For the thousandth time, Draco wrenched at the shackles pinning his wrists.

And for the thousandth time, remained quite securely fixed to the pillar.

He cursed. Vehemently and creatively. Cursed Voldemort for existing, cursed his father for not being able to do enough, cursed himself for seventeen years of naivete.

And cursed just how bloody freezing it was in this prison without clothes.

He'd thought he'd known just how it all was laid out and had been from the beginning. Simple inertia was carrying him along in the plans his father had for him, and he had had no reason to fight it. He was a Malfoy, after all; if his father would have him become a Death Eater he would comply.

It was as much of a surprise to his father as it had been to him. Voldemort didn't want him to become a Death Eater.

Voldemort wanted a new form to inhabit. A seventeen-year-old, physically fit, blond form.

At least his father had tried to plead a case. It was something.

Draco could only hope that the reason Lucius Malfoy had ceased his protests in the face of the Dark Lord's anger was that he was waiting until the time was right to act. Try something that would get him the fuck out of here. His father was good at subtlety.

What he was not good at was compromising his instinct for self-preservation.

Draco pressed his face against his bicep and groaned. He was as good as dead. The round room didn't even have a door, much less a window. One of those protected locations that could only be apparated to, and then you had to know the interior to be able to get to it at all. Voldemort was evil, but not always clever, but this time he'd obviously listened to somebody; probably that pissant Pettigrew.

The pillar he was chained to was at the center of a pentagram, whose rust-brown color suggested that it had been painted in blood. Very archaic. Unfortunately, so were dark magic rituals like these.

Draco didn't know what Voldemort was waiting for-- the dark of the moon, a configuration of the planets, whatever hoary bullshit some ancestorial evil wizard had woven into his invented spell, all those years ago, when he discovered that he hated being decrepit and reeking and impotent, and decided that the cute boytoy inhabiting his bed out of sheer terror would look better on him than on him. But clearly it wouldn't be long. No one had come to bring him food or water, and his arms, shackled above his head in rune-covered manacles, had gone beyond painfully numb to dead weights, and he was going to be losing some toes soon, it was so cold in here. Unless Voldemort wanted to spend the next fifty years maimed, it would be soon.

Would he know when it happened? Would Voldemort have to come there to complete the ritual, or would it happen from without? Would there be any warning, when Voldemort's mind pushed out his own, and he was dying?

Would it hurt?

He could barely feel the wound anymore, the symbol Voldemort had cut into his chest before imprisoning him here. Draco still couldn't tell what it was; if it was supposed to be a weird scrolly V, or the initials TMR imposed over each other, or some hieroglyphic meaning Oh I'm Just So Evil or whatever. But Voldemort had collected the blood that had poured from his cut flesh and transformed it into a red crystal pendant that clearly was not just meant to be a trinket for his curio cabinet.

At least his father hadn't been one of the Death Eaters holding him down during that.

And Voldemort had hung the pendant around his own neck, murmuring something about Very soon..., and in short order Draco had found himself here.

Desperate for something as vast as rescue and as mundane as a pair of warm socks.

And suddenly... he got both of those things.

Well... his rescuer was wearing socks, at any rate.

There was no doubt, despite the absurdity of it, that that was who it was. His rescuer.

His rescuer was incongruously wearing a sword but dressed in jeans, was no older than he was, and was still wearing those bloody eyeglasses that he refused to abandon for a Viginti et Viginti charm.

And was undeniably the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen in his life.

"Potter?" he choked.

Harry was blinking, adjusting to the torchlight, but clearly Draco's pale body and silver-blond hair didn't need much highlighting. His face broke into a relieved grin. "Well, that's the first part out of the way. I could have appeared right in the middle of the pillar and then we'd both be fucked. Son of a bitch, it's cold in here."

"Are-- you came alone?"

Harry lifted his eyebrows, looked left and looked right, and then shrugged. "Looks that way."

"You --crazy--"

"Draco, if I do this right, one's all that's needed. Oh, your father says hi."

Draco felt something lurch in his chest. "He-- sent you?"

Another shrug. "Let's just say we had the same agenda. Well-- not the same, that would get really weird, given what-- fuck, I'm not doing this right. Look, Draco, we don't have much time." He stepped closer, and Draco saw Harry's eyes fall to his chest, seeing the crusted carving in his skin. "Fucking bastard. Draco, there's a lot of binding magic here I have to sever. Do you trust me?"

"What?"

"Do you trust me?"

Draco screwed up his face at the familiarity of the exchange. "Who are you supposed to be, Aladdin?"

"No, I'm a lot cuter. Please, Draco, just answer me."

"Wh-- yes, you moron, I trust you a lot farther than I trust Voldemort! What's my alternative if I don't?"

"Point." He stepped directly in front of Draco. "But it's kind of important."

Harry leaned forward and kissed him.

Of all the bizarre events that had happened to him in the past sequence of hours, this one was not the least of them.

It was not a gentle kiss, either; Harry took possession of his mouth like a debt that was owed him, opening Draco's lips with his tongue, sliding his hand to the back of his head and into those brittle strands of ice blond, moaning audibly as though he'd hoped Draco would taste delicious and finding the reality surpassing his expectations wonderfully.

Draco could not have resisted if he'd believed Harry was trying to suck his soul out of his body.

Was he?

Shock had completely sapped his ability to struggle, or even question what was happening. The Boy Who Lived was kissing him. Though Draco hadn't thought about him with that particular title for a long time; it was more like boy who grew up to be a very hot piece of arse even if he still is a Gryffindor do-gooder who isn't going to look at any member of House Slytherin even if I did turn out a pretty nice package as well if I do say so myself because for him to be gay as well is just too much of a coincidence to be possible and I may as well not even think about ever telling him that I want nothing more than to shag him senseless in the Quidditch locker room with about two gallons of chocolate sauce and a dozen studded-for-his-pleasure condoms.

Harry had his other hand on Draco's hip now, and he broke the kiss to murmur against the side of Draco's mouth, "You're so cold." He pressed his chest into Draco's as the hand on his hip clutched tighter.

"Is that all you can say?" Draco said, breathless, still not quite able to process all that was happening.

Harry shook his head. "No, I suppose right now it would be best to ask if you still trust me."

Draco pulled his head back just far enough so that he could meet Harry's eyes with his. "Is 'right now, I don't care,' enough of an answer?"

Harry grinned. He had developed rather a wicked grin over the past few years, and it looked frighteningly good on him. "I suppose it is. I'm just sorry that we never did this earlier. How come you never told me?"

"Me?!" Indignation made his eyes widen almost painfully.

"All right, you're right, this isn't the time. I'm going to apologize in advance, once, and that's it."

"For what?" Draco was finding it really annoying that he was speaking almost exclusively in questions.

"This." Harry slid to his knees and took the length of Draco's chilled cock into his mouth.

Draco opened his mouth to say Apology not necessary, but the feeling of Harry's warm mouth surrounding that part of him, let alone the sight of him on his knees with his mouth full of Draco, turned what he was going to say into a blert of nonsense noise, as his limbs all tensed like harpstrings and the constricted purse that was his balls decided that maybe it wasn't all that cold in here after all.

Harry made another moaning noise much like his first, as if Draco were some tasty discovery, and Draco found himself responding to that as well, pushing himself into the recesses of Harry's mouth, his cock stirring, tentatively at first, unsurprising given that the circumstances and the cold had had him about as far from a hard-on as he could possibly imagine, and there was another one of those pleased sighs from Harry, thrumming through his cock and stiffening him like it had been audible starch, and Draco echoed Harry's groans with one of his own as his head sank back against the pillar, wondering if Voldemort could really be all that evil if his plans had caused the universe to respond with something like this.

Now Harry was licking up the underside of his cock, swirling his tongue over the head in broad, friendly swipes, until suddenly he pulled away, looking at Draco's erection almost critically but not without satisfaction, saying, "Good. Lack of cooperation isn't going to be the rate-limiting step here, I'd say." He mouthed the head for a moment more, as Draco squeaked, a sound he was not used to making, and then Harry pulled away once again, settling back on his haunches as he slid two straps off his shoulders which Draco hadn't noticed before.

"Potter..." Draco said, voice cracking slightly, "...you're carrying a bookbag."

"Yes, well, given that there's a book in it, I'd say it's not as absurd as you're making it sound."

He was settling the bag in his lap and pulling the book in question from it. The thing was one of those cracked, ancient tomes, probably bound in baby's skin or something equally gruesome, still dusty and with parchment pages so brittle they could slice your finger off, and probably impregnated with arsenic in case you were so unwise as to lick your fingertips as you turned them.

Harry opened it on his lap and threw back a few pages, searching through it for...whatever he was searching for. He glanced up once at Draco's erection before returning his attention to the book. "Still with me, Draco?"

"Exactly which one of us are you talking to, Potter?" Damn. He was still talking in questions.

Harry snorted and kept searching. "I didn't know you both had the same name. Ah, here we go..."

He laid the tome open on the floor. Draco saw a pentagram drawn on the left page, rather impressively illuminated in red and gold. The rest was all text.

"An incantation?" Dammit, he was going to have to stop that.

"God, no. It's all in some High Ancient Greco-Latin-y tongue that I'd have no hope of pronouncing, much less translating. But your father and Dumbledore told me this was it."

The image of his father and Dumbledore cooperating on anything was almost too weird for Draco. But then Harry had leaned forward and licked the tip of his erection again, and that image fled very quickly, so he didn't have to worry himself with it any more.

Harry settled in, that was the only way to describe it, with his hands on Draco's hips, the book open between his spread knees, and his mouth hovering just in front of Draco's now rather eager cock. "It'll help if you give me some warning when you're about ready to come, Draco."

And as Harry enveloped him with his mouth again, Draco managed, "I doubt--aahh-- that I'll have much else on my mind at that m-moment-- oh, God, Harry..."

He let his head sink back against the pillar again. Whatever this was, ritual or mad game or incredibly elaborate prank that Harry was orchestrating (granted it was neither April First nor anywhere near his birthday, so presumably that last was out), Draco didn't seem to be able to do anything other than react in the way that Harry wanted him to react, astounded at the skill of Harry's tongue (the son of a bitch had to be experienced, and that meant with someone else, and it hadn't been him, the unfair little bastard! How had he not known?) and still not completely certain this whole thing wasn't a dream, prompted by booze and fear and queasy anticipation, the combination he'd been swimming in last night when he thought he was facing his Death Eater initiation today.

And then Harry grazed the corona of his cockhead with his teeth, and Draco gave a strangled inhale, which Harry took to mean Nice, because he did it again, a little less gently, and Draco whined and bit his lip as he thrust his hips forward, astounded that the fiend in front of him, his talented mouth full of Draco's cock, and the Gryffindor boy hero who practically had his own shrine in the wizarding world, were one and the same. For a moment he found himself double-checking his own suspicions: yes, there was that thin line of scar on his forehead, outlined by two unruly locks of black hair.

That led him to fix on the look in Harry's eyes, which held a touch of concentration, no surprise, but was overwhelmingly dominated by a kind of lazy fondness for the task engaging him, and Draco saw it quite clearly, no mistaking it, as those eyes flicked up to meet his, affection and question and a lightly wicked delight seizing and holding Draco's gaze.

At that moment Harry did something with his tongue that would have clinched it, but it was the look in his eyes, really, that pushed him to the edge, and surely Harry felt it as his hips arched further, as those numb arms of his still managed to contract and pull against the shackles above his head, as his toes (yes, they were still there-- amazing how even they felt warmer now) clutched at the stones in the floor as he spread his legs, but he managed to remember Harry's request, even in the middle of all that, and moaned "Harry-- I, oh, god, I'm--" and Harry made a sound like "Hmm--", as if someone had just told him it might rain today, and kept his mouth enclosed over the very end of Draco's cock, still working him with his tongue, and, with an intense near-sob of "Harry...", Draco came, gasping and erupting and electrified from his cock to his brain with a current that exploded into the periphery of his body that he felt all the way up to the tips of his numb fingers.

Harry kept his mouth on Draco until the twitching in his hyperstimulated organ ceased entirely, and then, as Draco watched through that sluggish haze of bliss, Harry withdrew his mouth, lips closed, and bent down to the tome in front of him and spat the mouthful of come onto the illuminated pentagram on the page.

As Draco was absurdly thinking How rude, Harry wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced up at Draco, smiling. "No offense. You taste wonderful."

The red and gold ink of the illumination began to fizzle, little sparks like miniature fireworks racing around the border of the pentagram, shifting through a spectrum of colors until finally the red remained but all the gold on the page was replaced by silver, pulsing with an iridescence that you could only see if you didn't look directly at it. Draco murmured, "We never had a class on that."

"Would have been very popular. Okay, that's step one." He closed the book with a thud, making Draco blink at the abrupt dismissiveness of a truly amazing blowjob. What on earth did he have planned as a follow-up?

As if he'd spoken, Harry said, "I hope it's okay if I admit I'm really going to like this next part."

Draco looked at him as he stood, still a little dazed. "Let me guess. You get to slug me really hard."

Harry stood up, leaned in. "Wrong verb." He kissed Draco on the mouth again, and Draco could taste himself, flavor altered on Harry's lips like salt on something bland, enhanced and suddenly interesting.

Harry stepped back and pulled his shirt over his head. It was nothing Draco hadn't seen before-- hadn't leered at surreptitiously before, for that matter-- but having it right in front of him, all but offered to him, all pectoral muscles and wine-colored nipples and light dusting of hair and gently defined abdominals, and Draco with his wrists still shackled and unable to touch... it was enough to drive him blind with frustrated desire. He moaned, realizing his mouth was slightly open.

Harry's hand went to a cord that crossed his throat. "Wh-- oh, got turned around. Thank god." He tugged at the cord, and a red crystal pendant was pulled from behind his neck to fall against his breastbone. This one was about the size of the one Voldemort had created from Draco's own blood, but that one had been faceted. This one was teardrop-shaped and had no edges.

Harry lifted the cord over his head, leaned forward and slipped it over Draco's. The pendant rested in the center of his sternum, warm from where it had been kept against Harry's skin.

"Keep that right there," Harry said.

"No, I was planning to take it off and hock it the first chance I get. I get the idea, Potter."

Harry didn't rise to the gibe, only smiled faintly and stepped back and started opening his trousers. Again, it wasn't anything Draco hadn't seen before, locker rooms being what they were, but he suspected he knew where this was headed, and he made himself shut his mouth before he started to drool. God, that entire gorgeous length of him. Draco could feel his own cock stirring again as he stared.

The sword in its scabbard was laid down carefully; shoes, socks, and boxer shorts, Harry let fall where they would. But he held onto the trousers for a moment, rummaging in a pocket and pulling out a tube of something before he discarded the pants as well.

"Is that what I think it is?" Draco asked, a little breathlessly.

"Well, it's one of the few things I brought that isn't a spell component. What did you have in mind?"

"You're a fucking tease, you know that?"

"No, I'd be a tease if this wasn't what you thought it was." Harry opened the tube and squeezed colorless gel onto his fingers. "Get your legs apart, lovely."

Draco shuddered. It took him a moment to be able do as Harry commanded, during which time his cock rose another fraction.

He swallowed as Harry crouched slightly, reaching underneath Draco's swelling genitals, and placed his gel-covered fingers at the cleft of his arse, smearing cold thick lubricant into the cleft and seeking out his opening with one finger, probing gently at first but then pushing inside without any warning, invading him with a completeness that he welcomed, that made him cry out at how satisfying it was, and then that was overtaken when Harry did the same thing with two fingers, and Draco could hear Harry's breathing quicken as he spread him open, his other arm around Draco's waist, pulling him forward against his own body. Draco could feel that now-hard cock pressing against his own, and he knew Harry's face must be a mirror of his own, all traces of mockery gone now, brows drawn in as if tasting pain somewhere, lips parted and panting slightly. Draco spread his legs wider as if it would help to accommodate the two-- no, three, now, fingers opening him as he pressed his shoulder blades against the pillar, bracing himself for the continued siege, pushing his groin against Harry's in the hope that he could get him to make some of the same noises he was making.

God, the pressure, filling him-- it was torture and he didn't care. "Yes," he hissed, afraid that if he didn't, Harry might stop, might prolong it needlessly.

Harry buried his fingers deep inside Draco and moaned. "Oh, God, Draco... I need to be inside you, right now..."

Draco considered a number of things to say, from I can hardly stop you to Shut up and fuck me to Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer, and fortunately found it wasn't necessary to say anything; Harry had slid his fingers free (which made Draco's eyes roll up in his head with the exquisite agony of that) and had his hands cupping Draco's arse, pulling him forward, nestling the head of his cock between his arsecheeks and starting to push.

Somehow Draco knew it was going to be easier if he let gravity help, and he lifted one foot and wrapped that leg around Harry's hip, and then, making sure Harry was braced and knew what was coming, he did the same with his other leg, settling his weight directly onto Harry's cock, the abundance of lubricant reducing what could have been utter hell to delicious torment, pained screams to needy whimpers, and Harry sought his mouth with his own as he took Draco's weight on his cock and his thighs, holding him up, ensuring that Draco would not have to suffer his weight on his trapped wrists, kissing him with open-mouthed greed, tongues twining, moaning into each other's throats as Harry penetrated Draco until he was buried root-deep in him.

Draco felt the hardness of his own cock pressed against the warm surface of Harry's stomach and tried to push harder against him. But Harry was controlling it now, lifting Draco off him just far enough to enjoy the sensation of gravity pulling him back down when Harry released him, sliding down that greased length of hard flesh again, seeming to split him open, the sweetest possible rending he could imagine. "Harry..." he moaned, wanting to beg him to thrust into him, go deeper, but unable to form the words.

Harry clearly didn't need to hear them. What Draco wanted, he obviously wanted as well, and no wonder. He pushed hard against Draco, driving him back against the pillar, and every one of Draco's whines was a plea as he wrapped his legs about the black-haired boy, one about his waist and the other lower, just about his thighs, as if trying to contact as much of his body as possible, straining uselessly against the wrist shackles as Harry fucked him deep and kissed him hard, biting and pulling at his lower lip, biting at his tongue, Draco surrendering to it as if they were trapped in this room and had decided on a very directed method of cannibalism to survive.

Harry pulled his mouth away and pressed his face to the side of Draco's head, growling, "Draco...", nuzzling into that fine hair and his ear and the curve of his neck, and Draco arched his neck in return and then turned so that he could bite at the side of Harry's face and his hair as well. He could feel the tension building in Harry's thighs, in his arms, every part of him as he pushed into Draco as violently as if he were a victim and not a lover, and Draco embraced that violence, embraced being a victim. Part of him was thinking that it was better to be Harry's victim than Voldemort's; the rest of him wasn't thinking at all and just exalted in the deep satisfaction of being fucked by the boy he'd been craving for years.

Harry bit at Draco's hair again and this time held on, each of his thrusts matched by a exhalation, each exhalation a groan rising from deep in his chest. Draco felt him push in hard and clutch at his hips as if Draco might vaporize if he didn't hold on, and Draco said, so strangled and urgent and close to Harry's ear: "Yes, that's it, go on, I want you to, want to feel you, please...", as if he were afraid Harry might not believe that he wanted this just as much.

And he cried out almost as loudly as Harry did when he felt him spurt inside him, Harry's hands backing away from their death grip in that moment as if he knew that to hold any tighter would be to break bones, shaking on Draco's skin as he poured himself into him, into Draco's thirsting flesh as Draco almost yipped, "OhmygodHarry..." as if the orgasm had been his, and Harry pressed his face against Draco's neck, muffling the wail that did not seem to want to stop as he convulsed over and over, pressed so deep it felt as though it would take surgical removal to separate the two of them.

Concurrent with that image, Harry suddenly tore his mouth away from Draco's neck, and his hands were gripping just below his armpits, pushing him back, his eyes fixed at the level of his breastbone. Draco looked down to the point he was looking at and saw what had his attention: the red teardrop crystal was no longer there. The cord was empty, and a great drop of dark blood was just beginning to ooze down the center of his chest.

Harry gulped and gasped, trying to get his breathing under control as he secured his focus on that bloody clot. "Draco...don't move," he said, his hands on Draco's arse, starting to let him fall back, slowly, his attention still on that drop of blood, clearly afraid it would spill down Draco's chest too rapidly. Draco tried to comply, forcing himself to be still even as Harry slowly pulled out of him, let his legs down, even though all he wanted to do was throw his head back and thrash and curse under the ache of that withdrawal, not to mention the longing in his own stiff cock, still eager for attention.

Harry bent down and took up the scabbarded sword from where he'd laid it. Draco could see that the thing had jewels in the hilt, and when Harry drew it, some engraving just below the hilt caught the light. Draco thought he saw two words, both starting with G, and realized just what sword Harry was holding. Ha. No surprise there.

And suddenly Harry was aiming the tip of the sword at Draco's throat-- no, not his throat; the point dipped down to his chest and caught that drop of blood on the very end of it; some of it spilled down his chest anyway but that didn't seem to matter. Harry pulled the sword away, lifted it, keeping it at an angle so that the bloody point neither spilled down nor off the sword, and stepped away, all the way to one of the lines of the pentagon that formed the base for the pentagram's star, and in one quick move he brought the sword down and scraped the point across the line, the stone screeching as the metal raked it and sparks flew up, too many to be the result of mere metal on stone, and the floor smoked when it was done, a black gap smouldering in the center of the blood-rust line.

With a minimum of movement-- Seeker's reflexes showing themselves-- Harry repeated the process four times, so that the surrounding pentagon was broken on all sides of them. Yet he made no move to cross outside when he was done, the points of the star and the circle that lay just within the periphery of the round room remaining intact.

"Would that thing happen to work on these shackles?" Draco asked, voice noticeably thick with arousal. Harry wielding a sword with that kind of concentration was unbearably sexy.

Harry shook his head. "Nope. But we're getting there." He took the few steps back to the pillar, wiped the blade on his discarded shirt, and resheathed it. At the same time, he turned the sheath over to reveal a small compartment built into the back of the scabbard, near the hilt, and from this drew out a tiny package wrapped in black cloth that looked like silk. Unwrapping it, another crystal, black, was revealed.

But when Harry held it up it wasn't black after all, nor clear enough to be a mere crystal; Draco thought that any sapphire that large had to have some kind of curse on it; it was inevitable. Harry stepped closer, the gem on his palm, meeting Draco's eyes with an _expression that had completely lost any air of playfulness.

It made him nervous.

"What?...Is that it?"

Harry gave a little shake of his head, still looking at Draco. "It needs to be primed first. I need one thing more from you."

Draco's lips parted, understanding. "Blood."

Again, a headshake no. "Tears. Yours, freely given."

It took a second to process that. "Um, I'm not used to crying on command, Harry."

The corner of Harry's mouth pulled in, but it was definitely not a smile. "I know."

Closing his left fist around the sapphire, he stepped back and bent down to the bag again. Draco was suddenly so nervous that even the sight of the muscles flexing in Harry's thigh and hip didn't hold his attention.

There was no mistaking what he pulled from the bag. Coiled upon itself, black as sin and dangling heavily from Harry's hand as if it had a metal core, the surface of the whip caught the torchlight as if oiled.

Draco stared as Harry brought it closer. It wasn't braided. It looked like it had been formed from one continuous piece of leather, like the tail of some predatory animal. Or a snake, and wasn't that image fitting.

Harry lifted the coiled thing in front of Draco's face. "Kiss it and say that you consent to this."

Draco looked at Harry's eyes, not the whip. "There are...probably faster ways of getting me to shed tears, you know."

"I know. I'm choosing one that I can bear. That doesn't mean it's going to be kind."

Draco wasn't sure what he saw in Harry's eyes. There was distaste there, certainly, but the kind that said he didn't like doing this under these circumstances. Well. At least this would be more interesting than a knee in the groin, or having his thumb broken.

He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the leather surface. "I consent."

Letting the thing uncoil, Harry stepped back and didn't hesitate: he struck Draco across the chest with the whip. There was no audible crack, but the tip of it landed, whether coincidentally or intentionally, nearly upon his right nipple. "OW! Fuck!" he yelled, yanking against the shackles. The thing hurt like a son of a bitch, and Harry hadn't even put all his strength behind it.

"I'm sorry," Harry said, even as he pulled his arm back.

"I thought you were only going to apologize the once," Draco said, looking down at the red welt just above his nipple, amazed something could hurt that much and not make him bleed.

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry I lied about that too."

Harry hit him across the chest, the stomach, and the hips, three blows in rapid succession, each one making him yell, the last so low he could feel the wind of it across his erection. It made him lose that partway, as well; the pain flagging him so that what he sported was now not more than a semi-erection.

What came to him, oddly, was that if he'd started from a completely unaroused state, he suspected that would be his reaction now as well: not exactly rock-hard, but not completely uninterested either.

The next one hit across his hips as well. Definitely harder than the last time. Draco wrenched at his wrists and bit his lips hard, wheezing out a pain-filled sound despite himself, his eyes starting to water.

Another across the belly. "AH! You fucker!" he exploded, squeezing his eyes shut and feeling the water spill over.

He heard the whip hit the floor, followed a moment later by Harry's knees. Draco opened his eyes to see Harry kneeling in front of him, reaching up to gather the tear that had made it down to his chin, opening his fist to display the gemstone and carefully transferring the tear on the tip of his finger to the sapphire's surface.

The jewel began to glow. Cupped in Harry's hands, illuminating them blue, the sapphire's light intensified until at last it shone steadily, and Harry took it into his mouth like it was a neon Sucret, mouthing it momentarily and then spitting it back into his palm.

The sapphire was no longer glowing. But it seemed as though the light had been transferred to Harry's mouth. He stretched up and laid his lips over the knife cuts on Draco's chest, his tongue snaking out to lick at the crusted wounds, the blue light following, swirling over the cuts in little pixie-dust-like cerulean showers, and Draco could see, feel the cuts healing, his flesh absorbing them without so much as a scar to show where they'd been.

"This one's amazingly fucking complicated, Harry," he said, breathless. "Wouldn't it have been easier just to use the sapphire on the cuts?"

"Don't be--mmm-- thick," Harry said, licking over the center of the sigil, erasing it like it had never been. "This is fucking sex magick, if you hadn't been paying attention. It's always like this."

In short order, every trace of Voldemort's grisly mark on his flesh was gone. But Harry wasn't done; he moved his mouth to the welt just above Draco's nipple, tonguing it until that too disappeared, and moved to do the same to the five other whip marks. Draco almost stopped him, wanting to tell him not to bother, that it wasn't necessary, but he understood why Harry felt he had to, and so let him.

As his tongue traced over the last of the welts, Harry murmured, "I'll never do that to you again. I promise. I'm sorry, Draco." He swallowed once, hard, and Draco saw the glow fade entirely. Harry didn't get up just yet. He looked up, and Draco could see the unspoken plea for forgiveness there.

Well. "Oh, and what if I asked you to?"

He had the pleasure of watching Harry's eyes widen slightly, then narrow with that same look of mischief he'd had earlier. Keeping his eyes on Draco's, Harry kissed his stomach lasciviously and said, "If I ever do that to you again, then, it'll be because you want it and there will be a safeword, one that I will obey, I swear."

The arousal that had been building again as Harry was speaking suddenly ran up against something in Draco's brain. "Wh-- Potter, you fucker, you're tossing around the word safeword and you're a fucking expert with a six-foot whip, who the hell have you been with, you son of a bitch? Dammit, tell me!"

Harry's eyes widened again, and he slid his arms around Draco's waist, holding him tightly. "Draco, listen to me, nobody but you, ever again, I swear it. For god's sake, don't you see what's happening here?"

"Oh, so Mr. do-you-trust-me has suddenly decided to turn into Exposition Boy! Why, no, o mighty hero, why don't you spell it out for me?" Draco spat.

"Draco, you prat, you don't just break binding magic. You have to transfer it. You're no longer bound to Voldemort... you're bound to me."

"Yeah, well, I might have guessed that. Bound how? I mean, I'm beautiful and all, but I don't think you were planning to transfer into my body, were you?"

"Only in the way that I want you to have me under your skin now and always, lovely. No, this isn't the same ritual Voldemort was using, or hadn't you noticed?"

"I noticed. Answer the question!"

"Well..." Harry settled back on his haunches, drawing the sword back to him and replacing the jewel in the small compartment. "It required the ancient Text of Flesh and Fire...

"Okayyy..." said Draco.

"...and the blood crystal that I just conjured today..."

"Uh-huh..."

"...and the sword of Godric Gryffindor which I borrowed from Dumbledore..."

"--that you borrowed-- Oh, my GOD--!"

"...and the Sapphire of Marbodius."

"'Something bl--' You BASTARD! I don't believe it!"

"Yeah, well," Harry said, breaking into a grin, "I never knew where the tradition came from before today, either. And see-- the last part of it's a ring."

Draco stared at the circle of sigil-encrusted silver that Harry was holding up.

"Um, Harry..." he said, choking slightly, "That's way too big for my finger."

"And a good thing, that, too." He leaned forward.

"Oh, my-- GOD...!"

Draco gave another incoherent cry as the ring shrank around the base of his cock until it was just one shade shy of snug-- comfortable, actually, to be fair about it--

--and the shackles about his wrists cracked like hot glass on an icy surface, and the suddenness of having his arms free and falling to his sides dragged Draco down, first to his knees, where Harry caught him, and then almost to the floor, still supported by Harry's arms.

"All right, don't go all swoony on me yet, Draco--" Harry said, laughing, "--you get to do the same thing to me before it's complete." He held up an identical ring. "Can you move your arms?"

Draco looked at the ring. "I'll put it on with my teeth if I have to. Give me that." He swiped at it with one hand, racked by pins-and-needles but apparently still functioning.

Harry leaned back to let him, snorting, "Oh, don't sound so vindicated. Neither one's permanent; we can take them off as soon as we're out of here."

Draco stopped. "Is that what you're planning?"

Harry's smile wasn't a grin, but it looked deliciously lewd. "Well, I was thinking it'd be less embarrassing for everyone else if we swapped them for the kind that really do go on your finger."

"Since when--" he pushed the silver circle over the length of Harry's cock, watched in satisfaction as it tightened to fit around the base-- "have you ever worried about embarrassing others?"

A sizzle made him look up. All around the margin of the room, the outer circle of the pentagram, as well as the five blood-drawn points of the star, were smoking and hissing into non-existence.

"And we are out of here!" Harry yelled like an obnoxiously enthusiastic newscaster. Rapidly he stuffed the tome, whip, and his discarded clothing into the bag. "What do you think, should I leave one sock behind for Voldemort to find and drive him crazy? I'm thinking that could be my trademark."

Clutching the strap of the bag and the sword in one hand, he gathered Draco to him with the other.

"Don't tell me--" Draco laughed, "--that now you've got to carry me over the threshold?"

Harry pushed his face against the side of Draco's, nuzzling. "No, but it's not a bad idea. As soon as we figure out where we're going to live. Apparate!"

-fin

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