an encouragement. Ron is biting his lip, and his heart is pounding. "It's all right," Draco murmurs. "He's not going to do anything I don't tell him to." The satisfaction in his voice is cold and absolute.

Draco addresses his father now. "Up," he says sharply, snapping his wand against Lucius's thigh. Lucius rises off his feet and kneels, tall and looming. Ron's eyes narrow into slits, and Draco's grip on his leg tightens.

"Open," Draco commands, now jabbing his wand roughly against his father's arse.

Lucius is obedient. He moves his knees to the outside of Ron's hips. He almost overbalances, but Draco steadies him roughly and berates him for his clumsiness.

With one hand, Draco absently strokes at his cock. With the other, he conjures more ropes. "When I drop the Imperius," he says quietly, "he's going to fight. But he'll be trapped. He won't hurt you."

Two ropes snake around Lucius's legs and knot themselves tightly above his knees. The other ends wrap around the sturdy bed frame on either side, looping themselves over and over between the wood and the mattress and pulling taut. Ron watches, both impressed and uncomfortable with Draco's obvious skill.

His eyes now turned to Ron's face, Draco interprets his expression correctly. "I can do everything he can do," he says quietly, his voice shot through with contempt. "For all of his N.E.W.T's, he's rather stupid, isn't he? I think it's the inbreeding, personally." Draco looks briefly back at his father, then meets Ron's eyes again. "What else was there for me to do but watch?"

Ron sees a glimmer of pain fly across Draco's face, but it is replaced quickly with a hot, smouldering resolve that makes Ron's stomach flutter. Ron reaches out a hand and brushes it against the jutting bone of Draco's hip. Draco's shoulders straighten.

"I'm going to sit him down, yeah?" he says quietly.

Ron feels his stomach lurch in earnest now. His cock is hard, and he wants this. He wants Lucius to know; he wants Lucius to understand; he wants Lucius to feel like he is being ripped in half, to feel the shame of it twist around his spine and crawl into his throat and choke him; he wants Lucius to hurt, and he wants him to know who and why and how fucking much. And he wants this for Draco, who has cried and bled and swallowed his own rage like a phial of poison.

This is it. Ron knows. All of that poison will empty out of them both when they finish; they will give every fucking drop of it back, and they will leave him here covered in it, and it will be over.

Ron looks up at Draco and sees his narrow chest moving rapidly. His eyes are dark and searching. Ron arches his eyebrows and jerks his chin in an emphatic yes.

Draco leans his long body down again beside Ron. Above them, Lucius waits placidly on his knees, blindfolded eyes gazing unseeingly at the family crest that decorates the wall over the headboard. Draco wraps one hand around Ron's cock and squeezes, and Ron reaches between Draco's legs and does the same. They slide their hands over one another for a moment, nose to nose, their hot breath between them like a promise. "Now?" Draco murmurs against Ron's lower lip, and Ron kisses his agreement.

Then Draco slides down Ron's body and takes his cock in his mouth again. He wets it thoroughly, all sloppy tongue and lips and hot enthusiasm. Ron lifts his hips and throws his head back, and Draco takes a moment to watch, to be sure that Ron has room to move. Satisfied that he does, he presses a kiss to the head of Ron's cock and sits up.

Draco retrieves his wand from beside him on the sheets and shoves it suddenly into the cleft of his father's arse. Lucius jerks in surprise and his lips twist in pain, but he makes no sound, his vocal cords still held in the vise of Draco's magic.

"I'm not doing this for you," he snarls at his father as the lubrication drips obscenely down Lucius's thigh. He pulls his wand away and slaps it sharply against Lucius's back. "Now sit on his cock."

For a moment, it seems as though Lucius is not going to do it. His eyes are not visible, but if they were, both Ron and Draco are sure that they would see a battle blazing in them; would see Lucius fighting to return to his own body, to resist its betrayal. He does not break the curse, however, and after a moment begins to lower himself.

Draco keeps his wand at his father's flesh with one hand, and with the other he grasps the base of Ron's cock. Ron seeks Draco's eyes with his own, and Draco holds them steady. "It's all right," he murmurs. "You'll like it. I promise."

Ron moves his hand and wraps it around Draco's. His fingers tremble slightly, but he is hard and throbbing and hungry, and when he feels Lucius's body clench around the head of his cock and resist, it is almost too much. Draco squeezes hard, and Ron's hips snap upwards and his eyes roll back, and Lucius opens his mouth in a silent scream that makes Draco's cock leap in impatience.

The expression his father wears at that moment when Ron forces himself all the way through makes Draco think he is going to come right there and ruin everything. His eyes cannot decide where to go. Lucius's face is ugly and agonized and perfect, and Ron's mouth is a round little O of surprise, his eyes scrunched tight, and they are both so mesmerizing that he feels shattered by his own desire. A groan comes through his lips, and he pulls his hand away from Ron's cock and spreads his body out beside him.

His whisper is low and heavy. It shakes against Ron's ear, and Ron's skin prickles everywhere. "Do it," he says. "Fuck him. Make him hurt. Show him what it feels like."

Ron opens his eyes and blinks into Draco's face, so close to his own with blown-wide pupils and swollen lips set into a fierce, angry, dangerous line. He tilts his chin and takes Draco's grim mouth with his own, kissing it open, and when Draco makes a strangled noise against his teeth, Ron jerks his hips sharply up.

Draco drops his wand and tucks a hand under Ron's arse. He grips it and helps Ron find a rhythm, urging him up harder, farther, deeper.

Ron's face is screwed up tight, and all of his muscles are burning slow and hot. The pressure around his cock is incredible, slippery but not too slippery, not so slippery that he forgets what he is doing; forgets that this is vengeance. Draco squeezes his arse harder, and he thrusts harder, faster, the sheets pulling in his fists.

Draco ruts against Ron's thigh, trapping his cock between it and his own stomach. He sucks at Ron's collarbone and tastes salt and skin and need. Through heavy eyelids, he gazes up at his father, eyes and legs and arms bound, mouth quivering in horror he cannot halt, body raw and painful-looking, and he is so satisfied that he thinks this might be enough, that he could forgo the rest of this and just come against Ron's warm flesh and be happy.

But that is not the plan, and Draco knows he would regret it later; he knows that in the long nights that follow, he would lie awake and wish for more, and so he tears himself away and sits up.

Ron's hips stutter and his eyes open to see Draco getting shakily to his knees and reaching for his wand. Draco places a hand on Ron's stomach and says, his voice thick and unsteady, "Wait."

Ron does. He settles back down against the sheets, his bollocks protesting madly and his fingernails digging hard at his palms. He bites his lip and waits, knowing what is coming next and excited by it, terrified by it.

"Arms out," Draco barks at his father, and as the ropes slide off of him, Lucius extends his arms. "Now lean forward," Draco commands. Again, Lucius's mouth curls, but he does as he is told and bends himself forward, Ron still inside of him. The change in angle makes both Lucius's face and Ron's contort strangely. Draco furrows his brow in concentration, his cock standing almost straight against his belly.

With a quick flick of his wand, the ropes divide neatly in half. They circle both of Lucius's wrists, then knot themselves expertly around the tall, carved posts at the head of the bed.

"There," Draco says, now speaking to Ron. "That ought to keep his weight off you. Can you breathe?"

Ron nods, his face turned to the side trying to avoid Lucius's breath. Their faces are close now, and he does not like the smell.

"All right," Draco says, and he makes his way down the bed until he is kneeling behind his father. His legs are trembling now. His breath is coming fast, but it seems to catch somewhere around his heart every time he inhales, and he shuts his eyes to anchor himself.

When he opens them, he gazes down. He places his wand at the place where Ron's body and his father's meet and casts the lubricating spell again. At the touch of Draco's wand, Ron's cock twitches. Draco can see it. He takes his wand away and strokes one finger down over the exposed base, then cups Ron's bollocks briefly in his hand, rolling gently. Over his father's shoulder, he sees Ron's eyelids leap around and his mouth open.

"All right," Draco says, and it is almost a whisper. He spits into his hand and rubs over his own cock, pressing near the head to slick himself with pre-come. He jams his wand between his teeth and bites down hard. With one hand, he brings the head of his cock just above Ron's. With the other hand, he pushes a thumb inside, wriggling it around as his father squirms in pain.

Ron throws his head back sharply at the sensation and begins to pant as Draco works more of his fingers inside. They glide up the underside of Ron's cock as he goes, and the sensation is both brilliant and bizarre. Above him, Ron can sense Lucius trying to cry out, but Draco's spell holds firm. Ron grits his teeth as Draco replaces his fingers with the head of his cock.

And then there he is, wriggling and stretching and forcing his way in, and things become so tight that it almost hurts. It does hurt a little, and Ron bites down hard on his own mouth. This is pain, but this is good pain; this is pain with a purpose, with an end, and he knows that once he adjusts, it will be dizzyingly good.

It is. It is dizzyingly good. Draco's cock is throbbing; it has its own steady force, and as he slides it against Ron's, everything syncs up. When Draco is all the way in, they stay for a moment. Both of them have their foreheads creased, their mouths paused halfway open. The sensation is alien and beautiful.

Then Draco starts to move. It is tentative at first, the motion difficult and halting. But Draco gasps out, "You, too" and Ron jerks his hips, testing a little, and after three false starts, they are sliding against each other, both of them fucking Lucius, who is still trying to scream.

Ron shuts his eyes and lets it wash over him. He thinks of the first time that Draco touched him. He remembers their cocks pushed together, thrusting through the tunnel of Draco's sweat- and spit-slicked palms, hard and smooth, the Quidditch Seeker's calluses long gone. He remembers Draco coming first, spilling himself everywhere, then taking a handful of it to bring Ron off in slow, building strokes that nearly drove him mad. He remembers Draco's delicate shoulders under his hands as he held on, his head scraping against the stone wall, Draco's mouth at his ear whispering a sibilant yes, yes, yes. It had reminded Ron dimly of Parseltongue, of Harry.

And Draco is talking now, too, but he sounds different, his voice coming through clenched teeth. "I'm going to lift it." He does lift it, but he gives his father one last command before he does. Releasing the hold on his vocal cords, he says, "Scream for me, you fucking pervert."

Lucius does. He howls like an animal, his voice pushing hard against the silencing spell on the walls. And then Draco lifts the Imperius, and Lucius registers what is happening to him.

His body starts to jerk and writhe, but he is trapped between Draco and Ron, and he is bound by Draco's perfect, neat knots. He can do nothing to stop this. He can do nothing but scream, and he does.

Lucius cannot find words. The agony is too complete. Instead of words, he just howls and howls and howls; he throws his body up and down, forward and back, trying to get away, but this just adds friction, and Draco and Ron move faster, their cocks tight together inside of him.

Draco starts to speak now, his voice clear and full of hate and passion and triumph. "How do you like it, you babyfucking scumbag?" he snarls. "Dream come true, isn't it? Two pretty boys at once? What do you think? Are we doing a good job? Isn't it brilliant?"

Lucius sounds like he's choking; he coughs and howls and coughs again. Ron tucks his chin down to his shoulder, away from the noise, and bucks his hips. His chest burns; he can feel inside of it what he is hearing in Draco's voice, and he feels a sick sort of pride welling in him as Lucius hollers uselessly. He never did this. He never sounded like this. He is better, stronger. Lucius is a coward, and he is reaping what he has sown: a field of Angel's Trumpet.

Ron can feel the head of Draco's cock bumping rhythmically against his as they move together, and it is gorgeous. Behind his eyes, he pictures it; he can call it up in detail. It suits him, long and a little slender; flushed with arousal in almost the same shade as his cheeks, and at this thought, Ron's mouth opens and he cuts off his moan just in time, clamping down hard around it, his teeth clanking like a guillotine.

He is getting close now, but he knows that Draco will come first. He always does. Ron feels him start to lose rhythm. The only sound he is making now is his frantic breathing, and his hips are moving shallowly as Lucius screams himself into hoarseness. Ron opens his eyes and cranes his neck to see over Lucius's squirming shoulder.

Draco has his head back and his eyes closed. His mouth is quiet now, his lips parted and panting, and his hands are clutching at his own hair. He does not want to touch his father. There is sweat across his long neck and his smooth chest. He is magnificent. Squinting, Ron sees that there are pale sparks of magic flickering and dying around Draco's shoulders, flame-like things as pale as he is, and through this strange haze, Ron smiles and feels Draco come.

Everything is suddenly hotter, wetter. Draco's cock is pulsing hard, and Draco's throat opens into one long, gutteral sound of relief, of ecstasy, of absolute release. The look on his face is gratitude; it's peace, and he is more stunning and more terrifying than Ron has ever seen him; he is a lick of white flame burning at a dangerous pitch.

Draco does not slump down; he does not lose himself. He opens his eyes and looks past his father's flailing body to where Ron is gazing up at him. Lucius is still screaming, but it is losing its strength, and now that he has come, Draco's focus is only on Ron.

He smiles down at him, then leans up and takes his father's head roughly between his hands, pushing it sideways and down so that it is not in the way. Then, over the dwindling force of Lucius's humiliated protests, he says, his voice soft but controlled, "Go on. Let me see you come."

That is all Ron needs. He can feel the pressure starting to relax as Draco's cock begins to soften. He can move more easily now, and he thrusts faster and faster, Draco's hot come making everything slicker and even better, and he tears the bedsheets in his fists as he feels his body let go.

Draco watches. There is still no noise, but it is, somehow, even more commandingly beautiful that way. Ron's mouth opens in silence, his tongue slipping over his lower lip. His head flies back against the sheets, the two shades of red an interesting contrast, and his white throat exposed and vulnerable. His eyelashes, long and almost invisible, make fluttering shadows across his sharp, freckled cheeks.

Draco stares, transfixed, and sighs as he feels the power of Ron's orgasm, the way it does not seem to want to end, the way he is just spilling and spilling and spilling. There is so much of it. Draco thinks that he would like to taste it on his tongue, swallow it, carry it with him as though some of Ron's strength would become his that way.

He does not do that, however. As Ron's face begins to relax, Draco looks down. Come is leaking from his father's arse onto his thighs, and there is blood, too. More blood than Draco expected. He finds this both repugnant and bizarrely gratifying, and his stomach twists at the sight.

Fumbling for his wand with one hand, he slips his cock free and takes Ron's in his other hand. He fondles Ron lightly as he softens, and Ron's muscles twitch at the touch. Draco uses his wand to siphon the blood. He does not want Ron to see; he thinks that Ron has seen enough blood.

For a moment, Ron lays still and panting, but reality returns to him quickly. He does not want to be trapped under Lucius's still-resistant body, so he draws up his knees and edges sideways, rolling free. Lucius hangs there like a broken doll, legs tied to the bed, body suspended over it, used and pathetic.

Though he is shaking and spent, Ron crawls down the bed to sit at Draco's side. Draco's hands are sticky, and he wipes them in his father's long, silvery hair, yanking hard as he pulls them away. Lucius snarls, and Draco lifts his wand with one hand and silences him once again.

Draco sits back onto his knees, and Ron leans into him. Ron can hear Draco's heart still hammering furiously, trying to beat itself back into a quiet rhythm. The sweat from their bodies sticks together in the cooling air.

"I'm going to leave him like this," Draco whispers, his lips brushing Ron's cheek. His breath is hot. Like a dragon, Ron thinks idly. "I'm not going to Obliviate him, either. He's going to remember this. He's going to have to explain this to whoever finds him." Draco's forehead knits, and he thinks for a moment, his mouth slackening briefly. "I hope it isn't my mother."

And for the first time in weeks and weeks and weeks, Ron speaks. He takes Draco's sweating hand into his own and tips his face until they are looking into one another's eyes. He is no longer afraid of his own screams. They are gone, now. Lucius has taken them upon himself in this; he has absorbed Ron's pain, diminished it to something tolerable.

"He deserved this," he whispers, his voice rough from disuse but still audible. He looks up at Lucius's divested body. He coughs his voice into clarity. "Did you hear me? You deserved it, you piece of shite. And I hope they kill you when they figure out that you're the one who let us escape." Ron turns back to Draco and says, more quietly, "Get his broom and let's get the hell out of here."

Draco's eyes go wide, and he stares at Ron in shock for a moment. Then he kisses him, and Ron moans into his mouth the accumulation of every unexpressed and unexpected comfort, pleasure, mercy he has ever felt at Draco's hands.

The kiss is broken, and they dress quickly, Ron nicking one of Lucius's shirts, which hangs on him like drapery.

Draco opens his father's closet and takes out his broom. They meet at the window. Outside, it is dark and clear. Draco knows that Rookwood is on patrol, and with a glance at the clock, he knows that he will be on the other side of the grounds. He tells Ron this, assures him that they are safe.

Before they leave, Draco turns to look over his shoulder. He stares at Lucius. Putting a hand on Ron's arm, he says, "Wait."

Draco walks over to the bed and tears the pillowcase from his father's eyes. Underneath, they are red-ringed and flashing with fury and betrayal and the same undercurrent of fear as before. Draco bends so that they are eye-to-eye, grey-to-grey. "What are the rules of war, Father?" he asks, his voice parroting, mocking. "What did you teach me?" Draco cocks his head sideways. "The enemy of my enemy..." He does not finish. He does not have to. He spits in his father's face and walks away.

They escape over the garden, Ron's arms wound around Draco's waist, the air cool and delicious against their skin. Beneath them, the dazzling, deadly faces of Narcissa's Brugmansia tip up to say goodbye.