He can chart his rise through the Ministry by the taste of coffee, he realises; big mugs of brimming milky-brown at first, to be cupped in his hands and blown on to cool down, like the hot chocolate his mother makes in the Burrow. Then – about three years ago - he’d decided that the office Elves should be trained to make cappucino, instead of churning out the usual terrible filter coffee, tiny black specks of the grind floating to the top and clinging to his tongue. He had no idea, at the time, of how funny the Italians working in his department found him – a skinny red-head, fresh out of school, naïve enough to be drinking cappucino after midday. He still likes cappucino, up to a point. When his office door is closed, sometimes he dips his finger in the froth, licking it off with a delicately pointed pink tongue, fastidious in everything. The right amount of dusted chocolate is important, too.

More than anything, Percy likes control.

And so he stirs his espresso three times clockwise, the silver spoon making a slight tinkle against the side of the tiny glass. The sound of the spoon, and the ponderous ticking of the old grandfather clock in the corner of his office, creaking out the time in dusty increments. There had been an ongoing argument about whose office it was to go in – the rooms were small enough as it was, and no-one wanted to do away with the old clock, a gift to the department from the estate of Barty Crouch, Snr. Percy had loved it instantly, running covetous hands over the smooth mahogany curves, the wood as rich and dark as the espresso he likes to drink in the morning. But still, no matter how brightly his desk gleams, no matter how neat and tidy the pencils are lined up along the edge, he can’t bring himself to polish the clock face. It came to him cobwebs and all, and that’s the way he’s kept it. It reminds him of time, in a way the kitchen clock in the Burrow never could – too preoccupied with family, with people. This clock is all about time, and he thinks it’s magnificent.

He takes a sip of the coffee, rolling the taste across his palate as he picks up the morning newspaper. It’s thick and black and ever so slightly nutty, and he closes his eyes for a moment, savouring the smell.

*

He unthreads the laces slowly, listening to the faint lissome sound as they work through the polished leather. The shoes cost the better part of a month’s salary, shipped in from Rome using the Ministry couriers, but you can proclaim a man by the shoes he wears - Mr Crouch always told him that, and Percy has no reason to disbelieve it. The other part of the axiom hangs unspoken in the air: and how he treats his inferiors, but that was never much of a concern to the old man, and scarcely troubles Percy now. They expect great things of him, great things indeed; and for all the icy glances and sharp comments in the Departmental meetings, he’s only doing his job. It took Percy a long time to perfect it. But now he strides through the Ministry corridors as if he owns them, polished shoes making a muted squeaking sound on the polished floor.

The leather smells old, and he knows that’s just clever spells, but he can marvel at the craftmanship all the same. The first time he went back to the Burrow straight from work, he could see his mother purse her lips, prepare to say: “Percy, where do you get the money to buy all these things?” She doesn’t understand, of course. And he runs his hand covetously over the smooth mahogany of the grandfather clock, and brings the laces up to run through his mouth, wetting them slightly with his saliva, to make them supple. Outside, he can hear that a courier has just arrived, and through the frosted glass of his office door there’s a flurry of activity. But in here, nothing but the slow tick of the clock, and Percy sits on the floor, resting his back against the cool polished wood.

They haven’t used hangings at the Ministry for generations, centuries even, and now the Executioner carries an axe. Percy smiles faintly at that as he slips the moist laces around his neck, feeling the wetness against his pale, too-white skin. Pulled tight, they dig into his throat, but the sensation isn’t altogether uncomfortable – he wonders if this is what the condemned thought too, before the stool was pulled away and they went to swing and kick in the air. He swallows, feeling the subtle movements of his larynx against the constricting laces, a rush of blood staining his cheeks pink.

The belt is expensive, too, and he’d never tell anyone how he had to eat bread in the evenings for weeks to afford it: hand-tooled Venetian leather, made to measure to fit his slim waist, sitting square on the angular hips. He’s sure that no-one else in the Department notices or even cares, but he knows, and that’s enough; and he touches it almost reverentially as he slips it through the loops on his trousers, feeling himself harden.

Percy’s hands are slick with sweat, because it always takes a long time, even with the blood supply cut and his mind so much elsewhere that he doesn’t even feel the time passing, nothing but the warm tingling that curls up his spine and his hands making sure, steady strokes between his legs. He used to cry out; he doesn’t any more, though his body shudders and strains with the pleasure. He’s quiet when he comes; head thrown back against the clock, the laces biting at his throat enough to make him open his mouth and gasp for air.

*

There are marks on his neck for the next week; dull red lines around his throat, most notable around the sides, where he’d moved his head and strained against the laces in orgasm, the blood rush making him dizzy. He stares at them in the mirror, as he shaves; if people saw them, they might think he had tried to kill himself, but it’s not about that. It’s about the exquisite denial, the battling of his body for control and oxygen and release. His hand grasping at the grandfather clock to keep himself upright, leaving oily smears of fingerprints and precome on the mahogany. It’s about that delicious rush of euphoria, when his face is flushed with blood, the same dusky pink as the tip of his erection, and he’s almost letting go.

He splashes his face with cool water in the harshly lit bathroom, looking up at himself in the mirror. The scars will fade soon. They always do. And Percy shrugs a high-collared linen shirt onto his shoulders, his fingers busy with the little ivory buttons, doing it up as his larynx, hiding the marks with exquisite tailoring.

It won’t hide the scars elsewhere, of course, but it’s a start.

*

A/N: all credit for use of laces must go to luciusmalfoy. Apologies to everyone I whinged at while I was stuck on this. *kisskiss*