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This Body is My Prison	By : JBankai89 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Voldemort Views: 25130 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, I gain nothing from this but a way to pass the time.

Chapter List
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A/N: Warning: This chapter contains of violence and mild gore. You have been warned.
Part IX: Maybe Memories

It was a balmy summer evening, and Cassie stood in front of the Pensieve, rocking on her heels as she stared down at the shimmering contents that were Draco's memories. Draco stood nearby, and Davin resting in his arms while he watched her prepare to dive forward into the memories she'd been avoiding for so long.

“Mama!”

The tiny voice broke Cassie out of her nervous reverie, and she turned to smile at the little boy, whose arms were stretched towards her, and his jewel-bright eyes wide.

Laughing softly, she stepped back from the Penseive and accepted her son from Draco.

“You don't want me to see those memories either, is that it?” she asked the little boy, and he patted her chest.

“Mama, Mama!” he proclaimed, and she shook her head as she moved back over to the bed and sat down, and tugged down one side of her tank top for a feed.

“You're supposed to be weaning him onto bottles, remember?” Draco said, a note of amusement in his voice as he sat down next to her on the bed, “the book said it's time.”

“I know,” Cassie replied with a gentle sigh, as she reached out to stroke her son's hair, “but it's just so comforting. Not just for him, but me, too...”

Draco wrapped an arm around her waist, and shifted closer until the outer sides of their thighs were pressed together, and he brushed a kiss against her cheek. She leant into the touch with another soft sigh, and closed her eyes.

“It's time, Cassie. You know that. I won't push you to stop breastfeeding by any means, that's up to you, but in the next three or four months, it might be a good idea to start weaning him...” Draco said, but trailed off when he noticed that she wasn't listening, her gaze trained on the glowing basin across the room while her arms tensed around her son.

“It's time...” she whispered more to herself than to Draco. She felt that Davin had had enough, and gently pulled him away from her breast before she adjusted her clothing and handed the child over. Draco took him without question, and rubbed his back while he watched with wide eyes as she strode purposefully back to the Pensieve. Without another moment's hesitation, she took a deep breath and plunged her face into the memories of Draco Malfoy.

Colour swirled around Cassie as she descended, a torrent of images assaulted her senses, and her stomach roiled at the dizzying sight; she clenched her eyes shut, and did not open them again until she felt her feet slam into the ground.

When she opened her eyes again, she felt no better. The sight of the manor's infirmary flooded her with terror—the house that had been her prison for so long. Being back, even in a memory state, was nothing short of horrifying.

It took a moment for Cassie to work through her fear enough to focus on what was going on. It was incredibly strange to see herself being held down upon one of the hospital cots, her body seeming to be seizing, while Healer Rook stood above her. Dark blood painted Memory-Cassie's inner thighs, and Cassie, unnerved, took a small step back.

“She's hemorrhaging!” the Healer cried, and he rounded on Draco, who looked even more pale than usual. He backed up a little, and Healer Rook's gaze hardened. “Draco!” he yelled, and the Trainee Healer jumped at the sound of his name. “I need a Blood Replenishing Potion, now!”

Draco raced off, and Cassie followed him in a daze, realizing belatedly that given that this was his memory, she needed to keep him in her field of vision.

The Trainee stepped into the potions cupboard, and stood there for several long moments in complete silence. His eyes were wide and filled with terror, and he seemed to be trembling slightly. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he wiped them away roughly as he reached for the requested potion with trembling hands. He sniffed and rubbed his eyes again as he shouldered his way out of the cupboard and headed back to the main area of the infirmary, and saw the Healer brandishing a wickedly sharp knife very close to Cassie's swollen belly.

“What the hell are you doing?” Draco demanded, his eyes wide, and Cassie saw his free hand jerk, as though he was about to go for his wand.

“Stop yelling, Malfoy, I need to concentrate,” he snarled back at him, while with a dragonhide glove he smeared some sort of thin yellow salve over her stomach. Cassie's hands moved to her now-flat belly as she watched, her eyes wide. “She needs a cesarean section, but she's panicking, and so her magic is dangerously close to lashing out of control, I can't safely use the charm so I need to use the muggle method. I know what I'm doing, Malfoy, but I need your help.”

Draco stepped forward, his expression dubious, while Cassie stayed several steps back, given that she wasn't keen to see a Healer slicing into her.

“I don't—” Draco began, but the Healer cut him off quickly.

“—no arguments,” Healer Rook snapped, “we haven't time. They will both die if I don't get started. Take this,” he paused as he handed a towel to Draco, “once the child it out, I need you to clean it up and ensure that it's breathing while I make sure that we don't lose Lady Cassiopeia as well.”

Draco nodded stiffly, but he still looked doubtful as he set aside the Blood-Replenishing Potion, and Cassie watched the scene as with careful, precise movements, the tip of the knife sunk into her flesh, and the Healer cut a single long incision down her stomach, stopping just shy of her pelvis. Without a moment's hesitation, his gloved hands pulled the incision open, and extracted a blood-covered infant.

“It's a boy,” the Healer proclaimed, and she saw both the Healer and Trainee sag with relief.

“Thank Morrigan,” Draco murmured, while the Healer cut the cord and passed the child to Draco. Draco cleaned her son off while the Healer tended to Cassie's wounds, and he patted Davin's back until his first cry sounded. At the same moment, Voldemort swept into the room, and it was as though the very air had turned to ice.

“It seems I've arrived at the opportune moment,” Voldemort purred, and Cassie's vision swam, her heartbeat tripling in an instant as she gazed upon the face of her former enemy, rapist, and husband. “The child?”

“It's—it's a boy, my lord,” Draco replied nervously, and Cassie did not miss the way his arms tensed around Davin protectively.

“About time she produced a proper heir,” Voldemort replied with a chuckle, though there was no warmth to the sound. “Come now, Draco, let me see my son.”

“Give him to him, Draco,” the Healer said firmly, albeit fearfully, while he was still bowed over Cassie's still body—which was steadily growing more and more pale as the seconds ticked by.

Draco, to the command, looked positively terrified. Davin was still crying in his arms, clearly distressed over the tense atmosphere, but in an instant, Cassie saw everything change.

“Draco! I need you over here, now! She's not breathing!”

At the same instant, Cassie watched as Voldemort crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

Draco didn't move, but Davin's cries quieted, and with another shout from his superior, he carefully set Davin down in the readied infirmary bassinet, snatched up the knife the Healer had discarded, and rounded on Voldemort's still form.

Ignoring the Healer's alarmed shouts, Draco lunged at Voldemort, and stabbed him in the heart.

Time seemed to stand still.

Draco stared down at the still, unmoving body, his eyes wide as though he could not believe what he had just done.

“Draco, what have you done?”

The voice of the Healer, his wand held aloft and pointed at Cassie's body, apparently casting some sort of stasis spell on her seemed to act as a catalyst of sorts, and Cassie watched as Draco snapped.

The young man placed both hands on the hilt of the blade and forcibly turned it, destroying the heart it was embedded in. Draco withdrew it, and with tears streaking his cheeks, he slashed at the Dark Lord, leaving deep, bloody gashes across his face and throat, his chest, and his arms. With each strike, a choking sob escaped his throat, something close to a scream, while blood splattered his clothes and flesh; only his tears seeming to cut through the stains that clung to his face.

Cassie pressed and hand to her mouth as she watched, shock and horror mingling together as the form of Lord Voldemort was cut down to barely a shadow of its former self. Draco continued to cry and hack at the body, until the Healer had to forcibly remove the young man, and even then, he struggled to escape the hold, the knife still held aloft in his hand.

“Draco, Draco, stop,” Healer Rook whispered, but Draco, still weeping, lurched at the body of the former Dark Lord again, flecks of blood on his cheeks intermingling with his tears. He was well beyond reason, and to Cassie he looked half mad as he screeched unintelligibly and thrashed against his superior's hold on him. “Draco, stop,” he repeated, “Draco, it's over, stop.”

Something about the words, it's over seemed to resonate with him, and slowly, he slumped in the Healer's arms, violently shaking, covered in blood, and Tom Riddle was little more than a bloody pile of viscera and shredded black robes on the floor.

“Sweet Morrigan,” Draco whispered hoarsely, “what—what have I done?”

The knife clattered to the floor, and Draco whipped around to look at Cassie's still form.

“Lady Cassiopeia, is she all right?” he asked hoarsely, but by his tone, Draco clearly suspected the answer to be less than favourable.

Frowning, Healer Rook began to shake his head, but at the same moment, Cassie watched herself inhale sharply, and at the same moment, Davin let out a sharp, wailing cry.

Cassie watched Draco begin to sag with relief, when at the same moment, another figure came hurtling into the infirmary. Cassie tensed and backed away, momentarily forgetting that this was a memory, and thus she could not be harmed, but it was difficult to not back away when Bellatrix Lestrange came barrelling into a room.

“I heard our fair Lady went into labour, and I—” she broke off suddenly, and her eyes went very wide as they fell to the bloody mess that had until recently been Voldemort. Even at a distance, Cassie could see the blood vessels in her eyes inflating, and she looked more furious than Cassie had ever seen her before.

Without pause, she rounded on her nephew.

“What did you do?” she hissed, and swept forward, while Draco, wide-eyed with fright, quickly scrambled backward, but not fast enough as her nails dug into his throat, and he cried out in pain. “What did you do, you snivelling waste of space? I know, I know that you did this! This is the last straw, Mummy and Daddy won't be able to protect you this time, I swear it, you traitorous—”

“—Aunt Bellatrix,” Draco choked out, interrupting her as he struggled for breath, “please, I didn't do anything, I didn't!”

“Liar,” she snarled, and raised her wand to dig it sharply into his throat, and Draco winced, “you've committed treason, you've killed the Dark Lord and the Lady, and now I'll kill you.”

“Mrs Lestrange, please!” Healer Rook protested as he reached forward to grab her elbow in an effort to pry her off of Draco, “he didn't do anything, it—”

“Avada Kedavra!” Bellatrix shrieked; the Healer crumpled, and Cassie let out a small scream at the same moment that Draco cried out in alarm and shoved his aunt bodily away from him.

The older woman staggered back in surprise, her eyes wide at Draco's brazenness, but this time Draco was too quick for her, and he whipped out his wand.

“Crucio!”

Bellatrix's high, pained shrieks filled the space, and like a chain reaction, Cassie heard Davin begin to wail. She rushed forward, and it was only when her hands passed through her infant son did she remember that in this form, she was wholly incapable of consoling him.

When Cassie turned back around, her heart pumping hard in her chest as she tried to ignore her son's frightened cries, and focused on the woman sprawled on the floor, twitching and shrieking, her body contorting into seemingly impossible shapes while Draco gazed at her with a horrifying look of calm upon his face, as though he was observing nothing more traumatic than an ant being crushed with a boot.

“Draco, go!”

A sudden cry sounded, and both Cassie and Draco looked up at the same time to see Narcissa standing in the infirmary's doorway, her own wand pointed at her sister as Draco seemed to snap out of his daze.

He gazed at his mother for barely half a beat, then ran to the manger, carefully scooped up Davin, and grabbed hold of Cassie's limp wrist.

“Time to go, I think,” a sudden voice said, and Cassie turned to see another Draco standing next to her. She nodded as he took her hand, and he pulled Cassie out of his memories.

She'd barely landed back in the cabin before she rushed over to where Davin was playing quietly with his bricks, and he let out an uncomfortable squeak as she drew him into a tight embrace. Draco did not stop her, which was lucky, as she'd have no qualms about hexing anyone who tried to pry her off her son at that moment. The memories of Davin screaming were too fresh in her mind, and being so close, but unable to console him had been more difficult than she ever could have expected.

“Cassie?” Draco prompted after a few long minutes of silence, “are you...are you all right?”

“I don't know,” she answered honestly as she finally—albeit reluctantly—let Davin go, so that he could return to his play, “I thought that seeing—it would help, but I just...mostly I feel like I want to puke.”

“Somehow, that doesn't surprise me,” Draco mused as he summoned a tea tray, and prepared it how she liked it before he pressed a cup into her hands. “It may take some time for you to be able to process everything.”

“When did you get so wise?” she asked, and punctuated her question with a sip of the tea, which helped both in calming her down and settling her stomach. “I don't remember you ever being this smart in school.”

“Yes, because coming second to Granger automatically means I'm something of a dunderhead,” he drawled, and she laughed. “I believe I was too busy trying to either get you killed or expelled for you to really take note of my advanced intellect.”

“This is true,” Cassie replied, her lips pressed into a thin line as she tried to not laugh at his self-involved remark as she shifted to close the distance between them. Draco accepted her at once and wrapped an arm around her waist as she pressed her cheek to his shoulder.

“An owl came while you were looking at the memory, by the way,” Draco said conversationally as he motioned to a folded-up newspaper and unrolled letter that had been set down on the mantelpiece.

“Oh?”

“It would seem that I'm being honoured for my contribution to the Dark Lord's downfall,” Draco said, though his mild tone made it difficult for Cassie to tell whether he was pleased about this or not. “Order of Merlin, First Class. The awards ceremony is in a fortnight, and I'm welcome to bring a...what's the term? A plus one.”

Draco turned to her, his expression unreadable, and she caught her ruby-red bottom lip between her teeth as he regarded her. Truth be told, even if she was off to one side, the idea of going out in public still terrified her. What if someone recognized them? What if she was viewed as being as bad as Voldemort had been? What if someone recognizes Tom Riddle in her son's face?

Her string of worried thoughts were cut off rather suddenly by Draco's mouth on hers. She kissed him back without hesitation, and she reached up to cradle his cheeks, holding onto him the same way that he held on to her—as though they were precious to one another.

“I have a really bad idea, if you're willing to hear me out,” Draco murmured against her mouth, and she giggled a little.

“Dare I ask?”

“Well...in Pureblood families it's still fairly common to take part in arranged marriages, you see, and my mother and father had me set to marry this girl named Astoria Greengrass...she was a few years below us back in school.”

“Okay, what's that got to do with anything?” she asked, and Draco's mouth twitched into a small smirk, which wasn't exactly reassuring.

“Well, she died during the war, you see, her whole family was slaughtered by my aunt when they were caught passing information to the Light side. So I was thinking...”

“Oh, God, you want me to pose as her?” Cassie interrupted, her eyes wide, and Draco nodded. “Are you completely mad?”

“It's been suggested,” Draco replied with a small shrug, “will you do it?”

“No.”

“What?” Draco sputtered a little as he stared at her, his eyes wide with hurt, “why not?”

“Because that's an insult to her memory, Draco,” Cassie replied, her mouth twitched into a small frown as she regarded her companion, who appeared genuinely perplexed by her explanation. “Seriously. I—posing as her, just so that I won't be recognized? I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that.”

“It was just an idea,” Draco muttered sullenly, and refocused his gaze on the glowing coals in the fire grate.

“I could always go as just me,” she suggested, just as Davin yawned widely, and she scooped him up at once, “and just dismiss remarks that I look like Cassiopeia...”

“Is that a risk you're really willing to take, Cassie?” Draco asked uncertainly, “I mean, if someone does recognize you...”

“I don't know,” she answered with a heavy sigh as she propped her son against her shoulder and rubbed his back. He yawned again and rubbed at his eyes with his little fists, and as she stood up, signalling to Draco that she'd be right back she slipped away to the room she shared with her son, and went about changing him into his pyjamas, checking his diaper, and tucking him in with his dragon. She sat next to his bassinet and hummed tunelessly as she rocked him, and soon he was fast asleep. She watched him for a moment longer before she stood and headed back out to Draco.

When she returned, Draco appeared lost in thought, his elbows braced against his knees and chin cradled in his hands as he stared into the empty fire grate. She settled into his side, drawing him out of his thoughts, and he held her close while he heaved a soft sigh, as though her presence was as grounding and calming to him as his was to her.

“Any other brilliant ideas?” she asked, and Draco leant back against the sofa with a soft, frustrated groan.

“I could always go by myself, but I don't like the idea of leaving you here alone, even if things are technically over, and I also really like the idea of you being there for me...I've never been...praised in public like this. It's weird.”

“Welcome to my life,” she replied with a small laugh, “well...former life, I guess.”

“Oh how the tables have turned,” Draco said, and she laughed again as his arm snaked around her waist and drew her close. “Fourteen-year-old me would have loved it.”

“And how does twenty-three-year-old you feel about it?” she asked, and Draco laughed softly.

“Mostly unnerved, to tell the truth,” Draco replied, “it's a bit weird to be honoured next to people who spent most of their lives hating me.”

Cassie frowned. Despite the neutral front that Draco was exuding, she could feel his tension coming off him in waves. He'd helped her so much over the last few months, and now she was in a position to help him—except she didn't know exactly how to help him, without possibly endangering herself or her son. Added to the fact that seeing Draco Lucius Malfoy insecure about anything—least of all being publicly honoured—was a very strange thing to see.

Haltingly, Cassie sat up and climbed into Draco's lap, her knees braced on either side of his hips. He stared up at her in confusion, but she did not verbally answer as she leant in and kissed him lightly. It still amazed her how such a small action could thrill her so much. Draco let out a soft groan as he once more wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her close, and he deepened the kiss at once.

It was a far cry from the stimulus she'd grown accustomed to from Voldemort. It was intimate, yes, but tender and sweet, and made her feel almost punch-drunk as Draco led her in a number of sweet, dizzying kisses. His hands roamed up and down her back and massaged away any tense muscles that he found, which elicited a number of soft, contented sighs from her while they continued to snog.

Cassie was uncertain how long it had been, but after a while, she felt Draco shift under her, and she recognized immediately what he was doing—she had gotten him too excited, and he was trying to hide the evidence from her. Nearly eighteen years as a bloke, she remembered that sort of body language well, and she felt her stomach twist guiltily when she realized what she'd done.

“I want to come,” she said as she broke the kiss, and reluctantly moved to sit down next to Draco again. “As Cassie, I mean. As your—as Cassie.”

“And if they accuse you of being Cassiopeia Black?” Draco asked uncertainly, while he gazed at her with a dubious look in his eyes.

“Well...can I be Cassie Malfoy?”

Draco stared. His lips were parted, and his eyes were wide, as though he wasn't completely able to process his shock at her timid question. She reached forward and took his hand to illustrate that she wasn't requesting it just as a cover story—she meant it.

With his free hand Draco cradled her cheek and leant in and kissed her lightly, and that was all the answer that Cassie needed.
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This Body is My Prison