disclaimer: not mine.


warning: non-con. slash. H/D. don't read if you don't like. I certainly don't like, and I wrote it.


author's note: for Sara, who knows why & how. and yes, just in case you missed it, I hate this fic. a -LOT-.






~~ linger.


The only time he thought of him anymore was right before he went to sleep. And it wasn't even him, it was just his hands. They had been so soft. So soft, and dry, and they crackled along his skin as if with static. There was something about the memory he couldn't shake: it clung to him like sweat-dampened sheets, uncomfortable and relentlessly intimate. A second skin.


Potter, curled up against him, his chin tucked into Draco's shoulder. He'd drooled a little, and made faint snuffling noises. Draco had thought it quite hideous. Especially the completely unwanted attendant imagery that had to do with teddy bears and naughty children that it summoned to mind, all this time later.


It had been three years, two months and just about sixteen hours.


He could still feel those hands on him.


He didn't tremble for half an hour before falling into a restless sleep anymore. He didn't startle easily, or keep ten locking spells on every single door between him and the front entrance. He didn't expect any nighttime visitors, and he could make his own breakfast in the morning with steady hands. He was doing rather well, he thought.


When he dreamt, he may have remembered, but Draco didn't know, because the dreams never carried into morning, although for some reason the lingering scent of damp wood and wool wouldn't quite leave him.


The thing that he would have remembered, if he bothered to remember it, would be the fact that he never saw Potter's eyes. All he could discern was the faint flicker reflecting off the other's glasses, cold as moonlight.


He had been trained to resist Imperius for years, and yet he'd put up almost no struggle at all. He'd made a little gasp, mostly of surprise, and felt his eyes go opaque. His heart had been hammering inside his chest, but his breathing was even, and he didn't tremble or show the tiniest, most remote hint of hesitation.


He had been covered in a copious, slick sheen of cold sweat, rolling off him in waves.


Draco never knew how Potter had gotten there, and why he'd done what he did. His footsteps had been soundless as he walked down the hallway to Draco's room, and there had been no house-elf brave (or stupid) enough to announce the presence of a visitor to the Manor. One minute he'd been alone, and the next, his unlocked door was simply open.


His only thought was, "He won't kill me, he won't, he won't, he won't."


He repeated it inside his head again and again, no matter what Potter did. Potter wouldn't kill him. He couldn't, he wouldn't. He didn't.


He thought of that, later, when he thought about the five thousand and seven ways he was going to kill him-- slowly, deliberately-- as soon as he found him. He wouldn't say anything-- he'd just look into Potter's eyes, and smile, and cast the Curse to end all curses. Potter would kiss the ground, as soundlessly as he'd kissed Draco.


"Strip," he'd said, and Draco shivered, even though his room had been the perfect temperature. He thought he'd never stop shivering, but he did.


He felt Potter's eyes on him, slowly moving down his arms, across his stomach, slipping between his buttocks like a caress. He wanted to turn around, and he didn't know whether it was so that he could stop looking or so that Potter could continue.


Standing there, he thought it was an interesting intellectual exercise to imagine how he'd act if he -could- act. His body was moving without his participation being necessary, so he could consider the question fully.


He'd have his arms folded across his chest, and he would be sneering, daring Potter to make a move. He'd say he already had a girlfriend, thank you, and if Potter wanted to apply, he may as well get in line. He would stare meaningfully at the bulge in Potter's trousers, and Potter would blush and stutter and look away uncomfortably, not knowing what to do with himself. He would walk forward, his breathing deep and even, and his hand would casually cup Potter's balls, his thumb slowly rubbing at the outline of Potter's cock, making Potter squirm and gasp and moan. And then he'd stop, because he'd meant what he'd said about having everything that he wanted and needed already, and that could never, ever be Potter.


Draco was standing in his thin, very obviously distended boxers, and he thought he might be glaring, but he probably wasn't. He was aware his toes were cold, and that if he got any harder, he might pass out from lack of blood to his brain.


"Lie down," Potter had said, and it was merely a command. Nothing less, nothing more.


Draco lay down on his back on top of the covers, feeling very much on display. A piece of meat. He wanted to hate it more than he wanted anything in his life, ever.


Potter took off his glasses, slowly, setting them on the night-table with careful precision, blinking a few times. He was standing in shadow, and Draco couldn't see his face. And then he appeared to reconsider, and the glasses were back on. Potter took his clothes off instead-- pushing his trousers down, letting them pool at his feet. He jerked his shirt off in one smooth motion, revealing a tanned, muscular chest. His nipples were hard, tiny dark pebbles. A fuzzy line of hair ran down from his bellybutton, disappearing inside his boxers. Draco stared at it fixedly, refusing to look higher or lower. He felt a huge, disproportionate sense of heady triumph.


And then the boxers were off.


The cock was pointing straight at him, leaving no room for error. By that point, Draco's mind had taken a rather large detour into a soft, almost pleasant complacency. All it was was pain. He was used enought to pain for it not to matter. Potter was just going to throw Draco's legs over his shoulders and slam that large dick of his home, and that was all there was to it. It was going to burn, and he'll bleed some, and then it'd be over and he could start forgetting about it. Simple.


He started counting the seconds in his head.


One... two... three... four....


Potter's knees were to either side of him, bony and frail and he would've laughed if he could have. If not for the band of muscle, he would entertain thoughts of snapping them.


"Look at me," Potter said, and then he took Draco's cock in his mouth.


Suddenly, Draco couldn't breathe, and his heart was seriously threatening to burst out of his chest. He heard a rushing sound in his ears, and just as suddenly, everything in the universe seemed very far away and insignificant. Everything except the awful, delirious sensation of drowning in knife-sharp pleasure.


Potter's tongue was energetic, sliding all around his cock, circling and gliding and sweeping across, swirling quickly around the head only to take its time, casually exploring over and under and everywhere.


He was going to come, just a second more, just a minute, and all he could hear within his mind was a neverending litany of "No", swallowing all his yesses.


He felt a finger shoved inside him, at the same time as that tongue deserted him, and there were ruthless fingers suddenly clamped around the base of his cock.


Draco felt relieved. It was fine. He didn't. It was fine.


He kept thinking, "He didn't-- he didn't-- he didn't fuck me-- he didn't," even as Potter kept the spit-slick finger working in and out of his sore body, not quite hard enough to bleed.


It seemed to go on forever, and he began to feel overloaded, began to float away-- once again, everything was just fine. He didn't need to come. He didn't need to think. He could just lie there quietly, and think of nothing.


Then Potter stopped.


Maybe he wanted to make Draco beg for it. Which would be a laugh, because he couldn't. But Draco wasn't wondering why anything, he was just trying to pretend Potter wasn't jerking off while looking, for just a fleeting moment, like he was about to bloody -cry-, or something.


And for the next eight or ten months, every time Draco closed his eyes, he could see it-- Potter, sitting on his thighs, his eyes closed, face studiously impassive, a fist pumping his cock in a steady rhythm.

Draco had been so hard he thought the tiniest breeze would make him explode. If Potter had shifted, just a little; rocked back a bit, so that his arse would rub up against Draco's cock. If he would have looked at Draco as he came.


And this is what he remembered-- heavy droplets of white fluid, jetting in a high arc from Potter's fist. Being unable to blink, unable to move, throw Potter off him, wrap his hands around Potter's throat as he finally found his own release.


He remembered the only sound Potter had made-- a low, pained-sounding groan, almost a grunt, as the last shudder slid through his frame. The hot, sizzling sensation of the drops that landed on his nipple, in the hollow of his throat, right below his collarbone. His cock had twitched violently at that, and it was all he'd needed.


He didn't scream, didn't arch upwards, and his eyes finally slammed shut in an uncontrollable reflex. The orgasm, when it hit him, was almost painful. His cock pulsed, splattering come against the upper curve of Potter's backside. Draco saw no obvious reaction, no disgust or triumph or slight shiver of pleasure. It felt like a betrayal, but it was getting hard to distinguish yet another one from the many before it.


It wasn't his single-minded physical response that was the betrayal, of course.


As it happened, Draco had only one fantasy playing itself out behind his eyelids.


Breaking the curse. Seizing Potter's wrists, pinning them in place. Forcing himself up into that tight arse, without warning, without a word, certainly without an apology.


Thrusting faster and faster, making Potter wail disconsolately. The blood would run down his dick along with his own come, and Potter would remain very painfully unsatisfied. Potter's thighs would be trembling delicately, and his mouth would be hanging open in shock and want and a rising, impotent rage.


He'd never wanted anything more.


"Go to sleep," Potter said, before his cock had even softened to its unaroused state.


He had remembered his dreams that night. They had been so real. Draco tried to tell himself they were figments of his imagination, his masochistic mind out to get him, but he knew a lie when he heard one.


Potter had curled around him, ever so gently, after having washed in between his thighs, swiped carefully at his butt-cheeks with a warm washcloth. He lay quietly, an arm wrapped around Draco's waist, an ankle wound between the sleeping boy's. He whispered so quietly Draco couldn't even begin to imagine what he'd said, although he'd said it in a lilting, sad voice that made him miss things he knew he never had, or even wanted before.


He imagined Potter had been asking for his forgiveness, telling him that he hated himself, that he was now just as worthless as Draco had always said he was. He imagined Potter was really sorry, and he knew it wasn't enough for Draco, and he was offering Draco his life, if only Draco wanted to take it. He really was very sorry.


Or maybe he was telling him that his marriage to that Weasley girl was slowly driving him insane, and he needed to do the thing he'd always wanted before he killed himself and put himself, along with the wizarding world, out of its misery. After all, he'd been wanking off to Draco's smooth pale skin and cruel lips ever since he was sixteen. No, fifteen. Younger, even.


Maybe Potter was just telling him that he'd been a really good fuck, and he wasn't sorry at all, and maybe they could do it again sometime, only this time Draco would get to be on top. Potter was willing to undergo any punishment Draco wanted, he just couldn't live without Draco's cock up his arse for much longer. He might hurt himself in his frustration.


Draco knew he was better off not knowing.


He was better off asleep when Potter finally left, as soundlessly as he'd come.


Certainly, no muscle even twitched when that impossibly slick tongue flickered against his mouth, almost slipping inside. It wasn't really a kiss, more like Potter was tasting him, saying hello or goodbye or maybe nothing at all. The curse was gone by then, and Draco knew it. Still, he made no move to open his eyes, or part his lips, or even bite down on Potter's tongue, much as he wanted to. He heard that familiar rushing in his ears, the full-body shiver, which Potter must've noticed, since he straightened up immediately.


After a while, the ringing died down and all Draco heard was silence. And then he woke up.


There was no sign anyone had been there at all. The bed wasn't unusually rumpled, and the pillow next to him smelled fresh and vaguely sweet like May roses, just like always. He'd rolled over on his back, throwing an arm against his forehead, battling a huge, pounding headache.


He felt like he had a hangover, and maybe-- maybe the soreness in his arse was because he'd sat down spectacularly wrong.


Draco began counting the minutes, waiting for the feeling to go away. On his eight-hundredth minute, he decided to get up, move to the bed in the guest chambers. On his thirteen-hundred-and-tenth, he realized he was actually hungry again, and went to pick some carrots from the garden, until he remembered that the gardens got blasted along with the northwest hedges near the lake.


He was just waiting to get angry again. He waited to feel anything at all, but time passed, and he didn't. He only thought he might need a haircut, when the fringe began obscuring his vision and tickling the end of his nose.


When he was falling asleep, he felt the touches, everywhere on his skin, burning like fire-brands. He knew exactly where they'd been, exactly for how long. His skin felt raw, impossible to soothe. He thought he heard Potter saying something into his ear, and his moist breath was maddening and perfect and wrong, and he said, "Don't dream of me."


Draco didn't.
~~