Help, I'm Alive

It is six years after the war, and Harry Potter still feels small. He is a man grown, a hero, an Order of Merlin First Class, a godfather, a friend, a lover. But he feels like nothing. He feels nothing.

He lays in the bed that he shares with Draco Malfoy, his white gold lover, and curls his body into a ball, wondering if he squeezes everything tightly - his eyes, his muscles, his fists - if maybe he will get so small that he disappears.

He should like that, he thinks.

The bed dips and he can feel the blazing heat that pours off of his other half. Harry marvels sometimes that someone he had once thought so cold, could give off heat like a furnace. As always, he scoots closer to it, half for comfort and half because he hopes he'll be burned.

A slender, graceful hand glides up his naked back and into his hair, long fingers tangling in the mass that Harry very rarely tries to tame anymore. A sighs passes through those thin but surprisingly soft lips that Harry has become somewhat addicted to, and the former Golden Boy mouths the words he knows come next.

Look at me, Harry.

"Look at me, Harry."

As always, Harry shakes his head in refusal. The words are said too softly. They are a request. Harry can ignore requests from Draco the same way he ignores owls from Ron, fire calls from Hermione, and offers from the Ministry.

Hermione and Ron lived through the war, but they retained themselves. They don't understand what it feels like to have everything you are die in one burning blaze of glory.

To be honest, neither does Draco.

Draco understands the opposite of this. All he has retained from the war is himself.

And yet they are a matched pair.

This is obvious when Draco's hand in Harry's hair tightens to the point of pain and he forces Harry's head to turn towards him. "I said look at me,"

Harry's eyes snap open because that is an order. There are some days when he feels like all that is holding him to this world are the commands that Draco gives. On days like this, he craves them, needs them to function.

And Draco has no problem with this. Orders fall from his lips faster than spells, and besides, this is not the hard part.

The hard part is when Harry's eyes meet his and those brilliant green depths are blank and glassy.

The sight makes a growl build in Draco's chest, bursting out of his mouth and making Harry flinch.

The flinch is a beginning.

"How many fucking times do I have to tell you to just bloody tell me before it gets to this point, Harry?" Draco snaps. "Do you think I like seeing you like this?"

Harry shakes his head.

"Do you think I like having to do this to you?"

Yes.

"No, Draco."

"Then why do you let it get this bad?"

Because we need it.

"I don't know, Draco."

Draco releases his hold on Harry's hair and all but shoves his lover away, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Alright. Fine. What do you need?"

Harry fights the urge to return to his little ball of obliviousness. "Hurt me?" he asks in tiny voice. "Please?"

This is not always the request. Sometimes he needs dinner, or a drink, or just for Draco to hold him. This request usually follows a week of nonstop nightmares, feelings of self loathing and it should've been me.

Draco wonders if he should feel sick at the thrill that runs down his spine whenever Harry asks for this. He tells himself that it's because he loves this man that he agrees every time. Not because he gets off on hurting him. That's not it at all.

A curt nod is the response, and already a little feeling creeps back into Harry's eyes. It's a mixture of fear and hope because Harry never knows how Draco is going to hurt him. Just that he will.

"Get up and bend over the bed." Draco's voice cracks through the silence in the room drawing another flinch from Harry. He hesitates for a moment because this doesn't sound like pain, it sounds like fucking, and Harry doesn't need fucking right now.

Grey eyes turn to shards of winter and a pale hand darts out and slaps Harry across the face. "Now!" Draco barks. "Don't let me have to say it again."

Tears form in Harry's eyes, and it is a relief for him to feel them. He scrambles to get up and do as he's told, forearms and elbows resting on the duvet as he bends over the bed which is a perfect height for this.

He feels Draco come around behind him, pushing at his back so that he rests more of his weight on the bed and his arse is higher in the air. There is a tap at his inner thighs, and Harry spreads his legs.

"Good," Draco murmurs.

Harry is still confused, and he is even more so when Draco pulls the thin pajama bottoms and pants down to pool around his ankles. But he keeps his mouth shut because Draco doesn't like to be interrupted.

There is the clink of metal on metal behind him and then the sound of leather sliding on denim.

Suddenly his position makes sense.

"Draco. Draco, I-"

The blonde slaps Harry's naked arse. "Shut up. You asked me to hurt you, so I'm going to. All I want to hear from you is 'Thank you, Draco'. Understand?"

Harry nods and rests his cheek on the smooth blanket covering their bed.

The anticipation is almost as bad as he knows the pain is probably going to be, but he loves that. Because anticipation and pain are things he can feel.

Harry doesn't know if it's been minutes or hours, but when the belt swings through the air and smacks into his bare arse, he isn't ready for it and he jerks forward with a loud cry.

"What do you say?" Draco asks from behind him.

"Th-thank you, Draco."

"Good boy."

Harry braces himself and the next two blows land quickly. He thanks Draco after each one, enjoying the way his arse heats up under the belt.

It hurts. Oh, Merlin, it hurts. The belt slaps into his skin with sharp, stinging pain, and tears begin to roll down his face.

Slap

"Thank you, Draco."

Slap

"Thank you, Draco."

Slap

"Thank you, Draco."

SLAP

"..."

"What do you say, Harry?"

"Th…th…thank you, D-draco."

Harry is crying now, gulping sobs that make his body tremble. It isn't just the pain of the spanking. It's everything. It's Hedwig and Dobby and Fred and Lupin and Tonks and Moody and Dumbledore and Snape and hell, even that piece of himself.

It took him some time, but Harry realized that he could only let himself cry, only lose that numbness, when Draco was hurting him.

It took him a bit longer to realize that Draco could only feel what he needed to when he was hurting him.

Now that his arse is on fire, it is time for the second part of the hurt.

"You're so fucking weak, aren't you?" Draco says, panting, swinging the belt again and again.

SLAP

"You need this."

SLAP

"You need me in order to function, don't you?"

SLAP

"How the hero has fallen."

SLAP

"You're Harry Potter. You're supposed to be stronger than this!"

SLAP

"Why."

Slap

"Aren't."

Slap

"You."

SLAP

"Stronger?"

Draco drops the belt and the only sounds in the room are his panting and Harry's sobs. Harry crumples to the floor at his lover's feet, crying too hard to support himself. The blonde falls to his knees beside Harry and takes him into his arms, letting him cry on his shoulder.

He strokes his back and whispers soothing words now that he can. Tears run down his own face and together the two of them move towards healing.

A/N: Written for the Drarry kink meme for the Draco spanks Harry prompt. The angst just happened.