Title: Ice and Echoes
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R
Pairing: Bellatrix/Draco
Length: 1000
Content notes: Choose not to warn.
Author notes: For fan_flashworks Challenge #27, "Ghosts and Gore".
Summary: Even if he says that he wants to be rid of her, he doesn't. He has never wanted to be rid of her, not from the first moment. He has never wanted to lose the memory of her.



No matter where he walks in the great, echoing rooms of the Manor, he can feel her. It's as if her madness has soaked into the stones and beams, as if her soul has become part of the building itself. Wherever he walks, wherever he breathes, Bellatrix is there. She fills the spaces around him, the spaces inside him.

Draco knows that what he feels is only that - nothing more than a feeling. A sense. But it is impossible for him to free himself of that feeling. It's worse than an Imperius, because he's done it to himself. He's taken control of his own mind and twisted his own thoughts until there's nothing left inside him. Nothing except the harsh whisper of Bellatrix in his ears and the cold brush of Bellatrix on his skin and the wild shriek of Bellatrix in his blood. It's as though he is the Manor, his bones its beams and his skin its stones. She has left her touch on every inch of him. He can't be rid of her, however much he tries.

He admits to himself, sometimes, when the fire in the hearth has burned low and the brandy in the cut glass bottle has dropped even lower, that he doesn't try very hard. Even if he says that he wants to be rid of her, he doesn't. He has never wanted to be rid of her, not from the first moment. He has never wanted to lose the memory of her.

When he walks the corridors late at night, in the hours where only the howling wind seems to be alive, Bellatrix walks beside him. The ragged, dusty hem of her dress slaps against his legs as she spins and capers through the darkness. Her laugh is as broken as ice, sharp and cold and deadly. She dances beside him and in the shadows she reaches for him. Her long fingers tickle up his arms and wrap around his throat. She presses her thumbs to his pulse and pushes down, hard and harder, his pale skin darkening as his blood thunders under her hands. She takes him to the wall, leans against him, and her lips hover at the point of his jaw as he forgets how to breathe.

She presses close to him, all hard points and sharp angles, and she whispers the him as she looks into his eyes. Before he can blink, she's in his mind and she's turning over his thoughts. She cradles them in her palms and crushes them in her fists. She flings some over her shoulder and tucks some between her breasts. She never takes her eyes from his as she fills his mind and empties it in the same moment.

Draco wets his lips and lifts his hands, settling them around her thin waist. He can feel the points of her hipbones in his palms, jabbing through the worn fabric of her dress. It's like grasping ice to hold her. His skin burns from the cold. He takes a fistful of her dress and hauls her closer, her body grinding against him.

He knows the second she feels him, feels what her touch has done to him. She's squeezing the breath from him, groping in his mind, and he's helpless to keep from reacting. Her eyes gleam, as bright as moonlight on snow, and she rocks against him. She frees one hand from his throat, pushes it between them, and flattens her palm over the stiffening length of his cock.

He bucks into her touch. She scrabbles his robes open and rakes her nails down his stomach. Draco wants to close his eyes, but she holds him fast and he can't. He can't move, can't look away, can't stop himself from letting her see one desperate thought in his mind. Please.

There's her smile, her sharp and icy smile as she wraps her fingers around him and rubs her thumb across the head. She knows what she does to him, and she revels in it. It's unspoken, something only in the darkness, only in the shadows. Only in the moments when she's groping through his thoughts does she touch his body.

He remembers every second of it, when he's walking the empty corridors. It's as if she is there, right there, her mouth cold against his, her fingers chilled on him. His heart races and his body tightens and he stops walking, slumps against the wall in the shadows and opens his robes to wrap his hand around his cock. He strokes fast, his head back and his eyes staring blankly at the memory of her. Her joy in her violent desires, her delight in her mad wants. He remembers the pointed edge of her smiles and the icy grasp of her hand.

Draco listens to the wind howling and he pumps his fist on his length, feeling Bella rise in his mind. Her grey eyes fasten on his, and her grave-cold fingers move faster as she whispers to him of power and magic and blood. She takes his secrets and tangles them into knots. She twists his mind and his will until there's nothing left of him except an icy sheen of sweat on his skin and a moan shivering in the air. He comes with her name trapped in his throat and her lips frozen against his.

He slides to the floor, shuddering, and he curls in on himself. He can hear her laugh fading as his heart slows. He wipes his hand on his robes and listens to the echo of her footsteps. As she drifts back into his memory and the hidden recesses of his mind, he shuts his eyes. He grips the last flutter of her touch and holds it close, clinging to it like icicles cling to the eaves and sills of the Manor. He holds the ghost of her in his mind and he waits, walks the corridors, for her to come to him again.