Snape's hand burns like dry wax on Draco's skin, smooth and hot and inexorable. Guardian. Father. Lover. The lines blur--shapes--and maybe it's another one of Snape's potions, burning like a coagulant in Draco's veins, silencing him, bringing tears to his eyes, but his body is lax and this feels so much easier. Anaesthetic. Draco is hard even though he shouldn't be; hard and it should be embarrassing, except that Snape doesn't seem to mind--peeling Draco like an onion, white robes white shirt white vest--each layer exquisitely filmy, unreal, until Draco's tender core is revealed. He burns everywhere, but especially on his arm--the white robes a symbol of his virginity in the eyes of the Death Eaters, taken tonight by his very first killing. His very first blood.

His mouth still tingles with the taste of Death--sharp and green, like grass--Death tastes alive, a startling paradox, and as Snape hushes him and slides Draco's arms out of his sleeves, Draco manages to lean up and catch Snape's mouth--and yes, Snape tastes like Death too.

Another burning potion tipped down his throat when Snape pulls away. Swallow fire. Eat death. This night a long series of ingestions. The pain in his arm numbs, though, enough that he can feel the moist scrape of the towel Snape uses to clean his limbs--an ointment of some sort, because it eases Draco's fever, lightens his head a little bit. This should be done by Lucius, but Lucius isn't alive--and it's Snape instead, and Snape's ugly, Snape's beautiful, Snape's here--and nothing makes sense, and Draco's still trembling. He wants to taste Death again--an addiction already roiling in his stomach--and Snape seems to understand when Draco tugs him down for another kiss, but he allows it only for a moment before pulling away again. His hand settles calm and businesslike on Draco's penis, a smothering up-down-up-down-up-down, and Draco's staring at Snape's drawing room ceiling, sprawled limply on the couch, thinking we're back at Hogwarts before he comes.

Sleep's easy after that--fever bled out of him, hunger fed--and something tells him he'll feel sick about this tomorrow, when he has a chance to think--but his body's so tired and damp now, licked by the heat of Snape's fireplace, and as he watches Snape's shadow move away, raising its wand-arm and pointing at him, he realizes that he'll wake up tomorrow morning in his own dorm, recalling nothing after the ceremony, and that he'll never get the chance to thank Snape for this.