Originally posted 10th December, 2006

Title: The deep abysses of war
Author: kabal42
Characters: Harry-centric, with Death Eaters and Draco.
Rating: R
Warnings: NC.
Kinks chosen: NC, messing with someone's head.
Word Count: 2689
Summary: Harry is captured during the war and he knows he's drugged. What is real and what isn't? And who are his captors?
Author's notes: For melusinahp. Happy Holidays, dear! I hope you like this, even if it isn't as explicit as you'd write it. It was definitely an experience to write and I'm grateful for the challenge *hugs*
A huge thanks to elfflame for virtual hugs and cheers as well as letting Draco take care of Harry so he didn't freak out at what I was writing – not to mention her wonderful beta-job.
This is f-locked for the moment due to the uncertain statements in LJ's policies Go IJ!




He knew the exact dimensions of the room. Not by feet and inches, but by his own feet and hands and the length of his body. He knew that the room faced the sunset and that he scratched a mark under the windowsill each time he saw one.

Sometimes he wasn't sure if he might have missed an entire day and night when he was knocked out in the light of day an woke up in the dead of night – or vice versa. Waking up in the dead of light was somehow worse.

There were 64 marks under the windowsill. 63 days in a place he had no idea where was with a war raging that he couldn't see or feel but knew was out there. A war that needed him. But here he was, in the hands of enemies. The only thing he knew for sure was that they were enemies.

Sometimes he wondered what they'd think if they could see him now; Harry Potter - skinny, dull, scratched, bruised. Hurting in places that shouldn't hurt. He would rather be dead.

Being confined like this was enough to freak him out; he didn't fancy being in small, locked rooms. Sometimes he woke up and thought that it was Uncle Vernon banging on the walls, but it never was. When someone came it was worse than being alone and as much as he despised his Uncle, this was a degree of revenge he would never have taken. And it wasn't just the war, because it had something personal to it.

Then again, he might be wrong. There were several people who came to see him. Some kept their faces covered, some didn't. Those that didn't he had never seen before coming to this place. And he knew that he was drugged half the time, at least, and because of that he was never really sure of his judgement. They were enemies. He knew that much.

Once, he'd tried to fight the drugs. It had been one of the first days, before he'd started to mark the sunsets. The man who came that day had been cloaked and masked and large. Harry couldn't fight him, he'd already been weak from the lack of food – or so he told himself – he'd had no chance. It hurt more when he wasn't drugged and the shame after was worse; the violation more imminent and more there. He couldn't hide from it. The thought of his own screams frightened him, even now, and they seemed to frighten his captors too. The next dose had been so strong he'd been knocked out completely. That had been more blissful. Ignorance.

Too bad he couldn't just sleep through it all. Too bad they woke him up each day. Too bad he was only partly drugged when the rape happened.

There. That thought, that word was enough to make him shiver uncontrollably. He curled up in the blankets in the corner where he slept and tried to make it stop. It wouldn't and his heart was racing out of control and he almost couldn't breathe. But he wouldn't cry. Wouldn't scream. Never again. Not a sound. Never again. Never again. His mind repeated that as something he could hold on to, keep him sane, just enough to mark the sunsets, keep remembering the world outside.

When he woke up again, the light was a deep red; it would've made him feel good before, but now it just felt like blood. His perhaps. He staggered to the window and looked out. It was a sunset and he sat down under the sill and looked up, then at his nails. He used a different one each day, wearing it down while marking the heavy oak. Sometimes till it bled and made him remember that he was alive. Today it was the ring finger of his left hand.

The sun had set when he was done and he looked at the small table in the centre of the room. He avoided thinking of the straps and rings on it and focused on the fact that a plate had appeared on it. He had often thought that this place must have at least one House-elf, but that wasn't surprising given that these were Death Eaters. It wasn't much food and it would drug him again, but he had to eat. After that he curled up in his corner again.

- - - ~ ~ & ~ ~ - - -

That night the visions came. Dreams speaking to him with uncanny clarity. He watched himself enter the room, dressed as he had been the day he was captured. When he was awake he could fight the visions and the memories of them, but not now. Not in his sleep.

"I'm still out there," Harry-in-the-room said. "They will never suspect. No one is looking for you."

Harry-in-the-blankets wanted to shout No! They are looking for me! but he couldn't. And what if it was true? He couldn't think that. He tried to push the thought away, but it was always buried in his mind, making him weak. He hated being weak.

"I know what you are," said the apparition. "Weak. At my mercy. This is where you want to be. Where you deserve to be. You failed."

Had he? What if he'd tried to kill Voldemort and was dead and this was his punishment for failure? Somewhere in the back of his mind he was fighting that thought too, but it was getting harder and harder. He heard a whimper come from his lips and bit them to stop it. He tasted blood. A repetition. His lip was scabbed or bleeding all the time now.

"You are mine now. And you want to be mine. I'll show you..."

Did he? Yes, he wanted to be his own. But this wasn't quite...

There were hands turning him over and his body was almost paralysed. Sluggish like his mind. He tasted the fabric of the blankets, coarse wool, tinted with the scent of his own sweat. Dirty.

"Mine," his voice said, right at his neck and then the pain was there, penetrating him, and somewhere he was grateful for the inability to move. He couldn't cry either.

- - - ~ ~ & ~ ~ - - -

It had been 72 days now and Harry knew he was confused. Something was different. It was like he wasn't sure when the dreams started and ended. He had a feeling he might have missed entire days or that he'd marked the same sunset twice.

He was half convinced that all he had was this place, that it was his purgatory and no one would ever find him. He dreamed about that each night now, or each day or less or more. All the time. He saw himself all the time. Happy. Fed. Not like he knew he was and could feel when he dared touch his own body.

The visitors were the same now, almost all the time. One he knew was not old. About his size. He could've taken him down to begin with, but he couldn't any longer. That was probably why he hadn't been there to begin with. Then it had been men. Larger. This one was not that big. Sometimes Harry thought that he was in his dreams too, this young man. He wanted to throw up in those dreams; he shouldn't be there. It was bad enough that he was there in the waking hours.

- - - ~ ~ & ~ ~ - - -

He'd been out for a while. He'd woken only to feel potions being poured down his throat. He didn't know for how long and now he was annoyed that he had lost track of his sunsets. That bothered him the most. But he got more food now. And he could feel a little more strength returning. Something else too. His mind. The drugs were still there. He could taste them as much as ever, but the effect was different. He suspected it was some sort of resistance he was building; his body fighting back and perhaps his magic too - it had always done things almost on its own accord when he was out of control. And he had no control of his mind while he was sick.

A plan was beginning to form in his mind. He would dare it soon. Dare not to eat for a day. Soon. On the day he'd mark as 100. That day he'd do it. His anniversary. The days may be all fucked up and it might be a lot more days than that, but it was his anniversary anyway. He'd take his chances with that. It was as good a day to die on as any. Today was number 97.

- - - ~ ~ & ~ ~ - - -

That day he scratched the mark as soon as he woke up. It was a different day. Apart from that, he tried to keep to his routine. Not fret. Not walk around. Stay in his corner, curled up. Wait. Wait...

The young man entered after dinner. Harry hadn't known how to hide the fact that he hadn't eaten, so he'd stuffed the food under the blankets. Disgusting, but if all went well it didn't matter. If all went wrong, it hopefully didn't matter either. At least this way, he had his chance.

His jailer came closer and Harry waited. Lay completely still, unmoving. The other knelt by him, reaching out to touch him, shake him awake, roll him over. Whatever it was, Harry's soul recoiled at the thought. His hand struck. Grabbed a slim wrist and held it. He pulled himself up and slugged the man hard with his other hand, still holding on to him. And again. And again. When he let go, the other slumped back on the floor and Harry hit him again. He was surely unconscious now.

Harry tore the hood and mask of the other and the shock at seeing that face, now with a nice bruise on one cheek, was substantial enough to make him pull away sharply. Draco Malfoy. That didn't make any sense to him. Why would he be...? And how? Why leave Harry to one who had already failed?

He pushed the immediate questions away and focused on something besides who this person was. Instead he quickly searched the man's pockets and found his wand. It was surprisingly easy to use it and he bound Malfoy's hands and feet and simply left him there. It was time to find out where he was.

The house turned out to be vast, but most of it was so obviously not in use that it confused Harry; he'd had a feeling of many people here, passing through and staying for a while at least. But all he found was a few room that looked as if they were in use and only one bedroom.

He began a meticulous search. When he discovered the kitchen, he stopped to eat. Not too much or too fast, he had to be careful. A bathroom with a mirror had told him just how horrible he looked. How starved. He was surprised that anyone would've wanted to touch him in this state – let alone... A shudder stopped that thought.

A small sitting room, that seemed to double as a study, gave him the most evidence. He discovered a journal. Leafing through its pages made him sick, but he had to read. Had to know.

First he found detailed descriptions of how Malfoy had stumbled upon the small encampment Harry had been in with a few others. How he'd realised he'd have to act quickly and had managed to overpower Harry. His own memory of that started to resurface as he read. It had been his watch and someone had struck him from behind. He'd woken up in that room. Malfoy had done that – and by chance? That felt like the worst part of it. The chance. That it was Malfoy was bad enough!

As he continued, it was as if he saw into Malfoy's mind. It was a very strange place to be and he had to go back, to the very first pages, for it to begin to make sense.

Somehow, that part was vague and probably deliberately so. Malfoy had escaped Voldemort. Harry was fairly sure that whatever had happened just after Dumbledore's death had somehow unhinged the guy. Everything seemed distorted and for some reason Malfoy blamed Harry for everything that had happened. Again, the reasoning was fuzzy, which made Harry think that Voldemort had somehow managed to use Harry against Malfoy – or at least the idea of Harry.

There had been no others here. That was the conclusion as Harry read on and on. No mentions of anyone else anywhere. He brought the journal with him and continued the search. A cupboard in the bedroom heralded the answer: Poly-juice. The finding of a small door in there that lead to a laboratory explained the presence of it. Harry flopped down on the bed and read again.

His next shock came when there was a sudden mention of how the writer had harvested hair from Harry to use in Poly-juice. How he'd done the same to various people on the streets, posing as both masked and unmasked Death Eaters. But the real killer was that Malfoy had posed as Harry to the Order as well.

Anger rose in Harry's heart, a fury that wasn't red and hot as his had always been before. No, this was cold and calculated. Someone had to pay and there was only one man who deserved to pick up the tab.

Strengthened by his anger, Harry strode back to the room that had been his world for so long and kicked Malfoy in the ribs. Oddly enough, that woke him up, despite his being knocked out. The first sound Harry heard out of him was a groan. A sound he knew. A sound he'd heard several times, at night, at day, whenever the young Death Eater visited him. With each rape. He kicked Malfoy again, this time knocking the air out of him.

"Why?" he snarled. "Answer me."

"Mine." The word was coughed. "You owe me. I suffered because of you."

Harry ignored that as obvious bull-shit and kicked him again.

"The war. How is it going?"

"How should I know?" Malfoy made a very unpleasant face. "I show up, tell them I'm hiding, planning, all that shit, and they are too intimidated to ask questions. You did a good job of being the boss of your own project." That last statement was followed by a very mean grin.

Harry bent down and picked Malfoy up by his robes and knocked him against the wall. When he let go, the other fell over, unable to find his balance with both hands and feet tied. Harry picked him up again, this time left him sitting against the wall and straddled his legs. His hands closed on Malfoy's throat, not quite cutting off his air.

"You. Will. Pay."

He tore the robes open, the feeling of the fabric ripping apart was satisfying. There were marks on Malfoy's chest, suggesting that there had been suffering somewhere. Perhaps that was what had unhinged him.

"You can't harm me," Malfoy ranted. "I have you in my power. I'm you! I'm all you want!"

Words echoed in Harry's brain, words like 'mine', spoken in his own voice. He felt his hand tighten around Malfoy's throat and only managed to let go just before the other lost consciousness.

"You will pay," he repeated, his voice low and menacing. "No one knows where we are. You saw to that. I have a war to fight, but no one knows where I've been. Now, you will tell me everything. Then I will go back where I belong. But I will return here. Every day. And if I don't... No one knows where you are."

Malfoy's eyes got a strange stare to them and Harry thought it was true fear. Then he slugged him hard, knocking Malfoy out again. He locked the door with the manual lock and several spells before he left.