Chapter Twenty-Seven of 'The Wages of Going On'- Ritual Fear

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twenty-Six.

Title: The Wages of Going On (27/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Snape/Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Issues of consent (fuck or die scenario), angst, violence, torture, minor character deaths. AU in that Snape is alive after the Battle of Hogwarts.
Summary: Harry thought he was guarding Snape and Malfoy from the last of the escaped Death Eaters. It wasn’t supposed to end up with them all getting kidnapped and being cursed with Dark magic instead.
Author’s Notes: Written for a prompt by kitty_fic that asked for this threesome with a fuck-or-die scenario. The title comes from a Tennyson poem called “Wages,” and specifically the line “Give her the wages of going on, and not to die.”

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Seven—Ritual Fear

Harry woke up out of a sleep so sound that at first he couldn’t understand why his head was on fire. He rolled over sleepily and clawed at his hair. Then he clawed again, more strongly. Really, it was on fire. There was no reason for that sort of thing, as stupid as it was. He wondered if Ron had used one of George’s pranks on him to try and get him to feel better.

He sat up then, wand in hand, ready to curse Ron for thinking something that stupid, and gasped when he realized that the pain in his head hadn’t had subsided, and there was no sound or sense of Ron in the room, although this was the part of the evening when he often wanted to go to bed. He must have stayed downstairs with Hermione to give Harry some privacy.

Which meant…

Harry bared his teeth in a silent snarl as the pain in the side of his head went up a notch. Yes, this was the stupid sensation that came from the bond. It seemed that Snape or Malfoy had probably managed to poison themselves while working on the potion. Idiots. This was the last thing that any of them needed, which meant it was the first thing they would do.

Harry rolled easily out of bed and snatched at his robes, tugging them over his head. He wondered for a moment why he hadn’t heard anything along the bond to tell him exactly what the crisis was, only felt this strange and formless pain that someone could have explained to him, and then realized that his barriers were still up and blocking the bond. The barriers that he was the only one able to lower.

Harry rolled his eyes, and lowered them.

Snape’s voice at once exploded into his head, such a cacophony of words that Harry could only make out a few of them at a time. Where is Draco? Do you know? Where is he? What will happen now?

Harry reeled back a little, one hand raised defensively. Then he realized that was stupid, since Snape wasn’t in the same room with him and couldn’t see him, and he would already have realized Harry’s true emotions from his reaction. I don’t know what you mean. I just woke up, and my head hurt. What do you think has happened? Where’s Malfoy?

He went outside for a walk, the stupid little shit, and then I felt the wards surge. Snape was at least calming down enough to tell Harry what had happened, which Harry thought was as much as he could hope for right now. I thought he was going to bed! But I felt him near the wards, and I was about to go out and bring him back inside. We were worried about the wards in the first place, which is why we went to the safehouse, because the Lestranges could have broken through them. I fear that…

He didn’t have to say what he feared. The possibility was all around Harry, breathing like a beast, and he knew that Snape was going to explode further in fear and wrath if he had to endure it by himself much longer.

Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to reassure him? I thought that was Malfoy’s job.

But the answer to that one was simple enough to satisfy even his rage. Malfoy wasn’t here right now, and if the Lestranges really did have him and hurt him in some way, then the rest of them would suffer as well.

Harry said quietly, I’m on my way to the Manor. Are you outside near the wards, or inside?

Outside, of course. The contempt that seared along the words might have been lightning, from the way it made Harry reel.

But he could use contempt, too, and for a better purpose than Snape was using it at the moment. Then get back inside, you idiot. What do you think they’d like to do best? Seize both of you, right? You were the targets in the first place, the ones getting the threats! I was just taken along because I happened to be there. Get back inside where they’ll have a harder time getting you! Retreat into your lab!

There was a long pause, as if Snape was baffled by Harry’s concern. He shouldn’t have been, Harry thought furiously, jamming his feet into his boots. If Snape got taken, then Harry would have to suffer even more. He could probably Apparate straight there, or use whatever method Snape and Malfoy had twice taken to come to his side, but he didn’t want to face the Lestranges without another wand to help him.

Then Snape said, his voice oddly stretched and bouncing in the wrong places, with the accent on the wrong words, You would care about me being taken.

Harry didn’t bother answering as he flew down the stairs. He would send a Patronus back to Ron and Hermione as soon as he was at Malfoy Manor. No use in waking them up right now, because they would delay him with explanations, and he might as well let them have a little more sleep until he had to wake them.

Answer me, Potter.

Snape couldn’t half sound demanding when he should have been glad that he had someone who was compelled to help him at all, Harry thought crossly, as he slipped out the back door of the Burrow and out into the garden. The anti-Apparition wards ended sooner behind the house than they did in the front, due to the Weasleys having closer neighbors back here than in front. Harry walked, listening to the soft humming from them, awaiting the first moment when the sound would dissipate and he could Apparate.

Potter, answer me!

Harry clenched his teeth, glad that he hadn’t been attempting to Apparate right then. Snape would have startled him, and then they would probably have ended up with Harry Splinched somewhere, and that would have ended with Malfoy getting murdered by the Lestranges, and Snape dying from the pain of it all. If Malfoy and Snape didn’t just die from the pain of Harry being Splinched.

Thinking about it this way was helping him calm down, oddly enough. He could deal with a Snape who was frustrating and demanding and petty. That was the way Harry had always thought of him. It only got hard when he had all that rage from the rape to set against what seemed Snape’s unusual contempt for him, as though Harry’s body had somehow sullied his dick.

Listen, Snape, he murmured, and moved further towards the edge of the wards with each stride. He was only going to give Snape as much time as he was absolutely required to. There was no point in giving him any more. I care that you don’t get yourself taken because then there’s two of you to rescue. And every rescue mission that you’ve staged for me has required at least of you. Now, maybe that’s because you and Malfoy just don’t have the training that I do, so it takes two of you to make up for one of me.

Snape was silent this time, thank Merlin. Harry reached the edge of the wards and whirled around, his arms tucked in close to his body, and leaped.

He landed not far from the front gates, and began to roam the edge of the Manor’s wards, aiming at the part where they seemed weakest. He could sense traces of Malfoy’s magical signature here, now that he was searching for it. And it was as easy as a heartbeat to find the hole in the wards, where the same strength that had broken the wards on the safehouse had broken these.

Only then, only when he confirmed that this was the result of someone snatching Malfoy for real instead of Malfoy deciding to play a prank on him and Snape or simply leave, did he pause and do what he should have done earlier: reach out through the bond in Malfoy’s direction, calling his name softly.

There was nothing but blackness for so long that Harry nearly gave up. He didn’t think Malfoy was playing a prank, no, but Rabastan and Rodolphus might be aware of the capabilities of the bond and have him drugged unconscious. Harry wondered for a second if he and Snape could go to Malfoy if he was that way, then discarded the notion. Snape and Malfoy had managed to Apparate straight to his side when he was unconscious from the pain of the bond.

Then he felt the faint, far pulse of red behind black, as if Malfoy was lying there with pain in his head and his eyes closed. But he was aware. He had—shields up around the bond. Occlumency shields, Harry decided in an instant. He was trying to conceal the existence of the bond from the Lestranges as long as possible.

His breath shorter in his lungs than it had been when he’d first woken, Harry paused to send his Patronus back, hurried into the house. The sooner he and Snape reached Malfoy’s side, the better.

And the image of Malfoy doing everything he could to protect Harry lingered with him, amplified more by the sense of tension filtering in around the edges of the bond, even when he spoke with Snape, even when they began to make plans.

*

The one thing Draco knew for certain was that the Lestranges mustn’t suspect—mustn’t begin to suspect—that they could hurt Severus and Potter by hurting him.

He lay on the floor of what he suspected was a stone room, from the aching under his back and the absolutely useless, stupid ache in his head. He knew that Rabastan had hit him on the head not long after breaking through the wards on the Manor. He knew that he had been unconscious long enough that they might have rifled through his memories and found the bond.

On the other hand, he knew from Severus’s lectures how hard it was to use Legilimency on an unconscious person. It made sense that they would rather do it after he woke up, even if they were very skilled—and they hadn’t seemed that way, the first time they captured Draco and Severus.

The first time.

Draco held back a whimper as much as he could. He didn’t like to think of what he had suffered, that first time, and how likely he was to suffer it again, if Severus and Potter didn’t sense what had happened and come to him. Or even if they did come to him. Rabastan and Rodolphus had overpowered all of them together, once, when they were inside the safehouse. What would happen if they did it again?

That’s nonsense. They took us by surprise, the first time, and Potter was still trying to fight like a good little Auror and not use Dark spells.

But the idea that it could still happen again tightened Draco’s back and shoulders, and made him whimper more with fear than pain when a foot crashed into his side and made him roll over on the other one, the wound in the back of his head throbbing mercilessly.

“Up, you shite,” said Rodolphus, or at least Draco thought it was him. It was all he could do to concentrate on the voice, when the world was swimming with colored shadows of pain. “Traitor to our Lord. Why did you live and the rest of us die?”

He dragged on Draco’s hair, and managed to pull him most of the way to his knees. Draco clenched his teeth and kept some of the contents of his stomach down. He thought that the Lestranges would only get more violent if he threw up on their boots. Nevertheless, he felt a small trickle of bile and vomit around his teeth, and heard Rabastan laugh.

“I don’t want to kill him too quickly, Rodolphus.” The hand tightened in his hair, and Draco thought Rodolphus was the one holding him and Rabastan was the one circling around him, speaking. “We tried that last time, and what did it get us? Just some escaped prisoners, and more people interested in hunting us.”

“You know why we brought him here.” Rodolphus dropped Draco. Draco managed to fall down on his knees and cushion the fall a little, although he had to turn his head to the side so that his temple seemed to crack down more heavily on the stone than it really had. “I don’t want to listen to any stupid arguments against it.”

“If it’s the best course, then of course we’re going to pursue it,” said Rabastan. Draco wondered through the haze of beating heart and beating pain, oddly focused with everything he had to distract him, if he was in charge here, and just soothing his brother. “But I think we could have some fun here.”

“Do you really think they’ll come?”

Draco started panting, and couldn’t figure out why until he realized that he knew who they meant. Severus. Potter. They’re talking about them. They probably took me partially to lure them here. They want all three of us if they can get us.

“They’ll have to, if the bond is anything like what we understand it to be.” Rodolphus bent over him, and then a wand-light flickered on a centimeter from Draco’s eyelid, making him jerk back his head. He didn’t have time to pretend that he was dazed or that his reflexes were less perfect than they were, either. Rodolphus laughed at him. “You. Malfoy. You’re going to tell us everything about this malformed bond that you got caught up in when we put you into the ritual circle.”

Draco shivered. The wand with the light on the edge of it moved closer, and Draco tried to move his head back, so that he could see up into his enemy’s face. He thought he might be able to manipulate Rabastan and Rodolphus—they had never been the smartest of the Death Eaters—but not if he couldn’t see their eyes.

“No, stay where you are.”

There was a husky undertone to his voice that froze Draco in place, his skin crawling. Had they brought him here to rape him as well as torture him, and use him as bait? The thought made him want to throw up, and not just because it meant that he would suffer what Potter had. He had felt, from the inside when Potter flung all that pain at him, what it was like to be raped. And Rabastan and Rodolphus would have no reason to hold back.

“You’re going to tell us about the bond.” From the sounds of it, Rabastan had crouched down on the floor next to Draco, somewhere off to the side, near Draco’s feet. Draco felt one eye roll in that direction independently of his will. He was going to have to try and control himself better. “You’ll do it, or Rodolphus is going to burn your eye out.”

Rodolphus chuckled, and the wand bobbed. The light at the end of it did shed more heat than an ordinary light charm would, now that Draco thought about it.

Draco swallowed once, and switched tactics. He had no choice but to go along with this, or be useless when Severus and Potter turned up. It was possible that Rabastan and Rodolphus would torture him anyway, but he would do his best to spin the tale out.

And at the same time, to make them a little wary of what might happen when Severus and Potter came.

“The bond is mental,” he whispered. “Like the one that would have happened between Severus and me if you hadn’t rolled Potter across the circle.”

For a moment, he thought the wand was going to come in and burn out his eye anyway as it bobbed, but Rabastan laughed again. “Severus, is it? And I hear that you and Severus enjoyed a little fun with Harry.”

Draco shivered. He wondered for a moment how they could have heard that, but Rodolphus clarified, in a voice whose exaggerated helpful tone made it clear that he was telling Draco something he thought must distress him. “Someone had to tell us about the wards, and let us in through the wards, and tell us certain things about you. And when we came back and saw the traces you’d left, and cast a few spells that let us feel the lingering emotions in the air….” Rodolphus moved his wand enough that Draco could see a bit of his face, and leaned in to whisper, “Someone was naughty.”

Draco shuddered this time, instead of shivered. Let them think it came from fear if they wanted to. It was more disgust, the sudden and nauseated suspicion that they had got themselves off on what had happened.

“Enough, Rodolphus,” Rabastan commanded. “Put the wand back. There are a few things I want to ask our naughty little boy.”

The wand came jabbing back, so fast that for a second Draco thought they would burn out his eye on accident. He tried to rear away, but Rodolphus chanted something, and an iron collar locked around Draco’s neck, binding him to the stone. Rodolphus spoke then in a casual voice. “I want you to tell us what happened next. How did you survive the bond?”

Draco lowered his eyes. Forgive me, Harry. He didn’t know if that would make it down the bond or not. He assumed that Severus and Potter could find their way to him, even if he wasn’t calling out through the bond. They had done it with Potter, after all.

“Potter was a virgin,” he said dully. “He sacrificed his virginity to the bond, and that appeased it. It took the connection that was happening between us as a substitute for the torture it would have caused us if it had managed to happen in the first way it tried…”

There was silence for so long that Draco wondered if they didn’t believe him and intended to torture him some more. Well, it would do them no good. He had told them the truth as he believed it, and all that he knew, if not quite as articulately as he would have wanted to do it under the circumstances.

Then Rabastan and Rodolphus began to laugh.

Draco cringed, and it wasn’t even him they were laughing about. Well, not quite, anyway. He hoped that Harry would never know about their amusement.

And now that they were off-balance and emotional, maybe Draco could sway them a little. He pitched his voice for a nervous tone that would combine false bravado with terrified hope. “And we can do things with the bond, too. We can find anything that’s lost if we ask where it is. We can share our magic. You’d better let me go before Severus and Potter find us!”

There was a silence deep enough to make Draco nervous for a few minutes, and then Rabastan kicked him in the side again. Draco groaned and rolled. He didn’t think anything was broken, but he would still be a liability for anyone who was trying to escape and help him at the same time.

“You can’t do things like that,” said Rodolphus, his voice a low snarl. “The kind of bond that comes from that kind of fucking doesn’t give you abilities like that.”

I’m doing it. This is going to work.

Draco laughed. There was more pain behind the sound than he wanted, but then again, that would probably convince them he was being sincere. “Well, what do you want? It’s an unprecedented bond. You intended to kill us when you put Potter in the circle, not bond us. I’ve told you that it’s an unusual bond. Why do you think I’m lying?”

Rodolphus sat back and moved away from him, and then he and Rabastan began to speak to each other in urgent, low voices. Draco could reckon they wouldn’t let him overhear anything more if they could help it, and in the meantime, he had other business. He lay where they had left him, but darted his eyes over as much as he could, absorbing the general layout of the room in the weak shine of Rabastan’s light charm.

The walls and floor were stone, as he had thought, but there was no sign of a ritual circle this time. Nor could Draco smell the sea. He thought that obviated the possibility that they had simply brought him back to the place where he and Severus and Potter had all been bonded. That was probably under Auror guard now, anyway.

Although the Lestrange brothers had spoken as if they had an ally among the Aurors…

Draco twitched his head impatiently. He was going to risk reaching down the bond in a moment, but not until he had something solid to tell his would-be rescuers. And that meant he had to focus.

The bond in his mind still thrummed, and Draco tracked his eyes around as feverishly. There were torches in the sconces on the walls, or at least he thought so, from the way the light charm, rising not far, managed to gleam off battered metal a distance up. But none of them were lit, and that wouldn’t help. He also thought the room was circular, and sloped down slightly, just from the shadows of the light charm and the way the floor felt beneath him. But none of that would make the slightest bit of difference when Potter and Severus swooped in.

If they do. Draco had to admit that one of his worse fears was that Potter and Severus couldn’t work together without him there to help them. Then they would all be fucked.

He had nearly given up on trying to be helpful to his bondmates this way when he heard a clink and rustle off to the side, followed by a low growl. Rabastan and Rodolphus were deep in the middle of their argument a good distance from him, and so Draco took the chance. He swiveled his head, slowly, towards the sound.

This time, the light charm was bright enough—maybe Rabastan had got tired of arguing in the dark—that he could see something substantial. There was a chain on the far side of the room, a mighty one that looked like it was made of more than just steel. There was a subtle sheen to the metal that made Draco dizzy if he looked at it too long. So he tried to make out what was on the end of the chain instead.

The light spread far enough that he could make out the edge of a paw as dizzying in its own way as the shine of the chain. Draco stared in silence at the heavy claws, the black fur, the way that the heavy head moved back and forth above it.

He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to reach out if he wasn’t sure. He’d thought he had felt Potter trying to contact him, but it had been dim and distant. Rabastan and Rodolphus might have wards up that could prevent it.

But then the light charm flared up a little more, and Draco made out the flash of green eyes as the beast lowered its head to its paws.

He didn’t know how, it didn’t make sense, not when Rabastan and Rodolphus were supposed to be on the run and there were no spells that Draco knew could confine one like this, but he only had to be sure of what it was. And he was sure.

He sucked in a noiseless breath and reached out to Potter. It felt like trying to speak through cotton walls, maybe because of the pain in his head, but Potter responded to him with a gratifying amount of speed.

They have a Nundu. Draco said the words, simple, unadorned, because the warning was the most important thing he could get through.

Malfoy! Is it the Lestranges? Where are you?

Draco tried to reply, but Rodolphus kicked him so suddenly in the side that he doubled up around the pain, and the contact was lost. Rodolphus lifted his head by the hair again, and shook his own head chidingly at Draco.

“Little Malfoy shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered. He looked over his shoulder at Rabastan. “You’re right. We can’t just kill him.”

Rabastan’s smile was sharp and evil, Draco knew that much, although he had to listen to it and not look at it, given how he was held. “Release it, then. The outer tunnels. They’ll meet it.”