Part Four of 'The Long-Desired'
Title: The Long-Desired (4/13)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: R
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Creature!fic,(vampire Draco), angst, violence, profanity, sex, bloodplay, past canon character death, dark (arguably insane) Harry. DH spoilers, but ignores epilogue.
Summary: Sequel to ‘Viper.’ Harry is more determined than ever to prevent Draco from taking Harry as his lover and Long-Desired, which Harry sees as slavery. Draco turns to Harry’s friends for help as Harry spirals down into self-destruction.
Author’s Notes: This is the third of the ‘Two Hunters’ series, which begins with ‘Mongoose and continues in Viper, and it will be the last one. Reading this one isn’t recommended if you haven’t read the others. It is also a dark story, and not very fluffy. This one will probably be between nine and thirteen parts long, updated irregularly.
Part One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
It took him eight tries to get off the lock that he himself had put on. Harry grimaced wryly at the Harry of last year, who had been so certain that he would never want these books and had gone to such lengths to keep them warded.
If you really thought that you would never want them, then you would have thrown them away.
But Harry wasn’t interested in having an argument with himself. He dragged the books out of the trunk and set them on the bed, turning them slowly over and wincing when Dark magic seeped out of the covers to sting his fingers.
Curses on Bodily Processes. Squeezing the Heart, Embedding the Soul. The Difference Between Mortals and Immortals.
Harry sighed and chose the last one, because it was the most immediately relevant to what he wanted to do: figuring out some way to break the Long-Desired bond. The rest of the books he packed back in the trunk. Since he didn’t have the time or the inclination to replace the locks and the wards-he would probably want another of those tomes shortly-he cast a powerful masking spell that would make sure anyone who walked into his house saw an ordinary trunk.
He would be arrested and sent to Azkaban if anyone knew he had those books. Probably even Hermione would consider it her duty to report him to the Head Auror, though she might recommend leniency. These were the books with curses that had been declared Forbidden, the category higher than the Unforgivables, which most people didn’t know existed. They had to be not only outlawed but forgotten. And the Ministry had done its best to make sure they were, burning the books that described them and using Memory Charms with abandon.
But sometimes individual criminals were smarter than the Ministry, especially when they became vampires themselves and had time to plan against the discovery of their treasures. And Harry had discovered these books in the lair of a master vampire who had wielded Dark magic as skillfully as a Death Eater and been his most difficult opponent until he faced the Collector.
He opened the first pages of Difference, wincing at the smell of rotting meat that crept out of them. He knew that some Dark wizards wanted to make sure anyone who read their books understood what they were getting into, but must they fit all the stereotypes that the Ministry spread about them? Harry had often been disconcerted by people like Voldemort who seemed to assume that ugliness was a lure, and didn’t see that they could have used beauty instead.
Then again, vampires use beauty. And you’re dedicated to killing them, so I don’t think you could approve of a criminal who did as you recommended.
And you’re stalling again.
With a sigh, Harry lowered his eyes to the page and began to read, bracing himself internally for some of the horrors that he would encounter in those words.
*
“Malfoy.”
Draco stepped slowly back from the mortal woman he had been draining, licking his lips and keeping his movements casual. He touched the woman’s shoulder and breathed into her ear, “Go to sleep.” Under his thrall, she did as he asked without complaint, folding up and dropping to the ground. Draco licked the wound on her throat closed so that she wouldn’t bleed to death and turned around at last.
It paid to deal in such cautions when he was engaging with a mortal ally.
Or someone like an ally, at least, he reminded himself when he saw Granger standing there, her wand aimed at him. I would be ill-advised to start thinking of her that way before she declares an intention to help me.
“Impressive, Granger,” he said, stepping to the side so that he would be off the stone steps of the house where he had been feeding. He wanted smooth and certain ground beneath him if he had to move suddenly. “I didn’t know that someone could find me unless I wanted to be found.”
Granger’s mouth was hard, and she pressed forwards without responding. “I’ve learned more about the Long-Desired bond,” she said. “It doesn’t sound as though you would really love Harry.”
“Not in the way that I assume you love people,” Draco said. “He is my most important.” He hesitated, then decided, watching the way Granger’s wand twitched, that that wasn’t the right word. “My only. I have no other concerns, no other affections or ties. I would burn to save Harry. I would stake myself to serve him.” He smiled into her eyes. She was more dangerous than he had suspected; it could not hurt to impress her with him being more dangerous than she might have thought he was. “I would kill you if he desired it.”
Granger swallowed audibly, but her wand stayed steady. “I’m not sure that I want to encourage this bond if it won’t lead to the kind of love Harry deserves.”
“Deserves? The bond is about needs, not merit.” Draco made a quick, delicate step closer, causing her to flinch and stare at him distrustfully.
That was all right. Draco only needed to see her eyes.
Granger gave a shaky gasp and tried to resist, but Draco rolled over her will easily as he extended his thrall into her mind. Granger took a deep breath, and then her eyes grew heavy and glazed, like the eyes of the mortal woman when Draco had enchanted her so that he could feed.
“Now,” Draco said. He knew his voice would sound like an echo to Granger, a mutter of thunder that she couldn’t help but listen to and obey. “I will not let you do anything to interfere with the bond. You can caution Harry against me. You can try to break him of his obsession for hunting and killing my kind. You can be his friend in moments when he needs the companionship of mortals. All those activities are worthy, and I will not oppose them. But I will not let you try and turn my Long-Desired from me. He is mine.
“You will not act against the bond no matter what happens, and you will encourage Harry, subtly if you can, to accept it. Do you understand, Granger?”
Of course she nodded. Draco raised an eyebrow and released her. Granger gulped quickly, and said, as if the thrall had never happened, “What kind of love can you give him that he needs but doesn’t deserve?”
“I think he deserves it, of course,” Draco said, pleased with himself. There was no need to take over someone’s mind completely, the way Caspar so often had. Of course, Caspar had little interest in mortals when they weren’t serving as his food; he might even have tried to resist the pull to his Long-Desired, simply so he could keep his power unshared. “But my devotion is absolute, Granger. I won’t turn aside. I will kill for him if he needs that done. I can’t give him the soft and melting love that you seem to think he has to have, though. My love isn’t soft except in the way a hunting cat’s fur is. And you expect too much if you think it can be. Leave me to do what’s best for Harry-the bond will always ensure that-and don’t question the nature of what I can offer him. Don’t demand that it be what it can’t. I’m not mortal.”
Granger gave a slow, tight nod. “I’ll kill you myself if I think that you need killing, Malfoy,” she said.
Draco nodded back, trying to show that he was impressed by this threat. Of course, he did have to take it seriously since Granger had tracked him down.
“How did you find me?” he asked as she started to turn away, giving into curiosity.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Granger smirked at him, then raised an eyebrow. “Why aren’t you lurking outside Harry’s house as usual?”
“He asked me to stay away for three nights,” Draco said. “I complied.”
That, of all things, made Granger’s mouth fall open and her blood start moving faster. Then she shook her head in wonder, said, “I reckon that you aren’t as bad as I thought you were,” and turned and walked away. Draco heard her Apparate a moment later.
You never can tell what will impress a Gryffindor, Draco thought, and turned to resume his interrupted meal. He wondered idly for a moment why Granger hadn’t insisted that he let the woman go, and smirked. The most logical explanations-that Granger suspected she would become the next victim, or that Granger simply didn’t care about people who weren’t her friends-suggested a strong streak of practicality that Draco thought would probably counter those troublesome morals of hers.
*
Harry felt as if his brain had been stripped naked and then beaten with iron. Difference described spells that he hadn’t thought of, aimed at destroying the core of undead magic in vampires, in ways that caused him to shudder.
Some of those spells could easily be turned around and applied to the magical core in wizards. That was another reason this particular book had been declared Forbidden, he supposed, which wouldn’t have made sense if it had only offered advice that was useful for vampire hunters.
But so far, not a word about the Long-Desired bond. And the book wasn’t modern or friendly enough to have an index or a table of contents. In fact, Harry was starting to suspect that it was organized rather like its author’s mind, scattering various thoughts about as the author came up with them, and sometimes wandering back to topics that Harry had believed were done with in earlier chapters.
Harry sat back against the pillow and rubbed a hand forcefully across his eyes. It was almost dawn, and his body burned with the need for sleep. He couldn’t go into work in this condition, but he’d already taken enough days off thanks to having to recover after his hunts. The Head Auror would love an excuse to suspend him, he knew.
No, it would have to be Pepper-up Potion and the most cheerful grin he could muster this morning. He would come back to the book tonight.
Just in case there might be something ahead, Harry flipped idly through the next few pages. And then his breath sped up as he encountered a line of neatly inked letters.
How to break the Long-Desired bond.
“Yes,” Harry whispered, and clenched his hand into a fist so tight that it nearly broke his fingers. “There’s no way to break the bond, is there, Malfoy? Not in the texts that you’re familiar with, at least.”
He wrote an owl to the Head Auror explaining that he wouldn’t be in today after all, and then settled down to read.
*
Draco stood with his nose in the wind, his eyes closed as he filtered various clues out of it and sought the one scent he wanted. Yes, the scent of his Long-Desired’s blood was nowhere within a hundred miles. That at least reassured Draco that Harry hadn’t gone out on another hunt.
But something else was wrong. Something had to be, because most of the time he had no problem curling up after he had eaten a meal and letting his mind wander over the possibilities of what would happen when Harry finally saw sense and surrendered to him. He would fall naturally into death when the sun rose. As long as he had to stay away from his Long-Desired, that was the way Draco preferred to spend his nights.
This was the second night away from Harry. Draco hadn’t thought he would grow tired of his routine that quickly.
The restlessness that pulled at him and made him want to pace up and down like a dog guarding a pen full of sheep was unnatural. That had to be the explanation. He felt a temptation to break his promise to Harry and go to the house that he hadn’t at all felt last night, which had been full of hunger and anticipation and the surprise of Granger locating him.
Now if only Draco knew what was causing the restlessness.
He bowed his head and stood silent, doing his best to empty his mind of everything, even the image of his Long-Desired. If his senses were reporting something significant to him and it couldn’t rise to the surface of his mind because his conscious thoughts obscured it, this should free him up to learn what it was.
Nothing happened.
Draco pulled his lips back from his fangs, and considered for long moments whether he should simply break his promise to Harry and go back to the house. After all, if the Collector had been a master vampire who could seek revenge for murdered members of her nest, it was not impossible that someone could seek vengeance for her. Draco would rather break his promise than have Harry die.
You know that no vampire can get through his wards, Draco reasoned with himself. And would you rather lose his trust forever, as breaking your promise would be sure to do?
Draco snarled and sat down on the doorstep of Malfoy Manor, resting his head in his hands. The restlessness was ebbing as dawn came nearer. He would ignore it until morning, when he would have no choice but to ignore it as stillness claimed him. When he woke again, if it was still pulling at him, then he would decide what to do.
The tugging, pulling, yanking agitation whispered that he was making a mistake, but in the absence of stronger evidence, Draco didn’t think he had any choice.
*
It was simple, really. Harry knew he ought to have thought of it himself. The Long-Desired bond couldn’t be balked by changing his blood to poison; of course it couldn’t, otherwise the trick that he had used to hurt the Collector when she had tried to drink from him should have been enough. But it could be balked by replacing his blood with something else’s blood, by becoming not quite human.
The Long-Desired bond was meant to tie a human and a vampire, after all.
Harry looked at his preparations with a critical eye. The last thing he wanted to do was set this up again. It had taken him a day and a half to get this far, although ten hours of that time had been spent asleep. He didn’t want this ritual to end messily because he was too tired to read the instructions, either.
He had had to conjure an iron ring that he had set into the floor of his research room-the room at the very back of his house with stone walls like Snape’s dungeon, which Harry used when he wanted to practice new spells that might destroy the rest of the house. Inside the ring lay a particular pattern of shattered glass, a winding labyrinth that defeated the eye not prepared to encounter it, and at the center of the shattered glass was a hawk, bound with its wings spread out and staked with iron spikes. Harry had chosen a hawk because the spell required an animal as like him in spirit as possible, and raptors were proud, solitary hunters.
The hawk flailed its pinned wings as best it could and screamed at him. Harry grimaced. The one aspect of this spell he hated was that he had to cause suffering to an innocent animal that had done nothing to hurt him.
But compared to living the rest of his life in slavery, the sacrifice was nothing.
He lifted his head, eyes narrowed as he watched the lessening of the red light coming in through his western window. He had to begin at the exact moment of sunset, and had a Tempus Charm set to tell him when that was.
His excitement boiled through his blood and then back into his head, speeding his thoughts up and making him wish the ritual was already done. Harry held his breath and avoided looking at the screeching hawk. Keep your eye on the charm, he chanted to himself. That will tell you when it’s safe to move, and not before.
The light turned the color of the hawk’s blood, and the charm rang.
Harry nodded and picked up the knife that he’d Transfigured carefully from an ordinary kitchen knife according to the ritual’s specifications. It was made of obsidian and diamond now, two materials opposite in color but allied in sharpness, and he began to chant the incantation that would replace his blood with the hawk’s as he stepped across the iron ring-iron to answer the iron in the blood.
A sharp tingle passed through him as he crossed the ring, and he nearly paused. But the book had said that pausing at any point during the ritual could be fatal, and so in the end he kept up the chant as he threaded his way through the maze of splintered glass towards the hawk at the center.
The first tendrils of Dark magic appeared next to him, looking like dark grey serpents that were keeping pace with him as he moved. Harry felt the first piece of glass sink into his heel, and the first drops of blood touch the floor. He nodded. That was the way it should be. Some blood had to be shed before he reached the hawk, or at least wounds had to be opened, and the book approved of the glass maze for that purpose.
The Dark magic serpents were entwining his arms and his Transfigured knife by now. Harry could still hear the hawk screaming, but it sounded as if the hawk’s voice was crashing against glass walls in his own head. Another wound opened on his ankle, and another higher up his leg.
He wondered for a moment what would happen if he opened a fatal wound while in pursuit of a Dark magic ritual. But then he put aside that concern and continued chanting. It seemed like something Hermione would worry about, and while Harry still loved Hermione, he didn’t live in her world any more. He had to concentrate on his freedom, not on what that freedom might cost.
He turned through another winding of the labyrinth. There were only three more of them before he reached the hawk and transferred its blood into his veins. The hawk stared up at him with dull golden eyes. It seemed to have given up; its wings twitched only a little now, and Harry thought that was because of instinct or nerve impulses, not because it actually thought it could escape.
I know the feeling, Harry thought back at it fervently as he took the next tight corner and gashed a toe open. At least one of us will have our liberty after this.
His voice was growing hoarse with the chant, and with the power of the magic that crept up his throat and wrestled him for control. But he was a practiced, trained wizard, and behind this ritual, he had all the strength of the determination that had pushed him to hunt vampires since Ginny’s death. The book had said that the stronger of will he was, the better the ritual would come off.
One more turn. The Dark magic by now hung off his hands and forehead like strands of withered ivy. Harry grimaced as he felt the slimy film it seemed to leave on his skin, then shrugged. No doubt he could bathe after this.
And it wasn’t anything compared to the filth that would cling to him if he accepted Malfoy’s touch.
The hawk was just in front of him now, its feathers sweeping the floor, its head sagging to the side. It snapped its beak once in warning, and the blood from the wounds in its wings quietly burst into flames. Harry was briefly unnerved to see that the flames were dark red with spots of black and hard-edged, as if the hawk was now pinned by bloodstones instead of spikes.
But he could have laughed at himself when he realized what he was thinking. He had come this far and that kind of detail unnerved him?
He dropped to his knees beside the hawk, repeating the Latin over and over. His voice was speeding up now, but the words were still clear and sharply pronounced, and Harry’s head had never felt so unclouded in his life. He knew he was doing what he needed to regain his freedom. He raised the knife and aimed it carefully so that it would be above the hawk’s heart. He had marked that spot with a brilliant blue dye on the feathers earlier. The book had been ominously vague about what would happen to him should he stab the hawk in the wrong spot.
The bird gaped bitter defiance up at him.
Harry resisted the temptation to shut his eyes as he drove the knife home. He should be stronger than this.
*
This time, the restlessness was leaping and screaming around him as if it was actually a large and ill-behaved dog on a threadbare leash, and Draco couldn’t even hunt. He stepped out of Malfoy Manor and waited patiently for the feeling to lead him the right direction. If there was something the bond wanted him to do this badly, he would just have to do it.
Of course, the restlessness, once it had his attention, pulled him straight in the direction of Harry’s house. Draco growled under his breath as he jumped along. He was hungry, and he didn’t want to break his promise to Harry, and he hated the thought that Harry could have discovered something that would actually put the bond in danger.
You can always stay out of sight and far enough away from the wards that Harry won’t know you’re there, he reassured himself.
Six miles away from the house, which meant a mile beyond the wards, he could feel the curling and coiling of the Dark magic like a nest of pythons. Draco briefly froze when he felt that, then began to leap forwards in bounds of seven hundred feet or more at a time. He needed to reach Harry’s side. If a vampire had broken through the wards after all-
But when he came, the wards were intact, and the Dark magic had a distinct taste to it that had haunted Draco’s mouth once before when they were in the Collector’s tower. This was Dark magic performed by Harry himself.
Draco knew he had to stop it. But there was one small problem: the anti-vampire wards were still intact, and the bond had provided him no way past them. He paced outside them, growling, and threw himself against the barriers a few times, wondering if his presence would be enough to prevent Harry from going through with the ritual.
“I don’t know what you want me to do!” he snapped aloud, as the agitation grew worse and his feet slid forwards in spite of himself. “There’s no way in.”
A yellow light abruptly spread out from him, making him feel as if he stood in the center of the sunbeams he would never see again. Draco watched in apprehension as the light touched the edge of the wards.
The wards simply melted. Draco could see a narrow tunnel left for him to walk, while on either side of it the dangerous magic meant to repel him glittered.
Draco shook his head in stupefaction as he took the tunnel. He knew that the bond would go to great lengths to ensure that it survived, but he hadn’t read about anything like this in his books.
Probably because no vampire in the history of the world has ever had a Long-Desired as stubborn as I’ve had, he thought, and sprang to the roof of Harry’s house. He knew to head for the back immediately, because that was where all the Dark magic was coming from.
He located a small window a few feet from the roof and immediately scrambled soundlessly down the wall so that he could stare through it.
Harry was kneeling above a bird of some sort pinned on the floor, his body edged with the dark red fire that was characteristic of blood magic, a knife in his hands.
Draco didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but that didn’t matter, because he knew what he was going to do about it.
He reared back and then hurled his body at the stone wall, bursting through it and flying through the air to slam into Harry’s shoulders.
Part Five.