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The Long-Desired	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 12097 -:- 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-The Long-Desired
- 2-Part 2
- 3-Part 3
- 4-Part 4
- 5-Part 5
- 6-Part 6
- 7-Part 7
- 8-Part 8
- 9-Part 9
- 10-Part 10
- 11-Part 11
- 12-Part 12
- 13-Part 13
- 3
- 4
- 5
Thank you again for all the reviews!

�� It took him
eight tries to get off the lock that he himself had put on. Harry grimaced
wryly at the Harry of last year, who had been so certain that he would never
want these books and had gone to such lengths to keep them warded.

�� If you really thought that you would never
want them, then you would have thrown them away.

�� But Harry
wasn�t interested in having an argument with himself. He dragged the books out
of the trunk and set them on the bed, turning them slowly over and wincing when
Dark magic seeped out of the covers to sting his fingers.

�� Curses on Bodily Processes. Squeezing the
Heart, Embedding the Soul. The Difference Between Mortals and Immortals.

�� Harry
sighed and chose the last one, because it was the most immediately relevant to
what he wanted to do: figuring out some way to break the Long-Desired bond. The
rest of the books he packed back in the trunk. Since he didn�t have the time or
the inclination to replace the locks and the wards�he would probably want
another of those tomes shortly�he cast a powerful masking spell that would make
sure anyone who walked into his house saw an ordinary trunk.

�� He would be
arrested and sent to Azkaban if anyone knew he had those books. Probably even
Hermione would consider it her duty to report him to the Head Auror, though she
might recommend leniency. These were the books with curses that had been
declared Forbidden, the category higher than the Unforgivables, which most
people didn�t know existed. They had to be not only outlawed but forgotten. And the Ministry had done its
best to make sure they were, burning the books that described them and using
Memory Charms with abandon.

�� But
sometimes individual criminals were smarter than the Ministry, especially when
they became vampires themselves and had time to plan against the discovery of
their treasures. And Harry had discovered these books in the lair of a master
vampire who had wielded Dark magic as skillfully as a Death Eater and been his
most difficult opponent until he faced the Collector.

�� He opened
the first pages of Difference,
wincing at the smell of rotting meat that crept out of them. He knew that some
Dark wizards wanted to make sure anyone who read their books understood what they
were getting into, but must they fit
all the stereotypes that the Ministry spread about them? Harry had often been
disconcerted by people like Voldemort who seemed to assume that ugliness was a lure, and didn�t see that they could
have used beauty instead.

�� Then again, vampires use beauty. And you�re
dedicated to killing them, so I don�t think you could approve of a criminal who
did as you recommended.

�� And you�re stalling again.

�� With a
sigh, Harry lowered his eyes to the page and began to read, bracing himself
internally for some of the horrors that he would encounter in those words.

*

�� Malfoy.�

�� Draco
stepped slowly back from the mortal woman he had been draining, licking his
lips and keeping his movements casual. He touched the woman�s shoulder and
breathed into her ear, �Go to sleep.� Under his thrall, she did as he asked
without complaint, folding up and dropping to the ground. Draco licked the
wound on her throat closed so that she wouldn�t bleed to death and turned
around at last.

�� It paid to
deal in such cautions when he was engaging with a mortal ally.

�� Or someone like an ally, at least,
he reminded himself when he saw Granger standing there, her wand aimed at him. I would be ill-advised to start thinking of
her that way before she declares an intention to help me.

�� Impressive,
Granger,� he said, stepping to the side so that he would be off the stone steps
of the house where he had been feeding. He wanted smooth and certain ground
beneath him if he had to move suddenly. �I didn�t know that someone could find
me unless I wanted to be found.�

�� Granger�s
mouth was hard, and she pressed forwards without responding. �I�ve learned more
about the Long-Desired bond,� she said. �It doesn�t sound as though you would really
love Harry.�

�� Not in the
way that I assume you love people,�
Draco said. �He is my most important.� He hesitated, then decided, watching the
way Granger�s wand twitched, that that wasn�t the right word. �My only. I have no other concerns, no other
affections or ties. I would burn to save Harry. I would stake myself to serve
him.� He smiled into her eyes. She was more dangerous than he had suspected; it
could not hurt to impress her with him
being more dangerous than she might have thought he was. �I would kill you if
he desired it.�

�� Granger
swallowed audibly, but her wand stayed steady. �I�m not sure that I want to
encourage this bond if it won�t lead to the kind of love Harry deserves.�

�� Deserves?
The bond is about needs, not merit.� Draco made a quick, delicate step closer,
causing her to flinch and stare at him distrustfully.

�� That was
all right. Draco only needed to see her eyes.

�� Granger
gave a shaky gasp and tried to resist, but Draco rolled over her will easily as
he extended his thrall into her mind. Granger took a deep breath, and then her
eyes grew heavy and glazed, like the eyes of the mortal woman when Draco had
enchanted her so that he could feed.

�� Now,�
Draco said. He knew his voice would sound like an echo to Granger, a mutter of
thunder that she couldn�t help but
listen to and obey. �I will not let you do anything to interfere with the bond.
You can caution Harry against me. You can try to break him of his obsession for
hunting and killing my kind. You can be his friend in moments when he needs the
companionship of mortals. All those activities are worthy, and I will not
oppose them. But I will not let you
try and turn my Long-Desired from me. He is mine.

�� You will
not act against the bond no matter what happens, and you will encourage Harry,
subtly if you can, to accept it. Do you understand, Granger?�

�� Of course
she nodded. Draco raised an eyebrow and released her. Granger gulped quickly,
and said, as if the thrall had never happened, �What kind of love can you give
him that he needs but doesn�t deserve?�

�� I think he deserves it, of course,�
Draco said, pleased with himself. There was no need to take over someone�s mind
completely, the way Caspar so often had. Of course, Caspar had little interest
in mortals when they weren�t serving as his food; he might even have tried to
resist the pull to his Long-Desired, simply so he could keep his power unshared.
�But my devotion is absolute, Granger. I won�t turn aside. I will kill for him
if he needs that done. I can�t give him the soft and melting love that you seem
to think he has to have, though. My love isn�t soft except in the way a hunting
cat�s fur is. And you expect too much if you think it can be. Leave me to do
what�s best for Harry�the bond will always ensure that�and don�t question the
nature of what I can offer him. Don�t demand that it be what it can�t. I�m not
mortal.�

�� Granger
gave a slow, tight nod. �I�ll kill you myself if I think that you need killing,
Malfoy,� she said.

�� Draco
nodded back, trying to show that he was impressed by this threat. Of course, he
did have to take it seriously since Granger had tracked him down.

�� How did
you find me?� he asked as she started to turn away, giving into curiosity.

�� Wouldn�t
you like to know.� Granger smirked at him, then raised an eyebrow. �Why aren�t
you lurking outside Harry�s house as usual?�

�� He asked
me to stay away for three nights,� Draco said. �I complied.�

�� That, of all things, made Granger�s
mouth fall open and her blood start moving faster. Then she shook her head in
wonder, said, �I reckon that you aren�t as bad as I thought you were,� and
turned and walked away. Draco heard her Apparate a moment later.

�� You never can tell what will impress a
Gryffindor, Draco thought, and turned to resume his interrupted meal. He
wondered idly for a moment why Granger hadn�t insisted that he let the woman
go, and smirked. The most logical explanations�that Granger suspected she would
become the next victim, or that Granger simply didn�t care about people who
weren�t her friends�suggested a strong streak of practicality that Draco
thought would probably counter those troublesome morals of hers.

*

�� Harry felt
as if his brain had been stripped naked and then beaten with iron. Difference described spells that he
hadn�t thought of, aimed at destroying the core of undead magic in vampires, in
ways that caused him to shudder.

�� Some of
those spells could easily be turned around and applied to the magical core in
wizards. That was another reason this particular book had been declared
Forbidden, he supposed, which wouldn�t have made sense if it had only offered
advice that was useful for vampire hunters.

�� But so far,
not a word about the Long-Desired bond. And the book wasn�t modern or friendly
enough to have an index or a table of contents. In fact, Harry was starting to
suspect that it was organized rather like its author�s mind, scattering various
thoughts about as the author came up with them, and sometimes wandering back to
topics that Harry had believed were done with in earlier chapters.

�� Harry sat
back against the pillow and rubbed a hand forcefully across his eyes. It was
almost dawn, and his body burned with the need for sleep. He couldn�t go into
work in this condition, but he�d already taken enough days off thanks to having
to recover after his hunts. The Head Auror would love an excuse to suspend him,
he knew.

�� No, it
would have to be Pepper-up Potion and the most cheerful grin he could muster
this morning. He would come back to the book tonight.

�� Just in
case there might be something ahead, Harry flipped idly through the next few
pages. And then his breath sped up as he encountered a line of neatly inked
letters.

�� How to break the Long-Desired bond.

�� Yes,�
Harry whispered, and clenched his hand into a fist so tight that it nearly
broke his fingers. �There�s no way to break the bond, is there, Malfoy? Not in
the texts that you�re familiar with, at least.�

�� He wrote an
owl to the Head Auror explaining that he wouldn�t be in today after all, and
then settled down to read.

*

�� Draco stood
with his nose in the wind, his eyes closed as he filtered various clues out of
it and sought the one scent he wanted. Yes, the scent of his Long-Desired�s blood
was nowhere within a hundred miles. That at least reassured Draco that Harry
hadn�t gone out on another hunt.

�� But
something else was wrong. Something had to
be, because most of the time he had no problem curling up after he had eaten a
meal and letting his mind wander over the possibilities of what would happen
when Harry finally saw sense and surrendered to him. He would fall naturally
into death when the sun rose. As long as he had to stay away from his
Long-Desired, that was the way Draco preferred to spend his nights.

�� This was
the second night away from Harry. Draco hadn�t thought he would grow tired of
his routine that quickly.

�� The
restlessness that pulled at him and made him want to pace up and down like a
dog guarding a pen full of sheep was unnatural. That had to be the explanation.
He felt a temptation to break his promise to Harry and go to the house that he
hadn�t at all felt last night, which had been full of hunger and anticipation
and the surprise of Granger locating him.

�� Now if only
Draco knew what was causing the
restlessness.

�� He bowed
his head and stood silent, doing his best to empty his mind of everything, even
the image of his Long-Desired. If his senses were reporting something
significant to him and it couldn�t rise to the surface of his mind because his
conscious thoughts obscured it, this should free him up to learn what it was.

�� Nothing
happened.

�� Draco
pulled his lips back from his fangs, and considered for long moments whether he
should simply break his promise to Harry and go back to the house. After all,
if the Collector had been a master vampire who could seek revenge for murdered
members of her nest, it was not impossible that someone could seek vengeance
for her. Draco would rather break his
promise than have Harry die.

�� You know that no vampire can get through his
wards, Draco reasoned with himself. And
would you rather lose his trust forever, as breaking your promise would be sure
to do?

�� Draco
snarled and sat down on the doorstep of Malfoy Manor, resting his head in his
hands. The restlessness was ebbing as dawn came nearer. He would ignore it
until morning, when he would have no choice
but to ignore it as stillness claimed him. When he woke again, if it was
still pulling at him, then he would decide what to do.

�� The
tugging, pulling, yanking agitation whispered that he was making a mistake, but
in the absence of stronger evidence, Draco didn�t think he had any choice.

*

�� It was
simple, really. Harry knew he ought to have thought of it himself. The
Long-Desired bond couldn�t be balked by changing his blood to poison; of course
it couldn�t, otherwise the trick that he had used to hurt the Collector when
she had tried to drink from him should have been enough. But it could be balked
by replacing his blood with something
else�s blood, by becoming not quite human.

�� The
Long-Desired bond was meant to tie a human and a vampire, after all.

�� Harry
looked at his preparations with a critical eye. The last thing he wanted to do
was set this up again. It had taken him a day and a half to get this far,
although ten hours of that time had been spent asleep. He didn�t want this
ritual to end messily because he was too tired to read the instructions,
either.

�� He had had
to conjure an iron ring that he had set into the floor of his research room�the
room at the very back of his house with stone walls like Snape�s dungeon, which
Harry used when he wanted to practice new spells that might destroy the rest of
the house. Inside the ring lay a particular pattern of shattered glass, a
winding labyrinth that defeated the eye not prepared to encounter it, and at
the center of the shattered glass was a hawk, bound with its wings spread out
and staked with iron spikes. Harry had chosen a hawk because the spell required
an animal as like him in spirit as possible, and raptors were proud, solitary
hunters.

�� The hawk
flailed its pinned wings as best it could and screamed at him. Harry grimaced.
The one aspect of this spell he hated was that he had to cause suffering to an
innocent animal that had done nothing to hurt him.

�� But
compared to living the rest of his life in slavery, the sacrifice was nothing.

�� He lifted
his head, eyes narrowed as he watched the lessening of the red light coming in
through his western window. He had to begin at the exact moment of sunset, and
had a Tempus Charm set to tell him
when that was.

�� His
excitement boiled through his blood and then back into his head, speeding his
thoughts up and making him wish the ritual was already done. Harry held his
breath and avoided looking at the screeching hawk. Keep your eye on the charm, he chanted to himself. That will tell you when it�s safe to move,
and not before.

�� The light
turned the color of the hawk�s blood, and the charm rang.

�� Harry
nodded and picked up the knife that he�d Transfigured carefully from an
ordinary kitchen knife according to the ritual�s specifications. It was made of
obsidian and diamond now, two materials opposite in color but allied in
sharpness, and he began to chant the incantation that would replace his blood
with the hawk�s as he stepped across the iron ring�iron to answer the iron in
the blood.

�� A sharp
tingle passed through him as he crossed the ring, and he nearly paused. But the
book had said that pausing at any point during the ritual could be fatal, and
so in the end he kept up the chant as he threaded his way through the maze of
splintered glass towards the hawk at the center.

�� The first
tendrils of Dark magic appeared next to him, looking like dark grey serpents
that were keeping pace with him as he moved. Harry felt the first piece of
glass sink into his heel, and the first drops of blood touch the floor. He
nodded. That was the way it should be. Some blood had to be shed before he
reached the hawk, or at least wounds had to be opened, and the book approved of
the glass maze for that purpose.

�� The Dark
magic serpents were entwining his arms and his Transfigured knife by now. Harry
could still hear the hawk screaming, but it sounded as if the hawk�s voice was crashing
against glass walls in his own head. Another wound opened on his ankle, and
another higher up his leg.

�� He wondered
for a moment what would happen if he opened a fatal wound while in pursuit of a
Dark magic ritual. But then he put aside that concern and continued chanting.
It seemed like something Hermione would worry about, and while Harry still
loved Hermione, he didn�t live in her world any more. He had to concentrate on
his freedom, not on what that freedom might cost.

�� He turned
through another winding of the labyrinth. There were only three more of them
before he reached the hawk and transferred its blood into his veins. The hawk
stared up at him with dull golden eyes. It seemed to have given up; its wings
twitched only a little now, and Harry thought that was because of instinct or
nerve impulses, not because it actually thought it could escape.

�� I know the feeling, Harry thought back
at it fervently as he took the next tight corner and gashed a toe open. At least one of us will have our liberty
after this.

�� His voice
was growing hoarse with the chant, and with the power of the magic that crept
up his throat and wrestled him for control. But he was a practiced, trained
wizard, and behind this ritual, he had all the strength of the determination
that had pushed him to hunt vampires since Ginny�s death. The book had said
that the stronger of will he was, the better the ritual would come off.

�� One more
turn. The Dark magic by now hung off his hands and forehead like strands of
withered ivy. Harry grimaced as he felt the slimy film it seemed to leave on
his skin, then shrugged. No doubt he could bathe after this.

�� And it
wasn�t anything compared to the filth that would cling to him if he accepted
Malfoy�s touch.

�� The hawk
was just in front of him now, its feathers sweeping the floor, its head sagging
to the side. It snapped its beak once in warning, and the blood from the wounds
in its wings quietly burst into flames. Harry was briefly unnerved to see that
the flames were dark red with spots of black and hard-edged, as if the hawk was
now pinned by bloodstones instead of spikes.

�� But he
could have laughed at himself when he realized what he was thinking. He had
come this far and that kind of detail unnerved him?

�� He dropped
to his knees beside the hawk, repeating the Latin over and over. His voice was
speeding up now, but the words were still clear and sharply pronounced, and
Harry�s head had never felt so unclouded in his life. He knew he was doing what
he needed to regain his freedom. He raised the knife and aimed it carefully so
that it would be above the hawk�s heart. He had marked that spot with a
brilliant blue dye on the feathers earlier. The book had been ominously vague
about what would happen to him should he stab the hawk in the wrong spot.

�� The bird
gaped bitter defiance up at him.

�� Harry
resisted the temptation to shut his eyes as he drove the knife home. He should
be stronger than this.

*

�� This time,
the restlessness was leaping and screaming around him as if it was actually a
large and ill-behaved dog on a threadbare leash, and Draco couldn�t even hunt.
He stepped out of Malfoy Manor and waited patiently for the feeling to lead him
the right direction. If there was something the bond wanted him to do this
badly, he would just have to do it.

�� Of course,
the restlessness, once it had his attention, pulled him straight in the
direction of Harry�s house. Draco growled under his breath as he jumped along.
He was hungry, and he didn�t want to break his promise to Harry, and he hated
the thought that Harry could have discovered something that would actually put
the bond in danger.

�� You can always stay out of sight and far
enough away from the wards that Harry won�t know you�re there, he reassured
himself.

�� Six miles
away from the house, which meant a mile beyond the wards, he could feel the
curling and coiling of the Dark magic like a nest of pythons. Draco briefly
froze when he felt that, then began to leap forwards in bounds of seven hundred
feet or more at a time. He needed to
reach Harry�s side. If a vampire had broken through the wards after all�

�� But when he
came, the wards were intact, and the Dark magic had a distinct taste to it that
had haunted Draco�s mouth once before when they were in the Collector�s tower.
This was Dark magic performed by Harry himself.

�� Draco knew
he had to stop it. But there was one small problem: the anti-vampire wards were
still intact, and the bond had provided him no way past them. He paced outside
them, growling, and threw himself against the barriers a few times, wondering
if his presence would be enough to prevent Harry from going through with the
ritual.

�� I don�t
know what you want me to do!� he snapped aloud, as the agitation grew worse and
his feet slid forwards in spite of himself. �There�s no way in.�

�� A yellow
light abruptly spread out from him, making him feel as if he stood in the
center of the sunbeams he would never see again. Draco watched in apprehension as
the light touched the edge of the wards.

�� The wards
simply melted. Draco could see a
narrow tunnel left for him to walk, while on either side of it the dangerous
magic meant to repel him glittered.

�� Draco shook
his head in stupefaction as he took the tunnel. He knew that the bond would go
to great lengths to ensure that it survived, but he hadn�t read about anything
like this in his books.

�� Probably because no vampire in the history
of the world has ever had a Long-Desired as stubborn as I�ve had, he
thought, and sprang to the roof of Harry�s house. He knew to head for the back
immediately, because that was where all the Dark magic was coming from.

�� He located
a small window a few feet from the roof and immediately scrambled soundlessly
down the wall so that he could stare through it.

�� Harry was
kneeling above a bird of some sort pinned on the floor, his body edged with the
dark red fire that was characteristic of blood magic, a knife in his hands.

�� Draco
didn�t know exactly what he was doing, but that didn�t matter, because he knew
what he was going to do about it.

�� He reared
back and then hurled his body at the stone wall, bursting through it and flying
through the air to slam into Harry�s shoulders.

*

�� JtheChosen1:
This is undercut by the fact that Harry�s friends would be horrified by what he�s
doing. Draco certainly is.

�� polka dot: Draco
could do something about the scent if Harry wanted him to. Of course, Harry has
other objections that Draco probably can�t do anything about.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Yes. Luckily, this is a tipping point of sorts.

�� SP777:
Harry would laugh hollowly at the suggestion that Draco might not abuse anything.

�� It�s
possible there can, in fact, be a compromise, but Harry�s clinging to absolutes
doesn�t help.

�� Snivelly:
Thank you! In last chapter, Harry spoke the technical truth (and didn�t say
very much altogether. His actions were the real focal point).

�� Well, now
you know what was in the trunk�
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The Long-Desired