Disclaimer: All characters from the Harry Potter universe belong to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic Inc., AOL/Time Warner and associated companies. No offence, legal or otherwise, is intended by the online publication of this story. Neither is profit. Make love, not lawsuits!

Notes: Dedicated to Slytherlynx, and inspired by the Sexual Healing challenge on Pornish Pixies.

When I pushed inside him he was hot and tight. His legs were cool about my waist. His face was turned away from me. I stared, for a moment, at his neck--the curl of soft, pale hair there, shaped like a note of music. I stared at it and tried not to move, not to come too soon, listening to his strained, disciplined breaths. Had he done this before? He must have. He must have. Although I never saw bruises on his hips. Although I never--

I pulled out of him slowly. Slick, close heat receded by degrees, leaving me cold and throbbing in the air. Air suddenly too thin to breathe.

He did look at me then, pale eyes wide, as I sat back on my haunches and noticed that his penis was still soft.

I can't do this, I thought. But I didn't say it. Instead, I said: 'Get up.'

He lay there a moment more, before sitting up and leaning against the padded headboard. Dark red, the velvet there, dark against his white skin.

'Why?' He sounded puzzled. Anxious. This was not what he'd expected.

'I.' What could I say? You're one of my children. One of my House. I said that I'd take care of you. I even, against the grain of habit, meant it. No. Those weren't the reasons. You're not hard. You don't want this. I can't-- But no. That wasn't the reason either, was it?

He reached for my erection, but I caught his wrist. 'No,' I said. My voice was firm. Steady. But in his eyes I saw myself reflected, an elongated, ugly shadow, my face drawn with something like fear. 'No.'

He shivered. Extracted his wrist from my grasp, carefully, as though I might break it. 'Why? You haven't--'

--claimed me yet. I read the rest of that thought in his mind, and then I knew, I knew, that he had done this before.

'I have claimed you,' I said harshly. More harshly than I intended. 'I have. But this--not yet. Not tonight. Not yet.'

He looked like he wanted to glance away. Didn't. Looked like he wanted to tell me I made no sense. Didn't.

I drew closer to him again, and he didn't flinch. Well-trained, then. I wondered who did it. Rosier? I never thought he had a taste for this. Macnair? One of Lucius' more avaricious friends?

Sixteen. Only sixteen.

I gathered him up, his long, pale back against my chest. I knew that I looked ridiculous. Incongruous. Insane, even, to someone who was used to such transactions. I hadn't completed mine. If I didn't, he wouldn't feel protected. He'd go to someone else. Someone else who... protected him. Like his father had done.

Except that his father had never demanded payment, but everyone else did. Was expected to.

So I curled my arm around his waist, milk-smooth and warm, and slipped my fingers down to his groin.

He caught his breath, but said nothing else. Even his mind was blank, like a wind-swept field.

'This is what I want tonight,' I said into his ear, and felt some of his tension ease. This he expected. This was closer to what he knew. A price for everything. For guardianship. And for the knowledge, almost-sweet in his eyes, that I wouldn't be done with him today. The longer I wanted him, the longer he was safe. The longer he was claimed.

He was resilient. Intelligent. He didn't pull away.

Stopped trying to hold in his breaths when he finally became hard--stopped trying not to moan when I told him I wanted to hear him, when I said this was good, he was good, he was beautiful, let go, let go, let go.

He was so slender and hard and strong in my hand. He didn't look like he needed protection. His hips were stubborn, demanding, the shape of his mouth almost petulant when I didn't move fast enough. All the marks of a spoilt first son, even though everything had been taken from him now. Father. Mother. Heritage. Only his name, for all that was worth, and his body.

I rubbed myself against him, slow and heated, pre-come slickening his skin so that it clung to me. I jerked his young prick faster when he finally whispered something like please, and he came in a hot, white rush over my knuckles--bucking, pulling me along with him, so that I closed my eyes and spilt all over his back. Then he collapsed, young muscles strained to exhaustion, face temporarily rid of all the worry that had plagued him here.

He looked even younger then. Hair darkened with sweat, clinging to his temples in lonely curls. Lips bitten. Heart hammering--his body this pale chalice of blood, pulsing wildly in my arms. Breakable. If I hadn't come seconds before, I'd be hard once more.

As it was, I only turned him around--saw some of the worry enter his eyes again--but I didn't tell him to go. Back to Slytherin, where Zabini would see, and would tell his father that Draco was no longer claimed. That he was up for play.

No.

I didn't kiss his mouth. I kissed the hollow of his throat instead, skin still glistening with sweat and painfully thin over that flutter of pulse--one deep bite and he'd be torn--but I didn't tear him, of course. I couldn't.

I only let him curl his leg around me, when he gathered his courage, and I watched him sink into a restless sleep.

Neither Macnair nor his friends had expected their game to be revealed, their little barter system, trading in the survival of the Malfoy heir.

None of them had expected Draco to come to me. To ask to be claimed. To be kept.

They hadn't expected it, but I would keep him. I'd keep him here, in my night-cage, in Voldemort's, until the day came to let us out.