Beyond This Point Lie Monsters

At the edge of the mariner's
Map is written: 'Beyond
This point lie Monsters.'
(Rita Dove, Primer to the Nuclear Age)

Part 5 ~ Farewell to Arms

You recline on the spidersilk sheets of Lucius Malfoy's bed, half propped up by a few large pillows, waiting for your breath to return to remotely normal levels. When you look up, you see the bastard in question watching you with eyes like a hawk, and a flush augments the already high colour of your face. It's something of a miracle that after all he has done with you, you can still blush.

He curls up next to you, running a possessive hand over your naked hip and thigh. Then he pulls your exhausted, unresisting body half onto his lap and summons his wand from the nightstand. A wordless flick Vanishes the thin bandages around your hands.

He takes hold of one of your wrists, using his thumb to stroke the red abrasions from the cords that bound them to the headboard of the bed. You shudder at the delicate sting, and the less delicate memory, and your groin tightens.

'Just to make sure you'll not damage your hands, dear Harry,' the bastard had said. You've never let him bind you before, though you knew he wanted to; and even now, after you've experienced the mind-blowing power of this kind of lovemaking, the thought of giving up freedom to move makes you shiver in retrospect.

After the gauze is gone, he studies the raw spots on your palms and fingers intently. Looking back, you're just glad that you've been unconscious for two days after the battle and have not seen the injuries at their worst. Without a wizard as skilled at healing magic as Lucius, and with such excellent connections to a Potions master as gifted as Snape, you could have lost both hands, or at least the use of them. Damn Godric Gryffindor for crafting an artefact of such raw power that it could kill an ordinary Muggle at the touch.

The familiar flat jar of potion levitates over from the table, and wobbles to rest on the sheets. Lucius puts down the wand and lifts the lid, swirling a finger through the mint-green goop that sends another flush of colour into your face. He holds it up to the light with a predatory grin for a moment, before starting to rub it lightly over your left palm. Although the blisters have mostly faded and the skin isn't as angrily red as days ago, it still stings and you have to blink rapidly a few times to shoo the tears away. Lucius tuts and sneakily brings up one knee to rub against your limp prick. Spent as it is, it gives only a weak twitch, but you savour the very different shudder assaulting your nerve ends in its wake.

"Much better," he purrs, eyes fixed on the palm he is rubbing. "One more day, and we can leave off the bandages altogether."

The words send a stab through your heart, and you lower your lids quickly. You've seen Tom Riddle's eyes when you came down this evening. Maybe there won't be any more days.

Tom...

Two weeks since the battle against Voldemort, and you haven't exchanged a word.

Oh, he woke up all right, before you did, in fact, his physical injuries healing so fast it was uncanny. While you've been confined to bed with a few cracked ribs and third-degree burns on your hands, he's tried to come to terms with Voldemort's powers. Unless, you muse while forcing yourself not to flinch under the thorough pressure of Lucius' thumbs, Voldemort's powers are trying to come to terms with him. Perhaps not Voldemort's mind, because your scar hasn't given a twinge since the monster's death, and surely Lucius and Snape didn't just swap healing charms when they met. No, if Lucius lets Tom wander about the manor, he can't be possessed by the Dark Lord's spirit. And all the pulsing energy has vanished from Lucius' Dark Mark - as you know, having felt the scar tissue rough under your tongue not long ago.

But he moves like a ghost, Tom, noiseless and restless and burning with a power that sends cold shivers down your back whenever he's in the vicinity. Like an echo of the sword. His skin clings thin and pale to his bones; he's never truly frightened you before, but he does now.

And the pact between you is never absent from your mind when you clap eyes on him, although he's never mentioned it. Not that he speaks much - half a dozen words at most to Lucius, and he's not even acknowledged your existence so far. Until he looked at you from the landing this afternoon, a thin, cold face in the shadows of the stairway like a Lethifold decloaking itself from the darkness.

It stopped your breath, that look.

And then he vanished and you ran straight into Lucius Malfoy's arms to warm your chilled blood and let him do whatever he wanted with you, because...

"Done," he murmurs against the damp hair at your temple, and uncurls his fingers from yours, rubbing the last traces of salve over the abrasions around your wrists. He waves his wand again, and the pure snow-white of the magical gauze spills from the top, moulding itself to your fingers without a wrinkle. You let your head tip back as his lips descend onto your collarbone, a sharp nip followed by suction that teases blood to the surface.

"You can sleep here for a while," Lucius offers, leering in a way that makes your skin prickle in anticipation. You would like nothing better than to curl up against the shelter of his body, knowing it will keep away everything from magic to nightmare to Tom Riddle. And certainly you wouldn't be averse to some more... exercise after that mandatory rest.

But you recall Tom's eyes and shake your head.

"Better not tempt me," you mumble, drawing a deep breath that still leaves a light sting in your chest.

Lucius reaches up to draw fingertips along the fading bruise over your recently bone-knitted ribs, looking more elegant in a naked sprawl than most Wizengamot members manage in their robes of office.

"Merlin forbid I should tempt you," he drawls.

Lucius has made excellent profit from his sudden switch of allegiance, you realised after picking up a recent Daily Prophet on a trip to the dining room. The headlines keep lauding the Malfoy patriarch and the Boy Who Lived - recuperating at the Malfoy residence, Wiltshire - for defeating the menace of Lord Voldemort. You wondered how Albus and your friends felt about those headlines. You haven't asked Lucius whether there were objections to you being with him still. You don't want to know.

The tender flesh on your fingers protests every move as you pull on your pyjamas. But at least you can move them again. Still, you decide to leave the string fastenings undone. Lucius doesn't offer help.

"Out." He waves you away carelessly and you wonder whether you've offended him, declining his offer to stay.

You pad to the door on bare feet, then pause and turn. A frown takes shape in the curve of his left eyebrow.

You walk back to the bed, slip onto a knee next to him on the mattress, and take his face between gauze-wrapped hands to kiss him. The firm touch burns, which is how you want it. There is sharpness still in the line of that mouth, even as you try to stroke it from his lower lip with your tongue. Slowly, almost tentatively, his mouth opens under yours. You let your eyes fall shut as your tongues meet at last, a shivery spike of arousal crawling along your nerve ends.

You leave him sitting on the bed without a word. He doesn't need to understand. He just needs to know.

***

The house is dark and creepy after nightfall, lit only by a few Lumos torches. The dull roar of omnipresent magic scrapes over your skin and leaves goose bumps in its wake. A handful of portraits which have assisted your duelling practice in the gallery and have now been restored to their accustomed spaces incline their heads curtly when you pass by. You pause to acknowledge fourteenth century Kassander Malfoy, a white-haired, sinister double of the Malfoy you've just let shag you, and receive the tiniest of approving nods in return.

You slip into your room with a nervous glance, breathing a touch more easily when you find it empty. One of the thick black curtains is askew, allowing a sliver of moonlight to ghost over ornate mahogany furniture. There are Lumos torches lining the walls here too, but you've asked the House Elves to leave them unlit. Their hum, just on the threshold of sound, makes your skin crawl. You leave the door unlocked. If he comes, he comes.

Instead, you pull back the heavy bedclothes, wincing at the cold fabric. The silk sheets underneath the coverlet are so chilly they almost feel wet. Longingly you think of Lucius' warm body and the roaring fireplace in his chambers. Rubbing icy feet together under the sheets doesn't help much.

Still, you stretch out under the covers and resolutely close your eyes. Your breath sounds loud in your ears, and you're wide awake. Listening into the oppressive darkness makes you hyper-aware of every creak and twist of the ancestral magical building. The heavy wards rumble and crackle, ancient artefacts hiss in their cases and send restless energies through every room and corridor, and even the painted Malfoys - slipping in and out of each other's frames in the corridor - leave a whisper like wind-blown paper in your mind.

You shouldn't be here without a sleeping draught - your sensitivity to magic has increased since your prolonged exposure to Godric's bloody sword. It'll drive you mad.

You don't hear the door opening - you never do, where he is concerned - but you feel his presence in the doorway, a sharp outline against the inside of your eyelids. The stolen magic inside him burns like a torch. You feel him move, and not showing a reaction has never been so hard. He doesn't bother disguising his entry with spells this time, sure of you and your promise.

His robes rustle against the end post of the bed, and your throat tightens as you feel his eyes on you. There is a scraping noise as he peruses the chest of drawers and picks up something. Something metallic.

The steps come to a halt next to the bed. You hear his breath, calm and steady, and feel your pulse thumping in your throat so hard he must hear it.

"Stop feigning sleep, Potter," he says coldly.

You open your eyes and meet his gaze. So it's come to this after all.

A dark little smile plays around his lips as you remain silent. His features are clear, thrown into stark relief by the moonlight. Skin pulls tight over sharp bones, as if the magic were sucking the moisture right out of him. How can it not burn him, you wonder as you feel it churn inside him.

"You remember your oath, on your mother's soul?"

What can you possibly answer to that? You just nod mutely.

"And?" he inquires, a silky whisper as cold as your sheets. "Will you act on it, just like that?"

He laughs, a saccharine titter of delight, and curves his palm up your pyjama-clad arm.

"You're almost beautiful when you're defeated, Harry," he murmurs and sits down on the side of the bed, one finger pulling at the string fastenings of your pyjama top.

The memory spills a tinge of colour into your face. Perhaps it's the same top as before, and the House-Elves have repaired it. Or perhaps Malfoy - Draco - is extremely fond of that silly style.

His fingers creep onto your chest, lightly trailing over your nipples. They're still red and sensitive from Lucius' earlier attentions, and Tom's mouth thins at the sight of the bite marks. You smack his hand away.

"Don't you dare!" you snap, in a voice that sounds thick even in your own ears.

His hand clamps down on your wrist and forces it down on the pillow next to your cheek.

"You swore not to lift a hand in your defence." He pats the offending palm, and primal panic flips in the pit of your stomach. "Have you already forgotten? Or, Merlin forbid, plan to break your oath?"

Helplessness crawls like hot lead through your bloodstream. "Don't make fun of me," you croak, a feeble plea against those dancing dark eyes.

He quickly grabs your other wrist, clenched in the coverlet, and drags it up behind your head as well, crossing your wrists above your head. You think of cords transfigured into snakes, and freeze.

"We'll see what your oath is worth, Harry," he whispers. "Lifting no hand in your defence... well, keep them there, then."

You feel the pulse beating under the thin skin of your wrist as his fingers linger for a moment, then vanish.

"Now..." He leans back to run a satisfied gaze over your prone form, then pulls a glittering something out of his pocket. Suddenly the metallic sound you heard earlier makes sense. You'd discarded the infernal little weapon on the fruit bowl on your table and never looked at it again since you returned from Hogwarts. Leave it to him to remember. The honed little knife glints wickedly in the moonlight. You wonder how it might feel, slicing into your throat.

Tom's mouth twists into a feral grimace, and the bed dips as he kneels on it, then swings up his other leg to straddle your lower stomach. The blade in his left hand never leaves your skin.

His weight on your lap makes you uncomfortably aware that you're only wearing flimsy pyjama bottoms, the fabric of which digs into your still-sensitive prick. Which is the one body part you don't want to think of in Tom Riddle's proximity.

Voldemort's power crackles inside him, a flame contained by a fragile case of skin and bone. You're almost glad you're not allowed to move your hands, because you have a strange desire to touch that near-glowing skin.

He studies your face, the upward curve of your arms, then pushes your hair out of your eyes with his free hand and slowly strokes the side of your neck. The closeness makes your toes curl, and you only restrain yourself by a hair's breadth from squirming.

"You know, Harry, I could get used to seeing you like this. Helpless."

You push your head back into the pillow, to escape the sting of the blade tip and the insulting caress. He chuckles again, trailing along the exposed line of your throat before shifting his hips provocatively.

Your prick chafes at the pressure, but it stiffens as if it had a mind of its own, and Tom registers it with a sardonic laugh. You know only too well how he can arouse you with a few fleeting touches.

"I can't help but think you're enjoying yourself."

You snarl at him, horribly ineffectual when the seducing pull of magic inside him pushes against you. It's one thing to strike this bargain in a moment of panic, but another to lie there and uphold it when he gloats like this. Choking fear makes your voice harsh.

"Just finish it!"

He looks down at you, his warped heart undoubtedly basking in your barely-disguised terror, before nodding very slowly.

"Perhaps I should."

He grabs your chin with his free hand, pushing your head back into the pillow, and leans over you until he nearly rests on top of you. Then he closes the last bit of distance and clamps his mouth over yours hard enough to cut your lip on your teeth. Shock jolts through you, so sharp that you couldn't breathe even if his mouth were not sucking away your air supply. The figure of Lord Voldemort on that muddy anonymous hill appears in front of your inner eye, writhing under Tom's body in a horrid parallel of your own. You recall how it seemed to lose substance as Tom sucked its power away, and along with it its life. Oh God, you don't want to die like that!

You jerk and claw at his face, but he slaps his palm against your chest, drawing a shallow cut with the little knife, before uncovering your lips for a second to hiss a spell. The wandless foster brother of a stunning spell slaps the remaining air right out of your lungs and throws you back down like a fish flopping on dry land.

He looks at the few shallow drops of blood on your chest, and meets your eyes with a smile that is heart-stoppingly terrible because it's so tender. Then he kisses you again.

You squeeze your eyes shut, boneless like spilled liquid on the sheets from the spell; you don't even try to resist as he opens your lips with his tongue, prying inside for access, but a trickle of hot wetness spills from the corner of your eyes. He hums appreciatively, probably able to feel your fear thrumming under his fingers, to taste it on your tongue.

You feel the connection re-establish itself, a little like Communimency but bypassing mind in favour of essence. Just as he did in the Chamber of Secrets, when all he wanted was your magic; like you did over Lucius' prone body in the Manor's Hall of Apparition. And you, your terrified mind wails, you taught him how to use it to kill! Albus was right - the Dark Arts always come with a price, and this surely has to be among the darkest of all. Your toes and fingers clench at the expectation of that terrible pull, this time going for life and soul.

But it doesn't set in. Instead, something forces its way into you, sharp, prickly and so overwhelming that your first impulse is to fight it off, even as something inside you raises its arms to welcome it.

It swamps you, fills you up until you fear your brain and skin will just burst as the oh so familiar flood seeks its harbours. You whimper into Tom's mouth, body twitching helplessly under his. Even when it stops flowing in, the power still froths inside you like freshly-brewed potion that has been poured from cauldron to beaker, where it settles uneasily.

The first thing you feel, when urgency finally gives way to calm, are Tom's cold lips on yours. At some point during the assault your mouth has gone pliant, opening without resistance and with a hint of slackness. When he draws back, you hear his harsh breaths, and his skin has acquired an almost waxen colour.

He scrambles back onto his knees, bringing up the knife to your throat with shaky fingers, where it slips and leaves another cut. You lie as motionless as possible, alarmed by the wild expression on his face. But it's hard! You've never been truly aware of your magic, but now you feel it, a pulsing ball of energy in your chest, still emitting a raw hum of outrage at being so shoved about. It makes your skin itch.

"Riddle-" you finally croak, unnerved by his stare. "Why?"

"Did that Cruciatus mangle your brain, Potter?" His mouth twists into a sneer. "I told Voldemort I didn't plan on becoming a monster. And trying to accommodate too much power inside a human body produces exactly that result." The sneer deepens. "I can handle his perfectly well, so you can have your feeble magic back. I don't need it any more."

And indeed, although his eyes look mad enough, that horrible burning of concentrated power is gone. And where his skin touches yours, it's only that - a clammy, but human touch. The pull that drew you to him like a moth to a torch flame is gone.

"Do you think that changes anything?" he growls. "What, Harry? Do you think you're not going to die just because I had to get rid of some excess energy?"

"Just do whatever you came for, Riddle." You break eye contact and stare up at the mahogany panelling of the ceiling. "I'm too tired for this."

Well, Voldemort is dead, your friends are safe, and at least you'll die whole.

"What, not even a fight?" he mocks. "But maybe-" A cold hand trails over the side of your neck, playing along your chest and your nipple tightens when he rests his palm over of it. "Maybe you wouldn't even want to fight me if you could?"

Your fingers twitch as if they were searching for something to close around, and find nothing.

"I'm right, am I not?" You don't need to see him to hear the triumphant smile in his tone. He winds his hand in your hair, tugging your head forward until you're forced to look at him.

"Tell me, Harry - when did you fall in love with me?"

Oh no no no! You want to shake your head in mute protest, but can't. When you swore to yourself you'd never lie to him as a matter of pride, you were sure he'd never even think of that question.

"I must say I'm touched. Lucius' darling little Harry, falling for me? It must be killing you."

You press your lips together into a thin line, your neck stiff in his grip. In this moment, you could rather forgive him for stabbing you than for stripping you naked in such a callous way.

He nods as if you had successfully quoted from a script of his making. "I thought so. All that excess hostility, always putting yourself in my way... I knew for sure during the fight against Voldemort," he adds, half-superior, half-thoughtful.

Yes, it must have been impossible to hide your feelings through a mind-link. And it was the one thing that Voldemort had always been helpless against - your mother's love for you defeated him the first time round, your love for Sirius drove him off when he possessed you in the Department of Mysteries, and, well, something kept him out of your body and Tom's during the battle.

"It's not real, you know," Tom points out, absently twisting your hair around his fingers. "It's just the after-effect of you restoring me with your own power. You were drawn to your magic inside me."

Perhaps there is something artificial in that overwhelming protectiveness that you feel for your 'creation', like a mother for her child, although there's nothing remotely maternal in the way you react to his touch.

"I don't think it matters." You almost flinch at the resignation in your voice. After all, your magic is back, and you still react to him.

He slowly extricates his fingers from your hair to trace the corner of your mouth. "How about Lucius, then? He had you under a low-level lust spell until you went off to Hogwarts." He snickers. "Your confusion was so precious to watch. Does that matter, Harry?"

You ponder it with closed eyes, marvelling how his hand on your face can feel soothing when his other still holds a knife to your throat. Finally, you shake your head. That your feelings weren't quite your own you've always sensed. But it doesn't explain the soul-shattering panic that gripped you when you saw Lucius' lifeless body on the floor of his hall, nor the primal terror when Tom's mind threatened to slip out of your mental hands, and into Voldemort's claws.

"Lucius took me back to the manor and healed me even after I'd fulfilled my purpose for him." You don't quite like to put these things into words, but you want to make Tom - make someone - understand. Yourself most of all.

"But you're still useful to him. The Boy Who Conquered on his side - you'll rehabilitate him just by being here. He still wants to use you."

The tingle of relief that spreads thorough you at this is humiliating. Somewhere deep down, you've always known that the thought of Lucius discarding you after victory terrified you more than the thought of death at Voldemort's hands. You just hope it's the after-effect of the spell. What a pathetic excuse for a human being would that make you otherwise?

You shrug again and see in the way his mouth is curving up that he's picked up on the patheticness of it all right.

He drops the blade on the wyvern-patterned carpet in front of the bed only to bury his hand in your hair again, tilting back your head to lick at the shallow cuts on your neck. You squeeze your eyes shut and bite your tongue in order not to moan. The soft mouth and the leisurely sting leave you almost painfully aroused. You pull one of your hands from their prison above your head. It's half-numb and tingles, but you manage to lay it on Tom's cheek and nudge his head up. His skin is cold, eyes very dark, and you begin to understand the confusion that must roil inside him. It has taken a lot out of him, parting with your powers, and this one is less prepared than most to deal with the convoluted feelings that come from giving instead of taking energy. You suddenly remember that he's really younger than you, and more lonely perhaps. He's been clinging to Lucius no less than you have, even without a love spell.

You search his lips very carefully, stroking his cheek as you kiss him, careful to keep it on the surface. The magic inside you shudders, but there is no pull. It seems that the energy flow between you has reached a kind of uneasy balance at long last.

As if any hint of gentleness was making him uneasy, he draws away.

"I hate you, Potter, never doubt that - I may want you whenever I lay eyes on you, but I want to hurt you just as much."

No, that doesn't come as a surprise - every time he lays hands on you, it's an unveiled grasp for control.

"And deep down," he adds, trying to pin you with his intent dark gaze, "deep down you want to hurt and you know it!"

You open your mouth to protest, but he's already sneaked his fingers up to pinch your nipple, so sharp that you yelp out loud at the sudden pain. To your utter humiliation, his other hand lingers atop your groin, probing the sudden stiffening in your nether regions.

"That's not the same thing," you protest as soon as you've got your breath back. He pays no attention to your words.

"Why did you follow Lucius into the Chamber, way back when, Harry?" he insists. "Why did you go all alone? Why hardly give him a fight?" Tom shakes his head. "I've seen you fight, but Lucius says you just went down before him."

You were too deeply hurt back then, too afraid of causing yet another death like Sirius', like Cedric's. There was a sense of safety in being defeated, powerless. Like back at the Dursleys, who had understood that in keeping you downtrodden and locked away you at least never got the chance to kill someone by accident. Miserable, but not a death magnet. Helpless, but no prophecies.

"I was too hurt to make sense back then," you admit quietly. "I'm not sorry about how things turned out, but I wouldn't do that again."

"And yet you're so very afraid of me," he murmurs.

"It's not the same thing," you repeat, sounding no more convincing than the first time.

Submitting to Lucius comes naturally, in a way - he spared your life, he's mentor, teacher, adult... And even then it's hard. But Tom - Tom is yours. He has no right to ask this; he just does.

"It's a fair deal, then. You get to live, I get a plaything, and Lucius keeps possession of his Boy Who Conquered for all it's worth."

"I'm nobody's plaything!" you snap, red in the face.

"Oh, we'll see about that." He pulls your wand from the back of his pyjama bottoms, which gives you an eerie flashback to Alastor Moody and the dangers of blasting off buttocks, and grins down at you sharply enough for both canines to show. "Remember, you may have your magic back, but I still have your wand." He flicks it at your legs. "Dissolvo!"

The fabric of your pyjamas dissolves into a mass of unconnected strings, tickling over your skin and falling off you like dead worms. Tom looks a bit flabbergasted as if he had expected a less dramatic effect, but then slips off the bed and grabs your arm to pull you after him. You flail in protest, fighting the urge to cover yourself with your hands.

He clicks his tongue. "I really don't think the outraged virgin act suits you after you've been letting Lucius fuck you for weeks."

A horribly familiar drape string unwinds from the bed curtain of your four-poster. Your eyes widen, but he steps behind you in a heartbeat and captures your hands, tying them securely behind your back while you're still waiting for him to Transfigure them. The cord digs unerringly into the still-tender skin around your wrists. You bare your teeth in an outraged hiss. He just cocks an eyebrow and runs a fingernail lightly along the curve of your anything-but-drooping erection.

"Hypocrite," he hisses in Parseltongue, and Dark skill or not, you've missed understanding the snakes, two-legged or legless. He shoves you towards the door, one hand on your elbow, but you dig in your heels.

"What-"

"I'd say Lucius will want to know, don't you think?"

"Not like this!" you protest, only to be rewarded with a sinister grin.

"Exactly like this, dear Harry. You owe me after I went back on your life debt. And you certainly make a pretty picture." He gives you another push towards the door. "Now would you rather walk or shall I float you through the house?"

The trip back through the manor is the most awkward you've ever made. Tom steers you through the corridors, his hand on your arm both stabilising and a welcome patch of warmth in the chilly night air. You keep your eyes firmly on your toes as you pad along on cold bare feet, trying not to notice your unhelpful anatomy on the way down. You don't even want to think about the expressions the portraits must be wearing. Thank heavens that no house-elf is making an appearance.

Tom only allows you to stop when you get to Lucius' bedroom. He gives three sharp raps on the ornately carved door and then pushes it open before Lucius can permit him to enter.

He drags you inside after him. Your whole face is hot, and you're sure your cheeks must be dark with shame. Lucius sits up in bed and puts down the paper he's been reading in the shine of his night lamp - an elaborate artefact in the shape of a fire-breathing dragon.

His eyes travel over you - and Tom - and an eyebrow wanders up.

"Let me introduce Harry Potter," Tom announces, very full of himself. Yes, it seems as if you have ceased being 'just Harry'.

"So I see," Lucius murmurs, leaning back against the headboard, a smile tugging on his lips. "And what are your plans for your pretty little captive?"

"I always told you he wants me," Tom states in so arrogant a tone that you want to smack him. Then again, parading his part-time nemesis around the manor, bound and flushed with embarrassment and arousal, might warrant a bit of exuberance.

Lucius smirks and leans back into his pillows.

"I seem to recall you saying something like that," he drawls, lazily running his eyes over your body and pointedly lingering on your lower middle. "I wouldn't mind watching you put that interesting hypothesis to the test."

You fix him with a narrow-eyed stare. "You hexed me."

The bastard just repeats that infuriating smirk of his. "So I did. What about it?"

You glare back, but really aren't in the best position for an argument.

Lucius moves a little to the side and slips back the coverlet in an unvoiced invitation, and Tom pushes you towards the bed with a feral grin. "Up," he orders.

The tone sends shivers over your skin.

"Well, if you would free my hands..." you mutter, trying not to notice the sudden heat pooling in your groin.

"Now where would be the fun in that?" he inquires mildly.

Crawling onto the bed without hands is awkward and undignified and exposes far too much of you for your liking. You bristle under Lucius' amused scrutiny until he reaches out and grabs you around the middle, pulling you up along his outstretched legs, clearly outlined under the covers, and right onto the centre of the bed until you're practically straddling his lap, nose to nose. The sheets are wrapped around his hips, and you bite back a groan as you are pressed up against the fabric.

Behind you, Tom swings himself up onto the bed with effortless grace. You feel his fingertips on the tense skin of your forearm, trailing from elbow to wrist just above the cord to probe the tautness of muscle, before he slips his hand into the hollow where hip meets thigh in a possessive curl.

"Harry Potter indeed," Lucius murmurs, cupping your cheek for a moment. A trickle of energy runs through you at the contact, and he nods, pleased, before letting go of you to touch Tom's shoulder. It's not unpleasant, feeling your magic stirred. And something inside you still feels pleasure at his touch, although the needy quality of it is gone. Your eyes fall on the dragon lamp as Lucius tests Tom's power, at the way it calmly exhales orange light with every breath. Before, it made you crawl into the shelter of its master's arms because the sheer intensity of its presence made the blood itch in your veins. Now, you don't want him as a shield any longer. You just want him.

As if on cue, he releases Tom's arm and nods to him. "An excellent solution. It will take a while - for both of you - until your magic settles and you regain full control, but the solution is ingenious. Returning Harry's magic will leave you free to take complete control over the Dark Lord's considerable powers." He smiles thinly. "A force to be reckoned with, indeed."

You can't quite decipher the look that passes between them, but it makes the hairs on your neck stand up.

"But as for the moment," Lucius continues, "I seem to recall you promising a less... theoretical entertainment?"

"Hold him for me?" Tom inquires, the tentative ghost of a smile hovering on his lips.

"Oh, the pleasure is all mine," Lucius drawls, running both hands up your shoulders and pulling you close.

Your face buried in the crook of his neck, you lean heavily against Lucius; it's good to have his body to smother the noise that you make when Tom splays his hand on the centre of your back, fingerbones against your vertebrae, damp palm sticky on your sweaty skin.

You breathe more easily when he takes it away, but then he slides both hands down your hips and strokes the strained muscles of your thighs, spread across Lucius' legs under the sheet. The familiar twinge of unease trickles along your skin, not at the way Tom actually touches you, but at the possessive implications of that touch.

Still, if this is what it takes to channel Tom's control mania away from Dark Marks, robe-hem kissing and 'Yes, my Lord's, it's a slight price to pay. Though you swear to yourself that if he tries to make you call him 'master' you'll give him a ringing slap to the head.

You can't help but tense and bite your lip when he dips between your buttocks. You're still sore from earlier this evening, oh, pleasurably so for sure, but not looking forward to more pressure. And... you trust Lucius to do this with skill and a modicum of care, but Tom? He wants to make a point, not love. He wouldn't know how.

Lucius stops Tom's hand when he reaches for his wand and instead Summons the other jar from the drawer of his nightstand. Tom catches it in mid-flight, unscrewing it to swirl his fingers in the goop - colourless, not mint-green. You press your face deeper into the crook of Lucius neck, and he traces soothing circles on your shoulders. You wince a bit under Tom's probing fingers, and at the insidious cold of the gel. Tom's movements are rough at times, but not cruelly so.

He nudges up against your back, sweeping your hair to the side to lay an incendiary bite on the nape of your neck. Despite your determination, your whine softly against Lucius' throat as he pushes into you for real, with no sign of the languid tortuousness that is so characteristic of Lucius. Tom mutters something unintelligible into your hair and swipes a lick over the bite, and goose bumps break out on your neck. He reaches around you to your prick where it's pushed up against the bedclothes, and curls a long index finger just around the head, nail leaving a stinging indentation.

Reflexively, you jerk your hips forward to have more of that fiendish touch; he chuckles and rubs you gently against the tangle of cloth you are trapped against, a friction so supremely good that you can't help but throw your head back with a groan. It leaves you cheek to cheek as he rocks your body, your throat almost submissively bared in pleasure. You nearly whimper when you feel sharp teeth on your collarbone, and the pressure in your groin becomes nearly unbearable. Tom's chest is flush against your back and your bound arms strain painfully under the pressure.

Lucius lets go of your shoulders and tangles in your hair to pull your head possessively to his, brushing Tom's cheek on the way, who acknowledges the gesture with a fleeting, open-mouthed kiss. Tom delivers a particularly bruising stroke just as Lucius' lips capture yours and you feel your groan reverberating into Lucius' mouth. He pounds in to you with vigour now, Tom, bruising but hitting the right spot so often that you're grateful for Lucius' mouth feeding on yours to swallow most of the treacherous noises. Tears threaten to spill onto your cheeks as you balance at the cusp of pain, being rocked between them like a very flimsy boat between storm and sea.

You feel Tom digging claws into your hips and biting down on your shoulder as he comes, so vicious that you writhe in pain for a moment. He makes no sound at all, but seems to try and inscribe his cry into your skin instead. He doesn't quite collapse, but melts against your back like a winter cloak with an in-woven warming charm, wrapping his free arm around your chest and holding you close for a moment, and his unspoken 'Mine!' spills over you as if the Communimens Charm were still connecting you.

It's that more than anything that sends you over the edge as Tom's fingers tease you to climax and you frantically rub against the sheet and his hand. You thrash at the onset of the sudden, blinding rush, trapped like a young animal between Lucius' mouth and chest and Tom's unyielding vice of a body, a struggle that is both futile and ecstatic. The sheer force of orgasm greys out your vision for a moment and when Tom draws back and Lucius detaches his lips from yours and untangles his hands from your hair, you flop to the side on the mattress. Even the art of breathing takes a moment to relearn.

You feel Tom untying the cord around your arms, and feel Lucius' wand poking your wrists as he murmurs the spell that will spare you the maddening tingle of renewed blood flow.

Lucius' fingers rest casually on your shoulder, and Tom absently strokes your ankle as they share a look over your exhausted body. Tom's face is flushed, eyes sparkling and more acutely alive than you can remember seeing him before. Lucius, on the other hand, looks well-pleased for someone who has got nothing out of things but a few kisses. Slowly, he reaches out to touch Tom's cheek, and then he fluidly rises to his knees to meet Tom's lips in a kiss that - from your perspective - looks surprisingly gentle.

You watch them kiss out of the corner of your eye. Tom's eyes are shut, and there is something... radiant in his expression as his lips move under Lucius'. It's only when you see the expression of triumph with which Lucius plunders his young lover's mouth, however, that you realise in how many ways the elder Malfoy has fucked over Lord Voldemort.

His eyes flick to yours, and he throws you an undisguised evil smile from behind Tom's lips.

There is nothing of it left on Lucius' face when the two break apart. Lucius Vanishes the evidence of your activities from the sheets and your bodies before pulling you down next to him like a boy would grab his favourite stuffed lion before going to sleep. Wincing at the way your insides burn at every move, you pillow your head against his side, breathing in the comforting scent of his skin. Tom curls up on your other side, a cool presence for all his exertions, smelling just as familiar, a faint tang of sun-baked scales on stone. After a few moments, their hands touch on top of your chest, and then just rest there comfortably like the clasps of a safety belt.

You lie wrapped in silence for long minutes, listening to their breaths intermingling with your own, slowing and deepening as the lamp dragon's light grows dimmer and dimmer, and then smile up at the Slytherin green of the canopy.

Teaching young Tom Riddle to love may be just as hard a task as defeating Lord Voldemort. It may take even longer. But it will be infinitely more rewarding, and no prophecy demands that you do it on your own.

~ Next: Epilogue ~