Notes: curiouslyfic prompted: Wings, Veela, H/D, smut, Crackfic/horror ficlet. For her. I wrote this very quickly, so it's not as carefully crafted as some of my other writing. Don't think about it too much, and please enjoy.

And a million thanks to beautiful curiouslyfic for the amazing services. Beta, and otherwise. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH GAHD.

This is the R-rated version of this story. For the full NC-17 version, please visit my journal: michi-thekiller . livejournal . com

you look so fine

When Draco Malfoy turned 16 years old, he thought he'd make a night of it. He got Blaise to ask that bloke he knew to ask that bloke he knew, and the moment Archimedes flew in with his fake ID, and he took himself and his fancy clothes and headed to the nightclub of illest repute in Horizont Alley. He was going to have the seediest, slumming-est, absolutely best time of his life. Five minutes in he was making eyes with the hottest bloke there, ten minutes in he was dancing, writhing and sinuous under the flashing lights, half an hour in his dance partner had found him, and 35 minutes in he was laughing, in a booth, surrounded by a variety of drinks in a variety of colours. At the two hour mark they were snogging in the toilet, and three hours from the moment Draco had stepped into the door, the two of them stepped out of it together, and headed next door to the pay-by-the-hour hotel, determined to get the most bang for the Galleon, in a manner of speaking.

Not even one full Galleon into it, Draco Malfoy lost his virginity.

It all went just how he'd always imagined it, and it was, all in all, a bloody good time.

Waking up the next morning, however, next to a bloody ribcage and a man's intestines strewn all over the bed like thick wet streamers - that was a bloody bad time.

"Mother..." he sent the SOS Owl immediately, getting blood all over the parchment, and all over everything else, for that matter. "Mother come help immediately" and his location, scrawled quickly and illegibly. When he tied it to Discrete, the hotel's screech owl's leg, he wondered why they didn't have a more instantaneous method of communication, because the idea of depending on a bird for his life was both rather silly and very nerve-racking.

Of course a mother always knows. The half hour that Draco waited for her to Apparate to the room was torture, though, and he spent most of it rocking himself in the foetal position. His mouth felt sticky and tasted of something that didn't naturally come out of a man's private parts. And if it did, then that man really needed to see a MediWizard.

When Mother appeared, he didn't know which she would be appalled at first - the fact that he was naked, that he had clearly had sex, that he had had sex with a man, or that he had just murdered the man with whom he had had the naked gay sex.

Probably the murder thing was the most upsetting.

But the first thing that Mother did was gather him up in her arms, bloodiness and gayness and murderness and all, and she sniffled, "Oh, precious. Oh my little baby boy - you're all grown up."

Which was when Draco rather suspected that Mother knew something that he didn't.

"Oh dear, Darling," Mother said, inspecting the room. "What have I always told you about never biting off more than you could chew?" Without even cringing, she poked at what was left of a thigh. Draco had never considered before how much a detached leg could resemble a drumstick. He was never eating turkey again.

"And you know it's rude to leave so much on your plate."

"M-mother...?" Draco choked out.

"You're a Veela, Draco," she cooed, and stroked his hair, wet and tacky with blood and sweat. "Mummy is so proud of you. Wait till your father hears!"

Draco shivered in her arms like an infant, twisted around, and vomited all over the floor.

"Oh, precious," Mother said, pityingly, and held his hair back for him.

That had been two years and the start of a war ago.

"All right, let's do this, you sickening freak," Draco says.

The portly man simpers, practically drooling as if Draco were an all-you-can-eat buffet. He's disgusting to look at, to be sure, and even more disgusting later, when he's heaving and humping away on top of him. Draco lies back, yawns, and thinks of Quidditch.

However, there is one consolation Draco finds, despite all of the sweating and slobbering: this kind of meat is always delicious. It must have something to do with the high fat content, like a tender, beautifully marbled steak.

Later on, back at the Manor, Mother eyes him critically. "Draco, you really ought to start watching what you eat," she says, patting his waistline. "You have a high metabolism now, certainly, but that slows down with age. You don't want to end up looking like dear great-aunt Hestia, do you?"

"Oh yes, Mother, let us inform the Dark Lord that he should only send us the most svelte and lean targets for me to dispatch, since I'm on a diet, because I must simply look after my girlish figure. I'm sure that will go over very nicely."

Mother clicks her tongue disapprovingly. "I know, but perhaps...perhaps you could consider saving some for later, or perhaps just eat half and dispose of the rest in the river, or perhaps you could bring it home for Nagini."

"Nagini doesn't need any more treats. She's starting to look like someone cast Engorgio on a giant earthworm," Draco points out. "Besides, you know we can't risk leaving any evidence behind, and it would mean I'd spend too long on scene trying to package up my leftovers for my snakey bag.

"It's not even my fault. Blame the politicians, Mother," he protests, "They're the ones who are always so fat."

"It's all that decadent living, darling," Mother says, as she sips her champagne from a delicate crystal glass.

Of course the definition of a good thing is that it cannot last. This is what Draco knows already, so he's not too surprised when the Aurors break into the Manor, thankful that Father's off playing Death Eater Baddy and Mother is off visiting Grand-mère in France.

It is useless to put up a fight, like the others do; their lack of success evident as he listens to the shouted curses, the subsequent crashing and the screams. Expensive vases shattered, marble statues knocked over - Aurors are awfully rude house guests.

Simply having rude house guests, of course, does not mean one does not have to be a proper host. Draco tells Bimsy to put the kettle on and to bring in the niceporcelain tea set. An Avada Kedavrathat has missed its mark makes the whole house shake, the pans in the kitchen clanging against one another, the cups rattling on their tray. Draco pours himself another snifter of Father's best brandy and wonders if they've any fresh biscuits left.

Although he almost drops his drink when Potter himself bursts through the study, clothes ripped, eyes wild, cheeks smudged with dirt, hair like someone's been out to murder him. (Although the last is just how Draco remembers him.)

"Freeze, Malfoy!" Potter shouts, wand out and trembling.

"Ah, Potter," Draco says, "What an unexpected surprise." He holds out a glass. "Would you care for some brandy?"

"Drop. Your. Wand," Potter hisses, and Draco can see in a moment that Potter has changed too, over the two years that he hasn't seen him. Draco's sure he himself has changed, since he has come to accept his Veela status and come into his own powers; of course, becoming a man-eating monster would change anybody.

There had been a lot of very expensive therapy sessions, and a lot of searching for replacement therapists - Veela puberty was Hell. Although Draco rather thought that any man who could be convinced that being covered in steak sauce was actually extremely sexy had no right being anybody's therapist in the first place.

Between the desire to fuck anything on two legs, the hunger for human flesh, and feathers poking through his skin like some sort of Veela-acne...really, being a Death Eater had been the least of his worries.

Genuine murderous intent flashes in Potter's Killing-Curse-green eyes, and the hair on the back of Draco's neck prickles with recognition. The smell of blood on another predator. He raises both hands placatingly.

"Perhaps you should get your glasses prescription checked, Potter," Draco says. "Last I checked, neither a bottle of brandy nor a snifter glass bear the slightest resemblance to a wand."

"Drop them," Potter commands.

"All right," Draco agrees, easily, and he slowly lowers to the floor, placing the oh-so-threatening brandy and snifter down. He is especially careful with the brandy. It was very expensive, after all.

"Hands up!" Potter's voice is all authority, and Draco does not disobey. Both empty hands are raised above his head, and in a moment Potter is next to him, wand pointed at his throat as he uses his other hand to pat him down. The hand smoothes over his robes, briskly, down his back, down the back of his legs, up his legs, up his back, up his chest.

"Take off your robes," Potter demands, voice roughened over in a way that Draco recognises only too well. His wand is still in place, directed at Draco's throat, but the one searching hand is smoothing up his thigh, down his thigh, up his thigh, down his thigh, over and over again.

Draco quirks an eyebrow, but stays silent. With a smirk, he slowly unclasps his robes, and then lets them fall off his shoulders in a whisper of cloth. They pool on the ground and he's only in his trousers and collared shirt, half-unbuttoned, revealing a smooth expanse of alabaster-pale flesh.

Potter sucks in a sharp breath. Then he looks at his hand, rubbing up and down, thumb stroking, and gasps. He leaps away as if Draco were made of hot, searing metal. His squeezes his eyes shut and rubs them furiously, with a fist, underneath his glasses. "You- what...?" and has to shake his head, as if to clear it.

"I don't know what kind of game you're playing here, Malfoy," Potter snarls at him. "But as of right now, I am taking you into the custody of the Order of the Phoenix." He steps forward once more, to rip the wand out of Draco's belt, and then jumps back again, like some strange game of Don't Touch the Death Eater. He pockets Draco's wand, and never once does he drop his.

"Now walk," he says. "You're coming with me."

"This doesn't look like the way back to the Order Headquarters," Draco remarks, as Potter is setting up a tent in a forest in the middle of nowhere. "Where did you leave your two sidekicks?"

"Shut up," Potter snarls at him. He's been doing the snarly thing quite a bit lately, and not even when Draco's been provoking him, either, which he admittedly does a lot. Perhaps something happened to Granger and the Weasel. He wouldn't be surprised. The Brain and the...Sidekick were nothing without their noblest of heroes.

Potter paces like a caged animal. "I still haven't found him," he mutters to himself, like a crazy person.

"Found who?" Draco asks. Potter just curses again, and doesn't reply. "Fine, don't tell me."

Of course, if Potter isn't going to entertain him, he might as well entertain himself. He nonchalantly clinks his handcuffs and chains together. He starts banging out the tune of 'Jingle Bells.'

Again.

For the 15th time that hour.

"Would you stop that?" Potter whirls around and hisses.

"Why don't you make me?" Draco sneers at him, and smiles because Potter convulses suddenly; perhaps he's developed a nice little nervous tic, too, to go with all his other neuroticisms.

"Just...just shut up, okay? Shut up!" Potter rebuts, oh so intelligently.

"We're going to have to expand your vocabulary, Potter," Draco observes, and starts in on a rousing rendition of 'I've Got a Cauldron of Hot, Strong Love,' as an acoustic solo on the chains.

Accompanied by Potter, on percussion, grinding his teeth.

Maybe Draco would eventually drive Potter mad.

Neat.

Every few days, they relocate. Never too far; they seem to be circling certain areas.

"Like a forest-wide game of musical chairs," Draco suggests helpfully, as Potter ignores him and doodles uselessly on his map. He really ought to let Draco help with his cartography; Draco, of course, is far more artistically inclined than Potter, as he has demonstrated through his numerous renditions of him throughout their school years.

"I could draw a far better Useless You than the Stick Figure Useless You that you're currently working on," he points out, also oh-so-helpfully.

The map is covered with scattered coloured dots and patterns; chaotic and nonsensical. As if someone had scattered rainbow candies all over it while it was still wet with glue.

"It's more like a colossal, dangerous game of hide-and-go-seek," Potter finally, begrudgingly, shares with him.

"Right, another stupid, hopeless, pursuit. All the more reason it is in dire need of my artistic flair."
If he weren't chained, a brief wrestling match over the quills and coloured ink may have ensued.

However, as it is, Potter - dreadful, selfish prat that he is - simply gathers up his toys and moves further away.

"Well, who wants to colour with cretinous twats who don't know how to share anyway?" Draco loudly asks no one in particular. The wretched life of the suffering artist. "Genius like mine is never appreciated in its own time," he declares.

"Hey Scarhead," Draco coos, letting his voice drop into that silky sort of tone that makes men leave their wives and wives Polyjuice themselves into the men who left them, just for a chance to shag that. "Why don't you get your sweet, stupid arse over here and take these chains off of me?"

Much to his delight, Potter takes one step forward and then shudders, turns around, and walks the other way, struggling with each step, as if he were swimming in a sea of molasses. Draco's never really seen that before. Usually men are at his side in an instant, trying to undo the chains and lick him at the same time.

But Potter was always a stubborn one. Draco thinks he kind of likes that.

"Whatever the hell you're doing to me, you better stop it right now, Malfoy," Potter threatens, holding out his wand again. From the way he's clutched onto that thing since Draco had seen him, one would think that he had a castration fear or something.

"I'm a Veela," Draco explains to him, as it is only fair to even the playing field.

"Real funny, Malfoy," Potter says, and leaves the tent in a huff, like the drama queen that he is.

"So you eat people," Potter says, looking into the flame where he is roasting a hare.

"You're eating a cute little bunny," Draco points out.

"That's not the same thing at all!"

"But it is. You're above the hare on the food chain, and Veela are above humans on the food chain. It's the natural order of things. We all do what we have to, in order to survive."

"Only you don't need to eat people to survive."

"I'm acting out an animal instinct."

"Aren't you still a human?"

"I...I don't really know, anymore," Draco says, for once, the glibness leaving him. "I suppose you eat enough people and you don't really see them as the same anymore. They're more like little living sweets trolleys rolling around, where you can eat the whole trolley. They're like human-shaped chocolate frogs. Chocolate humans?"

"That's horrifying!" Potter blanches.

"There are some people who find eating cute little bunnies horrifying," Draco points out. "You're awful quick to put on your judging face, aren't you, Potty? After all - not exactly like your hands are pristine, are they, St. Potter?"

"That's different," Potter mumbles, and pulls his cloak tighter around himself although it is a rather mild night. "They're...they're bad men. They're evil. I had to."

"It's in your nature," Draco says, "To do what you have to, to protect the innocent. And it's in my nature to lure and eat all the walking treats out there. You do what you have to do, in order to survive."

Potter presses his lips together tightly and seems to fold into himself even more. The stupid twat is berating himself in his mind so loudly that Draco can practically hear him calling himself a monster. He looks so genuinely distraught that Draco is surprised to feel a twinge of pity for him. That was the thing about Potter, always - so very pathetically good.

Draco sighs, and rolls his eyes.

"If it makes you feel any better," he says, begrudgingly, "Most of the men I've eaten were probably very bad men. Probably."

"Yeah?" Potter perks up.

"Yeah," Draco answers. "Most of them, most definitely very likely."

Potter smiles at him - and actually, that's the first time in his life that Potter has ever smiled at him. It lights up his whole stupid face and maybe this is why people trust him to save them all, maybe this is why people make such a terrible fuss over him, maybe this is why, subconsciously, little Draco had wanted to be friends with him all those years ago. To have this smile directed at you, like being bathed in sunlight, like everything's going to be okay.

There's a strange warm burst of feeling in his chest, and he's not sure he likes it.

"Better get Little Bunny Foo Foo off the fire," he says. "He'll be all tough and disgusting if he's overcooked."

From across the tent, Potter's dreams are filled with unrest. He tosses and turns, and he mumbles things. Unintelligible babblings to rival that of any madman, although every now and then there is a name or a place. Sometimes it's something haunted, the first few syllables of an Unforgivable, demonic whisperings, desperate monologues in Parseltongue; the type of cursed sounds that spin out nightmares. It's the angriest, darkest muttering that Draco's ever heard, and Draco's heard both Aunt Bella and the Dark Lord talking to themselves.

Sometimes he wakes up screaming, shuddering; sometimes he clutches his scar.

He still hasn't said anything about Weasley or Granger, and Draco thinks that maybe this is why he cries in his sleep.

Draco himself dreams of strange things since he's come into his own Veela-ness. Not strawberry jam monster strange-type things, but more like dark, wild woods, a tangle of hissing sounds, diving off a cliff and into a perfect blue oblivion that is maybe sea, maybe sky.

Sometimes he dreams about Father, and what will happen if he loses this war. Father is only human, after all.

One morning he wakes up to find himself covered with a blanket that he did not go to bed with. All the way from across their tent, Potter sleeps turned away, curled into a ball.

And in the early morning light, when the screams from his dreams still echo silently in his ears - Draco finds himself wondering what will happen to Potter too, whether he wins or loses.

"Stop Veela-ing at me!" Potter accuses.

"I'm not Veela-ing at you!" Draco retorts. "Nobody's Veela-ing at you! Stop being so paranoid!"

Ever since Draco's revelation, Potter has been careful to keep a safe distance between them, avoiding eye contact whenever possible. It's probably for the best, Draco decides. Potter is all sinew and wiry muscle; he probably wouldn't taste very nice.

"If I were Veela-ing at you, which, for the record, I am most certainly not, trust me - you would know it. Or you wouldn't, because you'd be naked and so overcome with lust you wouldn't be able to think about anything else than doing me right and hard and proper."

Potter chokes, and flushes bright red.

"So what you mean to tell me, Potter, is that you are attracted to me even when I'm not deliberately Charming you," Draco smirks, "and I find that very interesting. I mean, have you always had a crush on me? Is that what all that stalking me in sixth year was about?"

"Shut up, Malfoy," Potter mutters, wonderfully creative as always.

"For your birthday this year," Draco declares, "I am getting you an insult dictionary. Or at least a thesaurus."

Draco knows that look when he sees it. Prince and pauper and grimey wrinkly Dark Lord alike have given him that look.

That I-want-to-fuck-you-so-hard-you'll-feel-it-in-your-throat-and-have-trouble-sitting-for-days look.

From some people it can be flattering, from some people it can be arousing, from others it can be disturbing - from Potter, it's just confusing.

Politicians and poets and pitiful piglike people have given him this look. But when he catches Potter giving him this look one day, something different happens, for the very first time.

It sends a shuddering shiver down his back. A delicate little thrill, a little chill - as if some ghostly hand were taking a ghostly ice cube, and running it down his spine, vertebra by vertebra.

Here in the loneliness of the crowd of trees, there is only him and Potter and that Look. The Observer and the Object; the Gaze and the Subject. The Hunter and the Hunter. The Hunted and the Haunted.

And-
he wants Potter to look at him again.

Of course, Potter, bloody bastard that he is, deliberately avoids it once he's done it.

Draco puts himself on display, brazen, shameless; the confidence of he who knows that he is beautiful; that you have looked and found him pleasing. He pushes his shoulders back. Look at me. He tosses his hair like some stupid model, whose only redeeming quality is his dashing good looks; he arches his back, extends the slender flute of his throat. Look at me. He lowers his lashes; he breathes, deep and even; runs a tongue over his lips and catches the bottom lip with his teeth.

Look at me, goddammit.

Potter, pretends to be very interested in that stupid heavy textbook instead. He doesn't even turn around.

Draco, in his frustration, is very tempted to Veela at him, even though he promised not to. He is even tempted to sparkle at him - this is how low Potter has forced him, that he would even consider sparkling.

Instead he taunts, "Why bother? All that reading couldn't save her, could it?"

He doesn't even know what he's talking about, really. But it does the trick - the book is slammed shut and in a moment Potter is by his side, chains wrapped around his first and yanking on them so hard Draco falls to his knees. Potter is so driven by anger and instinct that he doesn't even pull out his wand - he'd sooner strangle Draco to death with his bare hands.

"I ought to gag you," Potter hisses. "I ought to choke you. Maybe that would finally make you shut your filthy mouth."

Draco can easily think of 1,156 innuendo-laden replies to that. Most of them not even the obvious ones.

Potter hovers over him, panting heavily, and Draco knows that he's his. In the way that Potter could never belong to anybody else, because no one else knows how to dig the needle underneath his skin, just like this.

Potter's fists clench, knuckles shifting underneath taut skin. His jaw tightens, and his whole body tenses, and in that moment, he is capable of anything. In that moment, in all that beautiful fury and sickening righteousness and deadly intent, that look is still there, the sort of need that makes even the ends of your hair sizzle.

The chains twist around his forearm, knuckles turned white with tension, and he yanks again, so that Draco sprawls to the floor. For the first time since they've left the Manor, he's been made to truly realise his imprisonment. His limbs twist uncomfortably, arms bending the wrong way, pulled out from his body - this is what puppets must feel like - and every struggle is just a tiny tug on the strings.

Potter's face is flushed, his breathing heavy. With his hand raised it could have been for anything - to strike, to choke, to pull closer, to caress. Hands can express so many things. Potter could crush him, he could hurt him, he could have him - hard, on the floor, in the dirt, could have him hard and kill him afterwards, he'd have to, wouldn't he, kill or be killed - that's how it works, after all, when it comes to the laws of the wild things.

And then Potter does nothing.

He lets his hand fall, uselessly, to his side, fingers twitching like something wounded, struggling for life. He looks at it in horror, as if it were not his hand at all. As if someone else had snuck into their tent in the deep of night and replaced it with the hand of a criminal - a murderer or a perv - as if it were no longer a righteous right hand but a lecherous left.

"I can't do this," he says, and subsequently does what a hero does best.

He runs away.

He doesn't see Potter for days afterwards. The only evidence that he's been in the tent at all is the water and food he leaves every morning and night; plated arrangements of cooked small animals, like little burnt offerings to a lesser god.

It's a little bit lonely without him.

When Potter finally returns, late one night, he is even more disheveled than usual, and the shadows smudged under his eyes say that he hasn't slept for days.

He's muttering to himself like a crazy person. Pacing in a way that just watching him makes you feel trapped.

"I should take you to the Order," Potter tells an innocent coat rack.

"Perhaps," Draco agrees. You never know - it could have been an evil coat rack. A coat rack in the service of the Dark Lord.

Potter curses and has one of his spastic attacks. "You're not really that daft, are you? They'd Sentence you. Don't you see?" From the way Potter says sentence, Draco can tell it's with a capital S, the way that Kissed is with a capital K, and he has a feeling that it's at least getting Kissed or worse. Not one of those nice little light slap on the wrist, you've been a very bad boy, now promise never to do it again sentences.

"You have blood on your hands," Potter continues.

"It's actually usually more on my mouth and all over," Draco corrects him. "Not on my hands, though. I don't eat with my hands. I'm not a barbarian." But Potter isn't listening.

"So I can't. I can't," he mutters, over and over, and Draco thinks that perhaps he was making more intelligent conversation with the furniture when Potter was gone.

Suddenly, Potter stops, mid-step, and whirls around to face him. "I'll just have to make it right. No. I willmake it right. You'll see."

"You just let me take care of everything, yeah? It...it's all going to work out, in the end," he says, and the hopefulness on his face is so perfect and pure that it would be a shame not to crush it.

Which is why the fainting is timed perfectly.

When Draco comes to again, he is burning, he is shivering, he is damp with sweat as cool as the ocean and he is aflame like a comet - Potter has gathered him in his arms.

He would protest this if he could, but his mouth is suddenly dry and it has become so dumb it has forgotten how to form words.

He shivers. He shakes. He stays stone-still and the whole world is shivering around him - Potter, in particular.

Potter, with his stupid unwavering gaze and stupid concerned look in his stupid bright green eyes - that all makes Draco simultaneously want to claw them out and to...lick them. Okay, that's not disturbing or anything.

Most likely he's delirious.

There are two stabbing points of pain in his back and he shivers again. His mouth feels stuffed full of cotton.

"Malfoy?" Potter shakes him, so hard that the chains clatter. "Malfoy, what's wrong?" Draco wants to tell the sodding idiot that you really ought not to shake a semi-unconscious person quite so viciously; he is an ill creature, not a baby rattle, after all - but again he can't speak. And a glare through half-lidded, fluttering lashes doesn't really count as a glare at all.

Something sharp stabs through his stomach, and it swirls and twists through his gut. He instinctively tilts his head, just so, lets his lips part, just so, and he feels Potter take in a sharp breath, sucking in all the air from the atmosphere around them. Potter's heart pounds so loudly Draco can hear the thrum of it in his blood.

That's when he realises - he's going through withdrawal.

And fuck, is he hungry.

The thing about desire is that it's a funny thing. For Veela in particular, especially when most of the time Draco can't tell if he is actually horny or perhaps just hungry; usually it's a mixture of the two. For this Veela in particular, when the object of such desire is the same person one has spent so many years despising. And despite the despising, Potter has been quite amusing, and maybe Draco wants him for more than just a one-night-stand and post-coital-midnight-snack in one. Maybe he wants Potter around for a while.

But his stomach is starting to hurt with the craving to have something human in it.

He has to physically push Potter away when he's all sick and shaking like this, get the temptation away, the feel of him, all warm solid chest heaving against him, the heat of him, the smell of him.

Potter refuses at first, of course, stupid and stubborn, arms tightening around him instead - and oh, that shouldn't feel as good as it does. Draco shudders violently and closes his eyes, revelling in it for a moment before he feels the urge to do something about, pull Potter closer, lure him in, and he has to snap, "Potter, if you don't let go of me, I promise you, I amgoing to vomit all over you."

Because it doesn't matter if you're a Veela, if you're the most beautiful person in the world, or if you're even the Bloody Prince of Fucking Gorgeous - there is no way that your vomit is sexy.

Unless of course, the other person's some sort of sicko.

Potter releases him immediately. Good thing, too, because for a flash-second Draco had been concerned that he wouldn't, that he really is that ill, Pervy Potter he'd call him, or maybe Potter the Pervert, either one has a nice ring to it...

Delirium, thy name is Malfoy.

"You're feverish," Potter remarks. "You're sick."

"Salutations, Sir Obvious, Duke of the county Obvious-shire; I am Draco Malfoy," Draco manages to mumble, pulling away from that delicious warmth that makes him positively salivate. Potter reaches out a hand for him again and he jerks away, a sudden violent convulsion. "Don't!"

"You need help...a mediwizard..." says Potter, stupidly crawling after him. Shadowing him. Like some sort of guardian angel. If Potter could see himself he'd laugh, on his hands and knees, crawling after a retreating, shaking, shivering blond thing- a creature, really, something not even human - who is threatening to projectile vomit all over him. Draco wants to laugh, too, only he's too afraid he'll start retching if he does.

"Hungry," Draco finally whimpers.

"There's food," Potter offers. "There's plenty of food. Or I'll make you something. What do you want? Whatever it is, I'll get it for you." He sounds, for all the world, like some concerned husband slave to a pregnant wife's cravings, no matter how odd. As if all Draco has to do is ask for some Welsh rarebit with tangerine jelly, or some smoked squid on marbled rye, or a roll or two of Nutella sushi.

"I need man-meat," Draco manages, and then almost bursts into ridiculous boyish giggles at the way that sounds. His stomach cramps and there's the stabbing pain in his back again. "Delicious man-meat," he repeats, like Mother always said it, and then sing-songs, "What's the treat that can't be beat? What's the sweetest thing to eat? When you're ill it works a treat? Keeps a Veela's beauty neat? Man-meat, man-meat, wonderful delicious man-meat ..."

"Charming," says Potter, absolutely horrified. He gulps. "So...so you need..." A thoughtful pause as he searches for a euphemism. "Er..."

"Human flesh," Draco groans. He takes a deep breath to push through the pain. "My body is using up energy. It must replenish itself or it'll eat itself and die..."

"What could you have possibly been doing that uses up so much energy?"

"Maybe," Draco says, eying Potter contemplatively, a meaningful once-over, the kind of sweeping glance that brushes its fingers over your face, down your neck, down all the curves and flat planes of your body... "Maybe, it's what I haven't been doing..."

"Oh," breathes Potter, whose pulse is twitching, quickened, at his neck.

"Right," says Draco, arching in spite of himself. The pain makes him do it, the ache, the hunger stretching out his body and making it curve so cunningly. So lasciviously. "That leaves us two options. Either let me go, or leave me. Either I go, or you go. Preferably the first, of course, as I do not quite fancy dying. Too young, too pretty, too rich, et cetera."

"I'm not going to let you die," Potter says, so quickly that the word die stumbles on his tongue. Stupid Saviour Complex. Come to think of it, Potter could probably benefit from some therapy himself. Perhaps a lotof therapy.

Potter shakes his head adamantly. "And I can't let you go."

"What if..." Draco licks his lips. "What if I promised to come back?"

Potter's eyes widen. He flushes, suddenly, all the way to his stupid, ugly hair. It's always such a mess it's a wonder that birds don't nest in it. Perhaps they already have, and that's why it looks that way - night roosters, maybe, and...something is very, very wrong with Draco if he finds that he doesn't care.

In fact, he looks at Potter and tries to see what possibly could have changed, that he'd want him around now when all he could think about during school was how he wished him only the bloodiest and most embarrassing of deaths. (Eating him with a twist of lime and four leaves of basil, of course, hadn't been on the menu, back then, but maybe he hadn't been as creative as he'd always fancied himself to be.)

His face is still ugly, with that disfiguring scar; he is still irritating and annoying. Those stupid green eyes like the colour of wet forest leaves - the kind slugs always hide under. He's still such an attention whore, needing to be the big hero all the time, even when any rational person would be able to see that the situation is quite hopeless. He still has that relentless bleeding heart, out there on his sleeve, just begging to be hurt. He's so pig-headed and stubborn it gives Draco a stress rash just thinking about it. He thinks he's better than everyone, he thinks he's so pivotal to their survival that he'll just go and throw himself away, the pathetic martyr, and it doesn't matter if he's a little more haunted now, a pitiful iota more damaged, when it gets down to the wire, and the battle comes to call, Potter will still be there on the front lines, ready to throw himself away like the rubbish he is.

"No!" Potter declares, a little too loudly, perhaps; if they hadn't been in a tent it might have echoed, dramatically. "No," he says again, "absolutely not."

And there's this strange flush of pleasure, maybe, at the idea that just maybe Potter doesn't want him sleeping with anybody else.

That sort of warmth is immediately countered by a shudder; the hunger returning worse than ever, rearing its razor-beaked head.

"Fine," Draco says, "Then one of us is going to die in this tent. Tertium non datur. There is no third. There is no other option."

"No," says Potter. He takes a step toward him, reaching out again automatically, and then curses and yanks his arm back. "No. I'll figure something out. You'll see." So defiant, so ignorant, so moronic.

And perhaps nothing has really changed.

"Trust me," Draco says, "it's not going to be me." He means it to come out cocky, confident, but maybe he wavers a little, maybe a note of pity wriggles its squiggly self in.

The thing about desire is that it's quite a dangerous thing. His is going to be the death of one of them - literally.

"You're Veela-ing at me. Don't you dare try and deny it, because it's so obvious I can taste you - it! It! I can practically taste it!"

"Yes, now I am Veela-ing. I'm Veela-ing all over the place. I am literally Veela-ing so hard that I have a very genuine fear that male and female wolves and bears and various sundry wildlife of a vicious nature will come rollicking into our tent, looking to me for a piece."

Potter can't stand it, but Draco doesn't blame him. He's Veela-ing so hard he's worried that trees might start reaching out for him. Potter leaves the tent frequently, but his stupid concern keeps him from going too far, so he never leaves for very long. When he returns his face is flushed and sweaty and he's slightly out of breath. When he moves a certain way he winces, as if his pants were chafing him.

Good, Draco thinks, serves the bloody bastard right.

"Just earlier this morning, when you were gone, a squirrel came in and tried to molest me," Draco insists.

"That next line better not be about storing your nuts for the winter," Potter says, horrified yet sounding strangely intrigued.

"Potter, you have many, many issues, freaky sexual fetishes included, most likely stemming from your childhood of horrific abuse by Muggles," Draco informs him.

"Probably," Potter says, surprising Draco for once. He walks his chafing, painful walk - more of a limp, really - all the way to the other side of the tent, putting as much distance between them as possible. "Because I think I just got jealous of a squirrel."

"You're a son of a Veela!" Potter suddenly exclaims, from behind the fort of pillows and books and furniture he's made to separate himself from Draco. Draco wonders, mildly, if somehow Potter thinks this is the wizard version for "You son of a bitch," because it's really not.

"You leave my mother out of this," he retorts anyway.

"No, no," Potter says. "I mean...your mother and your father must have had sex! They must still have sex."

Draco groans from the mental pain. "All right, I beseech you, please leave my parents' sexual exploits out of this. If this is your way of dampening my own raging libido, I have to tell you, not only is it not working, I think I may develop a Complex, and I'm billing my added years of therapy to your Gringotts account."

"I swear, you can be so dense, Malfoy," Potter has the nerve to say. "I mean, if you're your father's son, and you undoubtedly are, then your father and mother must have, at some point, had intercourse, and your father remains alive and uneaten. So either Lucius Malfoy is not your real father and he's sworn a vow of chastity, or - much more likely, he's figured a way to - erm. Do thatand survive."

"Well, if the chastity thing were true, it would explain why Not-Father is so very cross all the time."

"It's not true and you know it. There must be a solution."

"Yes, absolutely. So why don't you owl my father, Death Eater Extraordinaire, and ask him won't he please take a quick second from his current busy itinerary of taking over the world so that he could kindly tell you, in great detail, how Harry Potter could go about having relations with his only son and heir and survive the encounter?"

"Wait, I don't want - I never said -"

"Allow me to get this straight, as a matter of speaking," Draco says, slow and acidic, letting the words burn. "So you don't want to have intercourse with me? You don't want to expletiveme so throughly, hard and roughly, until I'm moaning your name so loudly and so passionately I can't even remember my own -"

"Stop! I-"

Bollocks. Bollocks that Potter doesn't want him, lies and tripe and shit - when he looks at him like that, when he touches him like that, when he looks at him likethat. His fingers linger and his eyes linger and that type of look is almost as good as a touch, light and whispering all over your skin.

"Come out from behind those books and lamps and tell me that it's all innocent, you don't think of me like that, and then we won't have any trouble. Then you can take me somewhere, or bring me someone, let me do my thing and have a bit of a nibble, and everyone will live happily ever after."

"There's never a happily ever after," Potter mutters, how cute, how jaded, but he doesn't move.

"Come on now. Come over here and look me in the eye and then we'll have this all sorted." He scoots himself forward, chains scraping and clanking along the floor, dragging behind him like some earthly spectre bound to his mortal coil.

"Malfoy, stop it."

"Why? What?" Draco purrs. "What are you so afraid of?" Arching again, brazenly, every limb in a graceful stretch, he wears his chains more as ornament than bondage; at once restrained and yearning, as beautifully composed as a symphony, as on the edge as a cliffdiver. All of him languishing, craving touch, desire personified. Even links and shackles of heavy iron can only hold him so much, and in that the hold is so tenuous that heavy iron might as well be spider-thread.

But here's the thing Draco never admits: sometimes he doesn't really pay all that much attention. Sometimes he's not watching when he should be, and sometimes he's watching the wrong thing.

Sometimes he misjudges his opponent.

Potter is quick and Potter is strong. Don't let appearances fool you. You don't get to be Youngest Seeker in a Century simply by performing bizarre sexual favours for Madam Hooch, no matter how gleefully Draco had spread that little rumour.

It's like all the times Draco was too distracted with mocking Potter's deceased mother, or pointing out the poor quality of his companions, to even notice that the Snitch was hovering right next to his head. And Potter saw it, and Potter caught it, because he was just that fast, he was just that good, and maybe, just maybe, if you put Draco on the medieval torture rack, you could get him to admit that maybe, yeah, he lost to Potter because Potter was just better than he was.

The boy is what they call a natural, after all.

It's that quicker-than-Snitch speed, that comedic greased lightning whoosh of speed, that catches Draco completely off guard, makes him topple backwards as Potter's fingers tangle in all his pretty pale-gold hair and yank his head backwards, exposing his throat. Potter's mouth is so close. Dangerously close.

"I don't know what you expect me to say," Potter says, his words escaping the prison of his mouth in a great big panting rush. Potter is pretty much on top of him, straddling him, his own thighs kept spread apart by the firm nudging of one strong thigh.

Gasps, suddenly, at the feeling of a knee rubbing carelessly against his dick.

The unmistakable feel of Potter's erection, hot and hard, pressing down into his thigh.

Draco's skin flushes hot in an instant, as if it were kindling meeting a single deadly spark.

"Is this what you wanted?" Potter hisses. His breath is hot against his ear. Searing. The kind of heat that makes a glacier sizzle into nothing; the kind of heat they cremate bodies in. The kind of heat that burns down castles.

Potter shudders and rocks against him, using his body as friction. "How can I possibly want you?" he continues. His fingers twist in Draco's hair, making his scalp tingle with the pain. "I hate you. I hate everything about you."

His knuckles turn white as bone.

"You were always so stupid. So arrogant, and petty, and mean-spirited. You're selfish. You're a coward."

The warm glow inside Draco's body grows and grows, as if there were a sun blossoming inside of him. He would say something, anything, if his mouth weren't desert-dry, if he weren't so busy just gasping for breath. Potter is rocking himself against his thigh, as his mouth spouts a river of poisonous insults.

Draco would be offended if they weren't so true.

"You're a judgmental bigoted prick," Potter pants. His face is flushed, cheeks warm and pink. Sweat glistens on his brow. On his upper lip. So close, so very close. Close enough to lick. He ought to be horrified at himself that he wants that, but he can't care, not even a little. His own breath puffs out, hot and close, against Potter's mouth, every part of him straining up and still unable to get anywhere. The manacles bite into his wrists with how hard he's pulling against them, but just like this, he's pinned like a goddamn butterfly specimen while Potter holds him in place and rocks against him, using just his body to get off.

"I want to wipe the floor with your stupid smirk," Potter whispers, while one trembling hand brushes, light as an insect wing, down his side, fingertips just lightly tickling his ribs, fingertips crawling down his thigh.

"I want to smash in your stupid face," as fingers curl into his hip, digging short nails in, hard enough that they cut into his skin through his clothes, make Draco bite down on his own lip before he cries out, raggedly.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, " Potter murmurs, an endless mantra that becomes more and more incoherent as his breaths come faster, harsh and sharp. The hand on his hip tugs them close, the faint stimulation between his legs so gently teasing that it's more torture than relief. Potter's motions jolt his whole body, shaking him as if he were being fucked.

It feels good and it feels awful. The rocking, the shaking, the using of his body, those awful tiny nudges just against his dick. All of it not enough, not nearly enough, as if someone had poured petrol all over him and ruthlessly flicked a lit match; as if someone had blasted him with Incendio, the feel of Potter's fingers curling and uncurling on his hip. The feeling of being tugged close and still being held away, not close enough, never close enough.

Potter's face, distorting with feeling, his mouth falling open and slack, the words incomprehensible, mumbled and lost. With a deep shudder and gasp, he comes against him, the smell of it alkaline and heady and so need-inducing that Draco can't help but moan once, low and helplessly, burning and unsatisfied.

Potter collapses against him, heavy and still panting for breath. "God, I hate you," he groans, shuddering and shaking, mouth barely able to form the words.

Draco turns his head, and, finally close enough, he smears his mouth across the skin of Potter's cheek. He flushes with warm pleasure, deep in the pit of his belly, at the sound of a strangled gasp.

"Rest assured," he breathes, lips moving lightly against trembling, sweaty skin, "the feeling's mutual."

Potter immerses himself in books, searching for a possible solution.

"I really don't think Care of Magical Creatures is going to help us much this time around," Draco remarks. "Neither is your will your beloved, trusty Hogwarts: A History."

Potter is no Granger, that's for sure. Hell, he's no Draco, even. He doesn't have a mind for books, despite the nerdy appearance with the glasses and hair-care regimen (or lack thereof). He huffs and he sighs, and wrinkles his brow and his nose, he squints his eyes and ruffles his own hair when he's exceedingly frustrated, all of which are decidedly not at all endearing.

He's trying, at least, but since when was simply trying enough?

Sometimes Draco helpfully mocks him or makes a comment, but more and more of the time he feels too sick to say anything.

Most of the time Potter is very focused on concentrating, but more and more of the time he takes one look at Draco and has to pack up his books and leave the tent.

The hunger is worse than the stabbing pain. The sort of hunger that makes his stomach ache and stretch and makes him feel like he could swallow the moon. The sort of hunger that makes every part of his body tingle and ache and burn, burn bright and hot with need, fire-bright, fever-bright, bright like an exploding star, with the need to fuck.

"A supernova is simply a fancy term for a dying star," he mumbles, and hisses when there's a cool touch of wet cloth on his forehead.

"You're delirious," observes Potter, keeping himself at arm's length despite his need to mother-hen him and wet his face.

"I'm bloody starving, is what," he says, turning large, darkened eyes to Potter. He swallows, just once, and licks his dry lips.

Potter yelps, suddenly, as he's upended the pail of cold water into his lap. He scrambles to his feet, the large, dark wet spot spreading out over his trousers. "I ...I need to go get...a thing."

"Either leave or get rid of me. You have no other choice," Draco manages, again. He pauses, and thinks of a book he saw once. Set in America in the Dark Ages. "This tent ain't big enough for the both of us," he drawls, and laughs at himself, and the laugh is immediately cut off by the sharp stabbing pain. "Fuck."

At that first sign of pain, Potter is by his side, dripping wet crotch and all. Dumb berk. "What hurts?"

"Everything," Draco hisses through his teeth. The you moron part of it is implied. There's the pain again, twin hot knives slicking through him as if his flesh were butter, and he tries again. "My back."

"Itches," he complains.

Someone should really tell Potter that if you're actively trying notto have sex with a person then the last thing you ought to be doing is climbing on top of said person, rucking up the back of his shirt, putting your hands all over him. Your hands probably shouldn't feel so good, too, rubbing, soothing, cool from the water you've been dipping them in but warming up very quickly, so good that they make a person buck and moan underneath you-

Potter gasps, suddenly, and it's not a sexy kind of gasp. More like seeing the Acromantula in the Forbidden Forest type of gasp. Or Argus Filch in women's lingerie - that type of gasp.

"What is it?" Draco mumbles, already curled up into himself.

"Well...have you ever seen the movie Alien?"

"What's a movie?"

"Right, of course." A pause, a swallow. "Well...it's like...there's something inside you...under your skin...trying to get out..."

Despite Potter's awful description he can feel it, the skin stretching tight, the feeling of something, living, shifting, twisting underneath. Something pushing against him, pressing up underneath flesh and skin, maybe something made of bone, the way it is unyielding and hard against fragile flesh. He shudders, hard.

Potter's hand rubs between his shoulder blades and he presses back against it, encouraging the touch.

"Shh, shh," Potter soothes. "It's all right. You're all right."

Potter's a bloody Skrewt-screwing, fewmet-eating, freybug-fucking liar.

...but Draco will let it slide, this time.

He sits there curled up and literally sick with longing for him, with wanting for him, with yearning for him. Not just to have him or taste him or to fuck him, but to know him, to consume him. To lick the inside of his skull, and to have him be there the morning after so he can do it all over again.

To his comfort, at least Potter now has to sleep outside the tent.

He hopes the mosquitoes get him.

"Don't touch me," Draco warns him. "We both know how this ends, and bloodily is an understatement." It ends, of course, with him waking up next to the devoured remains; bones and bloody bits, a green eyeball like a grape, broken glasses and some messy black hair stuck in his teeth, and thinking, 'I can't believe I ate thewholething!'

"Shhh," Potter shushes him. He ghosts a hand over his skin, hovering, just an inch above his clothes. It hovers over his arm and Draco can feel the warmth radiating from it, can feel the goosebumps forming and his skin prickle with the feeling.

"I'm sorry," Potter whispers hoarsely, "but I need this."

He can feel his breath, warm and moist, on his own lips. "Just one moment. Just let me have this," he pants. And his mouth is so close. So achingly close that Draco can feel and taste and kiss his breath but not those saintly lips. Not his mouth. That wonderful private needy dirty part of him.

"Let me have this." And Draco nods. Draco would have agreed to anything at this point, would have killed a man, would have chased the moon, would have torn off all his clothes and danced naked in the centre of Hogsmeade - anything.

And Potter, still not touching with his body, not touching with his hand - saving, murdering, forgiving, damning hand - slowly notches their mouths together. Chaste, gentle, and perfect.

When they say a kiss is stolen they must mean this. A kiss taken from him, lips stolen from him because they are no longer his the moment their mouths meet. A kiss ripped from him, everything he wants and nothing he wants, too much and not nearly enough. His breath, snatched completely out of his lungs in that one meeting, where his whole body is left empty, hollow, wanting.

And he's never so much loved the thief.

A kiss like this is surely an accident. Draco can't blame Potter, for the way their mouths fit so perfectly together, for the softness of it, the strange tenderness of it when his whole body hums with the need to tear a human being apart. To disassemble it and explore its insides.

The way Potter kisses him, it's the way that they kiss in romance novels and in fairytales, the way people kiss against sunset-drenched backdrops and under velvety moonlight; soft and gentle and almost achingly innocent. It makes a strange feeling well up in his chest. A choking, sick feeling; a sharp pain and he can't breathe. As if his lungs suddenly shrivelled up, as if they'd forgotten what they were meant to do.

It has to be pity. Draco pities him. Potter was supposed to be one of the good ones, after all. He was never meant to want this, any of this, and at the heart of it, he really didn'twant him, as he said. How could he?

Draco supposes that he really can't help it, and he can't help that Potter can't help it, and he's not sure who he's supposed to blame, here, but someone should be here to take responsibility for this mess.

"I'm sorry," Potter murmurs against his mouth, hands balled into a fists at his side, clenching. Draco can feel the heat roll off of his body in intoxicating waves. "All these days and I haven't found anything. I've been completely distracted from my mission and I've nothing to show for it. I need to find that bastard and it's just like before, with them, that was my fault and now I'm doing the same thing to you. You're just getting sicker and sicker, it's killing you, and I'm the one to blame. It's all because...because..."

He stops himself abruptly, cutting off the stream of madman babble, and pulls himself back with a visible jerk. The breeze that wafts in the empty space between them is so sharp and so bitter it might as well have been the Arctic wind.

"Tonight," Potter says, much more clearly now, clarity in his voice and clarity in his mind; voice filled with that familiar, stupid Potter resolve. "Tonight, at sunset, I'll let you go, and you can Apparate to the nearest town and...do...whatever it is that you need to do."

"I'll come back," Draco says, quietly.

Potter laughs then, a sound so sardonic and bitter it was far more Malfoy-ian than Potteresque. "Shut up, Malfoy. I've three-quarters of a mind to just keep you here and damn the consequences."

"You've only three-quarters of a mind," Draco points out.

"Exactly," says Potter, wryly. "So shut up, Malfoy."

And then he kisses him again, that soft way with just their mouths touching, painfully not enough, body angled carefully away, so close that he can smell him, can feel that heat of him, can hear the pounding of his heart, and yet not close enough to touch - so horrible and frustrating that a few scant inches between them might as well be an endless chasm. Fingers drift, ever so lightly, carefully down the bare skin of one arm and Draco shivers and wants to scream, pushes closer for more contact, arches desperately for it, but all he can get is the touch of lips, soft and wet and almost-shy, moving gently against his own.

Draco actually finds it quite easy to shut up for quite some time.

The setting sun touches the tops of the trees and spills out red over the horizon. Even inside the tent, everything seems touched by that orange light, the half-open flap inviting the red to spill in.

Potter's hand is on his wand, and despite the fact that he's treading that murky river between life and death, Draco finds it within himself to quip, "Rather...not the...interpretation I meant, Potter."

Simply because one is dying is no excuse not to be pithy, after all.

He's been hovering for a while, watching Draco writhe with all the practised sadism of a member of the Spanish Inquisition. Were the situation reversed, Draco would have at least had a robust, resounding laugh and a classic line, something maybe like, "No, Mr. Potter, I expect you to die." Then again, Potter always did lack that sort of flair for the dramatic.

It makes him a poor action hero and would make him an even worse villain.

Potter throws Draco's wand back at him; it lands on the ground without even a thud. "When I undo these chains... I'm going to leave the tent. I'm going to go...somewhere. When I come back, you better be...no, you willbe gone. Otherwise I can't be held responsible for anything that may happen."

Neither of them could be held responsible, really. Draco can only nod.

Potter raises his wand and pauses again. The sun has already disappeared behind the trees and twilight settles in around them. Draco coughs and shudders, the pain stabbing through him again. He's so weak he wouldn't be able to fight off a wounded baby Nargle with a bad case of colic.

There's a shadow half on Potter's face and he swallows. His green eyes might be glistening, but then he blinks and Draco sees that it's just a trick of the light.

"Malfoy..." Potter says, softly, and then, even more quietly, "Malfoy, I..."

So of course it's right here, right now, at this crucial moment, that Antonin Dolohov comes crashing through the tent.

Funny how something as simple as a known murderer and Death Eater charging like a bull into one's tent, limbs flailing and screaming nonsense, can really ruin the moment.

He looks desperate and bewildered, strangely comical with bits of leaves and twigs and mud tangled in his hair. His clothes are smeared with dirt. His eyes are wild, looking around but not seeing, pupils large and dilated. His nostrils flare and he pants, mouth open and salivating.

Not to mention the obvious, likely painful erection, bulging nauseatingly in his pants.

"You!" he rasps, the word thick and heavy on tongue so dry that every tastebud is a visible white dot. "I've been looking for you for days...for months...for my whole life..."

He crumples to the floor with a low moan, a pathetic creature of a man, crawling on hands and knees over to where Draco is chained and incapacitated.

In a moment, Potter is between them, wand straight out and at the ready, but Dolohov seems not to even notice him, his intent on one thing, and one thing only. "Hello, local varied and sundry wildlife," Potter says, and then, without skipping a beat, "Petrificus Totalus!"

"Hullo, Death Eater ex machina," Draco adds.

Potter walks up to Dolohov's prone, frozen body, eyes still wide and focused completely on Draco, saliva dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. He delivers a swift kick in the gut that Dolohov can't move away from, and venomous as a cobra, he spits on his face. Draco has to admire him for this; it's downright Slytherin, is what it is. "All this time...all this bloody time I've been looking for you, you son of a bitch, tracking you, following you, who knew all I had to do was leave out some bait for your dick-" He punctuates the last vulgarity with another kick, this time to the doubly-petrified body part, with such force that it makes even Draco wince, andheeats human flesh.

"That one's for Hermione, you bastard," Potter declares, panting. "And this one's for Ron."

Tears pour down Dolohov's face and Potter raises his foot again, bringing it down with crushing force as the sound of breaking bone and the wet sound of blood crunch out into the air.

Normally Draco loves that sound, now he hates it for the exact same reason - it makes him hungry. The smell of blood is like the warm aroma of fresh cinnamon rolls filling the air of a bakery, and saliva floods his tongue.

Suddenly Potter is striding over to him with that same sense of deadly purpose and intent.

This is the part that Draco can predict; Potter will take Dolohov with him back to the Order, his mission declared accomplished, and Draco will leave and find a bite to eat, and even if he Apparates back here later, even if he decides to do it, there will be no trace of Potter nor tent, not even a single strand of uncontrollable black hair. If they meet again it will likely be on the battlefield, or perhaps when Potter comes after Father.

Potter just stands there, however, after freeing him. He doesn't make any attempt to move, just stands there and stares at him like some stupid sod.

"Well?" Draco asks, irritably. "What the hell are you waiting for?"

"You're right," Potter says. "What the hell am I waiting for, indeed."

And then Potter's mouth is on his, hot, open, wet, the comforting solid weight of his body on top of him, and Draco moans, absolutely shameless, as he's pushed back down onto the ground. With his arms finally free he can wind them around Potter's neck, pulling their bodies close, flush together, finally, contact at last, and he can feel the heat of him burning through his clothes.

He should stop him. Really he should. It's literally a matter of life and death, but if Potter's chosen this as his preferred form of suicide, Draco's far too far gone to say or do anything, and the tongue that's trying to lick the back of his throat isn't helping much, either.

With a groan that vibrates from somewhere within his chest, he opens his mouth for him, head tilted back, entire body arching for it, wanting it so badly that even this isn't a relief at all. If anything, it makes it worse, finally getting to taste him, to feel him, the touch and pressure and pleasure of him. The sound Potter makes when he can finally tangle his fingers into that awful nest of hair and pull him closer, keep him from pulling away. Oh God, Merlin, that sound. It's like a jolt of lightning straight to his dick.

There's no other word for it than hunger. Pure and sharp and painful. Potter kisses him like a man bloody starving for it, hands roaming his body and grabbing at him, squeezing him, as if he can't get enough, as if he were the one intent on doing the devouring, rather than the other way around.

It isn't until Draco arches back, catching a glimpse of the Petrified Dolohov out of the corner of his eye, that he suddenly understands.

Dolohov's frozen with his eyes wide open, gaze focused on the two of them, his face dripping tears and mucus, blood and saliva.

It's bloody disgusting, is what it is.

"Harry Potter, I think I fucking love you," Draco says, thickly, breath fast and laughing, almost delirious with the ruthless brutality of the idea, and then his mouth is caught up again and he can't speak.

Two bird-like monstrosities with one stone, as the saying goes.

Desperation makes quick work of clothes. There's a tearing sound as Potter struggles to get his own robes off, and once that line is crossed, there's absolute no consideration for his own, of course. Designer robes are designer rags in mere seconds. Draco can't care, when the feel of bare hot skin against his own is worth more than all the finest couture in the world, and he especially can't care when Potter is kissing his neck like that, tongue lathing over his skin, teeth scraping, biting down hard enough to leave a mark.

A low, keening sound pushes forth from his throat at that flash of pain, clutching Harry tight to himself, feeling him, the tension in muscles flexing underneath his skin. Potter is trembling just from this, just from kissing and being able to kiss him, to feel him, to touch him. It turns him on too much for him to even feel smug about it, and for a Malfoy, that's saying something. Besides, the more Harry touches him the more he shivers, too, the desire writhing deep in the pit of his belly like a vat of eels, the way his skin flushes hot, then cold, then hot again.

Simultaneously fumbling at each other's pants, wriggling desperately in a hurried attempt to get them off. It's almost a contest, to see who can get the other one naked the fastest, and if they weren't so gagging for it they'd both laugh, maybe, competitive in even this. He's never known this sort of urgency before, never ached for it so profoundly. Sex used to be such a casual affair, oftentimes purely a business affair. But maybe this is what people feel like when they look at him, maybe this is what makes them frantic.

Wanting someone. Needing someone.

If he could have taken it slow, maybe he'd stop and think that Potter was...beautiful, really, like this. Panting and flushed and needy for him, the head of his cock painting slick trails on the flat, smooth plane of Draco's stomach. The way he looms over him, holds him so tight, that surge of pure raw power from someone like him. Maybe he'd tell him that he's never wanted someone like this before, and he doesn't know how he's lived so long without knowing that this, this is what real desire tastes like.

But he can't speak. He can only make those keening, needy, sounds, and when Harry reaches down between them and wraps his hand around his erection, harder than steel and begging for it, straining up to meet that touch, all he can do is gasp as his nerve endings all sizzle simultaneously and his brain has to try and remember how to function.

"Draco..." Harry pants into his ear, kissing it as he strokes him, a fumbling, inexperienced touch that's somehow better than the most skilled lover in all the world. Just the sound of his name on his tongue makes a shiver run up his spine, suddenly so intimate, that he feels weak.

There's a magic in names, after all. The way that saying a name can summon a thing, sometimes saying the true name can rob a magical being of its power; the dominion of names, the properties of ownership.

Of course, that could all just be bollocks, for all Draco knows; it's hard to care when someone's rubbing their thumb over the head of your dick, already wet and slippery with precum.

"So long..." Potter breathes. "Wanted...for so long..."

Just in that simple little phrase, it sounds more than just this past weeks out here in the woods. It sounds like more than months, maybe even years, maybe even forever.

"Shut up, Potter," he breathes, and turns his face so he can capture his mouth in a searing kiss of his own.

He spreads his legs for him, in shameless, whorish display. It's worth it for that sudden catch in Potter's throat, the way he groans, just looking at him, and has to stop everything and bite his lip, one hand clenching on Draco's shoulder, squeezing hard enough to bruise.

The look of utter disbelief is just too much. Reaching up, Draco takes his glasses and slips them off, tossing them aside atop the discarded clothes. "Yes, Virginia, we are going to be doing that," he teases, as he cants his hips up, rubbing himself against Potter's palm, slick with his own fluids.

"I've never..." Potter mumbles, face flushed and not just from arousal. Draco is about to smirk at him, say something along the lines of "I might have guessed" but then Potter's hand twists on his prick, it squeezes, and Potter presses their bodies together and rocks against him a little, enough to make his body shift as if he were already inside of him, and all thoughts flit away like opening a box of rogue golden Snitches. Draco gasps, shivering hard.

"But I want to," Potter says, nuzzling his ear and then the side of his face. He suckles, wet and hot, against the pulse in Draco's throat. "Dear God, I want to."

"It's...pretty straightforward, actually," Draco manages when his brain magically remembers how to speak English. He takes Potter's wrist in one hand and draws his hand to his lips. Opening his mouth, Draco takes two of his fingers in, into the heat and wetness of his mouth, feeling the way Potter's eyes burn into him when he does, hearing that first choke when he begins to suck.

He laves his hand with his tongue, coating it generously with his saliva, leaving it wet and dripping and slick. Potter hisses through his teeth when he licks between his fingers, but especially when he sucks on them, letting them thrust in and out of his mouth until they're glistening and dripping with his spit.

"Put them in me," he directs him, and the lustful look that clouds Potter's face says that he doesn't need to be told twice. The first press against him, down there, is so gentle, so tentative it's almost teasing, as if Potter's not sure whether it'll fit. It fits, of course, it always does, and just one finger slides in easily, actually, as Potter lets out a hiss that's like steam at the feeling of heat around him.

His body trembles and spasms. Potter is inside of him; even if it's just his finger, it's touching him inside, that most intimate place and he's panting, in spite of himself, even if one finger is not much to write home about.

Potter smirks and Draco is about to tell him he's going to have to charge royalties for using his trademark expression until Potter pushes forward with some force so that the palm of his hand smacks up against his ass, enough to give his body a jolt and cutting witticisms are reduced to little mumbles.

"Goddamn," Potter says, eyes torn between watching his face and flickering down to watch what he's doing to him.

"Bloody hell," Potter mutters, "Merlin, you look so good..."

"I'd rather...hoped...I wouldn't look bad," Draco tells him, shifting his hips.

"Does that feel good?" Potter asks, green eyes completely focused on his face, and Draco's never felt so naked and vulnerable.

"Mm hmm," Draco nods, eyes closed, even though good isn't even the word for it at all. He has to close his eyes or else he'll see the way Potter is looking at him and he might just come on the spot. Even just the feel of Potter watching him is making his guts clench up tight and his hips push back onto that invasive touch. Every part of him is aching for it, he wants it, wants it so bad and even this isn't enough, transformed into a wanton creature of pure sex and sensation.

"Don't worry about...hurting me. Because...because..." His breath hitches as Potter's fingers scissor inside of him, and he begins to twist them around again, achingly slow.

"Because you were made for this," Harry answers for him, his voice gone low and rough, and although that wasn't the right answer at all, it makes Draco's whole body clench and his toes curl, and all he can do is nod, completely speechless.

"Please," he finally says, precious pride thrown to the wind. No one's ever made him beg before - not mean it, at least. He pushes himself back onto those exploring, twisting fingers, and arches up so that he can swipe his tongue against Harry's throat, tasting the salt of his skin and almost-tasting the blood that rushes through underneath. "Please. Harry."

"Draco..." Harry breathes again, and then he pushes in.

There's tightness, there's pain, there's that strange feeling of a body being taken over but above all that there is this overwhelming wave of relief, crashing over his body, the resounding cheer of fuck yes from every single cell of his being, and-

The relief is like rapture.

His body shakes with sheer ecstasy at the feeling; invaded and filled, the pain of every inch pushing in an absolute bliss. "It's good, it's good," he murmurs, echoes it, babbles, incoherent and lost until he doesn't even know what he's saying anymore. His eyes roll back in his head, fluttering closed again with the heavenly sensations. His breath comes quick, short and fast, yearning for it for so long he doesn't even know what to do with this perfect feeling now that he has it, only wishing that it could last forever, and wanting more, more, so much more.

Potter, of course, was never a man of many words; always more one for action. He trembles, he pants, he doesn't speak, but his fingers are bruising on Draco's hips, skin already gleaming with a sheen of sweat.

There's a bite of pain in that sort of force, but it only makes it better. Brighter, sharper, more intense.

Draco moans, openly, cheeks flushed and eyes glazed over, so overwhelmed with sensation the world around him is only a hum in his ears. The blood throbbing, pounding in his veins.

He rolls his hips against him, sluttish and unashamed.

He lays himself out, stretching his arms above his head like a sacrifice, offering himself up in controlled submission.

It's good, so good, so bloody fucking good, this dirty hot delicious feeling, the way Potter looks completely gone, lost to the feeling, the way Potter's breath is hot in his ear and he growls and clutches at him, the both of them trying to get closer and closer, as if he's trying to drill himself deep inside Draco's body and die there.

A human would be bleeding. The roughness of it, the ferocity of it, the inadequacy of the lubrication. Draco's body is no longer that human fragility, however, it's something more than that, he is a wild thing, a creature of sex and bloodlust. Lust and violence, after all, are the bread and butter of his species. The bread and wine. The body and the blood.

It's so good and yet it's not enough. There's something strange happening inside of him, the feeling of something shifting underneath his skin. His belly is clenched tight. There's a building frustration and a strange sort of pain from where his back is constantly rubbing against the ground, as if it's being rubbed raw. He whines; he snarls with the irritation of it, and of course it's stupid Potter's fault, he just doesn't know what he's doing, he only knows how to thrust, and thrust and thrust and mmm -

Good as that is, it's not going to get him off.

And the idea that he might not get off from this makes him want to howl.

"Let me...let me get on top of you..." he pants out, pushing himself up so that he can nip at Potter's throat with sharp white teeth. He sucks at the pulse of his throat, hard, hard enough to leave a mark, and then one hand scratches with blunt nails down Potter's back. "Please."

After all, you want a thing done right, you have to get a Malfoy to do it.

"You want to... fuck, oh my God - yes..." is all the coherency Potter can manage before he nods, frantic.

Draco could say that he manages to stay controlled, even with the sudden loss, that emptiness inside of him, but it would be an awful lie. He whimpers with the feeling, pathetic and wanting, suffering.

It's different this way, at once more in control and more vulnerable, the way he can control the direction and the angle of the thrusts, the way it seems so much deeper like this, gravity pulling his whole body down into it, the way that Potter's hands firm on his hips tug him down onto it. Lewd and libertine, salacious and slutty, as he rides Potter's cock, every little rock, every thrust jabbing against that sweet sensitive bundle of nerves inside, body pierced with spikes of sensation like St. Sebastian shot full of arrows.

Potter's eyes on him, watching his every move, every flinch and twitch, every shudder and shiver, every whimper and moan, that just adds to to the heat sweeping over his body. The way Potter groans into it, rumbling deep into his throat, the way he has to bite his lip so hard that he bruises and breaks the skin.

Draco leans over him then, palms pressed against his chest, and kisses him - mouth wet and suckling, tongue lathing over his bottom lip to draw out the blood, each drop of ruby-red like a sun-ripened berry, bursting on his tongue.

Potter pushes his tongue into his mouth, filling it up the way he's filling up his body, clutching at him as if he were holding him together, as if the moment he let go of him, Draco would simply shatter.

He feels like that, shattering, or at least on the edge of it, all that need, that desire, boiling in the pit of his belly. He pulls back only enough, only as far as Potter will let him go, to feel himself impaled all the way up into his stomach, into his chest cavity.

There's a dirty prickle at the back of his neck as he feels another set of eyes watching him like this, whorish like this, those dark eyes of full of dark, dirty lusts. It makes him feel filthy, debauched and spoiled. It makes him ravenous, for sex and for flesh.

He whines, then, hand slipping down between them.

"Oh my God," Potter groans at the sight, and he's invoked the deity so many times Draco almost wants to quip that he's glad Potter's chosen Malfoyism as his new personal religion. Of course that's far too many words for a person who can barely manage a single one, a number that is drastically reduced when Potter pushes his hand out of the way so that he can replace it with his own.

Draco is no spokesman for eloquence when all he can say is "mm, mm, yes," and the occasional "oh, oh, oh," whimpering and whining as he thrusts up into the blessedly firm grip of Potter's hand around him and drops down.

Sensation shoots through him like a thunderbolt, from the pit of his belly up through his whole body, his whole back pulsing in time with it. His shoulder blades burn and ache underneath his skin, as if the bone itself were white-hot metal, skin so scorching hot that it felt as if his sweat were sizzling up into steam.

Low, needy sounds, formed deep in his throat, bubbling out through parted lips.

It's too much, too much stimulation, he's wanted it for too long and too much need inside of him threatening to swallow him up. Potter's hand around him gives him a final harsh tug, just as he slams back down so hard that he feels his teeth rattle in the back of his head.

He arches back, body strained and muscles drawn tight, head tossed back, hair falling across his eyes, the pale platinum of it turned a dark gold with sweat. When he comes he shrieks, spinning the sound out from the depths of his body. He spills all over Potter's hand. He continues to scream as his whole body flashes with bright pain and even brighter pleasure, muscles clenching tight, hands holding him in place as one, two forced thrusts later Potter chokes, gasps, "Draco!" and he's coming deep inside of him, and he can feel the warm wetness of it, coating his insides.

The power of names; say it three times and you summon a thing, or you rob it of its power; call it three times and it serves you - name it, and claim it, and tame it.

Or perhaps it does nothing at all; Draco wouldn't know.

All he knows is that he's still screaming when a wet, ripping sound fills the air as the thing inside of him finally tears through his skin.

Things, rather - twin blades of pain sprouting out from his shoulder blades, at once torment and relief as his whole body trembles, skin giving away to two large structures that reach out like limbs, made of flesh and bone. Panting, face wet with tears and sweat, Draco stretches and arches, flexing his wings at last.

It would be freak-out material if he weren't bloody starving, and really - not like it hasn't happened before.

Veela puberty, after all, is hell.

Draco's face twists, beautiful human features blurring and for a moment appearing sharp and birdlike before transforming back again. Like an optical illusion; simultaneously the beauty and the hag, the rabbit and the duck. He pushes himself off of Potter, snarling. His hunger is so sharp, so intense, that it feels like he's housing a black hole in the pit of his belly, and just the smell of Harry's body, his fluids, his blood, makes him drool.

His wings trail behind him as he crawls over the ground, feathers wet and bedraggled, glued down with blood and a thin film of clear slime like afterbirth. A whole-body shiver spatters drops of blood and fluid all around him in a sort of disgusting shower, bathing the still-supine, still-still body of one Antonin Dolohov.

It can only be an improvement, really. Although soon enough, it won't matter much anymore.

Dolohov's dark eyes seem to flicker, watching him, foolish enough to seem grateful even now, when Draco hovers over him dripping blood and fluids, semen and blood trickling out between his thighs, like some sort of demented, debauched angel - the kind that makes a mess all over one's tent.

Of course, trust Dolohov to be just this sick.

There is a moment when Draco looks at him coolly, allows him just this one moment to look his Death straight in the eye. An opportune moment for a witty one-liner, perhaps something along the lines of, 'Revenge is a dish best served with borscht and vodka.' However, lacking both these appetising accoutrements and too hungry to care, he plays up the whole avenging angel angle and goes for a much more chilling, "I am the punishment of Fate...If you had not committed great sins, Fate would not have sent a punishment like me upon you."

Because honestly, if one suddenly finds oneself in possession of a bloody thing like giant wings, it is one's duty to the world to work them as much as possible.

"Thus concludes the theatre portion of our dinner-theatre programme this evening," Draco declares. "We do hope that you have enjoyed yourself, as it is now time for dinner..."

There is more than one way to kill a man, as they say, just as there is more than one way to skin a man. More often than not, Draco goes for the throat - a quick, easy kill, a quick death with minimal thrashing and screaming. So messy, so loud, when they thrash and scream. However, this is not just any man, this is a black-hearted sadist, cold-blooded killer, a tormentor of souls - a mutilator, a rapist, a manic murderer; that very special scum of the earth that lives and thrives on the pain and suffering of others. A man who has been responsible for the specific suffering of those close to someone he knows, quite intimately, and the sum of all these mortal sins makes a very, very bad man indeed.

Pushing open the robes barely hanging on the dishevelled body, pushing up the shirt to expose his abdomen, Draco opens his mouth wide and sinks his teeth into the skin and muscle. There's an incredible vibration that hums through the whole body beneath him, like the minute vibration of molecules that hold together the universe, but the body lies still, pliant, alive yet frozen still.

Hands hook into claws, claws morphing into talons, needle-sharp, and wherever he touches he draws bright little trickling rivers of blood.

There's nothing like that first bite, the way the flesh is soft and yielding, tender and sumptuous. Warm, delicious blood floods his mouth, and there's a strangled cry from a throat with paralysed vocal chords, that should not be capable of producing any sound at all. He feels the gently possessive touch of fingers stroking his damp hair. He swallows the chunk of flesh he's torn out and it slides silkily down his throat and he smiles. He smiles against the little bite-sized hole he's made, marked with his teeth and pooling with blood, he smiles as he makes quick work of the man's trousers, shredding and tearing the fabric to ribbons.

The fingers keep on stroking, stroking, even as the gurgling sounds of suffocated screams fill the air. Draco smiles and buries his face into all that warm, living flesh, and he begins his long-awaited feast with his first course: cock au vin.

Draco stretches out next to the mess of blood-soaked rags and splintered bone that used to be something by the name of Dolo-something. His normally flat stomach is now softly distended as a result of his gluttony, and he's somewhere between purring with contentment and groaning with the pains of excess as he lays his head back in Harry's lap. Purely to demand physical comfort, of course, not for any sort of sentimental reason, and he grabs Potter's hands so that he can guide them to his temples to prove his point. Potter must learn his proper place, after all - it simply won't do to give commoners the wrong idea. They might get uppity.

"I blame Mother," Draco declares, eyes closing as those magic fingers begin massaging. "When you're small, the rule is to always finish your meal, because there are children being starved in Hufflepuff. However, as soon as you get old enough, the proper thing to do is to leave half of it un-eaten. It makes not a lick of sense. She sends mixed messages; it's a wonder I don't have an eating disorder."

"I'm a monster," Potter replies quietly, which is such a non sequitur that Draco opens his eyes to look at his upside-down face. The fact that his fingers have stilled is not exactly acceptable, either.

"Don't tell me you regret it now, Potter. I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but, much like my virginity, this is one bell that simply can't be un-rung. Not even bulimia could save him now - good luck attempting to resurrect a chewed-up, half-digested pile of pink, mushy gunk."

"You don't understand," Potter says, hands dropping away. He glances over at the pile of gore that was once an ex-convict and is now an ex-man, and he doesn't even shudder, although he does avert his eyes.

Softly, he begins, "I..." He takes a deep breath, and the words come out in a rush of air. "I don't regret it. Any of it.

"...That's the problem."

Pushing himself up, Draco twists around so that he can grab Potter's shoulder and force him to look at him, eye to eye as equals, face close enough to kiss. "Potter, listen to me. He was a bad man. An evil man - a man of utmost villainy, if you want to call it that."

He squeezes his shoulder hard at first, hard enough to feel the curve of bone underneath the muscle, clenching, bruising for a moment, but then his grip slowly relaxes. His hand begins to rub instead, warm and comforting, as his voice drops to a hush. "You did what you had to, wouldn't you agree?"

"It's in our nature," he continues, in soft, dulcet tones. "It runs in our blood, you and I. We do what we must do, in order to survive."

Potter is silent for a long moment, his body trembling just once when Draco reaches up to tuck an errant lock of black hair behind his ear. Predictably, it refuses to stay in place. Potter's body language is tight, every muscle stiff, holding himself still, and he bites his bruised lip when Draco touches his cheek.

"Harry, Harry, Harry."

Name it, and claim it, and tame it.

Harry's body slumps as he sighs, all of him relaxing, unfurling. Slowly he nods, and a hand reaches up to close his fingers around the hand on his cheek, squeezing it hard enough to turn the fingers white for a moment, making them tingle when the grip relaxes, as the blood rushes back in.

"There are a lot of bad men out there," Harry finally says, and he does not let go of Draco's hand.

"Absolutely," Draco smoothly agrees. Carefully, deliberately, he pulls him in for a kiss, slow and sweet and stolen, with the luscious tang of blood still lingering on his tongue.

-end-

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

title: Garbage - You Look So Fine

"I am the punishment of God...If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you."
-Genghis Khan