Chapter Twenty-Four of 'Keep This Wolf'- Feed the Vampire
Chapter Twenty-Three.
Title: Keep This Wolf (24/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Creaturefic (Harry is a werewolf), violence, some gore, angst
Rating: R
Summary: Draco knows full well that he’s being set up. There is no other reason to pull an Unspeakable out of the Department of Mysteries and assign him to negotiate with a werewolf pack. But when he learns the werewolf leader is Harry Potter, Draco wonders if the setup isn’t a different kind than he anticipated.
Author’s Notes: A fic for enamoril, who asked for a story like my “Business Meetings,” where Draco is the leader of a group of vampires and Harry their Ministry-appointed negotiator, but reversed, with Draco as the negotiator and Harry as the werewolf. This story will be updated every Tuesday until it’s finished. The title comes from the poem “Wilderness” by Carl Sandburg:
THERE is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes … a red tongue for raw meat … and the hot lapping of blood-I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Four-Feed the Vampire
“Paracelsus.”
For a moment, Harry didn’t think his command would work. There were vampires far gone in blood-thrall who could come back, but Harry had never seen one who looked like that.
It was a creature made of sticks that crouched in that cage, his head hanging down, his hands braced mindlessly on the floor in front of him as though he was going to tear it up. Paracelsus’s shoulders were bare curves, and his slit skin dangled and flapped, and his face was nearly translucent. Harry shook his head. The smell coming from him was barely existent, the way that bare stone might smell.
“I have a victim for you,” he said. “Blood.” He paused, but it became obvious that words alone weren’t going to change things. Harry turned and sliced his teeth down Umbridge’s shoulder.
Of everything, that was what got her to shriek in surprise and kick against the ropes, wrenching her muscles as she tried to stare at him. Harry smiled back with a mouth full of blood. Umbridge’s jaws parted as if she would scream.
Paracelsus snapped his head around and leaped at the bars of the cage.
They were still holding, of course, and still razored, so all he could do was rip himself up further. He didn’t seem to notice, or care. His fingers clawed at nothing, his gaze fastened on Umbridge as if she had become the center of his existence.
Umbridge opened her mouth to yell again, but then she stayed silent. Harry noticed why, and smiled. She had fallen into the emptiness inside Paracelsus’s eyes. It was something that Harry wouldn’t have been vulnerable to, considering his greater power and knowledge of vampires, but Umbridge was only a newly-turned werewolf. No kind of resistance would have come to her yet, and she didn’t know how to use her strength.
She’d probably despise it, anyway.
“I have a gift for you,” Harry gently told Paracelsus. “You’ll eat, and then you’ll go.” He knew that the problem with vampires in blood-thrall was that they generally couldn’t bring themselves to drink any blood other than that of the person they were obsessed with.
But Umbridge was a werewolf too now, and while her blood wouldn’t have the same scent or taste as his, it would have some of the same kick that Paracelsus wanted. And Harry thought that a vampire this far gone might get a bit-confused. Let their instincts take over, and their obsession could switch to another person.
The way that Paracelsus was slavering suggested it, anyway. He might not have heard Harry’s words at all.
Harry paused. This was a risk, the same way that exiling Umbridge from the pack would have been. Paracelsus might turn on Harry when he had his mind back.
Then again, Harry knew he could kill Paracelsus if he had to. He would just prefer not to have to, for the sake of the comradeship that had been between them, and the way that Paracelsus had atoned for his betrayal.
“Good,” said Harry, aware that Malfoy was staring at him from the side with wide eyes, and his scent was sweetening and thickening the air between them. Harry licked his lips. He would have to deal with what was happening between them-something unexpected-and soon, but for now, he had a vampire to feed.
He dragged Umbridge forwards. He knew she would have come without resistance, but on the other hand, so much of her will was gone that she couldn’t even move her own limbs, so Harry still had to provide the motion for her.
He bent and shoved when she was near the cage, and she tripped, gashing her hand open on one of the bars. She managed to look down, breaking the grip of Paracelsus’s eyes, and drew in breath to shriek.
Then Paracelsus was on her.
He could only reach her hand through the bars, but it was enough. He held it, and he guzzled, and Harry could see the blood flashing through his body and repairing the damage. Harry had wondered if it would be useful at all, or if the blood would simply run out through the gashes and leak onto the floor of the cage. Perhaps he had damaged Paracelsus so badly that all reclamation efforts would be in vain.
But they weren’t. Paracelsus’s skin shone for a second, and then he was tipping his head back to get the drops of blood down his throat, using his tongue to clean up the area around his fangs. He was thickening drink by drink, his transparency fading, and Harry thought he could see bones whirling into view, as if assembled out of the molecules of the air.
Umbridge gave a short, low sound that reminded Harry of some of the pants of his pack when they were newly turned.
Paracelsus smiled and looked into her eyes, and whispered something Harry couldn’t make out, even with his ears. It was entirely possible that Umbridge didn’t really understand it either, but there, that was less of a problem. She sagged forwards and laid her chin on the bars.
More blood flowed.
Paracelsus stuck his fangs out and into her chin, dragging her face between the bars, closer and closer like a lover. Her cheeks opened. Her scalp was slit. Her face was a mask of red in seconds, and still Paracelsus held her there and drank and laughed, his fingers plunging deep into the corners of her eyes. Harry thought he saw the bones of Paracelsus’s fingers pierce her eye sockets themselves, and still Umbridge gasped and tilted her head back, compelled to offer more and more.
Harry heard Malfoy turn away, and thought he smelled vomit a second later. He didn’t look away, though. He was the one who had inflicted this punishment on Umbridge, who was technically a member of his pack, even if he had turned her against his will. He would watch until the end.
The end was Paracelsus sucking Umbridge down, tugging a tattered skull and neck through the bars, making the bars or Umbridge’s body yield by sheer recovered strength. Harry wasn’t sure at what point Umbridge died. He was used to knowing that by the smell of a body’s blood or the cessation of their heartbeat, but there was nothing except blood here, and the roaring of Umbridge’s heart was drowned by the roaring of his own in his ears.
Paracelsus finally pulled back and tilted his mouth towards the sky with a wordless roar. Umbridge lay on the ground, no longer human or werewolf. Harry didn’t know what to call this mess of broken bones and empty meat, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know.
He would rather look at Paracelsus instead.
Paracelsus paced back and forth on his hands and knees for a moment. He wasn’t completely recovered, Harry saw. Harry had drained his body of so much blood that even drinking down a whole human couldn’t bring it all back. There was still a sharpness around his jaws that shouldn’t be there. His smile was wider than usual, as if he didn’t have enough mass to his lips.
But his eyes were wild, and when he paused and gazed at Harry, Harry nearly didn’t have the will to withstand it.
“Very clever,” Paracelsus breathed. “To guess that when I was that deep in blood-thrall, I would take any blood to sustain me, and draining a whole body would be like belonging to a new person.”
“You can’t stay here,” Harry said. “And you can’t have me.”
“I know that now,” said Paracelsus, and he tilted his head downwards and gave Harry a flash of fangs that was almost flirtatious. “If you let me out of this cage, then I’ll go back to the Ministry and wreak havoc on my enemies there.”
Harry gave him a stern, skeptical stare.
“It was worth asking, just to see what you would say,” said Paracelsus, and laughed to himself. “You’re too vulnerable to me and what I know to let me go. But you fed me back to life instead of letting me die, the way you also could have. What are you going to do now?” He settled back on his hands and heels, as easily as any four-legged animal.
Harry studied him, but the question seemed to be sincere. Paracelsus really did want to see what he would do next. Harry supposed it would have entertainment value for an immortal blood-drinker who had never run into this situation before.
“I want you to make the Blood-Gift Oath.”
Malfoy made a strangled sound behind him. Harry shifted his weight a little. He had nearly forgotten that Malfoy was there, caught up as he was in the staring contest with Paracelsus, except in the way that he remembered any of his pack were present, as a constant, soft, thrumming presence in the background. But now he wanted to make sure that Paracelsus didn’t get any ideas about using Malfoy for an easy meal.
Paracelsus had stopped smiling. Harry wondered for a moment how he could tell, because his fangs were still bare, and it wasn’t like he had changed the lines of his face much.
But he had been around vampires long enough for it to sink in, maybe. Harry just waited. He still held the power here, although Paracelsus could severely test the cage if he wanted to break free.
“You should not have heard of that,” said Paracelsus.
“I heard of it from another vampire,” said Harry, granting Paracelsus the only reassurance he could at this point, that Paracelsus wasn’t the one who had revealed it to him in some careless moment of the blood-thrall. “I wasn’t sure it was real. But I asked you a question one day that related to it, and your reaction confirmed it.”
Paracelsus hissed a little. “They underestimate you, those enemies of yours who think you incapable of planning.”
“I play more directly by preference only,” Harry said. “As pack leader, I can. Now, I want to know if you’re going to make the Oath.”
Paracelsus turned his head away for a second and considered the depths of the Forest as though wondering how well they would hide him. Harry waited. He knew the answer was “not very well,” not when Harry knew the dark places of the Forest and also had treaties with forest creatures like centaurs who would point a fleeing vampire out to him.
Paracelsus finally turned around and said, “You did not fulfill one of the conditions of the Oath.”
“Tell me which ones.” Harry kept his body loose and relaxed. He supposed it could be true, and if that was true, he would simply keep Paracelsus captive until he had fulfilled the conditions. He wasn’t going to let Paracelsus run off and take all chances of future peace between Harry’s pack and him away.
“You haven’t given me your blood,” said Paracelsus, and his hands strayed towards the bars before retreating to his sides.
Harry took that as an excellent sign. Vampires didn’t often forget about their surroundings. If Paracelsus had for a moment, that meant he was distracted with other things. “I did, before I drained you of it. And I know that the Oath doesn’t demand that the gift of blood be recent. Or fair. Only that it happen.”
Paracelsus paused, his head weaving back and forth. He had focused on Harry now, as much as Harry could wish. He hissed threateningly. Harry accepted the hiss, and only watched him some more.
“You haven’t told me what you would promise me in return for my Oath.”
“Your freedom, unharassed by any member of my pack,” Harry said. “Including me. I would forgive your betrayal and try nothing else to get in touch with you or punish you.”
He smiled as he felt Malfoy’s stirring reaction, the impulse to speak, out of the corner of his eye. Yes, Malfoy was about to object that vampires didn’t have conventional notions of fairness. And he had probably remembered at the last moment, as Harry had been thinking all along, that that only meant vampires didn’t have the same notions of fairness as other people. He would know that a vampire given blood willingly, allowed to drain a victim dry, might consider fairness in a way that a starved vampire or a simply defeated one wouldn’t.
Paracelsus arched his back and bared his fangs again. Harry looked back at him, silently demanding that Paracelsus consider whether he would find that display as threatening as anyone else did.
“You have no idea what you ask of me,” said Paracelsus.
Harry had to smile at that. “No, I think I know pretty well. Otherwise, I would have come up with something else.”
Paracelsus’s eyes locked on him again, and he made a gesture with one hand that Harry knew was rude. He didn’t complete it. Harry didn’t even have to growl. He just had to stand there, and let Paracelsus consider their relative positions of power, and whether he would achieve what he wanted if he stayed in the cage.
“You still desire to protect your pack before all else,” Paracelsus said, and his tone was strange. Perhaps his eyes had flickered over to the side, to Malfoy, before he brought them back to Harry. Harry honestly wasn’t interested in that.
“I do,” Harry agreed.
“You don’t desire the freedom I could have given you.” Paracelsus was almost whispering by now, hunching forwards as if the bars would bend aside and let him through in a second because Harry was sorry.
“What freedom was that?” Harry lifted his head higher, knowing that the sight of his bare throat was taunting Paracelsus, a bit, but unable to help it. “The freedom to be your slave whose blood you drained whenever you had a chance? That doesn’t sound much like freedom to me.”
“I could have turned you. Made you something so powerful that the like hasn’t been seen for a thousand years.”
“I have all the power I want already,” said Harry calmly. “And enough that I scare people. And I would have had to leave my pack.”
“But you would have been with me.”
Harry raised his eyebrows and considered Paracelsus for a long moment. He was leaning forwards so that his weight was almost all on his hands now, only his toes supporting the weight of the rest of his body. He stared at Harry with those longing eyes that almost made Harry want to say yes, just to see what it would be like.
And then he broke the spell and stepped back, shaking his head. “No. No thanks.”
Paracelsus made an aggrieved sound, and then shut his eyes and turned his head away. “I can smell the truth,” he said. “I will make the Blood-Gift Oath with you.”
Interesting phrasing, when he’s the one who’s going to be swearing the oath, Harry thought, but he let it go. He thought Paracelsus had probably been fooling himself into thinking that Harry wanted what he could offer all along, and needed some time to recover from the realization that Harry had been telling the truth when he said he wanted peace and his pack.
Paracelsus held his hand out, and the razor bars tore his new skin and ripped free a single drop of blood. Harry said steadily, “For this blood, given to you by my gift, I ask that you swear to stay away from my pack.”
“So sworn,” said Paracelsus.
The air crackled with power like an invisible lightning bolt. Harry felt as though someone had tightened a band around his chest a second later. He nodded in satisfaction. “And I want you to swear that you won’t betray any of my secrets to the Ministry, or anyone else.”
“So sworn,” said Paracelsus, as another drop slid free. This one looked as if it was sliding down a straw.
“Those are the terms of this Blood-Gift Oath,” Harry said. “May the blood in your veins turn against you and your fangs crumble to dust if you break it.”
Paracelsus shuddered a little, as if that was something he had seen happening and wanted to avoid, although Harry was only using the traditional phrasing that he knew went with the Blood-Gift Oath. Then he pulled his wrist back inside the cage and said with a certain hoarse haughtiness in his voice, “I would appreciate it if you would let me out now.”
“Yes,” said Harry, and he used his wand to dissolve the bars and make the cage vanish. Paracelsus dropped lightly to the ground, on hands and toes, and then spun around to look up at Harry.
There was nothing in his eyes of the vampire who had crawled to Harry’s feet and begged for his blood when he was in the depths of the thrall. There was almost nothing there at all, except feral desire.
“No,” said Harry, answering the hope that it seemed Paracelsus had entertained at some level. He had wanted to drink from Harry, he had wanted to drain him, but it seemed that he had also wanted to make him over anew, to give him pleasure, perhaps to travel with him.
Paracelsus might be a strange vampire, but he had a notion of dignity after all. He turned and leaped silently into the Forest. Harry watched him go until he could no longer distinguish the shadow of the vampire’s motion from the shadows of the trees.
Then he turned around and looked at Malfoy, and made sure that his gaze was both heavier and warmer. “And it seems that we have to consider what you want, now that you’re a member of my pack.”
Chapter Twenty-Five.
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