Welcome to the sequel to Irredeemable. Please note that this story is going to be more graphic and mature than its predecessor, though I have no intention of flouting FFN's guidelines.

Irrevocable

Chapter One

Harry ran. He didn't pay attention to the tree roots that tried to trip him, to the men in elaborate masks and the women in ball gowns that snatched at his arms, laughing as they trailed sinful hands down his arms and thighs. There was only the hurried gasps of his breath, the rhythmic pumping of his legs and the crunch of glass and leaves as he fled.

And the harsh pants of the blindingly white dogs that chased him, red mouths foaming, red ears perked, red eyes glinting in the dim light that filtered through the canopy of stained glass and oak trees.

"Harry," the wind sighed, and he forced himself to run faster, the air burning his lungs.

The brimstone breath was suddenly scorching the back of his neck, and he was falling, the hound on top of him, barking as he pinned him to the ground. Harry threw his body from side to side, thrashing, trying desperately to dislodge the massive weight. He scrambled backwards, back thumping painfully into the rough bark of a wide tree trunk. And suddenly, he was too tired to move, and the hound knew it.

His tongue lolled out of his mouth, sharp, wicked teeth glinting as he approached, eyes whirling with excitement. He was about to complete his mission, fulfill his quest. Harry tried to glance away, but the beast's excitement was only too evident. Some of the dogs caustic spittle burned a hole through his Hogwarts robes, the Gryffindor tie disintegrating in a sizzling burst of blood red saliva. That mouth, those teeth, which really qualified as fangs anyway, were so close to his face that they might as well have been touching, and suddenly the dog reared back, poised on his hind legs, ready to strike-

And there was no transition whatsoever, but the tree trunk was replaced by a headboard and the rough roots by smooth sheets. The burning breath of the dog was gone, but the stink of corruption remained, and Harry couldn't make himself open his eyes.

"You never let them bite me," he commented, the words as close to a question as any he could bring himself to phrase. "Your hell hounds, or whatever they are. I've already been bitten by one thing, surely another can't be that bad."

"Oh, but Harry," the man whispered, and it was a tribute to the quality of the mattress that he felt no shifting, had no warning until he was already trapped once more, "I have no need to infect you. I am already a part of you, after all."

"You're dead," Harry countered, and he didn't open his eyes, because maybe then, if he couldn't see the man, his statement would be true. "Dead dead dead."

And the arms of a granite angel wrapped him to the hard, carved lines of a perfectly formed chest, the long feathered wings only half successful in shielding him from the covetous gaze of a giant white serpent.

"Expecting a seraphim to come and help you, little serpent? Where is your holy protector, your Michael and his flaming sword, come to cast the Lord of the Morning down from the heavens?"

Harry didn't understand half of what the snake was hissing, but he understood enough. "Draco will save me. He always does."

And the angel's face shifted, and suddenly it was not the imposing, perfect face of an unreachable being, but the familiar and human one of Draco. The feathered wings where transformed to those of a dragon, and Harry relaxed in the embrace.

"Oh, but your little Draco can't save you from me," the serpent hissed, and Harry found himself wrapped in endless white coils, the scales smooth against his bare skin. He struggled, but the snake only wrapped itself around him all the more tightly, the grip strong enough to bruise, to make breathing a conscious effort. "He can't save you from yourself," the snake continued in a voice that clearly implied that the two were the same thing.

"Wake up, wake up!" he commanded himself with more than a hint of panic in his voice, the warm friction from the rub of scales on skin becoming impossible to ignore.

"Oh, you won't wake until I decide," a pair of red eyes declared, and the tail that was fondling his thighs turned into a pair of long-fingered hands mid-stroke. "After all, this isn't a dream."

"Of course not," he muttered, curling into himself. "It's a bloody nightmare."

"One would have thought," the monster remonstrated, curling his body around Harry's, entwining their limbs so they spiraled together into nothingness, "that after the Department of Mysteries you would have learned the difference between dreams and reality."

"Go 'way," he ordered, too tired to continue, to think about all his failures, all the times he had fallen.

"When will you learn," the red eyes hissed, and Harry realised as the tone grew harsh and cruel that before the words had been loving caresses, "that I am not 'going away.' I will not leave you alone. You are mine, Harry Potter." The voice was everywhere, insistent, a thick miasma that was fighting to enter through his nose, his mouth, his ears, to wrap about his brain and choke him.

"No," he whimpered, waiting to feel Draco's arms around him as he huddled in the middle of the bed, shuddering. But there was no warmth enfolding him, no whispered words of comfort. "Draco?" Wrapping his own arms tightly around his torso in a pale imitation of comfort, he turned to the other side of the bed.

For a moment, Harry's mind froze. Draco was screaming. But it was a frozen scream, like a painting. He was cold, his skin like ice. And that scream... the scream that he knew would be etched on the back of his eyelids forever.

And Draco wasn't breathing, and Harry realised that he wasn't either.