Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Viper	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7435 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

Chapter List
- 1-Viper
- 2-Part 2
- 3-Part 3
- 4-Part 4
- 5-Part 5
- 6-Part 6
- 7-Part 7
- 8-Part 8
- 9-Part 9
- 2
- 3
- 4
Thank you again for all the reviews!

            The office door shut softly behind Ron. Harry looked up, smiling, and then dropped the smile when he realized that Ron had a deep frown on his face. The only time he ever wore that frown was when he thought Harry had done something wrong. Harry slowly sat back in his chair, watching his friend as Ron cast a number of strong locking charms on the door. Luckily, none of the ones he chose would conflict with Harry’s anti-vampire wards.

            “What’s the matter?” Harry asked quietly.

            Ron stood facing the door for a moment, as if he had to consider what he wanted to say. Then he whirled around and slammed his hands on his desk with a swiftness that actually did make Harry jump. Vampires moved faster, but he hadn’t expected a burst of motion like that right at this moment.

            You should, he reminded himself. You never know when they might attack. If anything, given this nest or rogue vampire who can apparently resist their instincts to leave clear signs behind, you’re not paranoid enough.

            “You are, Harry,” Ron said, effectively hauling his attention back to the present conversation. “You are.” He was breathing fast, and a tiny bubble of saliva stood out at the corner of his mouth. Harry thought it wouldn’t be diplomatic to point that out. “You and your bloody belief in vampires. Austin and Stone told me what you said about McFadden and Gowan, and then Rogers confirmed you were working late last night. On what, Harry? None of our cases are outstanding.”

            Harry stayed silent for a few minutes, studying Ron. Of course he could tell the truth, but Ron wasn’t likely to accept that any more than he had accepted it when Harry told him about other hunts. He’d never been this angry before, though.

            And he’s never made up his mind so quickly. I don’t think he’d believe a lie, anyway.

            “There are things in the McFadden and Gowan cases that don’t add up,” Harry said carefully. “Wards they could only take down themselves were removed. By who? And both of them had anti-vampire wards. Doesn’t that at least suggest that they thought they had something to fear from nests?”

            “If so,” Ron said shortly, leaning forwards, “that’s something for the Ministry authorities to research and discover. Not you. Not when Austin specifically removed you from the cases.”

            Harry said nothing, but looked down at his paperwork and traced an absent hand across it. The words blurred for a moment, and he reminded himself that he should have a nap this afternoon. Tonight, he and Malfoy would begin the hunt. He would need every scrap of alertness for dealing with both Malfoy and the apparent vampire-Long-Desired couple who had been causing the trouble.

            “Your obsession is taking over your life.” Ron sounded as if he’d been preparing these words for a long time. He spoke with quiet force that Harry admired, from a distance. Ron was eloquent. But nothing he said could make a difference to Harry, and he should have known that by now. “You’re wasting your time searching for vampires where there are none. You’re jumping at shadows. You prefer to spend your time on your ‘hunting’ instead of with me and Hermione.” He took a deep breath. Maybe he found the next words as difficult to speak as Harry did to hear. “Harry, Ginny is dead. I know that you were the one who had to destroy her body so she wouldn’t rise as a vampire, and that’s hard, but you need to realize that you did enough by doing that. Don’t stop living because she did.”

            Harry clenched his hands into fists on the desk in front of him, and said nothing.

            “God.” Ron’s voice soared, and Harry saw his hands clench into fists, too. “That doesn’t matter to you, does it? You don’t care about anything as long as you get to kill nests.”

            Harry looked up. He thought his friendship with Ron might be lost if he didn’t. “I still care about you,” he said steadily. “I still care about Hermione. I still care about bringing Dark wizards to justice.”

            “You’d never know it, from the way you behave.” Ron stepped towards him. “I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything further on the McFadden and Gowan cases, Harry.”

            Harry sat still and looked at him.

            “Harry.” Ron’s voice cracked. He came up to him this time and put a hand on his shoulder, shaking it hard. “You have to—you have to realize that you aren’t just a weapon aimed at vampires. For God’s sake, Harry. We love you. Stop acting as though that vampire murdered your whole heart when he murdered Ginny. Come back to us.”

            Harry reached up and squeezed Ron’s hand. Then he said, “I was a weapon my whole life, when I went after Voldemort.” He felt an amusement, as distant as his admiration, when the name still made Ron flinch. “Why should it be so strange that I’m a weapon now? It seems that I’m doomed to lose the people I love. At least I won’t let them go unavenged.”

            Ron turned away from him and buried his face in his hands. Harry watched him. He wished he could say something else, something that would let Ron know how important this was to him, and why.

            But there was nothing that came to mind, so Harry turned back to his paperwork, and tried to pretend it didn’t bother him when Ron moved his desk and chair so that he could sit facing away from Harry.

            Compared to the prospect of killing more murderers, it didn’t bother him at all. And Harry set his mind coldly to work, this time not on what he would do when he faced the rogue vampire and his or her Long-Desired—that was fairly set—but on how he could resist giving any of his blood to Malfoy. He would not be a vampire’s slave, or his lover.

            But that is saying the same thing twice.

*

            Draco waited near the white stone at the edge of Potter’s wards. It seemed to have become their regular meeting place.

            Draco didn’t mind. The open moors were a fascinating place, now that he had time to notice the advantages of his vampire senses. He could smell scents on the wind that had come hundreds of miles: the sea, clumps of tropical plants, exotic animals. His favorite was a musky scent he didn’t know, but he sniffed often in hopes of catching it. He only seemed to sense it when the wind blew from the west, however.

            But strongest of all was blood.

            Draco was glad for one thing that the books had said when they confirmed the pull of a Long-Desired for a vampire. His fascination with others’ blood would lessen when he had Potter under his sway. At the moment, he couldn’t help staring at an open wound, and he had almost made a fool of himself earlier tonight, stepping out into the middle of Diagon Alley when a young woman cut her arm on a wineglass she’d dropped.

            That was how many master vampires died, he knew now, and one reason they lived in nests. The presence of others acted as a grounding force; together, the nest was more intelligent than any single predator could be. They would attack only certain targets.

            The ones their sire determines. No, disadvantages and all, Draco was glad that he was not living in a nest, where he would be made to share his kills, and even surrender them to the nest leader if he or she demanded it.

            Including the prize that he could least comprehend sharing.

            And here came that prize, moving over the ground with a long stride that he didn’t even seem to realize bespoke pride and power. Draco straightened slowly from his position of leaning on the boulder, eating Potter with his eyes as he would eat him with his fangs later tonight. So beautiful, from the contemptuous line of his shoulders to the magical power that bloomed in his body like a flame. Even the weapons he carried about him, and which Draco could see as slight bulges here and there and smell as wicked, stinging scents, only increased his beauty, because they added to his predatory edge. Draco would not want a Long-Desired who lay down tamely and let him do whatever he wanted.

            Well, he amended, as his belly leaped and contracted with Potter’s scent, it’s possible my body does, but not my mind. And it’s my mind that Potter must be a companion to.

            Potter halted five feet away from him, which he perhaps foolishly imagined was a distance Draco could not cross before he managed to reach his weapons and defend himself. His nostrils flared and his arms were crossed, his eyes distant. He was doing his best to seem unimpressed. Draco might have believed him if not for the tinge of nervousness in his scent.

            “Well, Malfoy?” Potter said. “Have you brought me the information you promised?”

            “Yes.” Draco started for a moment at how soft his own voice was, but then remembered how close he was to gaining what he wanted. He could afford a little gentleness. Already, his fangs had folded down, and he showed them to Potter as he spoke the next words. No sense in hiding from him what the price would be. “And I will give it to you.”

            Potter waited a moment, staring at him expectantly.

            “When you give me your blood,” Draco said, and he snapped despite himself. Potter was not stupid, and Draco had told him the price. Why would he stand there staring like a prize ox, when the ox would not taste nearly as good as he would?

            “No,” Potter countered calmly. “Give me the information first.”

            Draco laughed and edged nearer, wondering if Potter would try to bolt and deny Draco. Rage swept through him like a brushfire, and he had to keep his hands behind his back. Potter would notice how his nails were scoring his skin otherwise, his fingers bending into strange shapes. Draco was learning the depth of his control over his own body, but sometimes that control still escaped him when anger arrived and wanted to express itself. The deep, powerful voice of instinct told him that his anger was natural, and should be shown any way he would like to show it.

            “Do you really think,” he said, and charged his voice with the rage, seeing it bring Potter to his toes, “that I am that stupid? I would never get my drink if you had your way. No. Stop delaying, so that we may begin the hunt.”

            Potter gave him a slow smile, coated with arrogance. It made Draco burn. “I know enough to go on,” he said. “A rogue vampire and a Long-Desired. I can make my plans accordingly. If you will give me nothing else without a price that I am unwilling to pay, especially when the information might be worthless…” He shrugged and turned his back.

            Draco charged. His legs moved without his will, and his fangs aimed for Potter’s neck without his conscious decision. No prey animal ignored him.

            Potter spun around, faster than anything mortal should have been able to move, and snapped his left hand up. Draco had time to see a slender cylinder of metal between his fingers before a whip of fire coiled out from his palm and aimed straight at Draco. Draco came to a staggering stop as the fire lit the heather around him in a precise circle.

            Does he think that will hold me? Draco crouched to leap over the flames—

            And another line of fire created a sealed ceiling, crisscrossing itself with other whips until Draco knew he couldn’t pass through those gaps even by contorting his body to the utmost limit of his ability. He sank back to his heels with a huff and aimed his glare and his lowered fangs at Potter through the gap in the flames. He could tell, from their heat and brightness, that these were flames born of sunlight, or at least of a spell that mimicked sunlight. Already he was fighting his eyes’ tendency to water.

            His Long-Desired indeed knew how to fight Draco’s kind.

            Potter stalked towards him, his face cool and disinterested. Draco recalled a suddenly distinct Hogwarts memory of Potter with his face flushed, chasing the Snitch, and how his human self had doubted that Potter would ever look emotionless about anything. Now he did, and Draco wondered for a moment what had changed him.

            Then he had something else to think about, as Potter slowly tightened the circle of flame around him, the fire pushing closer and closer until Draco could feel the teasing singes against his hair. He stood with his arms straight at his sides. He knew that the fire, if it once got a good hold on his flesh as opposed to his clothing, would turn him into a torch.

            Potter offered him a small, nasty smile. Draco stared back at him and was glad that he no longer had a need to breathe, unless he wished to speak.

            “What will it be?” Potter whispered. “Do I destroy you? Or will you agree to wait for your precious drink of blood and give me the information now?” His eyes shone suddenly with a dark joy that would have made Draco want to retreat if he had anywhere to retreat to. “I can destroy you, you know.”

            But you won’t, Draco wanted to say. The Long-Desired, at least when he or she was bitten once, had a reluctance to harm the vampire who was meant for them. And Draco had bitten Potter in Caspar’s nest.

            But it would not do to reveal that now. Potter despised vampires for being at the mercy of their instincts; he would hate himself for being at their mercy, too, because he was consistent like that, and that self-loathing might give him the strength to resist the reluctance and force the fire onto Draco.

            “I will wait,” he said.

            “Give me your word,” Potter said quietly.

            Draco had to laugh, despite the fact that that brought both his cheek and chest dangerously near the flames. “And I can give you an oath that you would depend on? Why would you think that vampires are any better than Dark wizards in that respect?”

            Potter’s face cleared of all expression. He studied Draco in intent silence for a moment. Draco let his nostrils flare, but he couldn’t tell anything useful from Potter’s scent. He spent an irritated moment wishing that vampire powers were infallible, as some ancient wizards, if he could trust the books, apparently believed.

            Then Potter twitched his fingers around the metal cylinder that he’d used to start the fire in the first place, and the flames vanished. Draco stepped back and smoothed his shirt, sniffing for the scent of burned flesh this time.

            “No need to do that,” he said amiably. “I would have listened to what you said.”

            “There was every need to do that.” The dark joy was back in Potter’s voice and eyes. “The only time that vampires ever obey is when they recognize a superior power. That’s the only thing that keeps nests together, I’ll have you know. I’ve studied the subject extensively.” His voice lowered into what Draco would have categorized as a seductive tone, if not for the words it contained. “And I look forwards to the day when I no longer need you and I can kill you. So much.” He whispered the last words with the softness he might have used to a lover.

            Then he stepped back and cocked his head as though nothing had happened. “What information do you have for me?”

*

            For some reason, Malfoy breathed out, which vampires didn’t ordinarily do, before he focused his gaze on Harry again. And this time he was actually looking at Harry’s face and not his neck. Harry smiled, glad that he had managed to impress some sense of the situation’s seriousness on Malfoy.

            “A vampire and a Long-Desired who trust each other can achieve enough power to knock down any wards or other spells, based on the symbolism of light and dark, and life and death,” Malfoy began, in a voice that reminded Harry rather of the way that Hermione sounded when she recited from a book. “The vampire is vulnerable to the sun, but unparalleled in the darkness, whilst the wizard can walk abroad by day but is blind in the night. And so on. Each embodies a weakness that the other does not. Each has a strength that the other does not. Together, they create a united façade of pure strength.”

            Harry concealed a snort. This sounded rather like the rubbish in the romance novels Ginny used to read, when the hero and heroine babbled to each other about their perfect union. He had gone through and read all those romance novels when she was dead, because he had wanted to remember her as she was.

            Not screaming, not dying.

            “The magic around them recognizes that strength and responds to it,” Malfoy was explaining now. His voice had gone soft and yearning, his eyes distant. Harry blinked. He had no idea why Malfoy would be so affected by this. He hoped that Malfoy wouldn’t break down into tears or something when they confronted this vampire-human couple because of their perfection. “Wizard magic is channeled through a vampire’s body, and in doing so, that changes it into a form that ordinary magic can’t cope with.”

            Harry nodded. That sounded far more likely to him than any of that rot about perfectly matched strengths and weaknesses. “That would explain how they got through the wards, but not why they attacked McFadden and Gowan in the first place. Or why they took the collections that they did.”

            “Collections?” Malfoy moved a step closer, but paused when Harry rubbed his fingers up and down the flame-holder warningly. “What did they steal?”

            “Portraits,” Harry said, shrugging. “Silver statuettes. The kind of shiny things that would attract a vampire, I reckon, though they could have got them with less trouble elsewhere. Perhaps they only wanted to see who would notice that there had been vampires there at all. But then, it’s natural to your kind to reveal their tracks instead of covering them.”

            Malfoy stood very still for a moment. Then he whispered, “Describe the portraits for me, Potter.”

            Harry frowned at him, and then struggled to remember the McFadden case report. He kept his eyes on Malfoy all the time, of course. It wouldn’t do to surrender to the bastard’s fangs because a befuddling question had taken him off-guard. “Mostly pale people,” he said at last. “Men and women dressed in fashions hundreds of years old. All in crimson frames, for some reason. McFadden and Gowan used to be friends, and it was assumed that one of them got the idea from the other.”

            “Anything else?” Malfoy insisted. “What about the statuettes?”

            “Silver, like I said.” Harry thought carefully. Once he had realized it was vampires who had slaughtered the two men, he hadn’t thought to check on the things stolen, assuming that the thefts were covers for the murders. And that bothered him, because, once, remembering such details would have been as easy as breathing.

            Maybe Ron is right, and I am letting my obsession get the better of me.

            On the other hand, Ron isn’t the one out here in the darkness with a vampire who wants to bite through his neck.

            “And they showed men and women, mostly,” Harry said. “Dressed in older fashions, like the portraits.” He shrugged again. “The similarity was noticed, but the Aurors simply assumed that the thieves who appreciated that form in one kind of art would appreciate it in the other.”

            “More than that,” Malfoy said. “Oh, more than that.” He sounded as though he were on the edge of crooning for knowing something that Harry didn’t know, but he also sounded apprehensive.

            “Don’t tell me that your books said something about Long-Desired couples wanting portraits in crimson frames?” Harry asked.

            “I think McFadden and Gowan were vampire hunters,” Malfoy said quietly. “The books said it was once the custom of hunters to immortalize their victims—if you will forgive the pun—in frames the color of blood, and dressed as they would have looked when they were alive, depending on the century they were sired in. Some who were more superstitious also believed that would keep a vampire who might not have been completely destroyed from coming back to life, because their place in the world would have been taken by the portrait.” Malfoy dropped to a crouch on the ground, which had Harry aiming his wand at him on reflex, but it seemed he simply wished to change position. “And they went far enough to use statues as well,” he added. “Fancy that.”

            “You think this vampire and Long-Desired killed them because McFadden and Gowan might have tried to kill them in turn?” Harry asked. “Self-defense?” It certainly made more sense than most of his theories.

            “No,” said Malfoy. “They’re too powerful to have to fear them—and you know better than any human alive what we are like when we feel powerful.” His voice grated, but Harry heard truth rather than anger in it. “I think they killed them out of vengeance. Probably the vampires that McFadden and Gowan destroyed were nestmates of this vampire, perhaps his or her sire or get.”

            Harry blinked. “There’s resisting one’s instincts, and there’s bypassing them,” he said. “You’re happy to see others of your kind go. It means less competition for food. Yes, a sire might be upset in the short term about losing one of his or her get, because it means a lessening of power, but not in the long term. And McFadden and Gowan can’t have hunted for years. We would have heard something about it if they had.”

            Malfoy hissed at him, his fangs folded down so far they looked to be popping out of his mouth. “Vampires bound to a Long-Desired are different, Potter,” he said. Harry controlled the temptation to bristle and snap that it was not as if he could have known that. What did he care if Malfoy was condescending to him? That would only make him easier to defeat, in the end. “For one thing, they only drink from their Long-Desired, and so have no need to compete for food. For another, the tie they enact creates a few overriding, powerful instincts, yes—to protect the Long-Desired, for example—but largely negates the others. This vampire might have remembered those killings long ago and waited until the Long-Desired made his or her power certain before they chose to go after their killers.”

            Harry nodded. It made sense (though he still intended to confirm Malfoy’s information independently, if he could). And it would answer all the questions that had been puzzling him about the murders, even the reasons for taking the portraits and the statuettes. The vampire might well have wanted those memorials as reminders of its companions.

            He didn’t like the new information, however. It made vampires more human than he was used to.

            “And that,” Malfoy said, rising to his feet in a single graceful motion that nearly earned him a plucked-out eye, “is why you need to let me drink from you and accept this tie. We can’t kill them unless we have strength equal to theirs. And they have experience fighting hunters. Like you.”

            Harry shook his head. “This is all just speculation. But your biting into my neck isn’t.”

            Malfoy hooded his eyes. He looked more human now than at any time since Harry had first seen him in the nest. “But well-justified speculation. Speculation you believe.”

            “Perhaps,” Harry said.

            “Your scent does not lie to me,” Malfoy said softly.

            Harry laughed. “But the olfactory glamours I put on it do.”

            Malfoy stared at him. Harry smiled back. He was lying about the olfactory glamours, but it was not as if Malfoy would know that.

            “Very well,” Malfoy said at last. “But you will give me your blood in the end.”

            “I’ve promised, haven’t I?” Harry raised his eyebrows. “And tomorrow night we’ll set out to hunt the rogue and his Long-Desired, so that you’re one night closer to your drink.” Let us see if you are fool enough to believe that, instead of one night closer to your death.

            “Why not tonight?” Malfoy edged closer.

            Harry stepped back and smiled sweetly, pulling a flask from his robe sleeve and tossing it to him. Malfoy caught it without hardly moving, of course. Vampires were like that. “So that you have time to drink the Ministry-approved blood I found for you,” Harry said, “and so that I have time to sleep and to plan.”

            And he Apparated back behind his wards whilst Malfoy was still staring after him.

*

            Draco grimaced as he finished drinking the blood. It was cold, for one thing, not fresh from the living vein, and it didn’t have the taste of Harry’s magic and meat, for another.

            But he was more occupied with greater matters, strange though he would have thought it an hour ago to believe anything was greater than blood.

            His mind sharpened around Harry, that was certain. And Harry was doing things he would not have done for any other vampire, such as fetching the blood. So far, their reactions to the instincts the Long-Desired tie would instill into them were proceeding on schedule.

            But seeing how much Harry longed to inflict death on his kind, Draco had to wonder if any vampire had ever tried to claim a Long-Desired so…unstable.

            Of course, if you manage it, that makes yours the more wonderful triumph.

            It did, but Draco was still uneasy. Rather than rejoicing in the thought of his inevitable victory, he was more inclined to believe that he had the advantage because he could accept these instincts, whilst Harry would fight them and refuse to believe the truth about his own behavior.

            And that is only a slight advantage.

            He turned and leaped thoughtfully into the night.

*

            SP777:Thanks!

            And yes. The web would literally kill the undeath that animates Draco’s body.

            Thrnbrooke: Well, define “work.” Draco means to make Harry his Long-Desired. Harry means to kill Draco. I think those are mutually exclusive.

            hieisdragoness18: Thanks!

            orpiment99: That’s interesting! Why do you think it would be better if Draco won?

            I find it hard to deal with romanticized vampires, personally. They’re corpses who eat human beings. I think that’s inherently not nice.

            acr: Thanks! Although, at the moment, I find Draco less creepy than Harry.

            I have hinted that Ginny was murdered by a vampire and Harry had to kill her permanently so she wouldn’t be turned. But yes, details are leaking out a bit at a time.
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