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
- 8
- 9
Thank you again for all the reviews!

            Draco had never felt so connected.

            It was an odd word to describe what he felt, but the right one, he was certain. The connection with Harry throbbed and trembled. He knew—without having to glance at Harry, or sniff, or trust any of his other senses—when something changed in his Long-Desired’s body. His breathing speeding up, his blood pumping faster as adrenaline entered the bloodstream, the way he shifted or a new direction his eyes took, all traveled to Draco like a series of echoes, and he could easily tell the difference between those echoes.

            Harry himself seemed entirely unaware of the connection. At least, he glanced at Draco no more than normal and asked no questions about a strangeness in what he was feeling.

            But then, would he even if he felt it? Draco wondered, as he strengthened his fist with magic and punched through one of the glass walls. Tinkling shards cascaded away from the tower and crashed to the ground far below. The smell of high, cold stone blew into Draco’s nose, and he sneezed. He much preferred the scent of Harry’s blood, and not only because it came from his Long-Desired. He might be ashamed to think he was exposing such weakness in front of me.

            Draco knew he would need to change that. He should be able to play any role in Harry’s life, from protector to confidant to lover, and hear all his secrets.

            “What are you waiting for, Malfoy?” Harry’s words were meant to be harsh, to scrape pieces off his being, but Draco didn’t mind them. He could feel that Harry wanted to use the magic; he knew the whip-like fluctuations in the power itself meant that Harry was coming up with scheme after scheme and then discarding it. At least he could control himself well enough to stay with their original plan.

            “For you to climb onto my back,” Draco said evenly, facing Harry for the first time since they had come up with the plan. Harry stiffened at once, and clenched his jaw in particular, as if he imagined that making the veins on his neck stand out would make him less attractive. Draco stifled an indulgent chuckle. Let Harry have his fantasies, so long as they do no harm in the short term.

            “I was going to use the magic to fly down,” Harry began.

            “A new plan,” Draco replied, without raising his voice or spitting in anger or doing any of the other things that Harry probably expected him to do. “There’s no reason to waste the magic by doing that. Cling to my neck. It got us out of the kraits’ tower. It should do the same here.”

            “I told you that I don’t think the Collector can take much more blood from Lucy,” Harry began. “Lucy already fainted from blood loss once. We forced her to expend so much power—”

            “And that means almost nothing if we weaken ourselves as well.” Draco flattened his hand and extended it to Harry across the tower. “We wasted our magic once already, given your instinctive reactions against her hold. I don’t want it to happen again.”

            Harry said, “I couldn’t let her hold me—”

            “I know,” Draco soothed him. “But now that we know how quickly the magic is spent, and now that we have more of it—” he waved his hand, and the magic pulsed up and down like a wave between them, a wave carrying a thousand possible changes in its crest—“how can we do anything unnecessary?”

            Harry’s nostrils flared once. Then he nodded, lowering his eyes, and walked towards Draco. Draco narrowed his own eyes thoughtfully. He didn’t trust Harry’s sudden surrender, especially since the atmosphere between them still swam with undercurrents.

            He’s lived by the logic of survival for so long. Draco turned his back, and thrilled as Harry’s arms wound about his neck. The closer the contact with his Long-Desired, the better. He could see now why so many vampires became lovers with those whose blood and magic suited them. To lie skin-to-skin and chest-to-chest would lead naturally to contact between parts of the body that felt even better. I don’t understand why he resists it now.

            But remember that he also lived by a different kind of logic, that of vengeance—though he would probably deny it. That twisted him. It said that he couldn’t surrender to a vampire no matter what happened, even if survival was at stake.

            If a piece of that remains in him, that means he has not surrendered to me. I must be prepared for an assault from the side or behind after we have defeated the Collector.

            If we can.

            Draco began to climb down the glass tower, turning his senses outwards, since he no longer needed them to keep track of Harry, and doing his best to locate the stone tower where the Collector had kept them. He and Harry still did not know if this was wizardspace or not. Draco had been reluctant to waste the magic that would let them determine that.

            “There,” Harry said suddenly. Draco halted and turned his head to the left, not needing Harry’s pointing finger to guide him; a strand of the invisible web that surrounded them had stretched out in the proper direction the moment his hand moved.

            To the left, or at least to their left as they were positioned on the tower at the moment, glowed a faint silver line of light, rather like the one that might be visible beneath a tent flap. Draco sniffed, but smelled no particularly strong scent of magic from it.

            “You are certain?” he asked.

            “Certain.” Harry’s voice had shaded into the absent tone that meant he had forgotten he was talking with a vampire. “One of the Auror training classes I took was on learning to recognize the effects of magic from the intensity of the light they caused. Yes, that light isn’t large, but it’s intense enough…” His voice trailed off. He had remembered that Draco wasn’t his true partner in hunting again.

            “Yes, you’re right,” Draco said, and felt the way Harry’s surprised attention reoriented itself on him. He hid a smile without difficulty, since his face was turned away from Harry’s. Praise was something Harry had earned little of in the last years, perhaps because he insisted on not hearing it. It was an easy way to make him acknowledge Draco and consider what he said instead of immediately dismissing it.

            He lifted a hand and summoned the magic that rippled between them with it, so that a steady stream flowed away from them towards the light. Draco waited until he was sure no eddy would destroy the stream, then murmured, “What is it? A gate, like the one we broke through from the kraits’ tower? Or—”

            “No,” Harry said, with a sneer in the back of his voice that made Draco roll his eyes. Excuse me for not having Auror training. “This isn’t wizardspace. It’s a different place cloaked with an illusion. We have to attack the line of light to make the illusion fall.”

            Draco nodded and relaxed his body, then envisioned one of his own eyes with a beam of sunlight shining from it. The light would cut through the illusion and see the world as it really was. He only needed to transform the stream into a beam—

            And it happened. Suddenly the line of light vanished, the expanse of empty stars and empty land peeled away like a curtain, and they could see the stone tower less than a mile away, within reach of a few good leaps powered only by Draco’s muscles.

            “You’re wise.” Draco scrambled down the last few feet of the glass tower, and kept his voice low. Perhaps the Collector and Lucy weren’t listening at the moment, but he didn’t want to take the chance.

            “Stop it.” Harry hissed the words directly into his ear, and Draco had to keep himself from drifting into a fantasy about other occasions when he might speak of different things in much the same tone.

            “Stop what?” Draco reached the ground, stood adjusting his body and lowering the magic down to a reasonable level for a moment, and then leaped. Harry gasped and hung on tighter. Draco was just as glad. He didn’t see the point of arguing with him about their method of travel to the Collector’s tower.

            “Speaking sweet words to me.” Harry sounded as savage as he might if Draco had told him it was wrong to kill his Weasley. “It won’t get you what you want.”

            “I begin to think that nothing will,” Draco said. A lie might be diplomatic at this point. He leaped a second time, and then they stood among the litter of stones at the base of the tower. He waited patiently for Harry to climb to the ground, which Harry did a moment later. A change in his blood said that he was flushing for clinging to Draco a minute longer than was necessary. Draco hid his smile again and sniffed. If the Collector was using that smell that had hypnotized him before, he wanted to know about it.

            He determined the smell had vanished at the same time as Harry said, “I only yielded to you because there was no choice, Malfoy.”

            Draco turned a mildly impatient glance on him. “I know that,” he said. “And I must say, I feel that you lay more stress on the fact than the matter is worth. Can I ask you to consider something else for a moment? Such as our plan to kill the Collector? I’m now virtually certain she has no nest with her.”

            Harry swallowed, and his flush grew worse. But he moved forwards and concentrated on the tower, and Draco knew he would be following the plan. He leaned back on air, the muscles in his back stiffening to support him. This part of the plan didn’t require him to contribute any magic, so he simply watched his Long-Desired with the pride of possession. Everything about him was interesting, from the way his hair fell over his forehead to how his pulse beat in his throat.

            Mine. The word whispered through him on levels hardly accessible to Draco himself. This was as fundamental as blood.

*

            Harry let his mind wander for a moment more. He could envision Malfoy dying and the slavery he had placed Harry under evaporating, as he would once Harry had killed the Collector and Lucy and turned on him—

            But that is not important now.

            He fixed his eyes on the tower and let his breathing slow and his sense of himself drift. He could come unhinged from his body by making the magic the most important part of that body. He envisioned the magic turning into an invisible powder, floating up and then falling on the Collector and Lucy. Where they were in the tower, or what they were doing at the moment, didn’t matter; the powder would still reach them.

            And the powder carried fear.

            Paranoia. Terror. The need for intense alertness, because there might always be an enemy around the corner, or hiding in the shadows. The knowledge that one could never be alert enough, and the torment that that would unleash in the brain of any predator sufficiently clever to think of some strategies for survival.

            Harry took the emotions that he knew so well, that he had been forced to know because he had taken up hunting vampires, and gave them to the Collector and Lucy.

            The magic filled him and flowed out of him, spectacularly obedient, doing exactly what he wanted. Harry panted softly and had to close his eyes, because the vision beckoning him in the darkness of his own mind was more compelling than the sight of the tower before him.

            He could see why the sharing of magic between vampire and wizard was so addictive. Perfection, the sudden explosion of imagination into reality without the tedious playing about with wood and the constraints of Latin spells, and all it took to fuel it was a little blood.

            But remember what it costs.

            A burning white shape appeared in his mind. It was shaped like an infinity symbol—no, like many infinity symbols piled on top of each other. It shone with such intensity, such fervor, that it took Harry less time than it should have to understand what he was seeing: the Long-Desired bond between the Collector and Lucy.

            Harry bared his teeth. He had not known something like this was possible, and so he and Malfoy had not planned for the contingency. But now that he could see the bond, he intended to destroy it if at all possible.

            The only thing that need set the limits on his destruction was his imagination.

            And the amount of blood Malfoy has drawn from you.

            But for the moment, Harry chose to ignore that limitation. He still had plenty of magic flowing and eddying through him, waiting impatiently to be put to use. Since his paranoia was drawn so strongly from his own mind, and since the Collector and Lucy had their own version of it in their predatory natures, he had not had to spend a lot of effort creating the dust.

            I want the Collector to fear Lucy. Or fear for her. After what he had seen from Malfoy, Harry didn’t really know if hacking at the roots of the trust between the Collector and Lucy would work. To want to protect her from the creeping terror that is us, or whatever other enemies she thinks of.

            The magic surged around him, and hurled itself out of him in a long stream like blood flowing from a wound. Harry gasped and opened his eyes as the white image behind his eyes flared with searing intensity.

            “What did you do?” Malfoy was close behind him, snarling. Harry smiled in spite of himself. Thank you for the reminder about your true nature, Malfoy. Of course you would be jealous of the magic when you want to use it yourself.

            “Weakened the Long-Desired bond between Lucy and the Collector,” Harry said, and watched the tower, leaning on a stone. “We ought to be seeing some consequences of that about—”

            A pained shriek broke from the highest windows.

            “Now,” Harry said. “In the Collector’s anxiety to protect Lucy from their enemies, I made her do something stupid.” He flashed a superior smile at Draco and began to walk towards the tower, his wand drawn. See how well I can kill?

            The question Draco had asked him earlier, if he defined himself by his rate of predation, the way vampires did, echoed in his mind. Harry stopped smiling, but he refused to stop moving, and he refused to consider the question further.

            He asked that to gain control of my mind, to weaken my confidence in myself, to make me trust him. I know he did.

*

            Draco could smell the distress in the air even before they got through the tower’s door.

            The air stank of fear like cold sweat, though most of the time Draco’s kind did not sweat, unless they wanted to deliberately imitate humans. Draco could hear a faint moaning and murmuring sound, as if someone were protesting against being stuffed into a tight blanket.

            He looked sideways at Harry, admiring his control of the magic whilst at the same time wondering how he had managed to live among these emotions for so long and not go insane. Or perhaps he is mad in the situation of hunting vampires and sane outside it. I shall have to ensure that he is sane more of the time than he has so far managed to achieve.

            They walked to the first floor of the tower unopposed. Draco sniffed at each step for some sign of the wards and warning spells the Collector must surely have established, but they had vanished. Perhaps she had drawn all the magic to herself in a desperate attempt to protect her Long-Desired. It was what Draco would have done under the influence of magical fear, if he wished to protect Harry.

            And that may yet be necessary, he thought, dropping to walk behind Harry’s shoulder and shaping some of the magic into a small shield that he could throw at once in front of any charging threat.

            Harry let out a deep, satisfied breath as they stepped into one of the rooms on the first floor. The Collector stood there with her arms around Lucy, who was pale and struggling for breath. She was murmuring over and over, words that Draco could hear and understand, although he doubted that was the case with Harry.

            “I have to save you. I have to keep you from them. What if they took you from me?” The Collector’s single hand—she had not managed to regrow a second one from where Harry had taken it off—caressed Lucy’s hair and her throat. “I couldn’t bear it. I love you. I must keep you safe.”

            Draco sniffed. He could appreciate some of the advantages of having a paranoid partner, looking at the two of them. Harry would reject such overwhelming “care” and insist on looking for an outside threat if Draco tried that on him.

            Harry closed his eyes, and the balance of the magic in the air shifted. The Collector whirled towards them and snarled when she saw them. Her fangs were extended so much that the translucent tops of them were clearly visible, and the skin on her jaw seemed to have pulled away from her face.

            “They are here!” she shrieked, and drove her arms down. Lucy gave a single, despairing cry, and then stopped struggling.

            Harry took a single step forwards, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Draco understood what he was doing as if Harry had whispered in his ear. He was turning the strength of the Long-Desired bond against itself, making the Collector so afraid for Lucy that she would not even notice she was killing her.

            “They must not hurt you.” The Collector spoke the words calmly, but they were not calm when combined with her mad and staring eyes. She ducked her head, covering Lucy completely from sight with her neck and her hair, her snarl primal enough to make Draco show his fangs and step forwards to stand at Harry’s side.

            “We can hurt her,” Draco said, and put a sneer into his voice, judging that it would be the perfect thing to push the Collector over the edge.

            “No.”

            Her voice was a growl that reverberated through the room, and made the walls quiver, but it wasn’t loud enough to muffle the snap of breaking bones.

            The Collector froze. Draco had seen Caspar sit still when he wanted to avoid alarming their prey, but compared to this, that was nothing. The Collector stared at them, and Draco knew she would have moved against them if they had been fools enough to attack her in that moment, but her attention was fixed on the suddenly still bundle in her arms.

            Then she turned and opened her arms. Lucy tumbled to the floor, her eyes wide and her neck limp. It had broken when the Collector embraced her too tightly.

            The Collector tilted her head back and gave voice to a howl of grief that made Harry clap his hands over his ears in instinctive, futile protection. Draco moved in the meanwhile. The shriek did not hurt him, and he knew that, the moment her initial grieving was over, the Collector would attack them. They might not be able to stand against her charge. Draco could envision what he would have done if Harry had died because of him, and it involved the wasteful splashing of much blood.

            Draco used most of what remained of the magic to coil around the Collector, tying her to the floor with invisible bonds. Unlike the nets that she had used to contain them, however, these bonds drew on her own strength, forcing her to make them stronger every time she moved. Draco vaguely remembered hearing Flitwick describe the energy behind some charms that functioned that way. It made a clever adaptation here.

            By the time the Collector was looking at them again, she lay on the floor of the tower room, and Harry stood over her, gazing down with an expression of deep satisfaction on his face.

            “You will die,” he said. He spoke as if it was a prophecy, his voice cold and strong and echoing from the stones much as the Collector’s had. “Your victims will be avenged, and future victims safe from your crimes.”

            The Collector’s fangs retracted and her eyes became less mad as she stared at him. Draco bristled protectively and moved up beside Harry. He had expected her insanity to last longer. That it had not meant she might do something to hurt his Long-Desired.

            Then the Collector smiled, and Draco was certain of it.

            “You still do not realize the implications of the Long-Desired bond,” the Collector whispered. “I can sense them, you know. I congratulate you on your fine manipulation of mine. But though you have managed to exploit the connection between you in order to achieve temporary goals, you do not know what will happen when it becomes permanent. Shall I enlighten you?”

            “I only require that you die,” Harry said calmly, and then flames sprang into being all over the Collector’s body. Draco jumped, wondering why he hadn’t felt Harry change the magic to do that.

            Then he saw the wand in Harry’s hand, and felt like a fool. The intense awareness that had come from the sharing of blood and magic was fading. He doubted they would be able to maintain it for more than a few seconds until their bond was permanent.

            “But I require more than that.” The Collector’s voice went on speaking calmly from the middle of the fire. She had not even screamed. “I want you to know about the Long-Desired bond from someone who has lived through it.

            “The vampire is in charge. That is a given. We are more powerful than mortals, longer-lived than they are, closer to the form the shared magic takes. We can command our muscles to support us in impossible leaps and positions, and it happens. You, meanwhile, must channel your magic through spells. Our way is more intuitive. We learn how to control the shared power more quickly and easily, and then we take over the minds of our Long-Desired.”

            Only a long huff from Harry showed that he was listening. Draco edged closer to him, giving him a concerned look. The Collector went on talking, even as Harry conjured a blade that floated up to her head.

            “And instincts form in both members of the bond that draw them closer to each other. Once again, we cope better with those instincts. They are near to the greed and the hunger that make up the heart of us. But they are alien to humans. They operate at a subconscious level, to have a better chance of succeeding at all.

            “Lucy submitted to me. She had no choice, and not only because she was so young when I caught her. Her instincts urged that.”

            “No,” Harry whispered.

            “But yes.” The Collector’s voice was a bit muffled, because the blade Harry had conjured was sawing her head off. “You may fight. You may think you have conquered your instincts. But you are being drawn to your vampire at this moment, and granting him knowledge of you that will let him win in the end. Tell me. You kill every vampire that you come across. Why have you let him live?”

            Harry flashed Draco a furious, desperate glance. Draco tensed and showed his teeth.

            “You need his help in the hunt?” The Collector laughed, her voice gentle and musical. “But why is that? You always managed to succeed on your own before. You carried weapons in your body that surprised even me. You could not know before you faced me and Lucy that we would prove to be a Long-Desired pair, too hard for you to survive on your own. Why do you need him now?

            “You do not. But your instincts urge you to accept his presence. And soon they will urge you to do far more than that.”

            “No!” Harry shrieked, moving so close to the Collector that Draco reached out to touch him, certain the flames would consume him after a moment. Harry whirled away from his touch and stared at Draco, his mouth open with the force of his fury, his hands ripping at themselves. “Don’t touch me! I know that you only want to control me!”

            “Harry.” Draco stepped towards him, making his voice as soft as possible. “She’s wrong. Not all Long-Desired bonds need be like that. She controlled Lucy, but I don’t want to devour your mind like she did hers. I want to have your companionship—”

            “And you don’t want me to hunt.” Harry’s eyes were the maddened ones now, and he shook, perfectly poised between taking a step closer to Draco and backing away. “You said that. You think my life since Ginny died has been wasted.”

            “The first thing I did,” whispered the Collector from her grave of fire, “was prevent Lucy from doing what she had always done.”

            “She’s wrong,” Draco repeated, feeling unaccountably helpless. All the magic coiling in him wouldn’t help him now, any more than seizing Harry and draining him would. He needed permission, willing compliance.

            “What do you know about it?” Harry spat, backing away this time. “The Collector is the one who’s actually lived with the bond—”

            “And she’s the enemy,” Draco snapped, nearly cutting his lips; his fangs had folded down from the roof of his mouth in his irritation. “Why would you believe anything she said, over what I say?”

            “I changed Lucy,” the Collector whispered. Her voice was thick with blood, blood flowing, and not simply the desire for it. Her head must be almost off, Draco thought, and hoped that it might be so. “I stopped her aging, so that she could always live with me—until you made me kill her. I overwhelmed her with possessive love that severed every human connection. I made her little more than a walking producer of magic and blood, and warmth and sex in my bed. That was all I needed her to be. That is all any vampire in the Long-Desired bond wants from her Long-Desired.”

            “Untrue,” Draco said, glad that she had finally said something he knew for certain was a lie. “Thalia, who sired me, told me that a Long-Desired is important as an equal, a companion—”

            The Collector laughed. “Was Lucy my equal?” Then her voice sank. “Lucy. Ah, my love.”

            The flames closed in with a snap, and Draco heard the dull thump that was her head rolling off her body. His nose twitched automatically at the smell of blood, but it was no longer half as tempting, now that he had tasted what Harry had freely given him.

            The fire damped at a wave of Harry’s hand, and Draco gazed on the thick mat of ashes left behind with a satisfaction he hadn’t felt even after they defeated Caspar.

            “We must—” he started to say. His next words would have been “scatter them.”

            But Harry turned towards him and flung all the rest of the gathered magic into a concentrated hammer-blow. Draco knew, even as he dodged up the wall and left the magic to smash several stones in, that it had been meant to break enough bones to leave him helpless. Then Harry would have come after him and used his wand to kill Draco.

            He hung from the ceiling and stared into the eyes of the mortal who was his, and saw that the madness had not faded.

            “Why?” he whispered.

*

            I won’t be a slave. The words sang in his head over and over again, mingling with the Collector’s words about Lucy. I changed her. She submitted to me.

            “I won’t be your slave,” he told Malfoy. It was as much as he could say without screaming. And once he began to scream, he wouldn’t stop. He lifted his wand. If he couldn’t use the magic gathered between them to kill Malfoy, he would just have to do it some other way.

            “I don’t intend to make you one,” Malfoy said. “I want you. I’ll hold you safe. I’ll teach you how to live again. I thought you understood how much of your time and energy and effort you’d wasted since Ginny died—”

            Harry laughed, the laughter tearing up his throat, making him feel as if he’d vomit his lungs any moment. “Yes, oh yes, of course,” he said. “You’ll alter me into the image you want to make of me. You’ll change me.” He used a nonverbal Blasting Curse, and Malfoy tumbled from the wall like a spider. Unfortunately, like most spiders did, he scuttled into a different corner and faced Harry with his fangs showing. Harry moved forwards a step, swaying, not understanding why he suddenly felt so weak. “I’ll kill you first.”

            Malfoy glided towards him. “Harry,” he whispered. “You’ve lost a lot of blood—”

            “And whose fault is that?” Harry let his eyelids droop over his eyes and made his wobble look worse than it really was. When Malfoy came close enough, then Harry could at least cave his chest in.

            Malfoy went on talking calmly, sensibly. It was the way Hermione or Ron would talk, Harry thought, the way anyone would talk who didn’t want him to hunt vampires, to do his life’s work. “I’ll take care of you. Come with me. You can rest. I’ll steal food for you, and when the night comes again—”

            He was close enough. Harry whirled and flung all the power he could command behind the Blasting Curse this time.

            The spell made Malfoy stumble backwards, but didn’t break a single bone, didn’t even take him from his feet. Harry stared, and then reached out a hand to catch himself against the wall. It turned out to be the floor, as he fell.

            Malfoy was there in instants, arms winding securely around Harry’s body. “You can’t hurt me,” he whispered. “No Long-Desired can hurt their vampire for long, at least as long as they’ve been bitten once.”

            All Harry’s rage and revulsion coalesced into a shining ball, and he managed to rip himself free of Malfoy’s grip somehow, which shouldn’t have been possible. He found himself by the tower entrance, and Malfoy wringing his arms as if Harry had hurt them when he pulled free.

            Harry cast a spell that scattered the Collector’s ashes. It wasn’t as good as scattering them over water, but as long as they were put far enough apart not to come back together, that was good enough. Malfoy watched him through the drifting black flakes, his eyes half-lidded.

            “Don’t touch me,” Harry whispered when he was done with the spell. “We go our separate ways from this night. Come after me again and I will kill you.” He had ideas about how to do that already, or at least about how to do something that would kill Malfoy’s interest in him.

            “I can’t do that,” Malfoy said gently, and took a step forwards. “It’s abundantly clear that you need to be protected from yourself by now, Harry.”

            Harry screamed in rage and spun. The protections on the tower had dissipated with the Collector’s death, perhaps even with Lucy’s. He Apparated home, and landed with a stagger near the white boulder where their adventure had begun earlier that night.

            Almost sunrise, he saw when he lifted his head. Malfoy would have to seek out his hidden lair soon.

            Stay away from me. Merlin, stay away from me. What do I have that you want?

            But he knew the answer to that question all too well.

            If he won’t stay away from me, I must make it happen.

*

            Draco licked his lips, eyes fastened on the spot where Harry had stood before he disappeared. The expression on his face had told Draco this would be a long and hard fight, not the simple offer of protection and love, followed by acceptance, that he had hoped for.

            But he could deal with that.

            It is inevitable. He is my Long-Desired.

            Draco looked up as his brain twitched then. The dawn was coming. He smiled slightly and leaped out of the tower towards the base. From there, he would retreat to Malfoy Manor.

            He did halt briefly, and look to the east and north, where Harry’s home lay.

            You will live again, and not only to fill my mouth with blood. I will make it so.

            End.

*



            rafiq: As the Collector mentions here, the vampire can use the shared magic to lengthen the Long-Desired’s life. But they’re not actually immortal.

            Purple-er: Thanks!

            hieisdragoness18: Thanks for reviewing.

            Ivy: I like your metaphor! Unfortunately, Harry doesn’t. By trying to poison his mind, the Collector made him all the more determined to kill Draco and free himself from the slavery that he thinks the bond implies. It’s really his own actions, which he can only attribute to these instincts he didn’t know about, that bother him, rather than Draco’s.

SP777: Well, the point of “Draco the Cowardly Lion” was to give an abbreviated version of an AU. Doing it at length wouldn’t make it a crackfic.

For Draco, those words establish a mood. ;)

            Harry did mean to kill both Draco and the Collector, if he could.

            And Draco meant those words as vows, though they aren’t formal ones.
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Viper