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Notes: The price of protection. Snape/Draco non-con written as a Christmas gift for Isolde.

Protection
by

When Snape fucks him, it hurts to breathe.

Stone that had felt smooth against his thighs, cool and comforting, is now rough under his heated skin. Friction. Draco doesn't turn his face aside, because he can hear them breathing--all of them, black-cloaked and hungry, watching him as he is spread and fucked and used like the toy he is, now that he has no one to protect him. For a moment his eyes flick sideways--but it is a mistake, because he catches sight of Voldemort, resting at ease in his chair, red eyes glittering, mouth stretched in a smile.

Well. The Dark Lord may be pleased, but Snape doesn't look at him. Snape's eyes are focused, instead, on Draco's shoulder--on the purpling bruise there, glistening under sweat and over moving muscle. Snape doesn't say anything--he doesn't even moan. His thrusts are quick and economical, and if it weren't for the fact that Snape hadn't taken an aphrodisiac beforehand, Draco might almost believe that Snape didn't want him.

But he does.

Draco can feel it in the way Snape's hands clutch at his hips like yellow, potion-stained claws--he can feel it in the shudder of breath when Snape draws back, almost as if it hurts him to move away at all. Draco can feel it in the way Snape doesn't look at him--because if Snape were being forced into this, he wouldn't be afraid to meet Draco's eyes. He wouldn't be ashamed.

The pace quickens, and Draco feels his pulse beat so loudly that it drowns out the rustle of robes around him--almost drowns out Snape's hoarse breathing, the slap of his belly against the moist skin of Draco's thighs. It hurts, hurts, hurts, and Snape almost looks at him when he reaches forward to touch Draco's limp cock--but Draco flinches and makes a small, angry sound, so Snape removes his hand and carries on again.

And then it's over quickly. Draco feels Snape tense like a hunting dog, like a snake, firm quivering muscle pressed up all along the backs of Draco's thighs, and then Snape jerks as if in pain and floods him with wet, searing heat.

It burns. Half-balm and half-acid against torn tissue--Draco's anus flexes, involuntarily, and Snape draws back even as Draco doesn't quite manage to stifle a whine.

His hole feels soft and open, used and hurt, and Draco finally turns his face to the stone, closing his eyes so that he doesn't see the smiles that match the murmur of satisfaction he hears from the crowd.

Snape steps away from him, a quiet echo of boots on stone--and Draco can hear the cloth moving along Snape's skin as he dons his robe again.

Draco doesn't move. Sweat cools on his chest. The burn in his anus, pulsing like a wound, has almost drowned out the burn of the Mark on his arm. Then there is a tingle, that of a healing spell, twisting within him--and the pain lessens somewhat.

'Malfoy,' someone's saying, voice seething and sibilant.

Draco doesn't move.

'Malfoy,' says another voice, closer this time.

Draco doesn't move.

'Malfoy.' Impatient, finally--and familiar claw-fingers close around his arm, pulling him up.

Draco opens his eyes. It's Snape--fully dressed now, face a pale smudge of scorn through the dampness of Draco's eyes. 'Up, boy.'

Up. So Draco tries to raise himself--first onto his elbows and finally sitting across the slab--but a sharp slice of pain races up his back and he falls back again.

Snape's arm is there instantly, hauling him up, hot as metal and rough as cloth against his back. 'Up,' says Snape again, unnecessarily, and Draco winces as he slides off the slab, as his feet land on cool stone.

'Yes,' says the sibilant voice again, satisfied, but the blood's leaving Draco's head in a dizzying rush, and he nearly collapses against Snape until the arm tightens again. 'Stand up straight,' says Snape, and for a moment he sounds so much like Draco's father that Draco almost twists his mouth in a smile.

He can feel all those eyes on him, on his bare skin, covetous as they had never dared to be when his father was free. When his mother had been alive. No one to protect him now. No one.

But Snape's draping a cloak over him now, dark and cool over the shivering heat of his body, and Draco welcomes the scratch of wool against his skin. Hide me. Hide me. There is a disappointed hiss from the crowd--but they remain silent as Voldemort had commanded them to be. Come leaks out of Draco and slips down his thighs, a humiliating warmth that feels like tears.

'Snape.' Voldemort's voice is a cool, affectionate hiss. 'So you have staked your claim on him.'

Snape's arm tightens again--so much so that Draco can barely breathe. 'I have, my Lord.'

Voldemort gestures almost absently in the direction of the other Death Eaters. 'Do any of you wish to challenge his claim? You are now free to speak.'

But Draco feels Snape's gaze narrow into a burning black knife above him, daring anyone to speak up. There is a restless shuffle of robes, those eyes fixed hungrily on Draco again--but none dare challenge Snape, now Voldemort's favored Death Eater after the loss of Lucius Malfoy.

'Very well.' Voldemort smiles, waxen face pleased. 'Another administrative matter taken care of.' Red eyes roam Draco disinterestedly, resting finally on the bruised shoulder bared by Snape's too-big cloak. 'He looks rather the worse for wear, Severus. Perhaps you should take him home.'

The false concern in his voice makes bile rise in Draco's throat. That was the tone Voldemort had used to tell him that his father couldn't be rescued... that was the tone used to explain away his mother's suicidal mission to the Ministry, that was the tone he'd used when he'd told Draco, ever so softly, that young boys need guardians among the Death Eaters, and if you don't get yourself one, child, you'll be food for the hungry. And they are hungry.

'Yes, my Lord.' Snape bows, almost causing Draco to slip to the floor unsupported--but then he's rising again, and pulling Draco with him.

Voldemort's waves his hand dismissively, another administrative matter taken care of, and Snape's walking him past the Death Eaters--past the cruel crowd that parts before them unwillingly, fingers curling like talons, black robes rustling. Carrion, Draco thinks, and shrinks further into Snape's embrace. Carrion.

* * *

Snow lashes him in cold flurries. The burn between his legs has settled to a dull, throbbing pain. Snape stops next to him, a black shadow, tall and warm. He holds the portkey in his palm: a crystal vial empty of poison. Prepared as always--almost as if Snape had known, before all this, that Draco would be too weak to Apparate.

They are silent--and Draco wonders, absently, that Snape looks rather ridiculous with snow in his hair.

'You asked me for this,' Snape says quietly, almost accusingly, still not looking at him. Draco barely hears him over the whipping of the wind.

Asked him. Yes. Better Snape than Pettigrew. Better Snape than Macnair. Better Snape than...

'I did.' His voice is hoarse--and not just from the cold. He still remembers the first scream tearing past his throat, sudden as a knife.

Snape nods--as if that's settled--and extends his palm. The vial glitters as Draco's fingers close around it--his fingers chilly against Snape's--but the tug in his stomach still startles him, and he finds himself meeting, rather inadvertently, Snape's bottomless black eyes.

Carrion, Draco thinks. And then they disappear.

* * *

Snape's house is an abrupt envelope of warmth when they arrive. Sweat springs almost immediately under Draco's cloak, sodden and heavy with snow. Firelight flickers over them. Snape looks ruffled, like an irritable crow.

'The foyer,' Snape says suddenly, and Draco remembers that this is supposed to be quite the occasion. Seeing his new guardian's house for the first time. He can't return to Malfoy Manor anymore, not after the Aurors burnt it down... For a moment Draco remembers those slender white columns, collapsed in rubble and blackened by ash. But the image fades before his eyes--replaced by the tall, dark rafters of Snape's foyer and the large, brutally unadorned fireplace.

It's so much like Snape, so obviously revolted by everything aesthetic and delicate in life, that Draco almost smirks. 'It's lovely,' he says without sarcasm, out of the politeness his mother had instilled in him towards the Pureblood wizards on their side--and Snape snorts, as if doubtful.

This whole situation strikes Draco as somewhat funny. Raped by a man and then invited to his house, to stare appreciatively at his less than impressive decor...

... But Snape's looking at him, really looking at him, for the first time since this day began.

'I'll not touch you unless you want me to,' he imagines Snape saying, but Snape never does, and Draco doesn't feel disappointed. Snape doesn't need to fuck him anymore, not after that performance which made Draco his--but Draco knows better. He doesn't expect stupid Gryffindor idealism here--Snape has something, something he's earned, and he'll make use of it.

This was the deal, after all. Draco gets protection. Snape gets...

Draco looks away. He feels Snape studying him, still, and wonders what's going through the man's mind. But then Snape's saying, almost tersely, 'You're faint.'

They stare at each other for a few moments more, like animals caught in forbidden territory, before Snape leads him upstairs.

* * *

Draco has his own bedroom. It's a surprise as thin as thread, cooling like milk in his chest. Relief.

But it doesn't last long--Snape leaves him before Draco undresses, but there is an uncertain pause in his footsteps, just outside the door, and Draco recognizes its meaning immediately.

Snape will come back. If not tonight, then the next night.

He peels the wet cloak off himself, barely looking at the room, and not caring to look at it, dark and formless as the shelves and chairs are at night. He slides naked, shivering, under the covers of his large bed--the sheets a cool caress against his skin. There is no point in dressing. He is Snape's new acquisition, after all, and new toys are played with mercilessly. Draco's certainly had enough of his own to know this. Brooms and toy dragons and cards. A spoilt child, Snape would say, sneering.

Spoilt. Draco stares up at the ceiling blankly, feeling the bed warm to him. He doesn't think of his room at home, with its lush, wine-colored carpet and smooth white walls; with its posters of the Falmouth Falcons zooming in blurs of quiet green, with its pale wooden desk piled neatly with scrolls. He doesn't think of his mother's voice, calling softly at the door--or of his father's colder one, reprimanding him as he stood listlessly, right in front of his desk, trying to hide the lurid letter he'd been writing to Pansy. He doesn't think of his mother now, a mere breath of ash in the wind, or his father, with his cold eyes and smooth robes, gibbering and dirty in Azkaban.

He doesn't think of any of this.

But he realizes, when he remembers the looks the Aurors had given him before relinquishing him at Dumbledore's behest--he realizes how fortunate he is. How close he came to Azkaban, and it was only his youth that saved him. How close Potter had been to laughing when the Prophet had printed it. How close he'd come to being eaten, today, by the vultures his father had considered friends.

So he doesn't pick up his wand--which Snape had placed carefully, like a peace offering, on his bedside table. He doesn't lock the door with it--he doesn't, although he should, although he should want to. Somewhere Draco's mind is saying that his father's best friend would never fuck him--but Snape isn't his father's best friend anymore, because his father isn't here.

Instead he closes his eyes and waits, leaving the door unlocked. He stays awake even though the pain has now faded from his body, thanks to Snape's slow if thorough healing spell. He doesn't lock the door and he doesn't flinch when, hours later, he hears it creak open. He doesn't flinch and he doesn't turn, not at the footsteps that approach his bed so quietly, not at the weight that settles behind him, dipping the mattress, rolling him closer to Snape's bare, sickeningly hot skin.

He doesn't pull away when it begins--the slow journey of Snape's hand down his back--he doesn't pull away when the hand draws him closer and works its way around, sure and almost gentle, until it curls around Draco's cock.

'Why--why didn't you let me--' Snape says, and stops, his breath heavy in Draco's ear.

Draco doesn't answer. His cock hardens, his stomach a strange, lurching thing--his throat tight around silent, disciplined breaths. The wiry hair of Snape's wrist brushes his skin as it moves, back and forth, back and forth, but Draco doesn't make a sound. Draco doesn't whine, doesn't say no, doesn't say yes, doesn't resist when Snape turns him over so that Draco's looking at the ceiling again, as blankly as he had been before, with Snape's palm still moving against him.

Snape says something--it might have been 'beautiful', or 'yes', or 'part your legs', but Draco doesn't hear him. Instead he turns his head to look at Snape, out of a sort of deadened curiosity, and sees Snape's black eyes glitter at him.

And they are hungry, says Voldemort's voice in his head. Draco closes his eyes. Carrion.