Picture Perfect
I considered the spots on my boots, gleaming darkly in the light cast from the nearby fire; a fire that shed light, but little warmth. It was how I preferred it at times like this; there were better ways to create heat than to burn trees, and as a consequence my chambers were considerably cooler than most.
In other light those spots would be bright red, cracking and flaking as they dried to dullness, but at the moment they gleamed to match the leather they rested on. Tears of the body, shed in place of tears from the heart.
I sipped from the glass I held, and briefly considered punishing him for shedding blood on my boots but discarded the thought just as quickly. Tonight was not about playing, or extending limits, but rather about penance, and the pleasure of forgiveness. That the actual criminal lie not on my bed, a bound and quivering mass, but rather ensconced in his tower, contemplating further tortures in the name of saving the world. The good of the flock over the good of the lamb.
Perhaps, I mused, as I had more than once, it was time we had a new shepherd.
I crossed the room and looked down at my creation, considering the perfection of it. I automatically assumed Dumbledore was aware of our association—I hesitated to call it a relationship, of any sort—but what about his fellow Gryffindors? Were any of them aware that their hero was truly a hero? Did they realize that to be a hero oft times required a tendency towards martyrdom, and that *that* was the real difference between themselves and their Slytherin counters?
Reaching down, I traced a welt two inches wide over the sharp angle of his hip, knowing even the light touch would rub salt sweat into it like acid. Flesh shivered under my hand and I scraped my nails along the inside of his thigh, his moan taunting my own hardness in its leather prison.
He'd come to me three days
after returning from another doomed mission against Voldemort, the only survivor
out of four. Albus had called the job successful, since they'd wiped out a nest
of vipers and captured
There are rumors Dumbledore was in Gryffindor. If that's true, Tom Riddle was a Hufflepuff.
He walked in my door and shut it behind him, hand moving in the locking charm I'd taught him to use years before. When he turned back he looked at me, realizing from my leather and silk that I'd been expecting him. Relief filled grieving green eyes where he stood, waiting for my words.
"Strip," I said from my chair at the fire, setting aside my book.
In seconds he'd ripped everything from his body and stood, shivering slightly in the sudden chill. I rose and stalked towards him, letting him hear the measure of my tread on the flags. His skin was white, almost glowing, and I could see the lines of his ribs, the flutter of his heart. His chin had dropped and he stared at the floor, wild strands of black cutting across his cheek like old blood, and when I raised his face to mine I felt the artist in me rise up and demand I refine him into perfection.
Sheets rustling dragged me back to the present and I shook my head. He was perfect; perfectly yearning, perfectly straining, the slight currents in the air caressing over-sensitive flesh, but not enough to give him relief. Old parchment, spelled to the moment, crackled under him; the stripes I'd left on his skin decorated it in a madman's frenzy of lines in red and black. Time to capture the moment.
I picked up my wand, uttered the preparatory spell, and began to draw him with the currents of magic that surrounded us both.
I started with his hands, his fingers straining to touch my headboard, nails broken from clawing at the unyielding wood, near invisible scratches the only sign of his work. Leather straps, stained with sweat and blood and other things cut into his wrists, the redness from his struggles more suggested than seen. Down his long arms, bare and untouched for the most part. Across the old scar on his left bicep, courtesy of an enchanted blade; the wound itself had been superficial, but the magic left behind had nearly killed him before he'd made it back to Hogwarts. A second vial of Nervosa Catinalous was still in my stores, in case someone else tried the same spell a second time.
His hair was soaked and matted, and I moved it with the wand tip, feeling the strands of the spell weaving through it, lifting and permeating every thread. Shards of light, blue and red began to flicker as I stroked the spell through his hair.
I took great pains with his face, drawing every line of it, capturing the grateful glow in his eyes, the bruising on his cheeks above and below the line of the scarf I'd used to gag him. Dark emerald silk, to match his eyes. His lips were dark slashes pulled thin, and a nearly healed cut decorated the bottom one. I paused for a moment, considering, then kissed him brutally, biting at the wound until it opened and fresh blood smeared his lip like crimson lipstick. I smiled at the drops that welled out before tracing them in the air with my wand tip. Finished, I sucked his lip into my mouth, tonguing it clean.
His neck and throat were next, a strong column sweeping into wide shoulders and smooth planes. Pale skin, mottled by darkening bruises and red strips; here and there a streak of blood from the hardest blows, like grace notes. The magic hummed along, hungry where it passed over the opened flesh, contented where it caressed a bruised rib. Down the stretched sweep of his stomach, flat and muscular; the tail of a particularly vicious whip crack curling around his side and trailing blood to drip to the sheets. I paused, dipping my fingers in the fresh liquid and tracing an obscenity across him before I stroked across his stomach, tediously carving in the lines of his musculature.
I moved carefully down one leg to his foot, ankle snuggly bound, tracing out each scar, admiring the redness left from dripping wax, the shiny spot from the torch he'd had thrust against it two years past. Down the outside, sketching out the fine details of the binding, and along the heel to his toes, painstakingly detailing the nails and joints. Up the inside, letting the advancing tingle of magic raise the small, soft hairs on his inner thigh. I ran a hand over his engorged penis, rolled the tightened sac between my fingers and let the touch of the spell spill over his cock. So lovely, it's modest size enlarged by it's enforced engorgement. I'd surmised the ring at the base of it would be just the needed touch, and it pleased me that I was right.
Close to its own completion, the magic was becoming demanding and I turned my attention to repeating the process on his other leg, pleased that the scratches I'd put there only a few minutes before were already dark.
Finally I met the tracery of his torso at his hip, and I put two hands to my wand as the full spell flared to life in flickering lights in cold blue and warming reds. My wand vibrated with the force and I nearly lost my grip before I could bite off the closing phrase.
The explosion of light and heat that washed the walls of my bed chamber flung me against the wall of my bedchamber and I cried out, breaking off when my head struck the stone. When I could open my eyes and be sure of retaining my sight I was amazed that my bed was intact, not so much as a scorch mark on sheets or hangings.
On the bed now lay only the single, simple sheet of parchment I'd placed there earlier, and the last of the blood it had absorbed from the brutal lashing I'd given him resolved itself into a thing of beauty; Potter, bound and erect, gazing out at me from the paper with relief in his dark green eyes.
Another quickly muttered spell covered the beauty we had created between us with a watercolour of a cobra, the sepia tones of it covering the lines of Potter's body perfectly. Quickly I placed it on top of my belongings and closed the valise. A last look around and I caught up my wand and bag, made sure my resignation was on my desk, and tossed a handful of powder into the fireplace before giving my destination.
"The Leaky Cauldron."
The floos of Hogwarts were
traceable by the staff, a precaution against student abuse. But once in
Sheepdogs are loyal but expendable; as long as they drive the sheep and fight off the wolves, the shepherd finds the death of one or more a small price to pay to preserve their flock
I'd always been much, much fonder of dogs than of sheep.