Draco Malfoy and the Secret Underground Vampire Bureaucracy- 2/3

[lomonaaeren]

Part 1.

Harry turned the letter over twice and stared at it, then picked up the envelope and stared at it again.

They looked the same no matter how long he stared, though, and the letter said the same thing.

Potter:

I know that you have no reason to like or trust me, but I’ve fallen into a trap that no one can get me out of but you. Please come to Malfoy Manor at six in the evening two days from now. Don’t bring anyone else with you. I realize that sounds like a trap for you, but just consider how much trouble I could get into if I were connected with the disappearance of Harry Potter. Tell anyone about this you like.

Draco Malfoy.

Harry handed it over to Hermione with a silent shake of his head. She had demanded to know what it said the moment she saw the expression on his face, but Harry had wanted the chance to come to conclusions of his own before she told him what to think.

Now he flopped back on the chair and stared at the ceiling again. Today, the cracks were just a maze of cracks, insufficient to distract him from his thoughts.

It had to be a trap, didn’t it? Pleasant coincidences like this didn’t just fall into his lap. Unpleasant ones, sure, they happened all the time. Maybe Malfoy had heard that Harry was trying to research his little disappearance and planned to warn him off permanently.

But if he was, sending such a public letter seems like an awfully stupid way to go about it.

Harry scratched the corner of his lip and pondered for a moment. Then Hermione choked. He looked at her and saw her tapping the letter against her palm, staring at it in wonder.
“Incredible, isn’t it?” he muttered. “I just can’t figure out what he wants from me. I mean, he has to know that I won’t get him out of trouble with the Ministry or settle his debts or anything like that.”

“I think he’s sincere,” Hermione announced.

“What?” Harry had never expected Hermione to utter that word in conjunction with Draco Malfoy, unless it was in the phrase “sincere about his beliefs in the superiority of pure-blood wizards.”

“As you say, I can’t think why he would write to you about a problem that he knows you wouldn’t solve. He would go to anyone else first.” Hermione pursed her lips. “So this must be a problem that he thinks you will solve for him.”

“Or he’s just so arrogant that he thinks I’ll jump at the chance to help him,” Harry suggested hopefully. Now that he did have a chance of going to the Manor, he found himself reluctant to take it. It had been more-well, more fun when he was chasing secrets that he knew no one wanted him to discover.

“He knows you too well for that.” Hermione handed the letter back. “Anyway, I know about it now, and I’ll tell at least a few other people. Not Ron,” she added, when Harry opened his mouth. “He’d never let you go alone. But I really don’t think this is revenge, Harry. The Malfoys fought too hard to maintain what standing they still have. Narcissa Malfoy’s paid off her debts, though of course their fortune is smaller than it used to be, and cooperated with the Ministry as much as she could about her husband’s disappearance. Why would they risk that just to kill you? It doesn’t make sense.”

“They don’t have to make sense,” Harry muttered, crossing his arms over his chest, even though he knew he looked like a petulant little boy when he did that. So what? I can be petulant once in a while. “They never did in school, and Malfoy could never see reality. Why should he have started now?”

“He might have changed. The war and the last year at school changed you.” Hermione frowned at him. “Though not as much as I could have hoped for,” she added, in a mutter he was obviously meant to hear.

Harry started to object, but someone knocked on the door. The wards on the flat buzzed in recognition of whoever it was, so Harry waved his wand and opened the door, assuming Ron had come back from Auror training early.

He felt his guts shrivel up when Ginny peered hopefully in. Her face lit up at the sight of Harry. She nodded and slipped in. A covered plate bobbed behind her, giving her an excuse for arriving.

Harry glanced away, his face hot with embarrassment. Really, he didn’t understand what was wrong with him. The bright gleam in Ginny’s eyes when she saw him could just be affection, not star-struck infatuation. But he knew he didn’t want to be alone with her, and he silently begged Hermione with his eyes not to leave him there.

He’d forgotten that not telling Hermione about his changed feelings for Ginny meant she was less than able to read his eyes. She smiled and stood. “Hi, Ginny,” she said. “Molly sent our dinner over, I presume? It smells delicious.”

“Yes. Mum got tired of listening to Ron complain during his last Floo call, so she made you a few meals.” Ginny smiled at Hermione, but her smile became something softer altogether when she looked at Harry. “Hullo, Harry,” she said.

Harry gave a feeble smile back.

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t get cold,” Hermione said, and flicked her wand, calling the dish away from Ginny to follow her. Harry tried some more mute begging, but Hermione strode into the kitchen and then began clattering about, very obviously letting them know that she wasn’t listening.

When he turned back, miserably, to the drawing room, Ginny had sat down on the stool in front of the couch. She was watching him with a faint smile that Harry knew he would have found irresistibly enticing just a year ago.

And now he didn’t.

What the fuck is wrong with me? he thought, and resisted the urge to smack himself in the forehead.

“Harry,” Ginny said, and lowered her eyes. She seemed to be waiting for something. Probably for him to say something that didn’t sound idiotic, Harry thought dully. Well, in that case, she might have a long wait.

“Hi, Ginny,” he said.

Then they sat in silence for a few moments. The rattling of pots and pans from the kitchen was beginning to sound desperate.

“I want to know why you never come to the Burrow anymore,” Ginny said abruptly. Startled, Harry whipped his head away from the kitchen doorway, which he had been staring at in the forlorn hope that Hermione would appear in it, and looked at her. She was twisting a curl of hair around her finger and looking at the floor. She spoke so fast and in such a hurried way that he could hardly make her words out. “I mean, sometimes you do, but it’s always with Ron and Hermione, and you make excuses as often as you can, and you never want to be alone with me, and I-“ She looked up, shaking her head. “What is it, Harry? What did I do or say that makes you not want to be with me anymore?”

Harry took a deep breath. >Nothing for it, I reckon. “Nothing,” he said gently. “This is all me, Gin, not you. I just haven’t wanted to date you for a while now.” He shrugged when she blinked at him. “I don’t know why. I do like you, but it’s-” He cut himself off before he could tell her that it was Malfoy he thought about, not her. God knew what kind of interpretation she would put on those words.

“If you like me,” Ginny said slowly, like someone feeling out the points of a complex equation, “and I like you-which I do-then why don’t you want to date me?”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s just-I changed, over the last year. Maybe this is another sign of it?” He winced at a particularly loud clang from the kitchen, wondering if Hermione was throwing the cutlery against the wall to get it to make that amount of noise.

Ginny snorted and folded her arms. “I don’t think so, Harry. You’ve been avoiding me for just the last six months. Before that, you were happy enough to at least snog me and flirt with me. What changed?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not an answer.” There was a glitter in Ginny’s eyes, but based on the flush on her cheeks, Harry thought it was from anger, not tears. He was glad. He might have given in if he’d seen tears. “I want an answer, Harry.”

Harry waved a hand vaguely in the air. “I don’t know! I just don’t think about you the same way anymore.” He wasn’t going to accuse Ginny of dating him only for his name. He had no idea if that was true, while he never would have doubted it was true if it had been someone like Katie. “I just-it’s like I fell out of love with you somewhere along the way and didn’t notice.”

Ginny stood up, staring at him all the while as if he had just admitted to having the Dark Mark. Harry stared back. He knew it didn’t sound like a good explanation, because it wasn’t. But he didn’t know what else to say, because that was the truth.

“I’ll ask you again in four days,” Ginny said evenly. “Maybe you’ll have something that at least sounds better to tell me if I give you a deadline.” She strode to the door, opened it, and stepped out. Harry sighed, imagining for a moment what the snowflakes falling and catching in her hair would look like. But the image simply sat in his head, not at all interesting.

Hermione appeared in the kitchen doorway the moment the door of the flat closed, blinking. “Didn’t it go well?” she asked.

Harry shook his head briskly and stood. “I’m going to visit Malfoy in two days,” he said to Hermione as he headed for his bedroom. “I want to brush up on my defensive spells.” And he would see what the git wanted, and hunt subtly for clues as to Malfoy’s innocence or guilt in the matter of his father’s disappearance. Maybe it was an obsession-in a shallow way-and once he learned the truth, then he could be free of thoughts like this about Malfoy and go back to liking Ginny and having a normal life.

*

Potter walked into the small, comfortable study Draco had chosen to receive him as though he suspected there were pit traps under the floor. He looked at the wine Draco gave him as if it were poisoned. Then he swilled it. Draco did his best not to wince.
Of course, there was more than one thing to wince at; if he didn’t think about Potter’s boorish behavior, then he had to think about his own reaction to the idiot. The moment Potter had walked into the room, Draco’s gaze had darted to his neck. It was partially covered by the collar of the dark green robes Potter wore, but that didn’t matter. Draco had a hard time paying attention to anything else.

And he could feel hunger welling up in his stomach, as usual. It shouldn’t have been; Narcissa had insisted that he drink well of a vial of her blood before he confronted Potter, and Draco thought it was a sensible idea. But this was a different sort of hunger, such as he used to feel about sweets even when he was too full of a proper meal to eat any more. His mother’s blood was enough to keep life-well, all right, a kind of life-thrumming along his veins. Potter’s blood, which he could smell and hear surging gently against his skin, would taste sweet and wonderfully warm. Draco knew it would shine, too, with the magic Potter radiated and the curse he had resisted. It-

“Why did you ask me here, Malfoy?”

Draco resisted shaking his head by the barest of margins. He had lost himself in the contemplation of Potter’s blood, and his carefully prepared speech had flowed out of his head. He was too overwhelmed with the evidence that his mother and Madam Gloriosa had been right. He wanted to feed on and bond to someone who had come back from death. Inconvenient as it was and however much the fault of the Night King it was for biting him and Potter for being stupidly heroic enough to sacrifice his life for others, Potter was the best candidate for that.

“You may have noticed that I disappeared last June,” he said, and he told himself that his voice did not shake. Well, not enough for an obtuse idiot like Potter to perceive, anyway.

“Yes. Hard not to notice.” Potter set his glass of wine down on the table next to the chair and frowned at him. Draco was sitting behind the polished and carved cherry desk which had once been his father’s to impress visitors with-and it was much more impressive than Madam Gloriosa’s, thank you-while Potter sat in an enormously comfortable chair about five feet away from the desk. Draco had thought the desk was a good idea. Now he wished he was on the other side of it, preferably in Potter’s lap. “I don’t reckon you’ll tell me where you went?”

Draco nodded, and licked his lips. Bloody hell, now it was as if he hadn’t drunk at all. The beat of Potter’s blood had just risen, as if he thought he were going to hear something startling or incriminating, and Draco wanted to faint. Or bite him. No, just the second.

“I-didn’t really go anywhere,” he said. “I just couldn’t attend school for a while. Because of this.” Faced with no more graceful way that he knew of to make the revelation, he opened his mouth and lengthened his fangs.

The look of astonishment on Potter’s face was gratifying.

*

Harry knew he was probably being impolite and Hermione would scold him for it if she were here, but he couldn’t quite take his eyes off Malfoy’s fangs, or fight the disappointment pounding behind his eyes.

It doesn’t have anything to do with his father? He’s become a vampire now?

Harry swallowed. He had come anticipating a grand adventure, an edged exchange where he would act the daring spy and Malfoy would give away all sorts of information without even knowing he did it. This didn’t look as though it would turn into something like that.

“I don’t see how I can help you, Malfoy,” he said at last. “I mean, being a vampire isn’t a problem, is it? Or a trap? Just something you are.”

Malfoy fidgeted for a moment, then seemed to decide he shouldn’t hold back the information about what he wanted any more than he’d held back when showing Harry his fangs. He was a bit paler, and his eyes had altered, becoming full of shadows, though Harry had just assumed that was the result of the flickering firelight in the study’s large hearth. “I-look, Potter, it’s like this. Vampires feed better on certain people depending on whom their sires were. It turns out that the vampire who bit me can bond with humans, link their thoughts and emotions to his. And he feeds best on people who have come back from death. Which means I do, too.” He paused and gave Harry a significant look.

It still took Harry a moment to get it, because he could not believe Malfoy would want to bite him, regardless of what strange dietary requirements he had because he was enough of an idiot to stroll along the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Then he figured it out, and shot to his feet. “No,” he said.

Malfoy rose at the same time. His face was smoothing out with irritation, making him look more like the git Harry had once known and less like-well, something alien. “You have to,” he said. “You’re the only one-it’s not like someone dies and comes back every single day, you know-“

“I don’t care,” Harry said flatly. “No means no, Malfoy. I’m not about to let you bite my neck-“

“It wouldn’t have to come from your neck, at first, although blood from the wrist makes me a bit sick-“

“Just no,” Harry said. “Go haunt St. Mungo’s. Maybe they can help you with someone whose heart stopped.” And he turned his back and began to walk out of the room. There was no mystery. There were no Death Eaters. He had thought about Malfoy for months for no reason whatsoever. Harry wasn’t sure why he should feel the crushing disappointment that he did. After all, it just meant, as he’d told Ginny, that he had no good excuse for his recent behavior whatsoever-which he already knew.

*

Draco was sure he knew what a starving man would feel to see a cow walking away from him. His anger surged to life, and he leaped straight over the desk and in front of Potter before he knew what he was doing.

Potter just halted and stared back at him, not even having the sense to be afraid. Then his jaw set, and Draco heard the faint sound of his teeth grinding. “Get out of my way, Malfoy.”

“No,” Draco said. He couldn’t meet Potter’s eyes. He was rather fascinated by that neck. It glistened with a faint sheen of sweat, showing that Potter was more alert or nervous than he pretended to be, and Draco could see the blood under the skin now. He had never thought he would be so grateful for a vampire’s enhanced senses, which most of the time just brought him house-elf chattering from the kitchens when he was trying to nap and told him far too much about the compounds spread in the flowerbeds.

“I’ll make you, then,” Potter said, stupid as ever, and reached for his wand.

Draco shot out a hand to stop him.

His hand closed on Potter’s wrist, and that was all it took. In an instant his head was crowded with thoughts not his own, angry and outraged thoughts about how Malfoy was a git and Ginny would not be pleased with him and he still didn’t know why he’d spent months thinking about this-

Potter screamed. “Malfoy, get out of my head!” He stepped sharply to the side, and because Draco’s grip had slackened in his astonishment, managed to free himself. He drew his wand in the next instant, and cast an Incendio that Draco had to leap over and out of the way of.

He didn’t mind. His attention was tangled up in wonder and even delight. He had thought he would hate sensing someone else’s emotions and thoughts, no matter why. He hadn’t realized that he would taste Potter’s confusion in his mouth, and that his thoughts would sound clearly separate and distinct from Draco’s own, making his mind more like a whole other realm to explore. Draco knew what the world looked like from the inside of someone else’s head now.

It was wonderful. It was-

“Incarcerous!” Potter yelled, and suddenly Draco was thrown on the floor, tied in ropes that even his vampire strength, when he tried it against them, couldn’t break. Potter must have been maddened with fear and confusion-as, indeed, he had been-to put that force of will behind his spell.

“Look, Potter,” he said, very reasonably he thought, considering everything that had just happened. “Obviously the bond was preparing us for this even before we met. You started thinking about me-“ He paused, and wondered how he would be able to pull the information he wanted from the cacophony of Potter’s thoughts.

Almost immediately, though, he heard Potter’s voice saying in his head, Six months.

“Six months ago,” he said. “That’s since June. Since I became a vampire. And you have no reason to think about me, you said-thought-that yourself-“

“How did you do that?” Potter demanded, clutching his ears as if that would somehow hide the inside of his head. Amused, Draco fired off the admonition that of course it wouldn’t, and received a snarl in return. “I wasn’t thinking that. End this bond, or whatever it is, and leave me the fuck alone.”

“No,” Draco said. He hadn’t chosen to be a vampire, and he would still go back and become a human again if he could, but for the first time, he thought it might be bearable. “I don’t want to. Your blood is going to taste delicious, and even your mind does. You can run away if you like,” he added, as that impulse came to the forefront of Harry’s thoughts. “But I don’t think the bond is affected by distance.”

“This is so completely mad,” Harry whispered, his voice starting to break as his head fell into his hands, and Draco did have a moment where he felt sorry for him-until Harry glared at him around the corner of his palm and hissed, “I don’t want your pity.”

“Yes, well, it’s what you have,” Draco said, and exerted his strength against the ropes again. Maybe he hadn’t really been trying before, because they fell away from him and he sat up, blinking. Harry backed away several steps, eyes wide and breathing wild, and then turned around and fled the house.

Draco waited. After a moment, he helpfully thought, See, I don’t think it gets better with distance at all.

Fuck you, Harry snarled, his voice just as loud as if they’d still been in the same room together, and then Draco felt the tug of his Apparition.

*

“Harry?” Hermione’s wand was lifted high so that her Lumos charm glinted off the walls. Her voice was sharp but soft; she was trying not to wake Ron, Harry knew, who had failed an exam badly that day and only wanted to sleep. “What are you doing? It’s three-o’clock in the morning, in case you didn’t notice!”

I noticed, Harry thought mutinously.

Then why didn’t you go to bed like a good little Gryffindor boy-toy? Malfoy said in his head, his voice precisely as irritating as it had been when they stood next to each other. You are her boy-toy, aren’t you? I mean, why else would one woman and two men take a flat together?

Harry couldn’t help the immediate disgust at the thought of having sex with Hermione that followed, and Malfoy purred and laughed at him. There was a disturbing set of sensations. It made Harry feel as though his skull was lined with velvet. That just makes it all the more clear that you’re gay, and that you’ve been waiting for me because no ordinary lover could satisfy you.

You don’t have to be so bloody cheerful all the time, Harry snarled at him as he turned to answer Hermione. A few hours ago you were just as desperate to get out of this as I am.

Your blood smells delicious, said Malfoy, like the inane vampire he was.

Harry gritted his teeth, and only then noticed that Hermione was staring at him. He sighed. He hadn’t yet adapted to carrying on one conversation silently whilst carrying on another aloud. “I know, Hermione,” he whispered. “But I can’t find the books that I’m sure you bought on vampires at one point, and-“

Hermione crossed the room in three steps, her wand uplifted, and shone it into his eyes. Harry flinched and ducked his head. “Did Malfoy make you into a vampire?” Hermione demanded, her voice spiraling towards the dangerous territory known as “waking Ron up.”

Of course not. Vampire blood tastes horrible.

“Of course not,” Harry said, and then winced when he realized he was echoing Malfoy, even though it hadn’t been on purpose. Malfoy gave the velvet-laugh again. “He is a vampire, and he’s cast some sort of spell on me. It-it makes me hear his thoughts and feel his emotions, and he claims that he needs my blood since I came back from the dead. It’s all very confusing. All I know is that I want it gone.”

Hermione gave a soft little sigh, and then nodded. Harry recognized her “research face” in the next moment. “All right, Harry,” she said. “I don’t think I know off the top of my head just what happened or what kind of solution it warrants, but I promise we’ll find one.” She caught and pressed his hand. “In the morning.”

“Hermione-“

“You have an exam tomorrow,” Hermione said, in the voice Mrs. Weasley had used when talking about Bill and Fleur’s wedding.

Harry knew it was no use trying to talk his way past Hermione with an exam in the offing, so he gave in, reluctantly, and allowed himself to be dragged off to bed. It wasn’t until he was putting his head down on the pillow that he realized he hadn’t heard anything from Malfoy in the past several minutes.

I don’t have much to say to you right now, Malfoy said just then. I would wish that you have pleasant dreams, but I know you will.

Harry was asleep before he could ask what that meant. It really had been a long day, and he’d had several shocks.

But then Malfoy was waiting for him in his dreams, so that was no escape, either.

*

“I must say, Mr. Malfoy,” said Madam Gloriosa, studying him, “your attitude seems much improved.”

“I’ve found the person I want to bond with and feed from,” Draco said. He felt incredibly energized, even though he hadn’t touched Harry’s blood yet. Perhaps it was the feeling that his life as a vampire would be bearable after all, since he got to continually throw Harry off-balance for eternity. “Actually, I’ve bonded to him already. When my hand touched his skin, it happened.”

He brushed the ball of emotions in his head that was Harry. It shifted and pushed back nothing but warmth, showing he was still asleep.

“That is indeed fast.” Madam Gloriosa folded her hands on top of the desk and watched him. Draco wondered why she didn’t look happier for him. “Most humans will not give immediate consent to a procedure so intimate.”

“Oh, I didn’t really get his consent.” Draco airily waved a hand.

And once again he found himself pinned to the wall on the far side of the room with her hand around his throat.

“What?” he gasped. The ball of emotions in the back of his head started to move. Presumably his pain and outrage were cutting through the distance between them and into Harry’s restless dreams. “You said that it wasn’t as complicated as other forms of consent! I thought that meant-“

“You are still supposed to persuade him first, not attack him like a ravening beast,” Gloriosa hissed. Her lips and gums had actually drawn back so that Draco could see the skin lying behind them. That was unnerving. He supposed it was a power that she’d inherited from her dam. “This is not about a matter of legality now, but of courtesy. If he complains, he could make all vampires look bad! People listen to someone with power like his.”

Draco blinked. Even with the pain in his throat, something rang false about the way she’d spoken. “What do you mean, power like his? I haven’t told you who he is yet.” The ball in the back of his head radiated unhappiness at him. Without even thinking about it, Draco sent soothing feelings in its direction.

Abruptly, he was on the floor again, wrenching his crushed windpipe back into order. Gloriosa was on the other side of the desk again, her eyes narrowed and her head cocked.
“You mentioned it as soon as you walked in here,” she said. “To Bones. It was Harry Potter.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Draco. He was sure about that, since he had wanted to save it for a surprise and see the look on Gloriosa’s face when she heard. “How did you know?” A strange rippling sensation traveled down his arms, and he was startled to see the ends of his fingers open up and produce claws.

“That is an unrecognized power in one of the Night King’s children,” said Madam Gloriosa, distracted at once. She leaned forwards to get a better look at Draco’s claws. Draco resisted the temptation to oblige her by sticking one in her face. She was still probably stronger and faster than he was. “He has sired some children with very strong hands, however. That trait undoubtedly combined with your own unique magic to give you those claws.” She nodded, and then picked up a piece of parchment from her desk and made a note of it.

Draco blinked, thrown. He had read, in some of the promotional literature Bones had shoved at him, that vampires had a tendency to become obsessed with whatever their strongest passion was, especially at advanced ages. It was why some had been tricked into defeat in situations that the simplest human would have seen through. Apparently Gloriosa’s obsession was keeping track of every single minute alteration in vampire blood genetics.

He wasn’t about to let that put him off what he’d realized, though. He folded his arms, though he winced when one of his claws dug into his elbow. “Why and when did you realize that my mate was Harry Potter?”

Gloriosa surveyed him through narrowed eyes for a long moment. Then she said, “A few nights ago, someone approached me about your-condition.”

Draco tensed. “Oh?” He knew his mother had bribed a few of the Ministry officials who visited the Manor so that, while he was registered as a vampire, his condition wasn’t being yelled from the rooftops. If Gloriosa knew, she could have got the information only from a limited number of people.

“Yes.” The vampire scraped her nails gently across the desk. “They knew the identity of the person who paid to have you fed with Noctambulism potion and turned into a vampire.” She looked at him steadily. “I must say that, on the whole, I agree with the decision. Your-protector-was apparently worried that you would get yourself into trouble without some extra magic and a system of strong friends around you. V.A.M.P.S. can be that for you, Mr. Malfoy, if you will stop trying to cause trouble. Even Harry Potter can be that for you, if you don’t antagonize him so much that he resists the bond. It’s rare, but it can happen.”

Draco scowled. “I assume this same person paid for the Night King to come to the Forbidden Forest and bite me?”

Gloriosa nodded.

“Does this person think I’m weak, then?” Draco asked.

“In some respects, yes,” Gloriosa said. “I can name several weaknesses, such as not knowing when to keep your mouth shut and unfairly attacking your bonded mate-“

“I didn’t attack-“

“But the strongest one is undoubtedly your denial of reality.” Gloriosa leaned forwards and stared at him. “You have not understood, for example, that you cannot really reverse the vampire transformation. You still think of your bonded human as a toy, not someone with thoughts and feelings of his own. Have you even considered what will happen when he ages and dies, while you remain alive?”

Draco opened his mouth, then shut it. He had been about to answer that he would turn Potter into a vampire, but of course that would make his blood taste awful. He scowled at the floor. Every time he thought he had discovered something to rejoice about, someone took it away from him.

“Is there a way to keep him alive?” he asked.

“There are anti-aging potions, yes.” Gloriosa shrugged a little. “Not usually available outside V.A.M.P.S., or many more wizards would take advantage of them than do. But I think that we need to make a trade, Mr. Malfoy.”

Draco glared at her. She didn’t appear affected.

“I will teach you how to brew such a potion,” said Gloriosa, “when you show me that you have accepted your responsibilities as a member of the vampire community.”

Draco could feel the skin of his face turning even waxier than it usually was. “I can’t-you can’t mean-“

“I do.” Gloriosa pulled out the words as if she were drawing a sword from a silk sheath. “Group therapy.”

*

Harry stared at the question and reread it again. How was he supposed to know the one legitimate use of unicorns’ blood permitted to Potions experts? He had a mad vampire living in his head, and he had been too preoccupied in the last few days to concentrate on his studies.

It didn’t help that he could hear the steady rasp of Hermione’s quill over the stuttering scratches of the others. She was strolling through the exam, of course. She was probably already finished, Harry thought, and just going back to check her answers.

The really offensive thing, though, was that Ron, of all people, had started out the exam with a frown on his face, but was now half-smiling as he wrote busily across the last page. While Harry was still stuck on the second sheet of parchment out of the five.

He got some sleep, though, Harry thought. He didn’t have dreams of Malfoy sucking him off until he screamed, and gnawing on his neck-

It would not be gnawing, Harry. It would be a little delicate bite, which you would find quite pleasurable. Or did you think your dreams were lying about that?

Harry took a huffing breath, and then determined to ignore Malfoy. He also determined to keep calling him “Malfoy” in his head; his thoughts kept wanting to switch over to Draco, on the absurd premise that he probably knew him better than he knew Ginny now, and he called Ginny by her first name.

The answer to your question is “to clean teeth,” by the way.

“What?” Harry said aloud. The proctor, a tall Auror with a scar across his face so deep that his teeth showed where his lips had been twisted to the side, turned about and frowned. Harry ducked his head hastily over his parchment again and stared once more at the question about the legitimate use of unicorns’ blood.

The answer to your question. Draco-Malfoy’s-voice was patient and smooth. Unicorns’ blood cleans other ingredients better than anything else. But teeth need to be polished of their enamel and any-pieces-of the original owner that might cling to them when they’re handed over to the Potions expert. Fancy not knowing that. I reckon they covered it, and you were daydreaming of me instead.

Harry scowled. But he really had no idea what else to write, so he shrugged and wrote down “to clean teeth,” then moved on to the next question. To his smugness, it was one he knew and didn’t need Malfoy’s help with.

Malfoy hummed in the back of his head as he worked, though, and finally Harry couldn’t stand it any longer. Don’t you have a sun to be hiding from? he asked, as he answered a question about the Second Goblin Rebellion and how it had been put down.

I don’t sleep the day through, Malfoy said with some asperity. Harry felt his distaste for those vampires that did, as slimy and disgusting as a giant ball of earwax. I catch quick naps here and there as I can, but I need less sleep now than I ever did. He paused, and his voice turned sly. Imagine that. I can be up all night-or all day, in a properly darkened room-pleasuring you.

And the answer to that next question on your exam is “to hold up the pillars of the world.”

Harry held very still, not glancing down at the next question. You can see out of my eyes now?

No. You saw it from the corner of your eye and noted it subconsciously. I was able to draw it up into my own full consciousness, that’s all.

This is ridiculous, Harry thought, but when he glanced at the question full-on, it proved to be another where he didn’t have a better answer. What was the legendary purpose of a stem of feverfew and roses? Who cared?

You might care when you’re in the field, Malfoy said casually. I’d like the human I’m bonded to to live, you know, instead of dying. I imagine the pain of your death would not be at all pleasant for me.

I don’t understand you, Malfoy, Harry said, though he had to admit that wanting to avoid the pain of death made sense. Why are you helping me? Why do you sound different than you did yesterday evening?

Because I made a mistake, Malfoy said bluntly. Harry suddenly wished he could be in the same room with the git, to see the wince he would have made at having to admit he was wrong. I should have initiated the bond slowly, not grabbed you like that. I didn’t know it would come to life as soon as I touched you. I just saw you about to leave and panicked. But that’s still a bad thing, because-Harry could feel the distaste in Malfoy’s voice on his own tongue-I have to be more knowledgeable about my powers and abilities in order to function adequately as a responsible vampire.

Who told you that?

V.A.M.P.S. The Vampire Association for the Management and Protection of the Species. They’re horrid, Harry, absolutely horrid. Harry felt as if his mouth were being washed out with toothpaste, for a moment; that was Malfoy’s fastidious shrug. You’ll have to deal with them less than I’ll have to, at least, though Madam Gloriosa, the leader or president or maybe queen, will want to meet you.

So there are-what, guides to being undead?

Guides to being undead. Guides to how to act around humans. One called, “Sharing Heart’s Blood: Loving and Respecting Your Donors.” Malfoy moaned. It’s not as though I chose this, Harry. Someone signed me up for it.

Harry bit his lip so that his laughter wouldn’t become audible.

I still know you’re amused, you realize.

Yes, but I don’t want to laugh out loud and make the proctor look at me again.

Harry returned to writing. He had-well, he had to admit that Malfoy hadn’t been entirely awful to him in the last few minutes, and he might even have given him the right answers for the questions. Not that Harry would know until the exams were marked and returned, of course, and then he had two more years of training still before he became a full-fledged Auror. But it might be nice to think the git had another side.

Delusion, probably, Harry reminded himself. He and Hermione had held a short talk before breakfast while Ron, to show how seriously he took the exam, used the time for a final study session. I know that the bond can unduly influence your emotions, Harry. Be careful with what you say and do around him.

I like your voice better than Granger’s, Draco said unexpectedly.

This time, Harry gave an audible snort. The proctor glared at him, but Harry kept his eyes on his parchment and his quill in constant motion, proving what a good little student he was. The older wizard turned away again.

So maybe his life hadn’t become the horrid thing he had feared it would when he fled from Malfoy Manor last night. But their bond hadn’t even been in place for a full day yet, Harry thought, with an odd mixture of hope and trepidation. Give it time, and of course it would be awful.

Part 3.