#lucius whumper

[whumpitlikeyoumeanit]

The Need of Malfoy Men to Please Their Fathers Was Not Only Pathological, It Was Magical

((Content warning: Child abuse, mind control / conditioning, chid whumpee, domination ))

((Promptspiration: @week-of-whump 2023: October 13: Child Whump

the idea of this Au backstory is @thebestieyoureinlovewith's (here) With apologies; I think I made the parents a little darker than intended...))

Whumpee: Draco

Whumper: Lucius

Caretaker: --

Whump type: Mental / Domination

Fic type: Weird AU (Malfoy Blood Magic)

((words: ~1000))

------------------------------------

Narcissa dragged the crying, uncooperative boy into the study by the arm, tugging firmly when he squirmed yet again and redoubled his sobbing, digging in his feet on the carpet.

"Lucius, if you're going to punish him," she gritted out between her teeth, "you deal with it."

Lucius glanced up mildly from his papers. "Just leave him in his room."

"If that worked, I would have done it," she snapped. "It has been three hours. Either let him go or keep him yourself." She pushed Draco up beside the desk. He squirmed in her hands to try to turn away, but she held him firmly.

The look he gave her was indulgent; he didn't think this was necessary, but if she was demanding it... He turned toward the end of the desk and crossed his legs. "Draco."

Draco faced him with his head hanging, refusing to look, clumsy hands clutching and yanking at the front of his shirt, still sobbing. There were no actual tears, of course; he'd been 'crying' so long that he'd used them all up, and left just the emotion and the noise.

"Draco," he repeated severely, and the boy squirmed his face away into his shoulder. "Why are you crying?"

He yanked hard on his clothes. "It hurts!" he yelled.

"No, it doesn't," he corrected patiently. The boy didn't really have the words; he wasn't quite four, so it was reasonable, he supposed. A little disappointing, though. "It feels bad. That isn't pain."

"No! It hurts!"

"Are you talking back to me?"

Draco flinched and sobbed harder.

Lucius tapped his foot lightly. Draco squirmed to resist and when he figured out he couldn't, that his mother was still blocking him from running away, he flung himself down on the floor at his father's feet with a petulant sob.

"Why does it feel bad?"

"Because you're mad at me!" he wailed. Above him, Narcissa pressed her eyes closed and took a deep, sharp breath, rubbing her temple.

"No, I am not," he corrected calmly. "If I were angry with you, it would be pain." Not intentionally, of course; it wasn't as though he would be, say, Crucioing him. But the magic that bound them together responded to emotion. "I am disappointed."

"I'm sorry!"

"Don't beg," he said coolly. "You are a Malfoy." His disapproval naturally heightened the unpleasant feeling playing through Draco's nerves, and the boy shrieked and kicked at the floor.

"Lucius," Narcissa said tightly. "This is unbearable. You should have either activated this curse years ago, or waited until he was old enough to be reasonable."

"It isn't a curse," he said mildly.

"It is a curse to me," she snapped. "This is not 'handling it'."

"You have to be patient. It is a process. Draco." The boy flinched at the sound of his name, and he didn't care for that. "Look at me."

Draco shook his head wildly. Lucius patiently put his foot out to stop the motion of his head, then when he got him still, laid his toe under his chin and turned his face up to make him look. "Good," he said, the mildest of praise. "That feels better, doesn't it?"

"No," he sniffled petulantly.

"Yes, it does," he corrected. He knew it did; Draco was hardly the first Malfoy boy to be bound by this spell. It had existed in their family so long it wasn't even really a spell, per se, but some of that 'old magic' that seemed built into the fabric of the world. He knew exactly how Draco felt. But Draco was such a stubborn and wildly emotional child who seemed to revel in his sulking, he wouldn't even admit to relief. "Do you know why it feels better?"

"No..."

"Because you did as I said. Do you understand?"

Draco sniffled without responding.

"Do something I don't like..." he prompted.

He squirmed and tried to take his head back, but Lucius kept his foot under his jaw so he couldn't. "It feels bad," Draco finally said in a small voice.

"Good. And to feel better..."

"Do as you say..."

"Correct." He took his foot back. "If you ever manage to please me, it will feel good." It wasn't easy to obtain, but the feel of your father's pride was intoxicating. They'd see if Draco ever managed it.

Draco sat down firmly on his butt and sniffled again.

Lucius tapped the floor with his foot again for his attention. "What do I want you to do?"

"I don't know," he sniffled petulantly.

"I told you."

"I don't know!"

Well, he was young. He supposed he couldn't hold too many things in his mind for that long. "I want you to thank me properly."

It was a classic test. Moreover, it was a highly effective trial, for them. Malfoy boys were so proud -- as they should be, of course -- that they had to really commit to do any such thing. It helped them understand their place, and effectively demonstrated the possible rewards for doing what their father wanted instead of what their instincts were telling them.

Draco yanked at his shirt again, looking up at him with big, wet eyes.

"Say 'thank you'."

"Thank you..." Draco echoed.

"'Sir'."

"Sir." He tapped his foot on the carpet, and Draco looked at it, then back up at him. "Thank you, sir?" he repeated tenatively.

He didn't need to smile at that; the way Draco gasped when the unpleasant feeling abruptly transmuted to a good, warming tingle that couldn't properly be described said it all. The sobbing and sniffling stopped as suddenly as if they were an act he forgot he was putting on.

He was actually surprised, himself, at how satisfying it felt to be on the receiving end of that submission. He wondered for the first time if perhaps the ancient magic went both ways.

"Finally," Narcissa sighed. "I am going to have a nap. Don't make him cry again if you can help it."

"I doubt you have to worry." He turned back to his desk, and glanced down at Draco. He was looking up at him now with a sort of wonder. "You can stay," he said magnanimously.

[splendidissimus]

November 1999 - "You're doing it to yourself."

((Content warning: sleep deprivation, hallucination, abusive parent))

((Promptspiration: @whumptober 2023: day 2: Delirium ))

Genre: whump

Romance level: negligible

Angst level: 5/5

Draco's headspace: depressed / passive

((words: ~1000))

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Draco had been staring through the same page of a book on his desk for some time, the words drifting around unsteadily while he didn't even try to comprehend them, when a familiar voice gnawed at the edge of his attention. He raised his head, blinking, trying to pinpoint it.

Just as he resigned himself to giving up and started to drop his head again, there it was, under the sound of the rustling book pages. He could swear he heard Theo calling his name. 

"Theo?" He pushed away from the desk and stood stiffly, rubbing his aching shoulder. He wasn't supposed to be here. It was months since Father made them part ways, and he would be furious if he caught him here. But coming back against explicit orders and implicit threats just because he wanted to sounded exactly like something Theo would do. Theo who had shown up at the gate calling to see him despite the Death Eaters in the house. Theo who bartered with him in public over kisses because it made him forget he was ill.

He didn't think he heard an answer, but he had to find him before someone else did and send him away where it was safe. 

Outside his door, he paused, listening, but didn't hear him again, so he went for the stairs, figuring he would be downstairs somewhere.

He didn't hear Theo again; he spent a while checking, but there wasn't any sign of him, and eventually he started to wonder what he had actually heard. 

It felt too exhausting to go back upstairs immediately, so he ended up staring out the bay window at the garden. There was a young peacock there, scratching at the edge of a flowerbed, shining white in the watery sunlight. He watched it for a while, not thinking anything, but vaguely relaxed. 

A shifting in the shadows caught his eye, and he was trying to focus on it when iit suddenly resolved into Nagini — striking out with lightning speed to seize his peacock. "No!" He hit the window like that could stop it. 

Then between one blink and the next it was gone. The peacock was looking up at the window in cautious alarm, but there was no snake. 

And of course there couldn't be, anyway. Nagini was dead, he'd seen the body and the head spread across the Hogwarts lawn. She was as dead as her master. He knew that. 

"What are you doing?" 

His shoulders tensed at his father's voice behind him. He wished he had a good answer. "I apologise," he said properly, turning around and looking toward his father's feet.

"That wasn't the question."

He stole a glance back toward the window. Still no undead snake. The peacock was ripping down a flower with its talons now, to try to get the fairy sitting on the top of it. "I thought I saw…" Nothing. He clenched his hands behind his back. "I think something's wrong." He dragged the words out past a mind that didn't want to say them, looking back at his father's face. "I keep seeing things that aren't possible." 

His father studied him. "Like what?" 

"I thought I saw Nagini going after the peacock. Or heard… somebody… in the house." 

"The snake is dead, and no one has been here."

"I know." 

His father came closer to look out the window, then looked him over, studying him for a long minute. "How long has it been since you slept?"

"Not that long," he said quietly, but his hard eyes demanded an answer. "I think Friday," he admitted, even more quietly.

"For Merlin's sake." His voice was sneering and his expression impatient. "If you haven't been to bed in five days, of course you're seeing things. You're not ill, you're doing it to yourself." 

Draco didn't respond. He didn't have any excuse. He looked into the middle distance, his father's words sinking in without resistance.

The lack of reaction seemed to be even more irritating. "Am I supposed to believe," he snapped, "that you need a nurse to tell you not just to eat, which you've obviously not been doing, but also to sleep now? You are a grown man. Even toddlers know to go to sleep when they're tired. Do you need to be told to use the lavatory too?"

He continued to stare impassively, until his father grabbed his jaw and lifted his face, forcing him to answer the rhetorical question. "No," he said, insides crawling with shame. 

"What a positively minimal accomplishment." He threw down his face. "Elf!"

Tolly appeared beside his foot, cringing a look up at him. "Master?"

"Until further notice, Draco's bedtime is ten o'clock. You will put him to sleep at precisely that time, regardless of where he is or what he's doing."

"Don't," Draco pleaded quietly. 

Finally getting a reaction gave his voice an edge of satisfaction. "Is that understood?"

"Yes, Master," the elf squeaked promptly. "Tolly will make sure Master Draco sleeps." 

"Good. Shall we have her feed you as well?"

"No." 

"No? Are you certain it isn't too much responsibility for you?"

"Please." 

That display of submission seemed to mollify him. His father didn't respond, but walked away with contempt dripping from his voice. "Grow up." 

Tolly vanished and swiftly spirited a tea tray into the window to try to make Draco feel better. 

Draco didn't move. He stood there in front of the window, staring at the floor, fighting off every physical reaction he wanted to do. He wanted to mess with his hair, grab his head, clench his fists — he carefully took all of it, all of the energy behind those urges, and pushed it down, down until it was buried and he didn't react at all.

[lifblogs]

The Queer Books I Want to Read From @themargherita-s’ List:

Mangos and Mistletoe by Adriana Herrera

The Orchid & The Lion by Gabriel Hargrave

Angels Before Man by Rafael Nicolás

Let’s Bake a Deal by J. D. Cadmon

Do You Ship Us? by Claire Rosalind

They Call Him Lucius by L. B. Shimaira

A Veil of Gods and Kings by Nicole Bailey

Shake Things Up by Skye Kilaen

Always Be Your Baby by illustraice

I’m wary of The Orchid & The Lion because it’s getting bad reviews from sex workers, and the main character is supposed to be a sex worker. I’m honestly just curious at this point.

Whumpers, They Call Him Lucius looks like a whumper’s dream come true!

[flowerpetalprincess]

Whump Of May || Day 30 - Stepped On

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Whumpee should fight back, she could fight back! She could take this stupid twig easy!

Yet she hadn't. As much as Whumpee thought herself a skilled swordswoman, Whumper was better. As much as Whumpee thought herself strong and fierce and fearless...

Whumper was stronger, fiercer, and the very thing to fear.

It's why when he overpowered her, and demanded she kneel.... she had no choice.

-

Wolve has a large ego, but that doesn't mean she can't learn her place.

Lucius, of course, is more than happy to take her down a peg.

-

Near the end of the month! I'm incredibly excited to work on more personal projects such as my book, but this was definitely a blast!

It's not over yet however, last post will be queued for tomorrow :)

Unless of course I'm overwhelmed by irl but that hasn't stopped me yet.

List I'm using.

-

Wolve and Lucius belong to me.

Do not steal, repost, or alter my art in any way.

[whump-then-fall]

The Merry Whump of May

Day 17 - Let’s go back inside

Content warnings: mcd, male whumpees, multiple whumpees, male whumper, forced to watch, non-con touch (just carrying, not sexual), referenced branding, referenced restraints, camera, foiled escape attempt - let me know if I missed any!

Sawyer found out.

Of course Sawyer found out. Sawyer always found out. Sawyer had found out about Cassie, however much Zach tried to prevent it. He’d found out everything to do with her from Zach. He’d found out everything about Zach. Sawyer was good at finding things out. 

But this. 

Sawyer had to admit, even he hadn’t expected this. 

He’d still found out, though. He’d got a security camera, just to stop Zach trying to escape. He liked watching him from work, as well. But one morning, he’d been sat in the office, watching Zach squirm uncomfortably after the branding. Lucius had walked in. Sawyer had been proud of him for a few seconds. He knew Lucius hated what he did, and he was proud his little brother had finally embraced it. 

That is, until he realised what was actually happening. 

He watched Lucius take out food. Bandages. Medicine. Watched him unlatch Zach’s shackles and help him apply some kind of cream to his back. Watched it all without them knowing. 

He’d watched Zach try to escape again, later on that day. He’d decided that might be a good time to let him know about the security camera. 

Within minutes Sawyer was back at home, watching Zach scramble out of a window in the basement. He strolled down the stairs at the side of the house, meeting him just as he pulled himself through. 

“Let’s get back inside.” Sawyer had grabbed him round the waist, ignoring his struggling, and carried him back in. 

“What are you gonna do to me this time? I’m not scared of the whip.” Zach flinched as he said it, giving himself away. 

“I’ve got a better punishment than the whip for you this time.” 

Sawyer had dragged Zach back down to a room he saved for very special occasions. All this room had in it was a singular iron pole with a singular iron collar and a singular iron screw to tighten the iron collar. Sawyer had placed Zach on the floor opposite the device. Then he’d grabbed Lucius. Dragged him in by the hair. Zach had watched Sawyer fit the collar round Lucius’ neck. Watched him slowly, slowly tighten the screw. Watched Lucius’ eyes close, his head fall to his chest, his breathing stop. Zach said nothing. He didn’t know what there was to say. Not any more. 

@themerrywhumpofmay

[shywhumpauthor]

Evil anon likes the wholesome times with Lucius very much ! And I was also wondering if Oakley played hide and seek or the tag game with tiny Lucius .

-evil anon

Oh they absolutely do, more likely hide and seek than tag (after one very unfortunate incident with one of Misses Clara’s nice vases). It gives Oakley a chance to do some of their chores, and a bit of time free from the adorable terror.

They always remember to go find him, though.

[herb-whump]

Don't ever get far away, Precious

Im not dead i promise, but in between getting a heatstroke, mental breakdowns, school starting again, I've been just way to busy and just burned out. As im writing this im sitting in school, before my classes so excuse weird formatting, mobile is an ass (´;︵;`)

Taglist: @albino-whumpee @torture-as-lovely-as-you

CW// dub con, bone breaking, emotional whump, dehumanization, threats, manipulation, whumper in love with whumpee, Stockholm syndrome, aks to tag more

Ezekiel slowly opened the door, making sure Azel wasn't around anymore. He was scared he would make too much sound but it seems the doctor was already behind the sound proof walls of his bedroom lab.

Lucius noticed him quickly though, looking at him through tears.

- P..p-plea...se.. - he barely could say a word. He was choking on his own tears and snot.

The intern took pity on him. For the first time. Maybe because Pango did the same for him. It moved him a bit.

Slowly but surely he made his way next to Lucius' bed, knowing exactly where the first aid kit in his room was. Sir Azel asked him to put it there after all. The blonde boy needed more though, but this was enough for him to make it through the night with at least a bit of sleep.

- it's going to hurt, b-but i promise I'm trying to help. - Lucius noded, still with a pained grimace.

Ezekiel took out bandages and wound desinfectant, and some painkillers. But the bone was outside of the skin anyway. He gulped. He knew Lucius could easily develop a bone infection this way, but Ezekiel was no way qualified to operate and take care of a compound fracture. He soaked the bandages with the desinfectant, wrapping them around the exposed bone and broken skin. The boy was about to scream, from the painful sensation but the brunette muffled him with his hand.

- if he hears you, we're both as good as dead... If I don't do this, best case scenario you lose your arm, worst? You die. - Ez said quietly. It didn't calm down Lucius, it rather made him more anxious, but the fear caused him to bite down on his tounge and not say a thing. - What... Did you do? What could you have done that he did this... To You? - finally Ezekiel asked, tying the knot on the bandage.

- i... - Ezekiel wiped away the boy's tears with a tissue from the bedside. - i w-went to Sir's b-bedroom without a blindfold...

- That... That's it?

- I saw this b-boy half skinned... I got scared an-and Sir Azel came in, I didn't know... What to do... - He had a hard time speaking, Ezekiel knew he shouldn't press on anymore.

He barely stood up himself, and put a blanket over Lucius.

- You should rest... I hope he will stitch you up in the morning... - He sighed, brushing through the boy's hair gently, before leaving. He was just closing the door, when his eyes met with those of Sir Azel's.

Fuck

That's the only thing Ezekiel could think before Azel spoke.

- Well... I was just going to take care of my beloved but you were faster. Don't look at me like that, he did wrong, he knows he has to be punished. - He chuckled, while Ez was still stunned in front of the door way. - What? You think I'm gonna kill you or something? I know you all too well, Ezekiel. You act all desensitized and emotionless, but you're still the same as you we're when you were a teen. Just deep inside. That's why i will break you more. Until you're nothing but an obedient dog, ready to follow wherever i go.

The words Azel spoke with such a calm, a bit giggly voice, were those that Ezekiel feared the most. Sir Azel wasn't giving up on him, no, he was planning quite a lot for him. But those weren't the nicest plans.

He felt like w scared child, awaiting punishment from their parents, he felt like curling up on the floor, trying to protect himself. He turned away his face, hiding it in his arms, sheltering his only not bruised and scarred skin, but all that came, was a laugh.

- You never ever change do you. Well. Meet me in my bedroom lab tomorrow at 10 am. - Ezekiel was pushed out of the way, and Azel entered his Precious' bedroom.

At the mere sight of Azel, Lucius now shrieked and cried, extending his arms out, pleading for the doctor to hug him. He sat down next to the boy on the bed, taking him in his arms gently.

- Will you be a good boy now? - He smiled at Lucius, who noded anxiously.

- P-please d-don't leave me... - the blonde sniffled, trying to grab Azel's coat with his small hands.

- You're just like a little puppy aren't you. - The doctor chuckled and brushed through his hair, pushing it out of his face. - You're my precious. I would never leave you my Dear.

It was like someone just flipped a switch on the doc, turning him from the sadistic hot-headed maniac, to a gentle, caring soul.

- p-please... - Lucius asked, reaching out for him more, he grabbed his collar and tugged on it until Azel got closer.

Sir Azel cupped his face in his hands and slowly kissed the boy, who this time, seemed to consent. The tears have stopped along with the tugging. Azel thought it was the cutest thing. Broken, beaten up, but begging to be hugged and kissed, begging to be loved by the same person who hurt him. That's why Lucius stole the doctor's heart from the beginning, such a pitiful sight sends his heart racing.

He smiled gently after breaking up the kiss, saliva sliding out of the corner of the boy's mouth, he himself looking dazed, but much calmer than he was before. He took his hand in his, locking their fingers together, tightening the grip... Until finally he snapped four fingers at their base, making the boy scream in agony.

- Don't you ever tug on my collar like that again. I hate it. - He kissed his broken fingers - But come, I will take care of you, Precious.

[whumpitlikeyoumeanit]

Teaching Moment

((Content warning: Beating, Control / Forced violence))

((Promptspiration: @week-of-whump 2023: October 11: Reluctant Whumper / "Hit them harder." ))

Whumpee: Draco // Lucius

Whumper: Lucius // Voldemort

Caretaker: --

Whump type: Beating / Domination / Psychological

Fic type: "Prisoners in Malfoy Manor" alternate history

((words: ~1600))

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"It seems the boy doesn't learn. Lucius?"

There was a sensation of laughter around the table of Death Eaters, although nothing quite audible, more of a smirk hanging in the air. Silently, he pushed himself to his feet. He saw Draco clench his jaw, but he didn't try to argue his way out of it. Maybe he actually was learning.

He quietly held out his hand for Narcissa's wand. She was resistant; she didn't want to contribute to Draco's torture. He couldn't blame her, but they both knew he had no choice. If he didn't, someone else would do something much worse. She did finally pull her wand from her sleeve after a delay that, hopefully, the others around the table didn't notice.

Their master interrupted. "That won't be necessary, Lucius."

He stopped with his hand just on her wand and looked up. "My lord...?"

"You won't need that." He tilted his head slightly toward the wand. "Punish him."

Lucius went still. Punish him. He meant 'hit him'.

"You're familiar, aren't you?" His voice was coldly amused. Privately amused; the Dark Lord and Narcissa were the only ones in the room who knew exactly how familiar he was with the concept. "Or do you need a reminder? Mulciber?" He glanced down the table toward their smirking Imperius specialist.

...It would be easier to be Imperiused. He wouldn't have to know what he was doing. Maybe he should let them...

But Mulciber had been a sadist with the Imperius even before he went to Azkaban for fifteen years; his creative tortures were what he was known for during the first war. Now, after giving Dementors fifteen years of his life, he was broken in some way, little more now than a vehicle for sadism. There was no telling what he might make him do if he had him under his control.

"No," he said, and stepped around the table.

Draco was controlling his reactions, but had still developed a little frown between his brows. He was an admittedly-spoiled boy from a good Pureblood family, sheltered and insulated from the dirty realities of a rougher life. He had seen and experienced terrible, bloody, even unforgivable curses... but physical violence? Even when he saw it, it was something that belonged to the Muggles and the brutes, not their kind. It was so far outside his reality he couldn't even comprehend. He didn't even really understand to be afraid.

Lucius wished that didn't have to change.

He stepped in front of Draco. Draco took a subtle breath and lifted his chin, trying to say he was ready. He didn't realise this would be easier for him if he didn't try to be strong.

He backhanded Draco across the face without giving him any more time to prepare.

Draco gasped sharply and held his face, turned away, while the others in the room cheered or jeered. Someone hooted, but Bellatrix called out "Weak!"

In a second, Draco recovered his wits and stood straight again; he sought his eyes again, but this time he seemed uncertain, seeking reassurance he only wished he could provide. There was a smear of blood and an uneven scratch on Draco's cheekbone; it seemed his ring, the same signet ring Draco wore, had caught into his cheek and cut him. It was unintentional, but maybe that blood would satisfy them...

"Well?" The Dark Lord behind him sounded almost bored.

Of course. Because he didn't mean 'hit him'. He meant 'hit him until I tell you to stop'.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, turning his ring around to face his palm in the only act of mercy he could provide.

It had to be real; there were enough of them there that would know if it were not. So he didn't hold back, much, when he punched Draco in the stomach. He caught him by the shoulder when he doubled over, wheezing, forced him back up and held him in place so he could punch him in the face. Now the Death Eaters were entertained.

It wasn't a fair contest. Even if Draco were fighting back -- even if Draco knew how to fight back -- he was smaller, weaker, softer. He might not be a child anymore, but he wasn't a man, either; he was just a boy taking his first exploratory steps into a life of violence he thought he wanted, without a real appreciation of what it meant. Stress had made him sickly, and, if it could be said Azkaban had done the same to his father, well, they hadn't been starting from the same place.

Draco twisted out of his hand, backing away a step, holding his stomach and ducking his head, trying to catch his breath. He kept one arm raised defensively, like he could hide behind it. Apparently they had already found the limit of his resolve.

"I get it," Draco panted. "I won't do it again." Behind them, one of the Lestranges laughed something about his endurance, and Draco flushed, but didn't look.

"What do you think, Lucius?" the Dark Lord asked languidly. "Has he learned his lesson?"

He watched Draco expressionlessly; Draco was looking at him furtively, like he didn't want to be seen watching. "I believe so, my lord," he said evenly.

"Do you?" He knew by the amused tone that that was the wrong answer. "I doubt it."

He didn't have to be directed to carry on. And Draco was smart enough to understand it. He stepped up to grab him, and Draco automatically tried to step back out of his reach, but he wasn't quick enough. He grabbed his arm and yanked him back into his fist. He tried to avoid his face, but when Draco doubled over to protect his ribs he didn't have much choice.

Their audience laughed and cheered. "Maybe the old Lucius is still in there," Rabastan commented. "Underneath all that domestication."

Draco managed to pull away from him, sporting a split lip and a livid red mark over the side of his face that would bruise spectacularly. "Stop!" he snapped, backing away, because his instinct when he couldn't handle something was to try to give orders. That was a bad instinct here.

His walking stick was flicked to him; he caught it by instinct, and then he stared at it in his hand. And so it was -- the transformation was complete. If he followed through with this silent command, the Dark Lord had fully turned him into his father.

Draco shook his head, pulling away. "Don't..." he begged quietly.

He would give anything to have a choice.

There was the slightest tremble in his hand holding the stick, until he willed it away. He had to focus not on that he couldn't be doing this, but that he must.

He brought the cane down across his ribs. Draco didn't have the experience or the instincts to properly protect himself; he kept leaving himself open, exposing vulnerable points that must occasionally be exploited. Finally, Draco fell to his knees and half sprawled on the floor under a final blow that clipped him in the side of the head.

Stay down, he pleaded mentally. Stay down and let this be over.

But he didn't. Draco slowly pushed himself up on his arms, breath shaking and keeping his face down, but still trying. He was too stubborn.

Or too dutiful... He thought that getting up again was what was expected of him. A strangling hand clenched around Lucius' heart.

The only thing he could think to do to keep him down, he stepped firmly on his hand, and at Draco's pained hiss, he brought the stick down across his side and back again. There was a wet crunch he felt more than heard; it had happened too quickly, he didn't know if it was his hand or his arm, but something had broken.

With a cry, Draco bowed tightly over his hand toward the floor, shielding his head, no longer trying.

The stick came down on the exposed back of his neck, for good measure.

"That will do, Lucius," the Dark Lord interrupted, tone light and amused. "We can't have you killing the boy." Bellatrix tittered amongst the other amused reactions; that sound in particular grated.

"As you wish, my lord." His voice sounded empty to his own ears. He stepped back. Draco didn't move. He was huddled on the floor, hiding his head, trying to be a small target -- he was learning after all. A few drops of blood were appearing on the floor in front of him.

There was no consideration of helping him, even to stand. Any hint of kindness toward his son would be weakness for them to exploit. Any, any emotion would give them a way in. He couldn't give them that. He couldn't show anything. All of the hatred, the rage, the dark memories, the disgust and shame and fear and looming despair that turned his blood to ice, he methodically isolated and packed away into a small corner of his mind where even the Dark Lord would have to try to find it, where he could hold it at bay and focus. Where they could not make his hands shake or make him sick or make him hit something far more deserving.

If they could be convinced that he did not care, they would have no reason to do it again.

Calling on thirty years of Occlumency and forty years of self-restraint, he calmly wiped blood from the serpent-handle of the cane and his ring which had worked its way back around at some point, and turned away from Draco.

His hands ached.

[whumpitlikeyoumeanit]

((contents: emotional whump, child whumpee, child emotional abuse, domination, mind control / conditioning))

Promptspiration: @thebestieyoureinlovewith ask; same universe as this fic.

Whumpee: Draco Whumper: Lucius Caretaker: Snape Fic type: Hogwarts first year, weird AU (Malfoy blood magic AU)

((words: ~2300))

-------------

The morning after the detention in the Forbidden Forest, Draco came to breakfast armed with a lengthy, caustic letter home, lovingly detailing the myriad failings and incompetencies of the staff and systems of the school, that they would send him to such an unthinkable, moronic punishment, for the mere crime of trying to make sure that everyone was following the rules. Even people who thought they were something special, but utterly weren't.

He accepted his mother's semiweekly note and care package from Hermes with less interest than he normally had, gave the owl a sausage for it to savage, and took immense pleasure in sending it back with his missive. His parents were going to be so outraged. His father was going to take this to the board of governors as more evidence of how incompetent Dumbledore was, it was going to be the final bit he needed to finally get him sacked like he'd always wanted...

The satisfaction of that was still hovering in the back of his mind when he went to class, and he didn't even mind that it was Transfiguration with McGonagall and the Gryffindors, and that carried him through the day.

It was easy for him to tell when his father read his letter, after lunch, because that feeling evaporated and turned into something that was almost pain. His spoon fell clattering against the side of his cauldron as he clutched at his chest with a quiet whimper.

The pain wasn't actually in his chest, of course. It wasn't in his body, but it was very real. For as long as he could remember, he'd felt these things that told him how his father was feeling toward him, so he always knew how to do what he wanted. Even across the distance between Scotland and Wiltshire, or London, or wherever his father was today. He'd expected the warm, giddy feeling of his father being pleased with what he'd done -- not this! It was like someone had grabbed hold of his heart and was pulling it out, leaving an empty hole that ached.

It actually hurt. His father was actually angry with him. But why?! Telling him how terrible Dumbledore allowed the school to be run was supposed to make him happy! What did he do wrong? How did he fix it?!

"Did you eat too much?" Goyle wondered sympathetically. "That's what makes me do that. Next time try to drink something between plates."

"No-- shut up..." He gasped and squeezed his eyes shut, willing the feeling to pass and his father to not be angry with him.

--

The only vaguely interesting thing first year Potions had for its professor was the many and various ways the little idiots tried to kill themselves, each other, or him. It was a very irritating combination of the height of tedium and constant, low-level anxiety as he had to be eternally vigilant for some new innovation in incompetence that would prematurely end two dozen very promising careers as manual labourers and petty bureaucrats.

A few minutes before the blessed end of his torture, as he patrolled the room to ensure none of the dimwits had created anything too poisonous, he picked up the always-troubling sounds of sniggering from the most disruptive table in the room. Potter's, of course. "Maybe Malfoy ate one of the leeches," Weasley was saying hopefully, and Longbottom chuckled nervously.

"Five points from Gryffindor," he said casually as he passed. "You don't have the time to be concerned about other tables when your potion is that shade of orange."

He could fairly hear them scowling at his back. He supposed these classes weren't all bad.

Weasley wasn't wrong about Draco, though. Draco was one of the perhaps four students in the classroom he would say showed any promise at all in the subject, and it wasn't like him to be standing blankly over his cauldron when he still had to turn in his work. He had his eyes closed under a furrowed brow and was holding the edge of his workstation with a white-knuckled grip, barely breathing.

Clearly symptoms of something, but nothing in their cure for boils should have been able to cause that. Then again... He must, reluctantly, admit that his own house held the worst offenders for sheer incompetence this year.

"Draco," he drawled. "Did you happen to taste Goyle's mixture while you were doing his work for him?"

"No..." Draco took a breath and bit his lip to stifle a barely-audible whimper.

Goyle looked quizzically at his noxiously steaming cauldron, and he could see on his face the moment he had the brilliant idea to actually taste it. He slapped the spoon out of Goyle's hand without a word before he could get it to his face. That child was a menace.

"Perhaps, then, you would like to visit the nurse."

"No." Draco opened his eyes and looked at him, then dropped his eyes. "I'm fine," he said stubbornly.

"Very well. You have two minutes to leave your potions on my desk, and then you may go," he announced to the class, sweeping away.

Draco brought up his potion and left the room with his station cleaned before most of the rest of the class, and he did not give it much more thought, though the situation remained in the back of his mind.

It did not escape his attention a couple hours later, however, that Draco did not come to dinner, and that fact made a connection he had not thought about in years.

He left the great hall without drawing attention to himself and let himself into the Slytherin common room. The only students there skipping dinner were a pair of seventh years cramming for their N.E.W.T.s, who barely greeted him, and he returned the favour.

He thought at first that the first year dorms were empty, but old instincts made him check further; he found Draco sitting on the floor beside his bed, knees drawn up, holding his hair. When he realised he was found he scrambled to his feet to try to pretend nothing was wrong.

"It's your father, I assume." He didn't bother with any preamble.

"I don't know what you mean," Draco lied badly, staring at the foot of his bed. That was telling; normally he was a very good liar.

"I am aware of your family's magic. I have known your father since he was a student," he reminded him.

Draco looked up at him quickly, his eyes wide -- it was almost a challenge not to see into his mind, but there was very little coherent there, at least on the surface. He was just desperately thinking about his father.

After a second, when he decided he believed him and could trust him, Draco crumpled onto the bed, hunched over and arms wrapped around his stomach like he was about to be sick. "He's angry with me," he admitted in a small voice. "I sent him another owl after classes but he hasn't read it yet..." His voice was miserable. "Or it wasn't right..."

This was... infuriating. Draco had done nothing worthy of actual anger; maybe some annoyance or disappointment, and his experience with Lucius told him neither of those would be so incapacitating. As far as he could tell, Lucius had no reason to be punishing him except for the pleasure of doing so; the boy's father was truly his friend, but he was also truly possessed of some very unflattering qualities.

"Go to the hospital wing," he instructed. "Tell Madame Pomfrey I sent you for a Sleeping Draught; you'll be able to sleep it off."

Draco hunched his shoulders and looked up at him. "I don't need that," he insisted. "I can apologise..."

Infuriating. "It's interfering with your classes," he said, instead of telling him his reaction, his desperate need to be forgiven for nothing he had done wrong, was disgusting. It wasn't his fault, he supposed, but that didn't mean he liked seeing it. "Sleep it off, and inform me if this happens again."

Draco hunched over further, expression stricken with shame, until he hid it.

He could hear more students in the common room; he thought about telling Draco that it was his father who needed to fix this, not him, but he didn't think he would hear it. He turned without another word and left before they could be interrupted by any of the other boys.

Then he used the floo fireplace in his office to throw a note into Malfoy manor, calling for Lucius to come meet him in person.

---

They took a corner table on the upper floor of the Three Broomsticks. He took a single whisky to nurse, largely because he knew it annoyed Rosmerta to no end when he did so, but also because he was still ostensibly on duty at the school. Her table would be well paid-for, anyway; Lucius was hardly chary with his wine.

Whatever Lucius was feeling that was being reflected in Draco, he wasn't showing it. Nor would he expect him to; Lucius' capacity for compartmentalisation was second to none, not even his own. He sat with all the poise and casual good humour natural to Lucius when he was in any situation he controlled, which was by and large all of them.

"Your blood curse is interfering with my teaching," he said, after all the niceties were out of the way.

"It isn't a curse," Lucius said with mild-mannered dismissiveness.

It most certainly was, but there was no sense arguing about it. "Regardless," he said with equal dismissiveness. "It's becoming a problem. I'm sure you don't want attention drawn to it."

Lucius thoughtfully swirled his wine. "He's acting out? He should know better."

He gave him a severe look, quashing his own irritation. Of course he expected the child to hide what was happening. "Not obviously, but he is eleven. He is going to show it when he is in pain."

"I'll have to work on that."

Severus carefully divorced himself from the hints of offended disgust that reaction engendered in him. He didn't know what else he had expected, honestly. "In the meantime, consider rethinking your approach," he said, rationally instead of emotionally. "You may find it satisfying, but leaving him with your anger and no explanation isn't teaching him any lessons; it's just torture."

"You make it sound like a conscious choice to be angry."

"As though you have had a sustained emotion you didn't carefully inspect and consciously allow yourself to indulge in the last twenty years," he said dryly.

Lucius chuckled into his wine and didn't deny it. "He knows what he did wrong."

"I guarantee, if he knew, he would be falling over himself to repent. He wasn't able to eat tonight; I'm sure you remember how that feels." He sipped his whisky for its warming glow. "Personally, I see no cause for your anger either. If this is about his detention, the infraction was minor, merely an instance of being out of bed after curfew. I wouldn't even have bothered with detention for it, if it had been up to me. I hope you're not so draconian you'd hold that against him to this extent."

"He should have known better than to be caught," Lucius pointed out. "But no, that's a learning opportunity. However, he's supposed to be making connections with Harry Potter, not antagonising him and making a fool of himself in front of him."

"Is that all? Draco has the right idea there; Harry Potter is a useless, arrogant little brat."

"That may be, but his actual value has yet to be established."

"None," he asserted, allowing himself a scowl. "There is absolutely nothing special about that boy. There's no point in dragging your name down by forcing your son to associate with him. Even if there were a chance he would be receptive, which there is not."

Lucius considered him thoughtfully over his glass for a long moment while Rosmerta dropped off another and continued until they were alone again. Then he gave a measured shrug. "I trust your judgement," he allowed. "It will be something of a relief if he does turn out to be unsuitable. It does remain that Draco didn't do as he was told, though."

He stared unblinking at him. The most infuriating thing about this situation was that he genuinely believed Lucius didn't actually mean anything by his behaviour. He cared for his son -- loved him, probably even liked him. It was just that petty sadism was his only real vice. Having power over people was intoxicating to him, and when he had it he simply had to flaunt it, sometimes even against his own interests. Even, apparently, when it was his own son. "You don't sound like yourself anymore, Lucius."

Lucius raised a very judgemental eyebrow at him.

"I seem to recall a drunken tirade about the cruelty of being enslaved to one's bloodline not so many years ago."

"A moment of weakness," Lucius said dismissively.

"Indeed." He sipped his whisky distantly. "I wonder what it is about becoming a father that turns men into monsters."

Lucius's eyes narrowed, and he sat his barely-touched glass in the middle of the table. "Well, thank you for the invitation, Severus," he said with bland, cool propriety as he stood. "It's been depressing as always."

"It has," Severus agreed, and didn't watch him as he left. He stayed there for a while, alone, to finish his drink.

---

The next morning, Draco came to breakfast energetic and apparently untroubled, with plenty of appetite, and that was good to see.

[whumpitlikeyoumeanit]

Whumpuary 12

Whumpuary prompts should theoretically make up one cohesive narrative, though I'm not currently putting in the effort to flesh out the story around the prompts just yet. I have good intentions to do so eventually. Masterlist. Oh yeah and they're totally out of order, chronologically.

((content warnings: failed escape, injured loved one, being blamed ))

promptspiration: @whumpuary 12: Rescue

Whumpee: Draco Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy Whumper: Voldemort Pairing: Harry/Draco whump type: torture fic type: Deathly Hallows "Voldemort learns Draco hooked up with Harry" AU

Narcissa tries to save Draco.

words: ~950

-------------------

Draco was woken instantly by the sound of the cellar door opening, and he curled up tighter. No, he'd just gotten back downstairs, they were done with him… They shouldn't come for him again…

But there was something weird about it. It wasn't like normal, Wormtail's businesslike motions that didn't care if they were heard, but it was a subtle click, trying to hide itself. He was tense, not breathing, waiting for whatever fresh hell the unexpected was bringing. 

The door creaked quietly open, but admitted only the barest hint of light down the stairs. It was deep in the night, and whoever was out there hadn't lit their wand. 

"Draco." The voice was barely above a whisper, a subtle undertone, but it was his mother's. He shot painfully upright. 

"Mother…" The dread evaporated into confused gratitude. He pulled his way up the wall and slid along it to the corner below the stairs, looking up at her barely visible silhouette in the slightly lighter darkness above. This was astonishing. He would not have been surprised to learn that she actually didn't know where the manor's kitchen was. She had no use for house elf rooms. 

"Come quickly. Quietly." Her head turned to the side and her face caught a stray bit of moonlight while she cautiously looked after some noise. "You're leaving."

Leaving. Getting out of here. Escaping… Running away from the Dark Lord? Was that even possible? 

If she said it was then it was; his faith in her was so ingrained he didn't even consider otherwise. His heart lifted and he pulled himself up the stairs with all the quiet of his natural penchant for stealth. It was amazing how much easier it was to move when he had a reason to want to. 

She reached out her hand to him and he took it, a few steps from the top, but then he stopped. "Wait…. Ollivander." 

Her hand squeezed his, pulling him up, and he didn't actually have to see her frown to know that she was. "There isn't time." 

Still, he hesitated, and looked back down into the darkness. He'd been locked up with the old man for… He wasn't certain, he had long ago lost track of time in the endless cycle of darkness and punishment, but over a month, certainly. Two? More? It didn't seem right to escape and just leave him behind. 

"I'll spare you the trouble." The quavering voice was barely audible from below. "Any physical feats past standing are completely beyond me. I cannot… Go, and good luck."

"I'm sorry." He took the last few steps. 

His mother closed the door firmly behind him and pulled him away from it. He didn't let go of her hand and she didn't seem inclined to either. 

"The alarms on the garden door are deactivated," she murmured quickly, pulling him to the door in the corner of the room. Not to the outside, though — the doors in the kitchen were much more exposed than the one she mentioned. They would go through the morning room and into the back hall that ran the length of the house, past the back doors to the veranda he didn't dare touch, and then to the corner of the far wing.

His mind raced as they ghosted down the back hall. Where would they go? He couldn't imagine anywhere safe, but she must have made connections… Go into hiding, maybe — did she have a secret-keeper? They could leave the country… but even he'd heard about Igor Karkaroff, that clearly didn't mean safety… 

He realised he hadn't seen Father. He was leaving with them… right?

They were passing behind the main staircase when there were footsteps down the hall. He cringed back when he realised they were caught, hand curled up by his head, mind babbling that he didn't want to be cursed, please don't curse him… he'd stay down where he was supposed to, he'd behave, just don't… don't call Him…

He felt a hand on his arm; his mother pushed him behind her, and he tried to be invisible, and tried to breathe properly.

"Going somewhere?" 

He recognised that voice… Dolohov… Dolohov had every reason to hate him, what the hell was he doing here in the middle of the night…

"That's none of your concern." Her voice was hard and imperious, with no sign of uncertainty, no apology. 

"I don't think you have permission to have him up here, Narcissa…"

"I do not need permission to speak with my son in my own home!" 

"You know that's not true. And I know this isn't 'talking'. You're not leaving." 

There was a sudden flurry of movement as they went for their wands — she managed to draw it, but she wasn't a duellist, she didn't have his reflexes. Before she could get off a spell, a purple flame ripped through the air slammed into her. She crumpled to the floor in eerie silence, but Draco screamed in her place. 

He fell down to his knees with her, and she wasn't moving, there were no obvious marks from that curse but that made it worse, he couldn't tell if she was breathing… Please, please please…

The noise had drawn other people, but no one was helping, he just sensed them around him. And then his father was there — he grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him away from her. Draco fell into Bellatrix's legs in shock. His father gathered his unresponsive mother up in his arms, checking for signs of life. "What did you do?!" He lifted his head over her body and glared at him in naked pain. "What have you done?"

[whumpitlikeyoumeanit]

Whumpuary 2

Whumpuary prompts should theoretically make up one cohesive narrative, though I'm not currently putting in the effort to flesh out the story around the prompts just yet. I have good intentions to do so eventually. Masterlist. Oh yeah and they're totally out of order, chronologically.

((content warnings: parental physical & verbal abuse, parental abandonment, homophobia, mention of Cruciatus torture ))

promptspiration: @whumpuary 02: "Get away from me."

Whumpee: Draco Malfoy Whumper: Lucius Malfoy Pairing: Harry/Draco whump type: abuse fic type: Deathly Hallows "Voldemort learns Draco hooked up with Harry" AU

words: ~450

-------------------

"Don't speak to me." 

Draco managed not to flinch by holding onto his arms tightly. The Dark Lord and most of the Death Eaters were gone; he thought that he'd be able to talk to his parents finally. He hadn't even seen his father since he was arrested, over a year, and he'd thought…

But no. His father was so angry. 

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, keeping his eyes fixed halfway down his back so he wouldn't have to look at him. 

He looked… bad. Azkaban clearly hadn't been kind to him. Nor had the Dark Lord. He hadn't even realised… 

His father spun around and the back of his hand slammed across his face and made him stumble. "Did you even once stop to think about what you were doing to us?" he demanded. "Did you think about any of your responsibilities? No, I supposed it suits you to have me punished for your failures, doesn't it?" He stepped closer and Draco fell back a step without even trying to answer. "It's bad enough that you failed as spectacularly as you did, when success was right there. All you had to do was follow through with one spell. You could have been a hero, and you threw it away." Disgust and fury fought across his face and he forced Draco back another step. Draco's heel bumped into the baseboard, and he had nowhere left to go. He gripped his arms more tightly and stared into his father's chest while the words washed over him. 

"Bad enough that you ran from the consequences, leaving us to take your punishment." 

His father grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed him back against the wall. Draco gasped in pain — every muscle was still tight and aching from all of the Cruciatus over the previous night, and the impact on his back sent pain running down to his fingertips and his toes. "Bad enough you're a fairy.

"But Harry… fucking… Potter…" His voice was as low and dangerous as Snape's, and worse, because that should never have been turned toward him. That voice was for enemies. "You've ruined everything."

He knew that. Didn't he think he already knew that? He lifted his eyes to his face finally, looking at him helplessly. What he'd really wanted, desperately hoped for, was for his father to know how to fix it…

But there was only anger and disgust. There was nothing that could be done, no excuses that could be given, no manipulation, no strategy, no bribery, no way out of it. 

"Stay away from me." His father threw down his shirt with one final shove against the wall and turned his back on him. "You've done plenty." 

Draco gripped his arms and slowly slid down the wall as his father walked away, trembling.

[splendidissimus]

late 2001 - Petty

((Content warning: kidnapping, implied torture, caretaker turned whumper, whumper turned whumpee))

((Promptspiration: @whumptober 2023: day 20: "You're going to regret touching him." ))

((In response to the escaped Death Eater incident.))

Genre: whump

Romance level: none

Angst level: 1/5

Draco's headspace: --

((words: ~500))

------------------------------------

"I should thank you," Lucius said in the darkness, "for demonstrating just how simple it is to get a person out of Azkaban, now that the guards are merely human." 

He lit the lamp hanging from the ceiling. Dim firelight descended on the low earthen room, casting eerie shadows over Rowle, who was just starting to sit up in bleary confusion. Lucius stood on the bottom stair, looking down on him. 

Rowle looked around quickly to get his bearings, and recognition came with a hiss. The lamp was new, but otherwise the cellar was perfectly familiar. "Lucius." He clambered to his feet, but, unarmed, was too wary to advance yet.

Thorfinn Rowle was a Nordic giant of a man, with several inches on Lucius and built to match. The sight of it stoked the furnace of cold fury inside him. He had turned that strength wholly against a man fifteen years his junior and half his size… desperately ill… deprived of his medications… terrified, starved, neglected, physically weak and mentally fragile…

"It might interest you to know what your life is worth," he said mildly, savouring the anger like an old wine, letting it swirl around his mind and colour his perceptions. "Well, not your life; that has no value. But the going price of an Azkaban guard with the skill and leeway to extract a prisoner." 

"It doesn't matter, Malfoy. You've got your kid, let's just—"

He interrupted like he couldn't even hear him wheedling. "Fifteen thousand galleons." 

Rowle jerked taut and snarled. "You petty ponce—"

As well he might. He had been demanding only ten thousand in ransom for Draco. 

"The word you're looking for is 'angry'," he said coldly. "Very, very angry." 

Rowle was realising his situation now, recognising that he needed to try to escape. His eyes darted over the room, found only the stairs, and calculated that he might be able to make it; he lunged suddenly, aiming to knock him aside and run. Probably much like Draco must have done when he first found himself here. With an almost languid flick, Lucius lifted his wand and froze Rowle in place. 

Although, the wand was not his, precisely — there were some things it wouldn't do to have traceable back to one's own wand. 

"Twenty-nine days," he said, as he stepped off the stair. Rowle could hear and watched him with only his eyes, but could not move as he approached. "Twenty-nine days you held my son in this," he glanced around with the mildest sneer, "wretched hole. Yet he managed to survive you. What do you think that's worth?" He spun the disposable wand lightly against his fingertip, looking him over. 

"Twenty-nine hours of the Cruciatus?" Rowle's eyes took on a frantic look, darting around the cellar. 

"Twenty-nine pieces of you that don't need to be attached?" Rowle's eyes flinched back toward him, fear feigning defiance. 

"Or shall we just see if you can make it to thirty?" 

[splendidissimus]

early 2000 - Witness

((Content warning: Cruciatus torture, mind invasion, hair pulling, abusive parent, abused abuser, self loathing))

((Promptspiration: @whumptober 2023: day 6: Made to watch / "It should have been me." ))

Genre: whump

Romance level: none

Angst level: 5/5

Draco's headspace: angry -> self-loathing / guilty / depressed

((words: ~550))

------------------------------------

"The only thing you've ever done for me is serve me up to Voldemort!" 

With a flash of anger, his father's hand lashed out, and Draco half-ducked but wasn't quick enough to stop him from grabbing a fistful of hair at the back of his head. His head was yanked up to meet his father's eyes. He could feel the press of his mind and shored up his defences, trying to shove his arm away. "Don't—"

His father was a better Legillimens than he was an Occlumens; the walls around his mind were trampled under, leaving him helpless to hide whatever his father wanted. 

But he wasn't trying to take anything. An isolated vision of Voldemort's face swam in front of him, resolved into Voldemort speaking with his father. "It's a shame about your family, Lucius. Malfoy used to be a noble line. To end with such a whimper… What would your father say?"

It swam away, morphed into a different conversation. Voldemort holding an unfamiliar wand in two fingers. "I have already given you your son. Is Lord Voldemort not magnanimous, Lucius?"

"Yes, my lord."

"And yet, you still believe you deserve more?" He tapped the wand, offered, perhaps seized from a prisoner, to replace the one Voldemort had taken from Lucius. "You would ask another gift?"

"No, my lord. I merely thought—"

Voldemort's finger tapped the wand again, and silence fell abruptly. 

"Perhaps, if you are no longer happy with my gift, it could be arranged… Would you rather have this, Lucius?" 

"No… my lord…"

"No? Perhaps later, then. Do let me know if you change your mind."  

It faded to his father on the floor, with Voldemort and Bellatrix. "Shall we have the boy called home to learn his own lesson? No? Again, Bella." Grinning, she cast the Cruciatus, and he screamed. 

Then Bellatrix was screaming. The memories mashed into each other, one Cruciatus into another. They were in the hall, Voldemort cursing everyone in his anger after Potter escaped them. Draco's mother was trying to get him to stand on the stairs, Voldemort raised his wand to curse them again, and his father forced himself back to his feet near Voldemort's side, saying "No!", drawing his attention long enough to give them time to escape. He was screaming as they ran away.

A fragment of a scene leaked into his mind that he didn't think he was meant to see, a different blond teen with a split lip and bloody face, a much older Malfoy man bringing his walking stick down on him again. 

Then the connection broke with a snap that sent his mind reeling as it tried to remember where he was, and he stumbled backward several steps when his father threw him away. His father left without a single word, and in a moment a door slammed. 

Draco fled outside to the winter garden, holding the back of his head where it ached, trying to hold back the echo of his father's overwhelming rage and thread of self control that was barely keeping him from beating him as his own father had. And the feeling that he deserved it.

[whumpitlikeyoumeanit]

My favourite Harry Potter AU is the one (mostly) in my head where over seventh year instead of being "basically prisoners" Voldemort keeps the Malfoys as literal prisoners and lets the Death Eaters have their way with them.

Lucius is chained up in the cellar. Draco forced into the role of a house elf, scurrying around serving and always available for casual torture. Narcissa mind-controlled and given to Rabastan but she keeps throwing off the spells. Not a wand among them.

Let Mulciber loose with his creative Imperius stylings. Let Bellatrix gleefully show how much more important the Dark Lord is than her blood relations. Let Fenrir Greyback have a taste of tender Pureblood meat. Let the Crabbes and Goyles demonstrate how a refined and elegant "good breeding" stacks up against a common fist. Let Snape be helpless to intervene.

And the sheer power perversion potential. Silencio. Petrificus Totalus. Diffindo. Incarcerus. Flagrante. Transfiguration into a ferret. Healing magic. Legilimency. Shrinking. Creating rooms without doors. Human transfiguration. False memories. Erased memories.

They could be destroyed.

And then Voldemort falls.

[splendidissimus]

2012 - To The Pain

((Content warning: Cruciatus torture, beating / physical abuse of a vulnerable person, graphic bloody torture))

((Promptspiration: @whumptober 2023: day 18: Tortured for information ))

Genre: whump

Romance level: negligible

Angst level: 2/5

Draco's headspace: defiant / calculating

((words: ~4000))

------------------------------------

Discretion was the nature of Draco's business. The specifics of his business varied from client to client — the two most common asks were legal advice or representation, or money, but he really appreciated more interesting challenges and would engage with basically anything that wasn't outright Dark — but the desire for discretion was near universal. To that end, he wasn't surprised when he got a terribly mysterious message asking for an appointment after most of the rest of Diagon Alley was shut down and with the utmost privacy, but he was intrigued. 

He came back alone to the office at midnight, after his secretary was long gone for the day. His health was well enough he could leave Theo to his work instead of bothering him for an escort; he had only a mild cough that the tea basically suppressed and, while he may not be able to walk much more than the length of the corridor at a go, it wasn't a large office and he had no problems staying upright at the moment. He found that the portrait of Elizabethan Lucius that hung in his father's study and watched the house had followed to the frame here, feigning complete disinterest that was rather undermined by the fact that he was there and didn't need to be. The manor must be boring this time of night. Unfortunately for him, privacy meant privacy, and the portrait sniffed disdain at his apologetic noises as he covered the frame with a muffling cloth. 

He was making tea from the charmed pot when he heard the bell that announced a visitor coming through the Vanishing Portal from Hogsmeade. "This way," he called, without looking but with his eye on the mirror that was positioned so he could see the door, as he poured a second cup. 

It was a solid, rough-bearded wizard of maybe a little more than his age who opened the door. He looking passingly familiar, and Draco was automatically reaching for the wand he'd set down beside the tea as he tried to identify him. 

"Expelliarmus!" 

Draco erected a shield spell with barely a thought; the attack ricocheted off and knocked several books from his shelves, and he turned around, lifting his wand…

And the wizard's fist slammed into his jaw and sent him sprawling to the floor. 

"Yeah, knew you was a duellist." The wizard stepped on his arm and snatched his wand out of his hand. For good measure, he stomped on his hand, and Draco let out a noise as he felt it crunch. Sharp pain travelled up through his wrist. "Don't do much good against the Muggle kind, do it?" 

And now he recognised him. "Gerald Vick." Husband of one Mary Vick nee Patternel, who had engaged him a bit over a month previously to help her disappear, in large part due to her husband's violent tendencies; he'd seen him in a picture taken by the investigator who did background on his clients. He pushed himself up to sit against the cupboard, holding his broken hand gingerly. "Your wife's not here."

"That's what we're here to talk about." He pulled out Draco's chair and sprawled in it, wand levelled at him. Draco realised he wasn't sure where his own wand had gone. "I know the little bitch came to you. Now you're gonna tell me where she went." 

"I am not." Draco's attention fell to his desk behind Vick without actually moving his eyes. After the escaped Death Eater incident, he had installed an alarm for precisely these sorts of situations, a device rigged up of Protean and cosmetic charms that would activate copies with Theo and at home. But it was under his desk. If he could get to it… 

Bright red sparks shot into the cupboard beside his head, and he flinched his face away. 

"You are," Vick said. "Only question's how much's it gonna hurt before you do." 

He wasn't going to tell him — but if he could talk his way out of any more pain, that would be ideal. "Allow me to save you the trouble." He looked back at Vick again levelly. "You wife is under the protection of the Fidelius Charm — the ancient spell that locks her secret into a single living soul. No amount of threat or torture is ever going to get her location. You will never find her."

"Fuck!" Vick exploded out of the chair and kicked him viciously, screaming obscenities. Pain erupted through his sides, up his arms; he managed to hide his face but it got him in the back of the head, and he ended up curled on the floor, hiding behind his arms, a little noise escaping his throat with every new pain. 

If only the entire office weren't Muffled, for discretion, someone might have heard…

Eventually his attacker moved on to the furniture. Draco stayed where he was, trying to catch his breath with every movement of his chest squeezing pain from his ribs, listening to things being thrown around his office. Vick was demanding to know where the supposed records were. As though Draco's name wasn't 'Malfoy'. 

Something hit the wall above him and shattered into a shower of ceramic shards that rained down over his hair. "Alright, new plan." Vick grabbed his arm and yanked — Draco cried out in pain, that was obviously broken too — and pulled him halfway to sitting up. "Maybe you didn't write shit down, but you know who's got her secret. That's what you're gonna tell me." 

"I can't imagine why your wife wanted to leave," Draco said faintly. "You're so powerful when you're beating up a wandless invalid half your weight. Who wouldn't be impressed?" 

Vick threw him back so his head slammed into the wall, and he groaned and held it. Maybe one of these years he'd learn to keep his mouth shut. 

"Start talking." Draco lifted his eyes to see Vick was holding his wand on him. "Or I start taking off pieces." 

Draco considered the wand, then leaned his head back on the wall again. "Give it up," he said, with a weak cough to try to get breathing more deeply. "You're not going to kill me. I'm not going to tell you anything. I've been put under the Cruciatus by Voldemort… What do you really think you can offer?" 

It was one part truth, two parts bluster, and one more part self-talk. He could feel his old constant companion fear trying to take hold and he had to logic himself out of it. Even if absolutely nothing else went right, in five or six hours, his secretary would be in… He could handle being yelled at and kicked around for six hours. 

This wasn't like Voldemort. It wasn't like Rowle. This had an endpoint, a goal, a way to win. Focus on that. 

"That's a real interesting assumption." Vick grabbed him by the collar and lifted him to his feet; he gave a small sound of pain, but managed to get his feet under him, using mostly the wall for support. "That I'm not gonna kill you." 

Draco studied his face; they were about the same height. Watery, red eyes. Bad breath. He was at least half drunk. He tracked his wand without actually looking at it. It wasn't steady either. "You're not," he said confidently. "You might've been dangerous to her in a fit of pique, but premeditation doesn't suit you." 

Vick grinned sharply. "Shows what y—"

Draco didn't care what Vick was saying, or what he himself had to say to get him to; the point was to get him smug and relaxed. When he sensed the wand drooping, he lashed out with his left hand, snatching for the wand, and pushed back away from him along the wall. He didn't have the strength to pull it away entirely, but they were both holding the wand, and he was the more prepared; he twisted it toward Vick and yelled "Confundo!" 

It missed. The spell whiffed past Vick's head and ricocheted off the far wall. Vick yanked his wand back, Draco lost his balance, and then Vick punched him in the face, then again, and he fell to the ground, dazed and his head exploding with pain. 

"You done?" Vick kicked him onto his back and planted a foot in the middle of his chest, and leaned on it, wand arm resting on his knee. Draco choked desperately, weakly shoving and hitting his leg to try to move him, even using his broken arm, panicking for any air. 

Vick ignored him. "We're gonna try this again." He leaned more weight into his chest. A pitiful noise squeezed out of Draco's throat, a high whistling squeak that came out between the last of his air. His chest felt like his ribcage was about to explode. "You're gonna tell me how to find my wife, or I'm gonna kill you, real… fucking… slow." 

Draco shook his head, weakly and desperately. Vick shoved off his chest; the force made something crack, but the weight was off his chest and now he could start to breathe again. He clawed at the collar of his robes to pull it down, like that would help, dragging in a thick gulp of air that made his entire chest burn with pain, and then cough it back out in whimpering hacks. He couldn't breathe for coughing, he couldn't cough for pain, he couldn't breathe through the pain…

He tried curling up in a painful ball, but Vick grabbed him by the broken arm and yanked him back with a weak cry. 

"Now." Vick crouched beside him, wand dangling over him. "You know who's got my wife's secret?"

Draco nodded without trying to speak, eyes closed, still fighting with his breath. 

"Good." Vick patted his rapidly-swelling cheek right where he'd been punching him. "Who?"

He didn't respond or even bother to look at him. 

Vick's wand tip laid against his arm, then with a quick slash and the word "Diffindo," he laid a ragged gash down the length of his upper arm. Draco had just enough breath to cry out in surprised pain, rolling over to grip the wound. It wasn't clean and smooth, it felt torn, ripped into the flesh. The edges of the torn sleeve were frayed and rough and that showed how he used the spell. 

Vick gripped his jaw and turned his face up, shaking his head to make him look at him. "Take me seriously now?" 

Draco gulped in a painful lungful of air managed to control it. "I'm listening." 

"Funny how quick that happens." He smirked. "Go on then." 

"It's been… a month…" He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing as deeply as the pain shooting through his chest would let him. The blood was flowing freely through his fingers, and that was concerning. He couldn't take many more like that. He didn't have enough blood to spare. "I don't have it… on the top of my head." 

"Someone's a fuckin' liar." He moved his wand toward Draco's chest.

Draco flinched and tried to twist away from him. "No, stop! I'm not lying." He moved his bloody hand up to grip his hair. "Do you realise…" he had to breathe, "...how many times you've hit me in the head? Already had problems…" 

"Need help remembering, do you?" The wand wandered toward his face. 

Draco cringed back and put his hand between his face and the wand. "Notes, in my desk. I'll get it." 

"I've been all through your desk." He gripped Draco's jaw to turn his face to the upended drawers with their contents scattered on the floor. 

He pushed his hand to try to get it off. "Missed the false drawer." 

"Secrets inside of lies with you Malfoy's, ain't it?" He pushed himself up to his feet, but Draco only had breathing space for a second. Then Vick grabbed him by the front of his robes and hauled him to his feet, dragging him toward the desk. 

Draco cried out and couldn't stay up, stumbling back to his knees, curled up over himself with his breath shaking. He really couldn't get up. It was all pain. How many broken ribs, how many internal injuries? Were his lungs still whole, and if so, how many more times of being tossed around until they weren't? Vick may or may not actually intend to kill him, but at this rate he stood a very real chance of killing him by accident. 

"Get up." Vick kicked him in the side.

"It hurts," he panted. "I can't stand. Need my chair…" He waved vaguely toward where Vick had taken it. 

"Anything else I can get you, princess?" He grabbed the chair to drag it back.

While his back was turned, Draco reached up under the desk, fingers searching for the alarm. Activating it would require a spell, and while he normally wouldn't have needed his wand to do it, properly done wandless magic required intense mental focus, which he wasn't capable of when he was in this much pain and duress. But once he had it, he could worry about that part.

His fingertips pried free the coin-sized item, but he wasn't quite quick enough dropping his hand — he sensed Vick's attention just before the chair slammed into him and sent him sprawling with a cry, sliding on loose parchments scattered on the floor. The alarm skittered unseen out of his hand and vanished somewhere in the mess. "You got another wand stuck up in there, do you?" He stomped on his broken arm, drawing a weak scream. "Think you can play me?" 

He opened his eyes and studied him, then painfully rolled up on his knees. "I know I can play you," he panted, holding his arm against his chest and curled defensively around his injuries, pushing himself away, fingers groping around in the scattered papers to try to find it. "I told you upfront I wasn't going to tell you anything… yet you still believed me…"

"Depulso!" 

Draco flinched behind his better arm and was thrown off the floor, slammed into the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the plaster, with every bruise and broken bone screaming in symphony, and then collapsed in a shaking heap of pain. Don't throw up, don't throw up… He could tell already how much it would hurt if he threw up… 

Vick lifted him off his face by the back of his hair, and he moaned, trying not to move, but forced to at least lift his head. He found himself looking up at the covered portrait on the opposite wall. 

Proper wandless magic required intense focus, focus he wasn't capable of when he was in pain. But improper wandless magic… that just required letting himself go. 

Before he could think more about it, he flung his left hand toward the portrait, throwing his willpower with it. 

His magic ripped the portrait off the wall, and tore down the shelves beside it and sent books and decorative pieces pelting the pair of them in a hail of blunt objects. But it also ripped the cover off the painting, exposing it to the room.

The portrait tumbled end over end into the room, teetered on its corner, threatening to land uselessly face down on the floor, and then finally fell to rest leaning forward against the side of the desk where the inhabitant could see and hear the state of the room. 

But the frame was empty. 

Of course it was, his ancestor had no reason to sit around in a dark frame he couldn't see or hear from. He had just hoped.

He cried out as a gash ripped across his back. Then he was thrown onto his back, and the combined pain of his injuries conspired to paralyse his breath and voice, not even allowing him to cry out for it. 

"Let me know when you got something to say." Vick laid another ragged gash down the inside of his left arm, bone-deep, to stop him using it again. And then one straight through the palm of his left hand. Draco gathered enough breath to wheeze, trying to twist away from it. 

Vick studied his face for a long minute. Draco didn't know if he liked what he saw there, but it seemed unlikely. He held him down in a way he hadn't before, one hand pressing down his shoulder and pinning his leg with one of this feet, and set his wand against his stomach. Draco shook his head,pushing ineffectually at his wand with his mangled hands; it didn't matter. Vick said the incantation and dragged the wand over his stomach, so, so slowly. The agony pulled out a scream he wouldn't have thought he had the breath for. 

His clumsy hands clutched desperately at the stomach wound to try to hold it closed, to keep his guts on the inside where they belonged. It was a losing battle; he could feel a loop of entrails slipping between his fingers. Vick lifted his wand back into his line of sight, and there was actually blood on the tip of it. There was so much blood. He could taste it. Didn't have six hours now — probably didn't have one. Even a person whose blood would clot on its own wouldn't be able to handle this.

"Tell you…"

"Go ahead." Vick looked at his face expectantly, wand tracing slow circles above his chest. 

"…having to say the incantation, every time… makes you look childish…"

Face contorted in fury, Vick threw the spell into his chest, raking a deep gash across him. He choked and coughed a fine mist of blood into Vick's face. 

Really, that was on him for expecting that this time Draco was going to say something useful instead of something smart… 

Vick kicked him in the stomach — Draco barely had the strength to scream as the gash was ripped open further — and stomped on his chest. "I guess I'm gonna do this the hard way." He punctuated the words with kicks around his torso and head. "Start at the top and work down. Start with her parents, those old friends she used to have. Think you're so fucking smart, don't you? I don't need you, you're not gonna help an—"

"Crucio!" 

Vick immediately twisted to the ground, screaming; there was no space between the sound of father's voice calling out the curse and the sound of his tormentor being tormented. That was nice. After a few seconds, Draco raised his hand weakly to show his father he was alive, and to stop him. 

The sound of the screaming was replaced with "Stupefy," as his father came into the room, Stunning Vick unconscious. Then "Incarcerus," to bind him. He cast the counter to the Entrail-Expelling Curse — smart, Draco might not have thought of it, though without some powerful healing they weren't going to stay there. 

He crouched beside him in the pool of blood, hand on his chest briefly, probably checking his heart and breathing. "You're going to live," he said, in his way that was not an observation, it was a spell, impressing his will into the world. 

Draco nodded. "Aurors," he panted weakly. "Aurors first." 

"This is more important." He summoned Draco's lap blanket from the mess of the room and pressed it, folded into a thick pad, against the gaping wound on his stomach to try to staunch the bleeding. 

"Now." The effort of that made him cough and the spasms made the bleeding worse. 

His father considered with narrowed eyes, then looked over at the leaning portrait. "Nott?"

"Already on his way." Elizabethan ancestor Lucius smoothed his beard into an even finer point. "In fact…"

The signature waft of the floo was heard in the reception room, and then Theo's quick strides to the doorway. He immediately swore and came to his side; his father nodded and made space for him. "Two of these immediately." It was a blood replenishing potion he held and helped him drink. 

The immediate effect was that all of his wounds veritably poured blood, like it was running straight through him, but that was why there were two. With his healing resistance, it wasn't going to be a simple matter of spells to hold him together. The potions would at least mean the blood loss didn't kill him while they were working on it.

"All right." Theo touched his hair. "You can hear me?" He nodded. "Good. I'm leaving you another potion. Don't let yourself get lightheaded. I'm going to get help, I'll get Pye called in so he's ready by the time we get you to St Mungo's." 

"Take your time…" Draco invited breathlessly. 

"Hush." He ran his hand over his hair. "I'll be right back." He left his side and in a second Draco heard him calling out the name of the hospital in the floo.

And then, for a moment, the room was empty, still, and silent. Draco was alone. His father had left without drawing attention to it, and Vick was still unconscious and bound. Slowly, he pushed himself into a painful seated position against the wall for a little bit of pride, panting shallowly between wet, bloody coughs and trying to keep his intestines in.

A voice from near the desk proved he wasn't quite completely alone. "Have we learned a lesson about covering portraits, hm?" 

"I'll have to think about my policy," he allowed. Portrait-Lucius harrumphed. "Thank you."

"Better. Now don't go and die, it would be disruptive." 

"I'll try." 

Soon enough, the quiet was disrupted by the bell over the street door, and his office became a flurry of activity again. His father returned with a pair of Aurors, Janssen and a young woman he didn't know. She made a disturbed sound, probably at all the blood, and Janssen had her collect Vick and get him back on his feet. He was argumentative as soon as he was conscious, yelling that they didn't have anything on him and he was being held prisoner unlawfully.

"Gerald Vick," Draco supplied the Aurors. "Hunting down his wife… who does not want to be found…" 

"I didn't lay a hand on her." He fought as she started dragging him toward the door, and saw Lucius calmly observing. "Arrest him! Malfoy! That son of a whore used an Unforgivable Curse! He used the Cruciatus on me!" 

"That was me," Draco corrected breathlessly. "By accident. Had problems controlling my magic… St Mungo's can confirm… Normally use my wand to control it, but he took it…"

The Auror woman rifled Vick's clothes. She had presumably already gathered his wand from the floor and hadn't thought to search him. "White, about ten inches?" 

"That's it…" She made to return it to him, but he lifted his mangled hands to show he couldn't really take it, nodding toward his father instead. That had the not-entirely-unintentional side effect of exposing some of the wound on his stomach as the sodden blanket slipped. She muttered that she was going to be sick, and handed off his wand to his father. 

"I'll take whatever punishment is deemed appropriate, of course…" 

At the same time, the Mediwizard team from the hospital was flooing in. He held up a hand to keep them back and beckoned for Janssen to come close; he took hold of his arm to pull him even closer when he stopped at a normal distance. "Daniella Paradiso is Mary Vick," he whispered into his ear, then let him go and spoke in a normal tone, or what passed for one at the moment. "Let her know her secret's safe… and I can lift the charm if she'd like to give evidence…" 

"You?" Vick suddenly struggled against his bindings and the Auror holding him back, almost breaking free. "You were the secret-keeper all along?" 

Draco painfully but with immense satisfaction lifted two fingers at him, then rested his head back against the wall, allowing Theo and the healer team to come tend to him now.

[splendidissimus]

2003 - Break

((Content warning: beating / domestic violence (dream), implied noncon (dream), loss of power control, accidental injuring loved one, hospital, loss of reality, mind invasion (minor) ))

((Promptspiration: @whumptober 2023: day 17: Touch aversion / "Leave me alone." ))

Genre: whump

Romance level: some

Angst level: 4/5

Draco's headspace: fear / guilt / irrational

((words: ~3100))

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Draco felt like he had barely fallen asleep when he was jerked awake by hands on his robes. He recognized Theo's face in the darkness and tried to get his brain together to figure out what was going on. "What's wr-"

"Shut the fuck up." Theo slammed him back. His head hit the headboard so hard it slammed into the wall and there was a cracking sound; he made a cut-off noise and felt light-headed, with pain shooting down his spine. "I am so fucking tired of your whining…"

"Get off…" He tried to be commanding, but his voice felt as faint as his head.

"What a surprise, more orders." Theo grabbed him under the chin, thumb and finger digging in behind his jaw, and forced his head back. The pain redoubled and his vision went blurry. Draco grabbing at his wrist did absolutely nothing to pull him off. 

"I try," Theo said. Draco realised he was drunk — drunk and completely honest, for once. "I am patient, and tolerant. But you just can't help being a piece of shit. You know I can't get away from you because of your fucking love potion," he slammed him back into the wall again with all the frustration in his voice, making Draco choke on a cry as pain shot all the way down his spine and clamped his skull, "so of course you're just going to exploit that as much as you can, because why would you do anything else? Order me around like one of your lackeys because you know I'll take it. Whine to me incessantly like a child because you know I'll put up with you when even your own parents won't. I'm tired—" he slammed him back into the wall again, making him choke on a cry and his vision pulse red, "—of listening to you!" 

"Stop…" It felt like a whimper. He weakly pulled at his arm, struggling to breathe, vision blurred by slow blooms of colour, except that he could still horribly clearly see Theo's face and the dark anger controlling it. "I'm sorry — please — I'll stop —" 

"Oh, right, you'll stop being yourself? Guess what, even if you somehow managed it, it wouldn't matter! It won't fix this! I'm trapped! I could have had a good wife! I could have sweet girlfriend who actually cares about me! I could just be picking up skanks in a pub! But no — I'm stuck with you!" 

His hand clenched around Draco's throat, hard crushing pain that made Draco claw desperately at his arm. Then he forced himself to let go and his hand seized into a fist and he punched him in the side of the head, and Draco cowered behind his arms.

"And you fucking know it. You fucking revel in it." He grabbed his arm and ripped it down so his shoulder wrenched. "You know I can't leave, so you fucking tease. A kiss every now and then as a reward? A fuck or two a year on special occasions? Just enough to keep me mollified, right? Just enough to keep me hanging on? And I should be happy with this? I should be honoured you let me have anything?" 

"I can't—" 

"You can." Theo shoved him down into the bed, gripping his throat. "And you will." 

--

Draco came to with a jerk, choking and gasping, scrambling up in the bed. "Nott!" he croaked, voice hitching in a sob. "Theo!" 

The connecting door between their rooms burst open, and Theo rushed in, face twisted up in concern. "It's all r—"

No no no— Draco slashed his hand out to cut off his words, and a shallow but bloody cut bloomed across Theo's chest after it with a deep gasp. "How could you?" Words tumbled out in a half-sobbed scream. "You can't just… Even if I…" 

"Draco." Theo froze where he was, holding his chest, making an effort to keep his voice calm. "What is it? What did I do?"

"What did—? You just—!" He clutched at his throat where there was a phantom echo of Theo's seizing fingers. 

"It was a dream," Theo assured him in a calm, reasonable voice. He cautiously crept closer while holding his bloody hand out as though to hold him back. "I couldn't hurt you. I couldn't hurt you even if I wanted to, because you can do this, right? So I didn't — it was just a dream." 

"It couldn't be a dream… I was…" He grabbed his hair… his head didn't really hurt. He had such clear memories of the pain of having his skull cracked, how it ran all the way down his body and hurt to move, and now it was just gone… like it had never really been there. How could that be right? It was so real, it couldn't be a dream—

He gripped his head tightly and screamed into his knees. Something had to be real!

Theo reached the bed and touched his hands. A half-formed thought bloomed — he was coming to hold him down again — and he reflexively thought a blasting curse that threw him into the wall with a small explosion and a crash of breaking shelves. 

Theo—! He didn't mean to do that! He reached out for a second before he stopped himself; he scrambled off the bed and caught a single glimpse of him lying there. He didn't dare check if he was okay, he'd probably hurt him again. He had to get away. He ran into his mother in the doorway and spun them around and pushed her toward Theo, backing away into the hall to put space between them. "Stay away from me!" He only had an impression of her startled face as he fled down the stairs. 

With a formless surge of fear, he saw his father still up, in the parlour, coming toward the noise, and he threw a binding jinx at him to keep him away. He heard breaking glass. Then he was outside in the fresh air and swiftly Disapparated. 

--

Lucius recovered his composure quickly and repaired the wineglass he'd dropped when he ducked Draco's spell. The front doors were standing open, but Draco was gone; he closed them with a flick of his wand and took the stairs up. "What is going on?" 

"Did you stop him?" Narcissa asked from down the hall. He found her in Draco's room, with some annoyance. What was the point of Nott if he couldn't handle Draco's outbursts? But the room was a mess, and Nott was bleeding, while she worked to stop it. 

"No, he left. What happened?" he repeated. 

"He had a dream he thought was real," Nott said faintly, holding his chest. Lucius looked at the damage to the room again, how it was all centred around Nott, and the injuries to him, and saw instantly how this would be the perfect opportunity to pass off an actual attack as Draco's erratic behaviour. He looked at Nott swiftly and met his eyes, catching his mind unawares… and for once, he found no sign of a lie there.

Nott didn't realise he'd been read, and tried to take a deep breath. "He didn't snap—" He had to stop and cough, trying to breathe, again. Blasted in the chest, probably. "—snap until he realised it was a dream." 

Then it wasn't the content of the dream that was the problem, it was that he had mistaken a dream for reality in the first place. He thought he understood. "I'll get him," he said, and followed Draco.

--

When Lucius Apparated to St. Mungo's, he could immediately hear Draco yelling. "You need to do something about it!" He was out of sight around the corner from the Apparition zone, yelling at someone in intake. 

"Sir, calm down—"

"Get away from me!" There was a crash and Lucius came to the door — a Healer was on the floor and the receptionist backing away from the desk, and the only other person there was a patient waiting with a squash for a nose, looking over the top of a Prophet. 

He threw a silent stunning spell at Draco while his back was turned — hardly honourable, but  just to get this situation under control before he did serious damage. 

But Draco threw up a shield spell to intercept it somehow in the instant he shouldn't have even known it was coming, and spun around, fluidly grabbing a half dozen of the floating candles with a gesture and flinging them at him. They bounced off the wall when he stepped back behind the doorway. 

"Draco, stop," he commanded. 

"Get away!"

"Drop your wand!" he heard called from the other side of the room, security coming from the street entrance or from a higher floor, perhaps. And of course that didn't work for a variety of reasons, and he heard Draco engage them while telling them to leave him alone. He came back around the door and found two guards trying to Stun him. He joined them; one of them would be able to take him down before he hurt someone.

In theory. In practise…

Whose brilliant idea was it to teach Draco to duel wandlessly? Oh right, Severus kindly taught him not to use a wand, and he started duelling when Narcissa cut him off from their vaults. Well, they had created a monster. He could cast magic so quickly and seamlessly that he hardly even seemed like a wizard using spells. He easily held off the three of them, performing not just simple defensive magic, but also complex calculations like transfiguring the wall to wrap around one of the guards and hold her. 

When he raised his wand to bind Draco while he was distracted, Draco gestured at him with a sudden glance and his arm fell instantly limp and literally boneless, flopping like a glove filled with water. His wand flew back into the entry room somewhere. Draco's attention was already turned on another threat, flinging the desk into the air between him and a flurry of spells that were no longer merely intended to Stun and bind, as they realised the level of threat he posed.

"Draco!" he snapped in his most commanding voice, because he knew Draco would respond to the sound of authority the way he needed — he looked. Lucius met his eyes and applied Legilimency with all the force instead of finesse possible, to really make him repel the invasion. 

It was extremely unpleasant; it took no effort whatsoever to get into Draco's mind, and it was sheer chaos. He had always been overly emotional, but he had been taught from a young age to control that and compartmentalise it properly. Now that had broken down into a howling maelstrom of impressions and feelings that conveyed almost nothing but layers and layers of different kinds of fear. 

He couldn't withstand that assault for long, but it worked. While they both flinched away from the contact, Draco was too distracted to block the guards' spells. Two stunning spells hit Draco almost at once, and he crumpled. He hoped Draco's heart was strong enough to take it. 

"Master's wand," a small voice behind him said, and he looked down. Sometime in the chaos, Tolly had Apparated in with Nott, whose injuries were apparently beyond home remedy, and who was now leaning heavily on the wall where he could see through the doorway, holding his chest and breathing laboriously. The elf was holding up his wand with deferentially drooping ears. 

A surge of revulsion at the sight of an elf with a wand showed on his face, and he snatched it up without acknowledging it. "Inform Narcissa," he instructed. She cringed a bow and vanished. 

--

After getting his arm tended to, Lucius waited around in the café on the top floor until morning when he was allowed to visit. The delay gave him an unfortunate amount of time to consider what broken impressions he had taken from Draco's mind, and he didn't like what he saw there.

When it was time, he found Draco in ward 49: long-term patients whose minds had been affected by magic. It was grim. The ward itself tried to be cheerful enough, in clean neutral colours and littered with the residents' personal belongings, but it was still a half dozen helpless people stored in a locked room without an ounce of privacy or dignity. And it was seeming ever more likely that it would eventually be Draco's permanent fate.

They wouldn't leave him here, of course. Even if he needed permanent care, they would bring him home and bring someone in to provide it. But the haunting spirit was the same.

The witch watching the ward was occupied with one of the Longbottoms having a fit, and he went on to find Draco's bed without announcing himself. He sat beside the bed with his arms crossed, staring at him. He wasn't sure if Draco was asleep or unconscious, either sedated or Stunned, but he looked like he was where he belonged, and that itself was unpleasant.

Not long after the beginning of visiting hours, someone else entered the ward. Lucius listened without moving as he approached the ward matron and asked after Draco.

"Is everything all right, Auror? He was brought in unconscious and hasn't woken yet."

"Just following up." 

He finally got up and stepped out to meet them just before they arrived at Draco's bed, pulling the curtains closed to hide him. The matron showed surprise that he was there and greeted him pleasantly, but he focused on the Auror, a portly older man with a grey moustache and a bowler named Janssen. "He's still asleep. I take it this is about the incident last night."

"It is." 

"My son had an… episode. I think you'll find that no one was seriously hurt." 

"Spells were exchanged in the hospital. We obviously have to check on that." He flipped his notebook open. "I see here that you, a Healer, and two responding guards required treatment after this 'episode', as well as a Theodore Nott." 

"That's a private matter." 

"When it sends people to the hospital, domestic matters become our business." 

"I didn't say 'domestic'," he snapped. "Nott is his assistant." 

"Who he injured?" 

That was a question. He was fishing. Just like an Auror, barging in where he didn't belong, when he didn't know anything… He took hold of his anger and pushed it away. "What do you want?"

The Auror looked back at him and saw he wasn't going to play along. "To hear his side of the story. Can you wake him up?" He nodded to the matron. 

Pulling back the curtains to expose the sleeping Draco, she stepped up beside his bed and uncapped what looked like a potion, but instead let out a strong scent of flowers. Lilies, daffodils, grass, and water - it smelled just like their gardens in the summer. Had he really been here so often that they had these tricks on hand to keep him calm?

"All right, Draco, honey," she was saying in a soothing voice as she roused him with a spell. He opened his eyes calmly, and she smiled. "That's it, welcome back…"

Lucius could not have said what he saw that told him everything was about to go horribly wrong, but he trusted his instincts and stepped backward. In the next instant, Draco cast a shield spell so powerful it flashed in a visible violet orb around him, and shoved everything — nurse, Auror, table, curtain dividers, the bed on the other side it — ten feet away from him in every direction. Someone screamed. 

"Stay away!" 

Janssen was thrown to the floor, and he pulled his wand before even getting his feet back under him. Lucius whipped his out and disarmed him before he could use it. 

"What are you doing, Malfoy?" The Auror scrambled back to his feet and snatched his wand off the floor without taking his eyes off him. 

Lucius held up his wand in two fingers, overtly unthreatening. "He is not fighting." 

And it was true. Draco had grabbed his hair and pressed back against the head of the bed, one hand outstretched and shaking, hiding his face. He hadn't cast another spell and wasn't even watching them.

"You attacked an Auror — you'll go back t—"

"I stopped you escalating a volatile situation," he interrupted. Threatening him with Azkaban in range of Draco's hearing and magic was a dangerous idea, he had a feeling. "He is not fighting," he reiterated, and dropped into a low, controlled voice. "He is terrified." 

"Stop this!" the ward matron commanded. If she minded being thrown about by Draco's spell, she didn't show it at all. "The both of you need to leave, you're upsetting them. It's all right, honey." She rubbed Frank Longbottom's shoulder to relax him. Somewhere in his broken mind, he must have remembered being an Auror, because he was standing in front of his wife and a cowering Lockhart with his arm outstretched as though he had a wand, glaring at him and Janssen. 

Lucius took a step back to defuse the situation. For the moment, he would cooperate. "Stay away from Draco," he warned her. "He's not trying to hurt anyone; he's lashing out in panic when people try getting close enough to touch him." 

"That won't be a problem," she said, her tone of voice incongruously soothing and attention still on Longbottom, getting him to lower his arm. Perhaps they responded to tone rather than words. "No one wants to scare anyone, do we?" 

"I'll be relieving him of his wand first," Janssen said firmly, making no move to leave.

"He isn't using a wand," Lucius told him flatly. 

The Auror glanced at Draco swiftly and then looked hard at him. "Accidental magic?" 

He clenched his jaw rather than admit to it. That would have been an embarrassment ten years ago. Even fifteen years ago he'd basically had control of his magic before he even had a wand. Now to admit that the family harboured a full-grown adult guilty of such emotional and magical… incontinence… 

"Out, gentlemen," the matron commanded, sweeping them with a steely stare. 

Lucius put his wand away and pointedly waited for the Auror to precede him out into the corridor. The door audibly locked behind them.

"This is a dangerous situation," Janssen was saying, scribbling himself some notes. "Uncontrolled magic of this magnitude… if it is uncontrolled…"

"Do you see which ward you are in?" he demanded in a low, sharp voice, his anger barely reined in behind it. Lunatics. Every patient in this ward was a lunatic. 

Every last one. 

"Leave. Him. Alone." 

Janssen looked at the Janus Thickey ward plaque for a silent second, then left without another word.