Chapter Twenty of 'Keep This Wolf'- Walk the Tightrope
Chapter Nineteen.
Title: Keep This Wolf (20/?)
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-Walk the Tightrope
“You’re sure?”
Draco knew his voice was sharp, skeptical, but he needed Potter to be completely sure. Facing Umbridge and the Unspeakables and the Minister himself was bad enough without adding a vampire into the mix unless they had to.
But Potter tapped his nose and stretched and shook his head, as though the collar that Draco had put on his neck was more than a faint weight. “I smelled his scent all over her. I’m sure.”
“I suppose that he’s as obsessed with your blood as ever, then,” Draco murmured, his mind working rapidly. As difficult as it made matters, he should have expected it. Paracelsus’s face when he bit into Potter’s throat was the face of a vampire in rapture, not one who would easily give up what he had found for the sake of a lesser victim.
It made Draco wonder how he could stand to feed on Umbridge’s blood, but the ways of vampires were difficult to fathom. He glanced at Potter, who was examining his hands ruefully. “What are you doing that for? I didn’t put a lead on your hands.”
Potter cocked his head at him, and then replied, “No, and I understand the reasons you needed to put one around my neck.” Draco flushed a little. It seemed he hadn’t escaped Potter’s nose detecting his slightly offended odor, again. “But I thought I was going to break my fingers, grinding them into the floor like that.”
“No one made you do that, either.”
“Umbridge did. I had to clench them so that they wouldn’t see how claw-like they were turning every time I looked at her.” Unexpectedly, Potter snarled, a flash of teeth that made Draco toss his head back out of the way and gasp. “I hate the bitch. I’d like to tear her throat out.”
For once, Draco could agree wholeheartedly with a violent declaration a werewolf had made, instead of flinching away and thinking only about what would happen if that beast got out of control and came after him. “I could do the same thing, if I had the right kind of teeth.”
Potter grinned at him. “I knew you were a kindred spirit.” He turned and stepped into the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest’s trees. They had come to the edges here so that they could remove the leash from Potter’s neck and make sure no one was following them before they went to the pack’s territory. “Come on. They’re probably wondering where we were. They probably thought we’d return long before now.”
He settled into a steady lope that reminded Draco of a wolf’s. Draco followed without complaint, though. His mind was on something else.
“You don’t think the plan I recommended to them has any chance of succeeding?” he asked.
“What? That Sarah Woolwine would be the happiest creature in the world to rebel against me?” For a moment, Potter paused with his nose working, sniffing deeply. Draco tried to do the same thing, but all he smelled was damp. “Oh, of course not. We came to an accord. She felt I wasn’t paying enough attention to her, but she doesn’t want the leadership, and she doesn’t want to leave the pack. She just wanted some acknowledgment of her place as an experienced werewolf, and someone who could offer me advice.”
Draco nodded, but absently. His eyes were on a shadow that was pacing them, a shadow that wasn’t wolf-shaped. A second later, Potter took a particularly deep snuff and stopped. Draco supposed he would have smelled it earlier, but the wind hadn’t been blowing in the right direction until then.
“Paracelsus,” said Potter, and his voice rippled in a way that made Draco shiver with something he wasn’t going to identify or name at the moment.
The shadow drifted into the path in front of them. Draco could barely see Paracelsus’s face even when he did, however. His head was sunk between his shoulders, and a desperate little chittering sound emerged from his mouth.
“Paracelsus,” Potter repeated. “What are you doing here? You must know that your life is forfeit on my pack’s land now.” He was bowed forwards as if he was going to launch himself from a standing start at the vampire. Maybe he would. Maybe Draco should arrange to be far away if that happened, and not standing here practically salivating at the thought of it.
Draco didn’t understand himself sometimes.
“I must have it,” said Paracelsus, and one hand came out and groped at the air in front of him. Draco thought of the way a condemned criminal would kneel at the Wizengamot’s feet and pull at their robes. “It burned out the moon for me.”
Draco blinked. He thought he remembered a reference to something like that, but he couldn’t immediately recall where he had read it.
“I can’t grant you the ability to become a werewolf,” said Potter. “I told you that a long time ago.”
Did Paracelsus believe Potter could? Draco was starting to believe this wasn’t one of the most intellectually shining vampires ever to come forth.
“That is not what it means,” whispered Paracelsus, and there was a raspy sound like him sliding his tongue across lips so dry they could hardly part. “I mean that you have taken the light from me. I cannot see. I cannot think. I must have it.” His hand did pluck at Potter’s robe now, once, twice.
Draco caught his breath. He recognized the reference now. A vampire said that the moon had been burned out for him when he was committed to one host, hooked on the taste of one person’s blood. It was another name for obsession, but it went a step further. Instead of simply attacking the creature whose blood they wanted to drink, the vampire wanted to keep them alive and drink it as long as they could. It could bring a vampire as close to romance as they would ever know.
Or abject slavery, maybe, Draco decided, looking at the way the vampire knelt in front of Potter, and the disgusted look on Potter’s face. And I don’t think he’s going to get much help from that direction.
“You can get up now,” said Potter.
Paracelsus bowed his head down against the earth, and whimpered, and didn’t move.
Potter turned a look full of utter loathing-at the world in general, Draco thought, not at a specific person-on Draco. “Do you have any idea of what’s wrong with him?”
“He’s given you a lot of power over him, if you want it,” said Draco. He would be neutral for now. That Potter hadn’t immediately accused Paracelsus of treachery suggested he wanted to use him somehow. Normally, a vampire would be alert enough to that possibility, but Paracelsus was too far gone to be alert for anything except Potter’s neck. “You could command him to move mountains for a taste of your blood.”
“I want him to remove something,” said Potter.
Draco knew, then, that Potter would command the vampire to assassinate Umbridge. He met Potter’s eyes and mouthed, Is this safe?
Potter gave an angry shrug that Draco thought he interpreted, rightly, as Potter not giving a fuck. He turned sharply to the kneeling vampire. “Will you do as I tell you, if I promise you another taste of my blood at the end?”
Draco watched in foreboding. He thought making a deal with Paracelsus was a bad idea. Yes, the vampire was far gone, but on the other hand, he had been able to break free of the compulsion enough to betray Potter in the first place.
“I will do whatever you want,” Paracelsus said, and knelt there, and gazed up with melting eyes.
Potter met his gaze without fear. Well, when he was the leader of a group of werewolves, he could get away with that, Draco supposed. “I want you to do something simple for me. Something that will benefit me, and you, and most of the population of magical creatures in Britain, I reckon. And it’s so little. Just small.” His voice had become the sort of coaxing, hypnotizing croon that Draco would have expected Paracelsus to use instead of the other way around.
“Yes.” Paracelsus crept closer, still moving on his hands and knees, but in a way that made it seem like it was a centipede scuttling. Draco tucked his hands in his sleeves so that he wouldn’t shudder visibly.
“Assassinate Umbridge for me.”
Paracelsus stopped moving. He stared up at Potter, and shadows moved across his face that had nothing to do with the visible darkness in which he crouched. Draco nodded wisely. He had been right to suspect the depth of the vampire’s obsession. Either he was pretending now, or his plan to punish Potter and claim all his blood still took precedence over his desire for a momentary taste.
“What did you say?” Paracelsus had eased closer. He had perhaps put his hands in the dirt and was balancing his weight on them, but Draco found that difficult to see. He only knew that the vampire was closer, and his fangs were a little more visible, and any friendliness that his voice had had was gone entirely.
“I said that I wanted you to assassinate Umbridge for me,” said Potter. “You said that she was involved with this. She’s my personal enemy, and I want her gone. That should be enough reason for me to ask.”
Draco wanted to shift his own weight, making sure that he had enough time and room to draw his wand, but he didn’t dare move. Potter and the vampire were staring at each other, still, poised, both of them full of power and playing the game to its inevitable conclusion. He wasn’t about to interfere in that.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Paracelsus murmured, as if he thought he would be able to trick Potter into admitting something that wasn’t true. “That you would need me to bring an enemy of yours down.”
Potter gave him a faint smile. “You think I can do it myself?”
“You have the power to do it if you want,” said Paracelsus, which Draco noticed didn’t exactly mean the same thing. Again, he shifted, and again his nails were digging into dirt, scraping it up softly. “It’s such a strange request. Let me do something else for you. Let me hunt down Ninian and punish him for you. That’s the right thing to do.”
“I challenged Ninian according to pack law,” said Potter. “I won the challenge. He left with his life. There was nothing that would require me to kill him. That’s not the service I want of you. I’ve stated what I want.” He moved his hair to the side and turned his head, so that his veins gleamed in his throat even to Draco’s sight. “Meanwhile. Don’t you want a taste of this?”
Draco gave a little shiver of awe. He would never have thought Potter would take it that far. Paracelsus’s control could break at any moment.
But just as he had already proven that he was more than the desperate vampire Draco had taken him for, Paracelsus balanced, wavering, on his fists for a little longer. “I could get you anything else. The apples of the moon. A crown like the sun.”
“Her death is what I want,” said Potter, and his voice was deep and sweet and serene.
Paracelsus struck.
Draco knew he should stay out of the way and let Potter take him on. He knew that he wasn’t fast enough to stop a vampire, even if he thought it was something he owed to Potter for some strange reason.
Which made it make no sense when he flung himself forwards and into the vampire’s path instead, trying to take on the burden of defending Potter. But that was what he did.
*
Malfoy, you idiot!
Only part of Harry’s brain was saying that, though. The rest of him was busy lunging and pushing and spinning around with Malfoy in his arms, catching him before he could get himself eaten. Paracelsus had already altered the path of his leap anyway, because Harry knew he didn’t care about Malfoy’s blood.
Harry threw Malfoy to the side, and snarled at him when it seemed as though he might get up and move. Malfoy froze, staring at him in astonishment.
Paracelsus would have struck by now, Harry knew, unless he was deliberately leaving Harry some time to respond, knowing it would fuck with him. Harry turned around again, his hand on his wand.
Paracelsus was clinging to a tree trunk and watching him the way he often had, his head bobbing as if to music. Harry did nothing but look at him. Paracelsus probably suspected now that Harry knew of his treachery.
That meant he could go back to the Ministry and tell Umbridge about it.
And Harry couldn’t let that happen.
My bloody temper. He shouldn’t have let it get the better of him by suggesting that Paracelsus kill Umbridge. Of course that would bring up lots of suspicion, even if Paracelsus didn’t get the suspicion exactly right.
But he couldn’t go backwards, either. He silently drew up power for a spell that should accomplish what he needed it to accomplish, although whether that would mean anything against Paracelsus’s vampire strength was up for debate.
“You are different from any other mortal I have experienced,” said Paracelsus.
He said it like a caress. But those were mortals that he had eaten, Harry reminded himself. He had gone too far in forgiving Paracelsus’s nature, thinking he was useful or amusing, or even someone like Harry, an outcast from the wizarding world because of a condition that world didn’t understand.
Some vampires could be like that, maybe. Paracelsus wasn’t one of them, and had never pretended to be. It was Harry’s fault if he had let that idea overtake him.
“Different,” Paracelsus repeated, as if that would make Harry listen to him all by itself. “Tastier.”
Harry nodded a little. Paracelsus leaped off the tree and blurred at him again. He wanted Harry to see his death coming. There was no other reason to wait that long, not to jump when Harry knew that Paracelsus could have held him down and ripped his throat open with his back turned.
He wanted Harry to see his killer.
“Protego dorsum,” Harry said, casting it with power but not exceptional force, so he thought that his voice came out kind of muted.
Paracelsus had immense speed and reflexes and strength, but even he couldn’t stop and change direction in mid-air. He slammed against the shield cage that manifested around him, and screeched in an emotion so shrill that Harry couldn’t tell what it was. His scent had gone dry, all dead ants and blood, the same scent that Harry had smelled clinging to Umbridge.
Paracelsus crashed to the floor of the cage and lay there staring at Harry through the silver. Harry walked carefully around it. The Reverse Shield spell created a round bubble, not a single barrier the way Protego did, and it went all the way around Paracelsus and hovered at Harry’s chest height off the ground. Harry had learned the spell specifically for protection against enemies who could dig through the dirt and maybe get away if the cage was sitting on the ground.
“Are you happy with yourself?”
Harry completed his circuit and looked up into Paracelsus’s eyes, at the same height as his own with the raising of the cage and the way that Paracelsus had reared up inside it.
“Yes,” he said. “But not as happy as I’m going to be. Somnio.”
Paracelsus shook his head and showed his fangs for a second, but even if a normal wizard couldn’t put him to sleep, he seemed to have forgotten about Harry’s training. He crumpled motionless and curled-up to the floor of the cage a moment later.
Then Harry turned to check on Malfoy, who was lying on the ground and watching him as if that was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen.
“Thank you for trying to get between the vampire and me,” said Harry, the words feeling stiff and unfamiliar in his own mouth. “But you don’t need to do that. I’m probably going to do better in situations like that than you can.”
*
It was only the words situations like that being added that made Draco not bristle.
He nodded and accepted Potter’s hand to his feet, thinking. He had done something stupid, but he could justify it, if he wanted. He was already affected by Potter’s magic. Potter was his best route to get revenge on Umbridge for putting him in these circumstances and probably losing him his job. Potter had to stay alive if Draco was going to see that revenge.
But he thought that was wrong, the way he thought that Potter was wrong about him not having extra strength. Draco had heard of that cage spell, not seen it done before, but he’d heard the Sleep Charm plenty of times, and there was a power singing in the air around him that was impossible to mistake.
So all of those things. Being affected by power, needing Potter, and feeling that Potter had saved and protected him, even if it was only because Draco had done something stupid in the first place. Draco had noticed that Potter was careful to always keep his body between Draco and the vampire as he fought Paracelsus, even if the fight was short and Paracelsus was mostly focused on him anyway.
“Thank you,” he said.
Potter’s eyes sharpened, but he didn’t ask what Draco meant, which showed they shared a basic understanding. He nodded, and floated the cage behind them as they made their way further into the Forest.
We have their spy. We have knowledge of their plans and the territory, which they don’t.
We’re going to win this.
Chapter Twenty-One.
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