Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Corybantes	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9751 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
Title: Corybantes

Disclaimer: J. K.
Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun
and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Rating: R

Warnings: Violence,
OC character death, profanity, sex, mentions of random fetishes and suicide. Ignores the DH epilogue.

Summary: A
mysterious death has occurred at Draco Malfoy�s club, Corybantes,
which specializes in using magic to make its clients� deepest fantasies come
true. As Auror Harry Potter investigates, he finds himself admiring Malfoy�s
courage and determination in achieving success. Which could
be a problem, as there�s a fairly large chance that Malfoy is the murderer.

Author�s Notes: Corybantes were servants of the goddess Cybele who worked
themselves up into ecstatic trances with drumming and dancing. Though applying
to a different kind of ecstasy, it seemed a fairly good name for Draco�s club.
This story will be about ten or twelve chapters long.

Corybantes

Chapter One�Fantasy and
Reality

�� It didn�t
look like much, viewed from the outside.

�� Harry
considered it with his arms folded in front of him, the hand that held his wand
resting along his right forearm. A few of the people passing into the club
cocked their heads at him and gaped. Harry didn�t know whether it was his
posture, his heavy dark cloak, or the fact that he lingered outside without
going in that made them look at him like that. He hardly cared. In the circus
that was the corner of Knockturn Alley and Roof Alley, one black-clad stranger
was hardly going to stand out.

�� Lights
blazed past him, wandering winged peddlers calling out hoarsely that they had
captured fairies for sale. Women whom shifting shadows hid stood in the
entrance of small shops, variously advertising phoenix eggs, the latest in completely
loyal familiars, or delightful and unexpected perversions to be found with
house-elves. The shop two doors down from the building Harry examined disdained
all subtlety, flaunting an enormous ruby whip on the door and an image of a man
twisting in pain under it, bleeding turquoise blood.

�� Harry
reckoned that helped attract the kind of clientele they wanted, or they
wouldn�t have used it. For him, it was hard to imagine anything less
attractive.

�� The
building across from him was tame in comparison. Three floors�and an unknown
amount of space underground, according to the privileged information Harry had
received�it squatted as if ashamed of its height. The stone making it up was
grey marble, with smoky veins that wouldn�t become apparent until the observer
was close. The door was a modest little arch, decorated around the edge with a
thin strip of yellow. Harry knew it was real gold, but he doubted most of the
people swirling past him in the streets did.

�� Malfoy hasn�t done too badly for himself
since the war.

�� Of course,
whether he had done badly by others was the important question.

�� Harry shook
himself and pulled away from the fa�ade of the shop he�d leaned against.
Fifteen minutes of observation of a strange place was enough�more than he
usually did, in fact, but he�d felt compelled to do it both because of the kind
of place it was and because of who owned it.

�� Now he
thought he had the measure of the club, if not the owner, and could enter with
some confidence.

*

�� Whatever
plainness Malfoy had felt compelled to put on the front of the building, he
hadn�t restricted himself when it came to the interior. Harry, adopting the
bored mask he generally used when he wanted to keep from gaping, supposed that
it could still be called good taste.

�� Uninhibited, lustful, unrestrained�

��

�� Yeah, those
were appropriate words, too.

�� The place
was dark inside, due to carefully maintained illusions and glittering nets full
of anti-light, the one of the Weasleys� Wizard Wheezes that had grown from a
trick into a serious tool for use everywhere. The dark clusters of captured
midnight, or at least George claimed that was how he made it, threw shadows
like torches threw beams. But they hung from clips near the top of the club,
allowing more than enough light to fall on the murals that decorated the lower
walls.

�� Next to
Harry, shaggy lions with black manes drew a chariot in which a woman with a
curving neck like a swan�s perched, her arms folded in front of her, vines
wreathing her temples, corn springing up under the wheels of the chariot. The
lightest of reins ran from her hand to the lions� mouths. It was only when looking
down at the lions� legs that Harry noticed leaves as thick as chains confining
their every step. Or were the leaves springing up where they touched, like the
corn from the chariot�s wheels? Harry shook his head. He wasn�t an art expert;
he wouldn�t want to guess a painter�s intentions from his imperfect
observations.

�� On the
opposite wall he saw a tribe of dancers in various stages of shedding their
clothes, whirling around each other. There were men and women, and people who
looked halfway in the transformation between men and women, as if they�d taken
the Iphis Potion. There were couples melded together,
with four arms and four legs, two mouths, and four eyes. There were people with
the legs of goats, the heads of wolves, the arms of monkeys. Harry had to admit
it was a good picture. The level of skill wasn�t what made his lip curl. It was
what the picture symbolized: wildness, fantasy, magic used to make anything and
everything happen.

�� It might be
nice to dream about, but he�d seen the results of plenty of wizards and witches
using magic to do anything they pleased in his work as an Auror. They never
took the pleasure of their victims into account.

�� He turned
and looked up. Yes, as he had been promised, the name of the club hung
suspended above his head, in the middle of half-lit darkness, so that Harry
honestly wasn�t sure if it was an illusion itself, or suspended by spells, or
supported from the floor.

�� Corybantes.

�� At least
the name was in keeping with the pictures.

�� When he
lowered his head, he realized that he had attracted attention already. This
central room of the club was deliberately quiet and peaceful, filled with
chairs where customers could sit comfortably and couches where they could
recline. Harry heard the splash of water from distant corners, the gurgle of
liquid being poured, the sound of what were probably intelligent and witty
words in conversation. None of it could relax him. He understood the message of
the murals and the name too well.

�� But here
came a witch wrapped in shadows not unlike the witches who had called their
wares outside, her smile pure seduction. Her eyes were a brighter blue than any
that Harry had seen, and he realized with an unpleasant shock when she was near
that they were sapphires sewn into her skin. She halted in front of him and
held out her hand. It was white and smooth as ice on the palm, but Harry could
see snake scales vanishing into the shadow of her sleeve.

�� Welcome to
Corybantes,� she murmured. �You look as if you did
not yet know your pleasure. Will you come with me and discover it?�

�� Harry gave
her a small, hard smile. At least it made her forehead wrinkle. �I�m here on
business,� he said, and opened his cloak enough to show her the golden Auror
pendant that the Department had started issuing five years ago, after a ring of
criminals had successfully impersonated officials from Magical Law Enforcement.
The pendant showed a phoenix, wings spread, clutching a wand. �Auror Harry
Potter. I�ve come about the murder.�

�� The woman
took a step back from him, opening her mouth to display teeth too small to be
human. �Auror Potter�that is��

�� Let him
be, Shadow,� said a familiar voice from the side. �I knew the Department would
send him.�

�� Harry
barely turned his head to acknowledge Malfoy, keeping his eyes fixed on Shadow.
He�d seen her dart out a flickering tongue, which wasn�t a surprise in and of itself, but a small breath of flame had come with it. Spells
that would give human beings the powers of dragons, centaurs, or other
controlled magical creatures were definitely Dark Arts.

�� Do stop
startling my employees, Potter,� Malfoy said, as he slid to a stop near Harry.
He stood close to intimidate. Harry turned his head to look at him by slow
degrees, wanting to show the man that he had next to no power over Harry.

�� Malfoy
hadn�t changed, except to grow more and more like what he�d always been. His
eyes were brighter, and his hair paler, and his features so much like Lucius�s
that Harry could have been fooled at a distance, at least if Lucius was still
alive. Harry wondered why the man hadn�t used his own fantasy magic on himself
to change his appearance to something perfect or more inhuman, since those two
qualities had always seemed to be his ambition during Hogwarts. Then he
dismissed it as none of his business. He only needed to know as much of
Malfoy�s psychology as was relevant to the case.

�� I didn�t
mean to,� he said. �I had assumed you would have messages warning them I was on
my way.� He looked about for Shadow, but she had already retreated back into
the darkness. With a shrug, Harry focused on Malfoy. He wasn�t here to
investigate Dark Arts spells, and he already knew this wasn�t a place the
Ministry was anxious to hear reports on, or they would have sent numerous
Aurors here instead of him, the Department�s �confidential investigator.� �Do
you have the body available for viewing?�

�� Malfoy gave
him a lazy smile that was the apotheosis of all the sneers he�d ever used.
Perhaps he had used magic, after all, Harry thought. �Harry Potter,� Malfoy
breathed. �I see that face quite often.�

�� Harry
shrugged indifferently. �I imagine you do.�

�� Malfoy
stiffened. �Oh?�

�� Harry
rolled his eyes. �I�m told on good authority that it�s a common fantasy, to
fuck or be fucked by the Chosen One,� he said. �And you�re in the business of
fulfilling fantasies, aren�t you?�

�� Malfoy
relaxed all at once, as though he�d won back money that he�d thought lost.
�Yes,� he said. Then he raised a curious eyebrow. �I wouldn�t have expected
someone as avowedly pure as yourself to know about
that.�

�� Harry
sighed. It seemed that Malfoy was determined to be difficult. Harry knew he
shouldn�t antagonize him, since Malfoy had power over certain members of the
Ministry who�d come here. But he was tired of people who wanted to �banter�
with him. The essential lines never changed. They all assumed they should hold
more importance in Harry�s memory than they did.

�� I learn
more than one impure thing in this business,� he said. �I should never have
become an Auror if I wanted to stay innocent.� He hoped that would be enough to
fulfill Malfoy�s quota of small talk. This place was distasteful. �Now, the body?�

�� Softly,
softly, Potter,� Malfoy murmured. He slid a step closer. Harry rolled his eyes
and slipped into something that most people would see as a slouch of
irritation; the cloak he wore helped conceal the battle-readiness of the
stance. �I haven�t seen you, the real you, in years. I want to look at you.�

�� I imagine
that you get hungry for reality here,� Harry said. Malfoy looked startled but
pleased this time, as though a rather stupid student had repeated a lesson
word-perfect. �Murder should be enough of a dose, however. The
body?�

�� Malfoy
regarded him speculatively. �I could have you thrown out for being rude, you
know. I have more power than you can estimate.�

�� And then
someone noisier comes here.�

�� For long,
silent moments, they engaged in a staring contest. Harry didn�t allow the
tension that he felt prickling at his shoulders to mount to his face. It was
mad that Malfoy should expect a renewal of their rivalry. They were both
adults, and their lives no longer mattered to each other�s.

�� Of course, perhaps he�s the kind of person
who expects to matter to everyone, even the ones who have far different walks
of life. In fact, I�m sure he�s that kind of person.

�� Malfoy
turned away at last, his tension showing in the stiff way that he carried his
hands. �In this direction,� he said, and guided Harry along the edge of the
immense dark room.

�� Harry
walked with his eyes straight ahead, apparently seeing nothing but Malfoy�s
back, but Auror training had taught him to use his peripheral vision, and there
was nothing wrong with his other senses. The carpet beneath his boots absorbed
every sound they made. The walls had spells on them that baffled and bounced
sound, he concluded when they passed a corner that was full of soft laughter
but contained no one. Another mural showed as they passed an angle of wall
bending to the right: a group of naked women with streaming hair, tearing a man
limb from limb among grape vines. Their mouths gaped open, their eyes closed,
their faces blank.

�� Harry smiled
grimly. That seemed a good representation of the kind of fantasies that Corybantes offered. Open your mouth, close your eyes, and
do your best not to taste what you were swallowing.

�� Malfoy
guided him down a corridor that opened from the dark room and which was tiled
in dark gold. He pushed open a door at last and stood aside. Harry went in past
him, though it meant turning his back on Malfoy. He had his wand with him, and
the training to deal with whatever locking spells Malfoy might use to turn the room
into a trap.

�� I assume
you will eventually want to see the room where he died,� Malfoy said in an
indifferent voice. �This is only the one we have used to store the body.�

�� Harry
concealed his annoyance at the fact that the corpse had been moved. Malfoy
would probably shrug and say something about how his club had to make money if
Harry protested. �Yes, I�ll want to,� he said, and then moved forwards and
looked down at the corpse of Pascal Keatson.

�� He was a
young man, Harry knew from the file he�d read, but he didn�t look like it. His
face was bloated, as though he�d drowned himself slowly. The skin along his
neck sagged, and deep wrinkles scored his forehead. His eyes, deep blue, looked
as blank as the eyes of the women in the mural outside. His hair was
straw-blond. Harry raised his eyebrows. He looked almost as Dudley might, if
he�d died at the age of twenty-six.

�� Harry lit
his wand�the room had only dim torches with anti-light above them set into the
walls�and bent to examine the state of his clothing.

�� I assure
you that we have not stripped him naked,� Malfoy said.

�� I know
that,� Harry said, and left Malfoy to make the sufficiently obvious assumption:
that he was looking for clues.

�� It was
perfectly clear how Keatson had died; the large slash
in his throat would have been difficult to disguise under ordinary
circumstances, and everyone agreed it had been murder. But Harry wanted to
study the way the blood had soaked down his threadbare robes, and his hands.

�� He smiled
as he crouched down to the side of the cushioned platform that Keatson had been laid on. Yes, he had thought there would
be something strange here, and there was. Blood had crusted under the
fingernails. So had a fleck of a single bright blue shred.
Harry whispered a few detection spells over it, and arched an eyebrow when his
third spell identified it. He had cast that particular detection spell almost
on a whim, remembering the scales on Shadow�s hand, but now there could be no
doubt. The bright blue thing was neither cloth nor skin, but a snake-scale.

�� Tell me
again how he died,� he said, as he Levitated the bit
of scale out from under Keatson�s fingernail and
placed it in a glass vial without touching it.

�� You know
that story.� Malfoy�s voice carried more than a little asperity. His dislike of
being made a fool of, as well as his quickness to suspect others� motives,
hadn�t changed either, Harry thought as he straightened.

�� But I
haven�t heard it from you.�

�� Malfoy
paused, his eyes narrowing and the same lazy smile he had showed Harry earlier
taking over his face. Harry bent over Keatson�s legs
and wondered what he was thinking.

�� Keatson came to us often for fulfillment of his fantasies,�
Malfoy began. He made his voice low and sweet, sweeter than Harry had known it
was capable of becoming. He frowned at Keatson�s
clean robes. His voice and his smile both
make no sense. He ought to know that he can�t charm me out of arresting him if
I find him guilty of something. �They were ordinary, truly: women to honor
him and think of him as the center of the universe. You�re familiar with how
the special rooms in the clubs work?� His voice changed again, becoming deeper.
Harry felt a prickle of awareness along his neck and changed his target of
annoyance to himself.

�� Yes,� he
said.

�� I should
not have presumed you weren�t.� Malfoy had noticed the shortness of his answer.
Harry berated himself again, and cast a detection spell that made every mark
and stain on the robes glow with soft light. Nothing unusual appeared. Keatson had died indoors, as Malfoy claimed�or the person
who had killed him outdoors was better with cleaning
charms than most house-elves. �Keatson was one of
those who needed our rooms. No real women could have given him the mindless
devotion he commanded. He would come in, spend some time with our phantoms, and
then leave.

�� I had
noticed that his fantasies had become more violent lately. He required the
women to fight with him, to beat him, to scar him with knives.� Malfoy�s voice
held everything but judgment. Harry reckoned he had seen much worse in his
time. He stood back up and moved towards Keatson�s
head again, using a mild Wind Charm to part his hair so that he could examine
the state of his scalp. �However, many people�s tastes change over time. I thought
nothing of it.�

�� Malfoy
paused. Harry glanced up again and saw him staring at the walls of the room as
if dissatisfied. Harry snorted. It�s a
little late in the day for him to start thinking that he should get into
another business.

�� Keatson went into a room as usual at nine-o�clock.� Malfoy took
up the tale again, his words more abrupt and jerky than before. �At eleven, his
fantasies ended. Shadow came to fetch me when he hadn�t appeared at ten minutes
after the hour. The room automatically ejects clients if they overstay their
welcome,� he added.

�� I�ll want
to talk to Shadow, too,� Harry said.

�� Malfoy
barely acknowledged this with a nod before he continued. �The room didn�t
respond when I used the spell that should have brought Keatson
out. I entered and found him lying on the floor with his throat cut, just as
you see him. I Levitated him here, as we had booked
the use of the room for another client��

�� Harry held
back his outburst with great effort. That�s
a stupid fucking reason to disturb a murder scene.

�� But I did
not touch the body.� Malfoy clenched his fists and wheeled around to stare at
Harry. �No one entered the room except for him. We have strong spells that
prevent anyone from doing so. He brought no weapon with him. We also have
spells that would have detected that. We are in the business of fulfilling many
fantasies, but those that include violence are conducted entirely by phantoms
and not by people of flesh and blood.�

�� Harry
tilted his head back and let Malfoy see the doubt in his eyes. �And all your
clients are satisfied by that?�

�� Malfoy gave
him a cold smile. �Our phantasms are quite as good as the real thing. They
bleed and scream in the same way, and there are no damages to be paid if they
are harmed or even killed. Most of our clients prefer it, in fact. It gives
them the scope to do things that they could never do in their daily lives or
with paid whores.�

�� Harry gave
a short nod to show that he understood and Malfoy could go on, though his
revulsion for the place was growing by the second.

�� He died in
a room that no one else could have entered,� Malfoy said, �not even me.�

�� Harry
stared at him. �You do that when there�s the chance that something could go
wrong with the spells and trap your client in there?�

�� You�ve
heard of spell-nets?� Malfoy leaned forwards, lowering his voice again. �If
something goes wrong with one part of the fantasy, everything stops at once and
the wards fall. But as long as the illusion is perfect, there is no need for me
to intrude.�

�� That�s all you�re selling, Harry wanted
to say. Illusions. One touch of daylight and you�re burn like
the vampire you are.

�� But he
wasn�t here to air his private opinions. Kingsley had told him in strictest
confidence that Malfoy had asked for Harry himself, because he knew his
discretion and wanted the odor removed from his club as soon as possible. He
spoke calmly. �The solution seems simple to me. His fantasies killed him.�

�� Malfoy
shook his head. �The fantasies can�t harm the clients, Potter.�

�� Harry
blinked. �That seems a poor return on the price, if they pay to be whipped and
beaten and nothing touches them.�

�� The damage
feels real,� Malfoy said. �It looks and smells real. It isn�t. It would also
end the moment something went wrong with the spell-net. Everything from
beginning to end is ghostly. We pleasure the minds of our clients more than
their bodies, and that�s true no matter how many orgasms they have.�

�� You�re
absolutely certain of this?� Harry demanded.

�� Malfoy smiled.
�I can give you the pseudonyms of our clients who have the most violent
fantasies. They won�t mind speaking to you, not when the possible consequence
is Corybantes having to be shut down. They will tell
you that they have had their throats cuts, their heads bashed in, their bodies
drowned and thrown from high cliffs, and yet have always awakened healthy and
whole.�

�� Harry spent
some moments studying him. He had taken an entire course devoted to the
detection of lies, and he could see nothing of them in Malfoy�s proud chin and
utterly direct stare, his still hands and his pure throat.

�� I�d like
to examine one of these rooms�not the one Keatson
died in�and study the spell-nets, all the same,� he said, turning towards the
door.

�� Malfoy�s
laugh rattled like diamond shards. �Why, Potter,� he said, �didn�t you enjoy
your close look at one?� He raised his hand and gestured around the room they
stood in. �This is one of them.�

�� Harry cast
a slow, careful look about. �I don�t sense the spell-nets,� he said.

�� They�re
buried. Breaking the clients� suspension of disbelief is the fatal thing to a
show like ours.� Malfoy stepped forwards, and his eyes were bright and hot.

�� Still,� he
murmured, �the room should show pale phantoms of a client�s desires when he
steps into one. Even a casual client, even one who isn�t sure what he wants
yet.�

�� Harry stood
still. He couldn�t say You bastard and maintain his composure, but
he let his face look it.

�� Malfoy
laughed again and moved closer still. His hand twitched with suppressed desire,
probably to punch Harry in the face.

�� You would
have seen them, too,� Malfoy breathed. �Instead, no phantoms emerged. You seem to have a clean and empty
subconscious, Potter.�

�� Harry
released a carefully controlled breath and moved to step past Malfoy. He
stopped when the bastard wrapped his hand Harry�s wrist. His fingers were
warmer than they should be and seemed longer than normal as well; Harry could
have sworn they wrapped three times around his arm.

�� Or perhaps
your desires are in such confusion,� Malfoy whispered, �that no single one can
emerge. Those are the most interesting cases to me. It is always a delight to
watch their hearts emerge into knowledge of pleasure.�

�� Harry
stared into Malfoy�s face and smiled. Malfoy released him and stepped back,
mouth jagged and uncertain.

�� You might
want to examine your spell-nets, Malfoy,� Harry murmured, and ducked out of the
room. �And summon Shadow so that I can speak to her, as well as show me the
room Keatson died in.�

�� The
uncontrolled huff of exasperation from behind him was worth all the bollocks
he�d put up with that night.
- 1
- 2
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Corybantes