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When Potter approached him after the war, Draco should’ve known something was wrong then. And maybe perhaps he did. Maybe that was Draco’s fault all along. The everlasting sin he committed again and again, of knowing better and doing it anyway. But Draco never could help himself when it came to Potter.
Potter was the wicked temptation to jump, standing at the edge of a cliff, and Draco had always been a little too willing to fall.
And so it was half a year into their relationship that Draco started to really acknowledge that there was something different about Potter, something off.
Potter had always been rough around the edges, but he’d never been so sharp, so dangerous. It lingered under the surface, in the way that Potter’s smile didn’t seem to reach his eyes.
He’d noticed, of course, even before they’d gotten together. Draco thought he was being courted with the way Potter would stare from across the Ministry hall. He ignored how Potter’s eyes lingered on Draco’s left forearm, how his gaze taunted, how it burned.
Draco remembers the first time they kissed, with his arms pinned against the wall, Potter’s grip tight enough to bruise, Draco’s jackrabbit heart trying to burst through his chest, hunted. Maybe he’d known, then.
Granger warned Draco, after all, only a month in, pulling him aside at Potter’s birthday party, away from the guests, away from Potter.
“He’s sick,” she said, brows furrowed and concerned. Draco had thought it was for Potter at the time—
“Why not bring him to St.Mungo’s?” He asked.
“It’s the curse. He refuses to.” She seemed sick herself, hallowed and stricken.
“I’ll help him,” Draco vowed.
Granger looked at him with pity then. “Just be careful with him.”
—now, Draco knew it had been for him.
Weasley’s absence was a warning on its own. He wasn’t friends with Potter anymore. As far as Draco knew, Potter wasn’t involved with any of the Weasleys at all. No more Sunday lunches at the Den or the Hovel or wherever weasels lived. No more letters sent on holidays. No more Ron Weasley at Potter’s birthday parties.
Draco asked Potter about it once. He received a stilted
answer about a disagreement and drifting apart.
Even then, he could tell Potter had lied.
He didn’t ask Potter any more questions about his friends after that. Not even when, one by one, they too drifted away and it seemed Potter had no more friends left. He didn’t mention the words they’d whispered as they left, fearful hisses of cursed and possessed.
Granger had long since explained to him about the Dark Lord splitting his soul, how Potter had held a piece in him, how it had died in the Forbidden Forest. And her fear that perhaps it didn’t. Until Granger too had gone and she stopped telling Draco anything at all.
No, Draco never mentioned them again to Potter.
They didn’t need anyone else anyway. Potter didn’t need anyone but Draco, and he was the one most willing to help Potter, most able. Potter had chosen him, and Draco wouldn’t squander that for anything.
And so, when Potter asked, Draco acquiesced.
“Will you do this for me, Draco?”
And Draco did. Again and again, he did.
Even when it would hurt, when Draco would cry and cry and Potter would only smile at his tears.
“Look at you,” he’d say. “Beautiful. You’re perfect like this, Draco.”
Draco would choke down his fear, his disgust.
Because Potter was sick, he was cursed, and Draco was his cure. And Draco would take anything and everything Potter had to give. He could handle it, Draco told himself. More so than any of the others who’d been Potter’s friends or the countless Muggles that Potter found and brought to Grimmauld.
Better it be Draco tied up on the bed, sobbing and hard and Potter’s—than the Muggles Potter made watch in the corner of the room, wide-eyed and wary and Obliviated after, of course. Potter enjoyed watching their conflicted arousal as he took Draco apart.
Potter always ensured Draco would cum during those times, and would take him rough and fast and eager. He solidified Draco’s participation in his own torment with the evidence of his pleasure and Draco could only gasp through it all, even when the Muggles lost their struggle and horror won over everything.
Draco almost felt relief whenever Potter asked him to cast the spell afterwards, Potter pressed against his back and softly whispered into his ear. Draco was responsible for erasing any trace of his own shameful displays from the Muggle’s minds. But in his memory, it remained, sinking in his head and further, like a stone in his stomach.
Potter would never let him forget. Not this, not anything.
“Your Mark, Draco,” Potter said. “It’s abhorrent, isn’t it?”
And Draco agreed even when Potter kneeled before him, pulling up Draco’s sleeve to reveal the black stain on his arm.
“Disgusting,” Potter whispered and Draco shook.
Draco had thought it would have at least faded after the Dark Lord died, but it remained stark and ugly on his skin. He flushed.
Here was Potter on his knees, looking up at Draco between his legs, but it was Draco who felt the sharp curl of shame in his gut, the hot tendril of knowing he was doing something reprehensible.
It was a gnawing feeling that only heightened when Potter leaned in and Draco felt the warm press of Potter’s lips on his skin. He jerked roughly, pulling away, but Potter’s grip on his arm was firm and unrelenting.
It was repulsive and illicit, the sight of Harry Potter so near his Mark felt blasphemous, but at the slick slide of a tongue, well trained as he was, Draco only felt piercing arousal. It slid through him like a knife. He closed his eyes tight, heavy breaths coming out in a rattle.
Potter mouthed at the Dark Mark on Draco’s arm, showering it in what were less kisses and more desperate acts of consumption, leaving deep indents and bruises that bloomed obscenely on Draco’s pale skin. Open-mouthed and hungry, Potter’s wet lips surrounded the dark stain of the serpent, his blunt teeth caught on the jawbone of the skull, with its maw wide and unhinged in the likes of a silent scream.
It hurt, and made him feel dirty and small. And yet through it all, Draco was achingly hard. Hot tears pricked the corner of his eyes. Potter hadn’t touched his cock once.
With every press of Potter’s tongue on his skin, Draco could almost feel as though Potter was devouring a part of him. As though this sick act was taking something integral from him, deep in his bones. The last dregs of any chance at redemption, likely. The final shards of his soul. In this act, Potter had condemned him, not in his reproach of the symbol that bore all of Draco’s sins but in his vile worship of it. And yet still, Draco knew he’d gained something too, passed between them like a disease, something dark and great and terrible.
Because Potter was sick, and Draco was too, but not in illness, not in the wretched curse that had overcome Potter. Draco was sick of heart.
A particularly rough bite broke skin and Draco let out a small gasp. He watched as Potter’s sharp tongue chased a drop of blood, lapping it up with a gentleness that defied the cruelty that caused it. Draco shivered, reaching a hand out to press into Potter’s dark curls, his thumb rubbing over the raised scar above Potter’s brow. Sometimes he too wondered if a part of the Dark Lord lived on, if it clung to the vessel of the one who’d killed him.
Potter looked up then, eyes wide and staring, more aware than Draco expected and his breath caught. Draco had imagined Potter lost in rapture, engrossed in whatever curse made him this sinister, hungry thing, but Potter only stared, alert and knowing. Then, he smiled, teeth bared and stained red with Draco’s blood.
“There is no curse, Draco,” Potter whispered.
His hand trailed up Draco’s thigh, ghosted over the bulge in Draco’s trousers with a teasing touch.
“There is no horcrux.”
Potter wrapped his hand around Draco’s cock through the rough fabric.
“Whatever sliver of soul Riddle left that night became mine when he died.”
He stroked. Once. Twice.
“And now there is only me.”
Draco came with a sob, tears finally spilling forth. The confession was more horrible than anything Draco could’ve ever imagined. More damning even than that. Not sick, not cursed, not possessed. Just Harry. And Draco loved him still.