Red Passion - HP - Draco/Hermione - 27/31
Title: Red Passion
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: Mature (R)
Links: Chapter 1 + Chapter 2 + Chapter 3 + Chapter 4 + Chapter 5 + Chapter 6 + Chapter 7 + Chapter 8 + Chapter 9 + Chapter 10 + Chapter 11 + Chapter 12 + Chapter 13 + Chapter 14 + Chapter 15 + Chapter 16 + Chapter 17 + Chapter 18 + Chapter 19 + Chapter 20 + Chapter 21 + Chapter 22 + Chapter 23 + Chapter 24 + Chapter 25 + Chapter 26
Summary: Post HBP. A vampire saves Draco from death and introduces him to a dark world. With Hermione Granger on the menu, can Draco save his enemy and his own soul? Eventual DM/HG.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Written for profitless entertainment.
Warning: Blood, violence, and eventually scenes of a sexual nature.
Author's Note: Story goes AU after the events of Half Blood Prince.
Wordcount for Total Story: ~65,900 words (varied by chapter)
Chapter 27
Holly was dead. She had been for some time now, decades in fact. However, that did not mean that she was a friend to physical pain. She was no fan of torture, not even in a sexual sense. In fact, despite the going-ons of her circle of vampire peers, she did not enjoy causing pain, either. In her rowdiest days, during her gluttonous youth, she had always been, at worse, a merciful murderess, delivering ecstasy as she sapped away life with only a pinch to the neck as evidence of her intent.
In death, as in life, she was a creature of pleasure. And she was in no way pleased with her current situation, for the woman, the witch, standing before her was most definitely a child of pain, of giving and receiving. Unfortunately for the vampire, Bellatrix Lestrange was in a particularly charitable mood.
"Do you know," the witch began in her light, child-like voice, "that I practically had to fight the wolves for the chance to do this?" She released a choked chuckled, running the tip of her wand down Holly's bare arm, beginning at the thick shackles around her wrists that held her against the stone wall of the cellar.
A wad of mucus and blood slithered its way up Holly's throat and spilled past her lips, splattering on the rotted wood-over-dirt flooring before her feet. Her eyes, dark as night, starved, glanced up at the woman.
"You don't say?" she bit.
Bella nodded, a pout at her lips. "They wanted to peel the skin from your flesh," she continued, running the fingers of her free hand across her own square jaw in a gentle caress. "Consume it while you screamed for mercy." A crooked smile spit her haggard face in two. "They may still get the chance. After I'm done."
"You haven't even asked me a question yet," Holly said, glaring at the wand against her hard skin. "It seems as if your interrogation skills are somewhat rusty, child."
Her blond curls bounced against her shoulders as she quickly cocked her head, looking past, to the chamber's center. She watched, unabashed, knowing that her brassy stare might mean her end. She watched him. The wizard who was attempting to use her kind for his own purposes. A creature who called himself her master.
Lord Voldemort sat back, relaxed against the spoonback armchair as if he had melted into the Victorian pattern of the green velvet fabric. The chair seemed somewhat strangely placed, it being the only piece of furniture in an otherwise unadorned space. No doubt, it had simply been magicked there for the Dark Lord's comfort. His long, weaponless fingers loosely clutched the redwood detail of the arm rails as if they were two crystal balls that might show him the truth, and the wizard mirrored the vampire's movement, the tiniest hint of a cruel smile on his face.
Bellatrix seemed to feel her master's movement, and she pulled away with a sweeping move of her skirt, stepping out of his view, her head bowed in reverence.
"Holly," he said, rolling her name against his sunken cheeks. He seemed to have no taste for it. "Did you think that I would not know? That I would not find out?" He pushed a loud, hissing breath through is absent nose and smoothed the new robes over his narrow shoulders. "But, of course, it is not your fault, is it, Holly? That our Sanguini has decided to disobey me."
"Sanguini?" Holly chuckled, her grin tight. A stream of cold blood dripped down her stomach, tickling her sensitive flesh. "I screw him, yes. Is that your question, my lord?"
"His activities do not concern me. I wish to speak only of his nature: he is not a loyal subject." Voldemort lowered his gaze, all humor lost. "I have it on good account that you aided him in his efforts to defy me. I asked him to bring a girl to me. He has not done so. I believe you are, in part, responsible for his absence."
"Just going with a hunch, then?"
His lip twitched. "He left feeling frustrated, intent on finding a way to not follow my orders. He met with you. And then he disappeared. So, I asked myself. How would a foolish coward like Sanguini work up the gumption to challenge me? Why, he must have found inspiration, of course. You told him something, turned him away from me. What was it? What do you know?"
"Ahh. I see your reasoning, my lord. Sanguini does think with his prick, so as I was closest to it, I must have spoken to him about the girl. Young Hermione Granger, friend of Harry Potter. A pretty little morsel, if I remember her correctly," Holly said, eyes glittering like obsidian spheres. "After the embarrassment with Darien, Sanguini wanted her dead. I told him it was a bad idea, pissing you off."
"Yet, you did not tell me of his plans. A mistake. One that even a merciful master might not be willing to forgive."
Holly licked the blood off her bottom lip. Her wrists shook, testing the strength of the shackles holding her in place. There was no give in their links. "That's not the real reason I'm here, is it?"
Voldemort leaned forward. "You're very perceptive."
"Happens with age."
"I am growing tired of your kind's arrogance. Darien with his demands, then his prideful disobedience. And now Sanguini's incompetence has once again astounded me." He stood slowly and approached.
"Ready to sever your ties with us yet?" Holly asked. "I don't know how you ever thought to control us in the first place."
Bellatrix's face contorted in anger. "Bite your tongue, leech! The Dark Lord has plenty of your kind standing behind him," she snapped but didn't move forward.
The Dark Lord blinked lazily, as if bored with the display. "She is correct, you know. There are other blood drinkers who want the muggles on their knees." He paused, letting the thought simmer. "So, as you can reason, there is no point in resisting me. Tell me what I wish to know, and you will be allowed to join the winning side."
Holly rolled her eyes. "Well, then. What do you want to know?"
"I wish to know where your home is located." Voldemort stopped at Bellatrix's side, putting a possessive hand around the base of her neck. The witch straightened, wand at the ready. "I wish you to betray your kind so that I may make an example of your small family and take the remaining undead in this country as my loyal, however unwilling, followers. And I wish to start my show of power by punishing Sanguini," Voldemort said, as if he were repeating a list of groceries. He came to an expectant pause, awaiting a response from the young vampire.
"You 'wish'?" Holly raised a brow. "Do I look like a fucking genie to you?"
"I was hoping you would resist," he sneered. "It should make this all the more entertaining."
The vampire giggled, a mock frown on her face at Bella's manic scowl.
"Something you should really know before you cast your petty spells, Riddle." Holly smirked. "The girl you're looking for...she's dead already. And she killed Sanguini. Guess your evening isn't going to go quite as you planned."
Voldemort tensed but his anger did not reach his face. "Bella," he said, glancing down at the Death Eater. "Fetch the werewolves; have them bring their...tools with them."
Holly's jaw tightened from the strain of her grin. "At least I died pretty. Can't say the same for you."
He cocked his head, false remorse lining his eyes. "I assure you, you won't the second time."
The coolness of the damp soil beneath his body seemed to seep through his skin and clench his body, pulling him closer. Making a statue of his still form. How long he laid there with the back of his shirt in the dirt, he wasn't sure. He was awake, he thought, for most of it, but he could not be sure.
The darkness in the pit was disorienting, but he was almost certain that he'd lost only the early morning and a day's length. He was positive it was night again, if only from the slight sense of stirring from the two creatures who he was bound to.
He could hear the sound of the grate above him moving, but he didn't bother to sit up, prepare for the visitor. Thinking of the movement seemed to weaken him. Instead, he closed his eyes, concentrating on the pain in his chest, a pressure, as if a body were laying atop his.
When his eye lids flickered open, the pit was lit, a blazing torch standing from a tiny hole in the dirt floor. Darien was sitting with his back against the wall, his eyes lowered to the ground, his arms balanced on bent knees. The position was so childish, so against the graceful nature of the vampire, that Draco sat up in alarm, believing that he could stir himself from whatever dream he was having.
"You are awake," Darien said, more in reassurance than declaration.
Draco opened him mouth but lost his words. His eyes studied the form of the creature, thin, worn. Darien's flesh looked more like some fragile cloth stretched too tightly over a human form than skin. When his eyes raised, Draco could see the anger there, bright as the fire reflected in them, but he could sense something more as well, a deep seeded sadness.
"You're too arrogant to apologize," Darien said. "I would expect nothing less from you, Dragon."
Draco released a rushed breath. "What the hell should I apologize for?"
But even as he asked, he could feel that awkward guilt inside him. It was the same feeling that filled him every time he looked into Hermione Granger's dead eyes.
"Was it really so bad, what I offered?" Darien paused, but refused to break eye contact with the young man. "Was it so horrible, the prospect of becoming what I am?"
Of being what Hermione was. Tasting her and enjoying it. Truly smelling her hair.
"No," Draco answered, swallowing hard. He could feel the blood filling his cheeks with hot rage. "You don't get it, do you?" he asked. Draco didn't wait for an answer. "You took my choice away. That's what was so horrible. You took me out of a life where I'd lost my will and you made me a slave again."
Darien was still, watching with something akin to curiosity. "She'll kill you, too. My kind are never gentle, no matter how soft and pretty the face."
Draco's fingers gripped at his chest, scratching at the skin beneath the chest. "It's different."
"How so? I would have cared for you like a son, Draco. I..." The vampire stopped, staring at his cupped hands. "Can she do better?"
"No. It's different because I'd let her do it."
Darien stood, his movement so quick that seemed as if only his shadow had shifted. "Wrong," he hissed. His soft, careful tone had disappeared. " 'I'd let her', you say. No, Dragon. Wrong tense. You've already let her."
The torch extinguished in a cool hiss, leaving Draco in darkness once more.
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