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: The experiences of a prisoner of war. Dedicated to Potty Wee Potter and Amanuensis.

Prisonnier de Guerre
by

He's hungry all the time now. Hungry hungry hungry--his stomach seems to be sucking its way in towards his spine, and his ribs cast sharp, tooth-shaped shadows against his skin. His waist is so thin now he's surprised he hasn't splinched himself--but Lucius seems to like it, seems to like wrapping cool hands around it, lifting him up effortlessly onto a swollen, angry cock.

He's hungry all the time now. So hungry his head feels empty, like a very clean room, and he can barely think. He's so hungry sometimes he can't walk, can't speak. Food is little and far between. Food. What did it taste like? Pumpkin juice, in the Great Hall? Chicken? Smoked ham?

Harry can't remember. He can't remember how any of these things tasted, because the only taste he knows now is the taste of come.

It's the only thing that's fed to him, really, and it's only on the days when no one visits him--and they are rare--that he actually gets any bread.

Come. Sperm. Spunk. Bitter and hot and filling Harry's throat like wax, until the prick in his mouth melts like a candle, wilts as Harry sucks the orgasm out of it. Sometimes Harry understands why they keep him hungry--it makes him such an eager little cocksucker, because he's dying to get anything, absolutely anything, into his mouth--to feel that thick spurt, warm and smooth and alive, slipping down his throat, filling the empty chasm of his belly.

Food.

This is the only food he knows now.

* * *

It's Draco he hates the most. He doesn't mind it so much when Lucius fucks him, or Snape, or Pettigrew--because they're bigger than him, and it's almost okay to be raped by someone bigger, isn't it? To not be able to fight back?

But Draco's smaller than him--well, he used to be--and it hurts, somewhere in that distant part of Harry that is still dubiously, tentatively alive--it hurts that he can't fight back, that his arms are so weak he can barely lift them, that he can't think of insults to cut this little Malfoy down to size.

He still manages to smirk at Draco's prick though, every now and then--a look that says mirror mirror on the wall, who's the smallest of them all?--and it is the smallest, out of all the Death Eaters--until Draco backhands him, turns him over, and fucks him so hard he can't breathe. 'How d'you like that, Potter?', comes the furious rasp in his ear, punctuated by the slap of flesh on flesh--'not such a big man now, are you?'

Then Draco comes, pulling painfully hard on Harry's nipples--and slips out of him, panting, cursing, throwing Harry back onto the floor. 'Don't you dare stand up. Don't you dare ever stand up,' Draco snarls, and what he says makes no sense, so Harry ignores him.

The door slams, leaving Harry with his head ringing against the floor--nipples pounding with an achingly sweet pulse, air thickening with the scent of blood.

* * *

Lucius is far more sophisticated, and far harder to goad. He takes it slow when he wants to--in fact, he's the exact opposite of Draco, because he fucks slowly when he's angry, and rougher when he's not.

He also makes Harry come every time.

It had taken some getting used to--Harry hadn't thought you could be raped and still come, and he'd hated himself for it at first. But then hunger had emptied his mind and his heart, hunger that felt almost like happiness, like nothingness--and he'd stopped fighting, letting his body react as and when it wanted.

Lucius likes doing things properly--no scrabbling against the dungeon floor for him. He conjures a bed, thick and soft, and leans back against the pillows with Harry in his lap. This took some getting used to, as well--this sense of deceptive comfort, the scent of rosemary and sweet-scented oil as he rubs it into Lucius' skin, or has it rubbed into his own. But now it doesn't surprise him, makes him almost happy, that he has a bed under him for a while instead of cold, hard stone. Sometimes he wants to just turn over and fall asleep, feeling his lashes flutter against the cool white of a pillow--but Lucius won't let him. Touching him everywhere--nipples throat thighs--keeping him awake, for hours on end sometimes. Smooth slide of long hair over his thigh, smooth slide of finger inside him, smooth slide of tongue in his mouth--everything about Lucius is smooth smooth smooth, and Harry sometimes wonders if he were carved out of some soft, white wood.

He stares down at himself as Lucius pulls him onto his lap; back-to-front, legs splayed, in that ancient and familiar gesture. Stares at the oil Lucius is massaging into his balls, tenderly, and feels somewhat angry at his own cock--short and thick and glistening with pre-come--for not thinning down like the rest of him.

And then it's all sibilant whispers and sighs and speak Parseltongue for me Harry, yes, just like that and the slow rise and fall of the chest behind him matching the slow rise and fall of the hand on his penis--and it takes ages of this, what seems like hours, before Harry twists and cries out and comes in that silken grip--and in the floating emptiness of the following moments, he barely notices being turned over, spread, and slowly filled with cock.

They do bring him food the following day, actually--or rather, the elf does--and Harry's started to discern a pattern to it--when he's close to unconsciousness, too weak to breathe, they bring him something to keep him alive. He'd spilled half his soup the last time, his fingers had trembled so badly--but the elf had stood by quietly, face averted, obviously commanded not to help.

Today it's something solid, thankfully--steamed pasta, lovely and soft as a cloud in his mouth. He drops some on the floor in his haste, but is quick to lean down and scoop it up with his tongue. He hears a sob--and turns, surprised--to see that the house-elf's shoulders are shaking, shuddering as it cries.

He stares at it bemusedly. Harry, stomach warm and wonderfully heavy with food, sees no reason to cry at all.

'No. Up.'

Up where? How?

But rough hands grab his arms, hauling them up and almost out of their sockets, before Harry understands.

'Hold the bar. And keep holding it. For every time you fall, I'll have to give you a kiss. And we don't want that, do we?'

Harry closes his eyes. He knows about Nott's kisses--not the pliant touch of mouth to mouth--few of the Death Eaters kiss him, a mere halfblood. No. Nott's kiss is the cool kiss of steel, the smooth edge of a knife scraping along his skin, under his balls, prickling oddly at the small hairs there.

He stretches his arms up weakly, hearing little more than a buzz in his head. The bar is cold and familiar in his grip.

The first lash comes as a surprise--it always does, no matter how much he trains for it--a sudden splitting burn--a line of pain hissing down his back like a snake.

He twists, but he doesn't scream. His mouth is bound, after all.

Each invisible stroke of the whip comes without warning--even the whistling of air now covered by Harry's furiously roaring pulse. He bucks helplessly, eyes leaking precious water, saliva soaking the cloth in his mouth. His screams are reduced to thin, questioning sounds against the binding, throat raw--and Harry finally falls, seeing the floor coming up so awfully slow to meet him, before Nott's arms reach around to haul him up again.

He remembers Snape being gentle with him, once--back in the beginning, only a few days after the last sight of sunlight--how Snape's eyes had flinched when they looked at him, and how they seemed almost unwilling, and how careful Snape had been with him--pulling in and out of him slowly, as if he might break.

It was only when nothing came of that unwillingness--weeks afterwards, when in his desperation Harry began to beg, that Snape got angry. Harry let out a near-constant litany of please, please, and it wasn't because he wanted to be fucked, but because he wanted to be let go. It wasn't until he said things like traitor, and I hate you, and help me help me please that Snape started hitting him. It started with a slap, sharp and stinging across Harry's face--but Harry wouldn't shut up, and soon the hate and anger that had made Snape's eyes glitter before returned, and his nails dug into Harry's hips, and he started fucking Harry as hard as Draco Malfoy did.

Harry stopped begging then. Was silent. Stayed silent, even on the rare occasion that Snape was gentle again. He was silent when, sleek and panting, Snape pressed against his back and a hot, desperate whisper in Harry's ear said 'Don't ask me... You can't escape, you can't... I tried...' A brief, shuddering gasp--and then there were tears, hot and salt and sudden, against the back of Harry's neck.

Snape stayed that way a long time, not moving, face pressed against Harry's shoulder. Then he drew out, still hard, and put on his robes. It wasn't until Snape had left--without a backward glance at him--that Harry realized what the words had meant.

* * *

There isn't very much to do when he isn't being fucked or beaten. Back in the beginning Harry had walked around his cell, trailing his hands along the walls, trying to find a break in the wards. Now he's too weak to move, but he feels out the cracks close to him anyway--and he tries to think why he used to bother checking up on them before, but he can't quite remember. He slides in and out of acid dreams, driven by fever and hunger--sometimes he's talking to Hermione, and can even feel the warm carpet of the common room under his feet. Other times he dreams he's on the train, before the attack--or in Grimmauld Place, spying as Snape collapses in the master bedroom, clutching at the Dark Mark, white-faced with pain. He dreams he's playing Exploding Snap with Colin Creevey--which is ridiculous, because it never happened, and Colin's dead--or that he's lying underwater, so many fathoms deep, as a mermaid smiles and kisses his face.

Then there are times he thinks he hears voices--Ron's and Dean's, talking about some broom or other--and even McGonagall's, once, crying out for help. But that's silly, isn't it? Why would McGonagall be here? And Ginny? They're free, aren't they? They're free-- And suddenly Harry panics--but he finds he can't breathe, and snaps his eyes open to see the mermaid hovering over him. He's underwater--can't breathe, he tries to say--gillyweed--but the mermaid only smiles, and Harry finally opens his mouth, gagging on warm water, thinking, Ginny--

'Look at that. He's calling that little friend of his.' And Harry blinks--someone's wiping the warm water from his chin, cloth rough and hot--no, tongue--and he twists his head to see Pettigrew smiling, as another head, blonde and tousled, moves down Harry's chest.

'He tried to swallow it all, like the good boy he is. Isn't that right, Harry? Such a good little whore.'

Harry wants to rest. He's so tired. Ginny's safe. She must be. The taste in his mouth is heavy, bitter, familiar--and he tries to recognize it, vainly, as a hand pats his head. Someone seems to be laughing--voice odd and sibilant--but Harry, feverish, finally slips into sleep.

* * *

Harry's sure he hasn't had so many dreams before. He seems to be surrounded by them now--and it's so difficult to know, sometimes, what's real. Although it doesn't really matter. He quite likes it when he dreams of Sirius, and Sirius is crouching in front of his bike, muttering something, before he glances back at Harry and smiles. And it's so real, the haze of heat around the bike's metal body, the glint in Sirius' smile...

No. It can't be real. Maybe he's sick. Yes, that must be it. Harry struggles to remember what Pomfrey had taught him, in their new Mediwizardry class--the earnest scratch of Hermione's quill, right by his shoulder. Symptoms of prolonged starvation. Hallucinations. Dreams. Euphoria.

Euphoria? Is he happy?

He tries to count how long he's been here--the numbers are golden in his head, blurring fuzzily. Everything feels so light--even his bones feel hollow, soft as feathers.

Yes. He supposes he is.

There's a sudden echo of voices outside his cell, moving past: '... water... poison... Dumbledore...' And some part of Harry wants desperately to pay attention, knowing that there's something important being said, but even as he struggles to wake he forgets why it's important to do so, and it isn't long before he falls asleep again.

* * *

It's several days before anyone visits him. The elf visits only thrice--almost as if someone keeps forgetting to send it to feed Harry--and he grows even more faint, only lying down, never lifting his head from the dungeon floor. He's never sure of time here--when he was healthier he'd been able to keep track, and had managed to discern that for roughly every three fuckings, a day had gone by--but now, suddenly bereft of company, Harry has no idea whatsoever how long it's been. All he knows is that something is happening--he remembers overhearing something--pipes? No, water. Poison? Dumbledore.

Dumbledore.

He feel strange when he grapples with that name--remembers a feeling like hatred--but it fades away when he tries to grasp at it. It's odd, that he can remember so many other things... Ron's voice, the exact shade of Ginny's blush last year. But not--but not--

Hours pass. Harry, curled up in familiar hunger, ignores them. Thoughts buzz like flies in his head. Carcass. Hermione's burnt fingers. No. Hermione's alive. Of course she is. Who was it then? Who? He turns--hands slipping down the stone, damp and musty and cool as dead skin. Skin. Possibly the youngest skin he's felt here is Draco's--he knows its taste well, young and sweet, so different from the bitterness of spunk or hate. The thought only makes him hungrier. Don't think of it don't but he needs that sore burn at the back of his throat, the tight fist in his hair that brings tears to his eyes--he needs to suck cock, nose nuzzling in musty scent--he needs to, because, oh God, he needs to be fed so badly...

Hours pass. Harry, back cradled against smooth stone, ignores them.

* * *

They're celebrating. For what seems like hours. Sounds of laughter echo down the hall, filling his ears strangely. Harry doesn't know if it's a dream or not. But those sounds are familiar--laughter--clinking--almost like last year's Halloween feast. He tries to imagine the Death Eaters smiling, sipping punch, and fails. Maybe someone will visit him. Maybe the elf will be sent. Maybe--

The door bangs open. Laughter unbearably loud now--deafening--and Harry shrinks as he realizes that there's more than one. More. This hardly ever happens. And when it does, it's never good. Never. A barrage of footsteps--thundering--more laughter as several cloaked figures step into the room, circling him. Vultures.

Harry wonders if this is another dream. But then a hood is pushed back--close to his face--and Draco's glittering, malicious eyes smile down at him. That thin mouth bends, speaking close to his ear. He sounds a little drunk. 'Have you heard, Potter? Did you read your Daily Prophet this morning?'

More laughter. Harry--ever obedient--shakes his head.

'Of course you haven't. Poor little whore, can't even afford a subscription, can you?'

A sharp nail along Harry's neck, and the gleeful voice continues: 'We've won. We've won, Potter. All your little Aurors--so fucking dignified--all dead. In their beds.'

Laughter. Laughter. Laughter. Tears prick Harry's eyes--he doesn't know why--should he be crying? Why is he?

Arms haul him up, pinching his nipples as another pair of hands roughly pushes his thighs apart.

'I hope you won't begrudge us a celebration.' This spoken by a heavier voice, stouter, the one between his legs. Blunt fingers press against his hole. Harry arches--tensing for pain--

'Cease at once.' A whip of a voice.

There is a stunned silence; the fingers pull away. Harry, gasping with fear, stares at the figure that stands in the open doorway, glowering.

'Perhaps you don't remember that there's still work to be done. Don't forget it in your drunken revelry.' The cruel mouth spits.

Snape. It's Snape. He doesn't look at Harry, almost as if Harry isn't there--isn't standing in the middle of the room, naked, surrounded by a ring of grasping hands.

'Ah, Snape! Join us. It was your work after all--you deserve a rest, don't you?' The fingers brush Harry's balls. 'We all know you like to fuck this little morsel as much as we do.'

Snape stiffens; his eyes, if anything, seem to grow blacker. His work? Harry wonders. What?

'You will speak to your seniors with respect, intoxicated or not. As I said: There is work to be done. Clean-up operations start in an hour. All of you. Out.'

Quiet grumbling; a sullen shifting of feet towards the door. Harry realizes, distantly, that these are all the younger ones--Malfoy, Crabbe Jr.--which would explain Snape's attitude.

The cell empties. We've won, the words echo through his head. We've won.

He looks up at the door, but it's closed--when did that happen? And everyone's gone. 'I'll have some food sent,' he imagines Snape's hard voice saying, but it's ridiculous. No trickle of blood down his thighs--he'd expected it, with Crabbe's fingers--no come in his mouth. Still hungry. We've won.

It feels unreal. They couldn't have. How--they couldn't have. They couldn't. (Why is he denying it? What does it mean?) A strange twist of grief in his chest, which he doesn't recognize.

Harry, who hasn't hoped for rescue in a long time, collapses slowly onto the floor, shaking. He almost understands this. Understands it's something to be upset about. But his stomach roils painfully, and all he can think of is when he'll be fed.

* * *

They come back to fuck him, of course, when Snape's not there--and they come back in droves, as if insane, as if they've got nothing better to do. Time passes in a blur of cock and hurt and come--and Harry grows familiar, again, with the taste of his own blood. A litany of words echoes in his head--voices cruel and jeering, coaxing, mocking--slut yes harder down no yes yes yes--and they don't even bother cleaning him anymore, until he's left lying stinking, wet and used on the floor. He isn't getting food at all now--real food--and sometimes he finds himself dreaming, even as hot hands grip him and grind him up and down on a pulsing cock, of a plate of steamed rice or a pitcher of fresh milk. Loud grunts sound in his ear--and Harry wakes up, just in time, to feel the splash of come in his arse.

Rough fingers fondle his balls, but he doesn't get hard. The man seems pleased with that. 'So thin,' he whispers in awe, 'so thin...'

'That's right,' another voice says, brush of cloth along Harry's arm. 'He's nothing but a pane of glass.'

Quiet chuckle. 'Not long then.'

The cloth rises to bind around Harry's neck. The voice seems to smile. 'Not long.'

* * *

'Potter.'

Harry doesn't move. Who's this now?

'Potter.'

Everything seems blurred--grey of walls fading into darker corners--his body running out of fuel, out of will, and he can't be bothered moving at all.

'Blasted child.' A cool hand, unwilling, nudges his shoulder. 'Wake up.'

Harry's startled, somewhat, that he isn't being fucked--he expected already the pull of cock, the burn of skin. He turns his head and sees, to his vague surprise, Snape crouched next to him--a black crow, tall and looming.

Snape hasn't been to see him all this time. Not once. Harry's mind remembers immediately how Snape likes it--angry and economical, fast and done with--and he tries, with the last of his strength, to part his own thighs.

Snape flinches. 'No.' He moves away; voice urgent. 'Potter. Listen to me.'

Listen. Snape's talking. Talking? Harry wants to smile; say Yes, Professor but he can't, so he doesn't, watching Snape get up and pace instead.

Harry's head feels hazy. He sees Snape pull something out of a pocket, something small and glittering, and hold it up. Snape stares at it. Harry stares at him.

'Potter.'

Harry wonders what suddenly made Snape so fond of his name.

'This...' He steps closer, crouching again, holding the glittering thing in front of Harry's eyes. Harry focuses, slowly. It's a vial. A little glass vial--and within it, clear as tears, sparkles a golden-white liquid.

This?

But Snape doesn't explain. 'Drink this,' he says instead, and taps the tube against Harry's lips. Harry's used to this command--suck this, drink that--and he obeys immediately. Whatever-it-is slips coolly down his throat--utterly tasteless, except for a strange tingling as it pools in his chest.

Snape is looking at him closely. 'I want you to breathe. Open-mouthed.'

Breathe. How strange. Harry does--and is faintly surprised, again, to hear a rattle in his breath.

Snape nods. His mouth is pinched--his eyes, usually cold, seem oddly... Harry can't put his finger on it. Many moments pass, Snape watching him, Harry's breaths getting slower and slower, the cold in his chest growing heavier.

'I apologize for not doing this earlier.'

Harry startles at the voice. Apologize. Earlier. Why isn't he fucking me?

But Snape's up and pacing again. Thud thud thud--his boots, heavy and familiar--and Harry wonders how many years he's spent, at school and now here, getting used to them.

'I should have... That is, Albus said--' The tight mouth curls. '--the fool. He asked me, do you know, not to let you die? He didn't know--he didn't--that it would have been better--'

Snape stops. He is the one who seems to be having difficulty breathing. Black hair has fallen to shield his face. 'But it wasn't safe, you see. You weren't weak enough--it wouldn't have been convincing...'

What is he talking about? Nothing Snape says means anything to him, just like anything Draco says.

'... they'd have discovered me. I have survived, Potter, only because I--' Again that catch of breath. 'Only because I know when to act. It's not what so much as when, Potter, and I knew I'd have to break my last promise to Dumbledore.' His gaze slides to Harry. 'Some day.'

Dumbledore. That word again. Harry frowns.

'I'm not an altruist, Potter. I'm not doing this for redemption. There's just...' And here Snape makes a strange sweeping gesture with his hands, 'no point. Anymore. They will kill you--slowly starve you to death, as they have been doing, but they'd bothered feeding you sporadically before, to keep you alive as long as the war was on--to keep you here as a hostage.' Snape stops. There are a few moments in which his fists clench and unclench, face turned away from Harry; but then his stance firms, his shoulders set, and he turns around. His face looks like it's been wiped clean. His eyes are cold again, guarded. 'But the war is over, of course. You're no longer needed.'

No longer. Harry rolls the words around in his head--they sound important, dramatic, and he almost smiles again. Needed.

Snape kneels next to him; dark curl of cloth. His hands are steady. 'You're weak enough now. For me to... slip you something--it'd go unnoticed--between all your visitors, they'd never think anyone--' Snape stops again, mouth open for a moment, before he continues. 'They'd never think anyone poisoned you.' The urgency has faded from his voice, and he is quiet, as though he's done all the explaining he had to do.

'Potter. Look at me.'

Harry does, although he finds it hard to focus. His eyes feel dilated, vacant.

Snape speaks. 'I did what I had to. I waited. I bided my time; this is the only time it's safe. For me. To do what I should have done.'

Harry can see, plainly, that Snape doesn't like saying those words--but Snape's breathing evenly, calmly, as though he's practiced this.

'Do you have anything to ask me?'

Ask him? Harry wonders at it--it's been so long since he's been asked a question, a proper one. He doesn't quite understand what Snape is saying, but it seems important, so he tries to pull a question out of his mind. Anything, anything--

'R-Ron?' His voice rasps. 'Herm--'

Snape's face freezes--but only for an instant, before it smooths again. Those hands stay steady--calm and open on Snape's black-clad knees. 'They're well, Potter.' Snape's voice is so deep, so convincing, so true. His eyes don't flinch from Harry's. 'They're free. Beauxbatons... took them in. They're safe.'

Safe. Harry marvels. Free. Golden words, he thinks. So warm and orange and soft. He doesn't quite know what he just asked, or if Snape's even given an answer--but he feels calmer somehow. The potion that had settled coolly in his chest is spreading, like little silk ribbons inside him, wrapping around his heart like a cradle, shushing it to sleep.

Tired, he wants to say, so tired. Somewhere in the back of his mind Harry feels again that something important is happening, and he's failing to grasp it--just like he had with--what? What had it been? His breathing slows even further, if that were possible; and Snape, watching him, seems unnaturally serene.

'A few hours,' Snape says, looking away at last. 'I'll make sure others come to visit you.' His face flickers for an instant--pain, something else--but then he's turning, standing up, smoothing down his robes. He looks so professional, Harry thinks, just as if he were in class--and it's funny, somehow, but Snape isn't smiling, and neither does he say anything more. Instead he stands there, as if unwilling to leave, staring expressionlessly down at Harry's body. Silence.

And then those boots are moving--thud thud thud--and Snape pauses at the door, turning, a blur of black cloth. Distantly, Harry thinks he sees Snape incline his head--but he can't be sure--and then the door's closing, sound beating like a gong in Harry's skull, and everything's so calm.

A few hours. Harry likes those words; likes a lot of what Snape said, even though he doesn't know what any of it means. He likes it because it's different, so very different, to anything he's heard in so long.

His heart is making strange swallowing movements; the potion crawls up his neck, cool and soothing.

A few hours. And then: They're free, Harry thinks, and closes his eyes, shutting the grey blur of the ceiling out. He's hungry. He wonders if the house-elf will visit today.