Title: Cut Out the Past
Author: tryslora
Characters/Pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: NC-17
Kinks/Themes Chosen: scarification, bottoms
Other Warnings: cutting, knife play (if self-harm is a trigger, this fic is probably not for you)
Word Count: ~1300
Summary/Description: Harry and Draco were scarred by the war. Together, they decided to rewrite the stories in their skin by carving their own scars.
Author's Notes: As soon as I saw the kink, I knew I wanted to do something with Draco and Harry and their chosen scars. I struggled with this, trying to find the right way to word things without risking glorification of self-harm because the process of the cutting is incredibly important to the boys. I hope I have not tread upon something that will offend. Thank you to M & M, my faithful alpha/beta. Thank you to the mods for giving us this kink. I really have a thing about scars (as I'm sure folks have noted already) and I’m glad I got to write this.


“Stay still,” Harry murmurs, watching as the blade bites through the barely healed strip of color on Draco’s skin. He could use his wand, but after five years, they know the difference between a curse and a cut, and they both long ago decided that they prefer the knife. There have been too many curses in their life.

He twists and turns it, following the line that he created on Sunday and has re-drawn every night since, five more times before now. The line curves in a pattern that means nothing in particular, but everything to Harry, simply because it flowed from his fingers. It is the most recent in a long line of scars—of wounds—that he has drawn on Draco’s body. This one begins at his shoulder and slides down over the meat on the back of his arm, twisting around his elbow to the inner part of his forearm.

Harry has to go deep to get past the first beginnings of the healing, to give him space to pack it again with a mixture Neville gave him that slows the healing. When Draco whimpers, Harry pauses, setting his free hand on his back. Fingers drift down his spine, soft and gentle, until Draco eases.

“All right there?” Harry asks quietly.

He hears the tightness in Draco’s voice, the low tension that he can feel in the skin under his touch. “Fine, Potter. Get on with it.”

“Almost done.”

They have a routine, but it is far from simple. As Harry twists the blade at the end, he nudges at the margins of the wound, opening it before he drops the herbs in and pressing them deep while Draco hisses at the pain. Harry murmurs nonsense words, soft nothings of reassurance as he draws his wand down the line of the wound, retracing it and accelerating the healing until a thick, pink line remains.

It will fade to silver with time, a thin winding trace of the control they have taken over lives that were built in a world with no control at all.

Harry’s fingers flatten against Draco’s arm, curving around the slender muscle. “That’s the last one,” he says, and Draco turns over to lie flat on his back, arm across his stomach as he tries to see it. Harry summons a mirror, turning it so that Draco can see his handiwork, the new pattern laid out in his skin.

“I suppose it will do.” Draco arches one eyebrow. “You do have something in mind to take the pain away, do you not?”

“I always have something in mind.” Harry straddles Draco’s thighs, bending down to press a kiss to his throat, licking at the small ridge he can feel there, another hand-made scar from days gone by.

This part is less routine and more ritual, the way Harry traces every scar. He could begin with the first, but instead he starts at the top, his tongue teasing the place where the scar begins behind Draco’s left ear and trails down the side of his neck and across his collar-bone. It becomes intricate then, where it strays over his chest, and by the time Harry is done tasting the complicated pattern, Draco whines beneath him, pushing up as he twists his body, begging for attention. Harry obliges by capturing his nipple and sucking until breath hisses out and Draco relaxes.

He spreads his hands across Draco’s abdomen then, knowing that the very first scars that Harry gave Draco lie there, hidden beneath newer, fresher silvered lines. He remembers the first time they were naked in bed together, and Draco’s whisper of you marked me then and Harry’s own response of I didn’t know it, but I claimed you as mine.

That was the night he let Draco mark him—claim him—in return for the very first time. That was the night they both began to take back control.

Those early accidental lines are hidden now, the memories of how he had unwittingly hurt Draco buried beneath the scars that Harry made on purpose, the twists and turns of their history written in silvered lines on Draco’s skin. He kisses each one, fingers light against the ridges while he works his way lower.

“Not yet,” he murmurs in a kiss to spot just above Draco’s prick.

“Prat,” Draco mutters. “Just suck it already, Potter.”

“Not yet,” Harry insists.

He reaches out, gripping Draco’s left wrist, twisting it to show the underside of his arm. The Dark Mark is still visible, burned into his skin, but the lines of it are cut and obscured by scars. Harry licks at the base of his wrist, tasting salt at the beginning of the scar. “I love you,” Harry whispers.

When Draco tries to pull his arm back, Harry stops him. “I love all of you,” he says firmly. “This part is ours now.” He nips at tender skin, suckling until Draco relaxes and Harry can trace these scars as well. He draws and redraws the patterns, burning them into Draco’s skin with kisses and tongue. He slowly draws away to catch fingertips, sucking one in and waiting for the shift of Draco’s hips in echo of the way his finger fucks Harry’s mouth.

“Are you going to suck me?” Draco’s voice has gone hoarse. Fingers drift over Harry’s forehead, pushing his hair back.

“Would you rather my mouth or my arse?” Harry shifts to press their hips together, leaning down over Draco to kiss his lips. He rotates his hips, dragging himself along Draco’s prick so he can feel that Harry prepared himself earlier, that they can seal this with more than a kiss.

Draco’s hands push at Harry’s hair, framing his face. Fingers slide over the deep scars that twist over Harry’s right eye, masking the lightning bolt as they slide up into his hairline, then curl around his eye to the top of his cheek. He pulls Harry close, kissing the scars—not Draco’s first mark, but perhaps the most important one that he has given Harry, making him into something more than a long ago survivor of a curse.

“You’re mine,” Draco tells him. “Not the Ministry’s Boy Wonder, not the saviour of the wizarding world. Mine.”

“I’m me,” Harry replies with a fond grin. “And I freely give myself to you.”

When Draco grips his hips, Harry moves to help him, leaning back to guide Draco’s prick into himself. Harry slowly lowers himself with a groan, meeting the press of Draco pushing into him.

“Slow,” Harry says, as he rises and falls, each thrust taking Draco deeper. His fingers wrap around Draco’s wrist, anchoring himself with fingers across scars that hide ink, while Draco’s hand cradles Harry’s face, likewise anchored in scars.

He loses himself in the low rush of breath and sensation, whining low when Draco pauses, drawing it out. Fingers tighten and he begs, softly at first, then a loud whine of Draco’s name. Scars forgotten, they hold on and Draco fucks him hard, going deep until he shudders and spills into Harry, before Harry spurts across Draco’s chest, the white liquid lines crossing the scars.

Harry places his hand on Draco, fingers spread in the thick sticky lines. Draco covers his hand, twisting their fingers together.

“Thank you,” Draco murmurs.

He doesn’t have to explain; Harry understands. Every time they do this—every time they wrest control for themselves—they make a space that is solely their own. There are scars that they will always carry, both seen and unseen. Scars that they couldn’t do anything about. But these marks belong to them and them alone, and they will treasure them for that reason.

“Always,” Harry murmurs, kissing him lightly as he curls into him. “Always.”