Title: BELTANE WALK
Author: Lantana
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: HP/LV
Rating: R-ish
Disclaimer: Hers. Not mine. Sob.
Warnings: Mention of sex, some violence. Oh, and Mpreg.
Summary: What happens when the Valentine intoxication fades?
A/N: For the March challenge of the hxt lightning list. Can be read on its own, but follows "Sweet Surrender". Oh, and thanks to Mark Bolan for the title.

Challenge: Spring Festival (equinox).
-You must incorporate the theme of Spring and/or have some sort of reference to the spring being near. It's completely up to you how you incorporate it into the story. It's also completely up to you about the length. The only MUST is the theme.

BELTANE WALK

Harry was softly caressing his still flat abdomen. "Poor kid," he thought." It's not your fault your daddy was so weak to let his worst enemy seduce him. I can't blame you for the pickle I'm in, only myself.

I'm so sorry you'll have to live with a single parent, but I can't possibly stay with him. He's evil, baby, so very evil. I just have no choice but to run away, and do it fast, before you grow too big in me, and I can't move as quickly as I want to.

I've been smart, baby, after my moment of weakness. I've led him on, made him believe I didn't regret the night you were conceived - and truly, I don't, not if it gives me a child to love.

He thinks I'm completely besotted by his pretence of love and kindness, baby, he thinks I can be trusted to stay with him voluntarily now. The fetters are only pretty baubles now. I can't remove them, but he has removed the weakening and binding spells from them, saying I'll need my strength to grow a strong son inside of me.

I paid for that, and gladly. I drove him crazy that night, played coy and inexperienced, the way he likes it, and pretended that I got excited by his foul language and callous touches.

I'll pay that same price again and again, my little one. I'll pay it every night, so his mind is further clouded, until he trusts me enough to let me have a night alone.

I think he'll do so next week, at the Spring Equinox. He has reinstated the old religion, and fancies himself as some kind of high priest. At the Festival, he'll light the fires in person; he'll besmirch that holy ceremony with his political speeches and torture of the undesirable, and feast with his cronies.

Normally, I would have been part of the program. He would have fucked me in public, and invited some of his favourites to do the same, claiming it was some old fertility ritual. But now there's you, baby, and he fears to harm you.

And so, I'll be staying at the Manor, faithfully awaiting his return, I hope to make him believe. If all goes as planned, it'll be the night I escape. I'll have to run far, and fast - but I believe His hand doesn't reach around the world yet. I've heard most of Africa and South-America are still free, and are most likely to remain so, he has no desire to conquer countries plagued by poverty and disease.

Once I get there, we'll be safe. These ridiculous bejewelled fetters will bring us a small fortune, enough to live out our lives modestly."

Harry's freedom lasted exactly four days. Three of those days were spent Apparating criss-cross over the globe, looking for a place that would grant him asylum, or where he could melt into the background. No such place was found, and the last twenty-four hours he spent huddled in the top of a sequoia, desperately crying, but refusing to go back voluntarily.

They came for him, as he had known they would. He wiped away the tears he had shed so liberally, and faced them stone-faced, silent and proud. He went with them without fighting or protesting, though his heart beat faster at the thought of the punishment that awaited him. He only hoped that whatever Voldemort chose to inflict on him, wouldn't hurt the baby.

Harry painfully crawled back from the bathroom to his bed, and dragged his aching, swollen body back on the soft mattress. The cuts were healing nicely, he thought, as neatly as the bruises on his face had done.

The superficial damage would be minimal: the bruises had faded without a trace, and the cuts would leave nothing but thin, red lines.

But he would never run away again, Voldemort had made sure of it. In fact, he'd be lucky if he ever walked again, with the tendons of his heels and knees cut through.