Disclaimer as in chapter one still applies.
This is part two of the original first chapter. I have shortened it down so it is easier to read.
X
Mother and I planned a couple of days holiday in the Seattle City. At my request, she called upon the firm who had relocated us to Forks and made plans to meet up with an acquaintance of the owner, so they could show us around the wizarding part of town. Doctor Cullen, who usually emitted sense and calm, was almost bursting at the seams to come with us.
'They'll probably kill you,' my mother had said, 'let's get the lay of the land first.'
And I had reassured him that I would buy every tome possible that held information on magical vampires.
Our guide, a tall man with curly brown hair, greeted in the entrance hall of the Fairmont Olympic Hotel. 'Good afternoon, Mrs. Malfoy. I am Fraiser Crane.'
'Nice to meet you, Fraiser. Please call me Narcissa. And this,' she said gesturing to me, as I stood at the foot of the staircase without a modicum of respect, 'is my son, Draco.'
I walked forward. Having been so long with out exposure to my own kind, I was instantly awash with the stink of magic. Electric, tingly and warmth. I held out my hand, and Fraiser held it in his own large one. His palms were soft and he smiled at me. I was at ease.
He took hold of both me and my mother, and lead us around the building to where no muggles were in sight. He apparated us, a feeling which I hadn't missed, right into a bustling market square. The magical energy was palpable and I was glad I had brought my wand. Street sellers, with anti-rain charms over their wears, were calling and offering, whilst people darted through and around in the miserable rain.
Fraiser took us into a rather snooty establishment. 'It's about lunch time, I say.' And we were seated. Against my own intentions, my stomach started to lurch with hunger as I read all the wizardry food items on the list. Inglepix Pate, Snookle Fish broth, Sausage and Mash...
'And what is this wizarding district called?' My mother asked, sipping wine.
'This is the Olympia. There's Kentish town; an upmarket boutique district, but a rather lot smaller than Olympia and there's others, dotted around here and there.' Fraiser's tenor voice seemed to visibly excite my mother.
'Well I never!' My mother exclaimed. 'We had two, in England. Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade.'
'Ah, but you were in a war, were you not?' Fraiser said with majesty. 'Only fair that the world became insular for you.'
After lunch, which was incredible and made me feel guilty for liking it, we headed towards the shops. Fraiser gave us a list of places that we should be delighted to see, including the Wizards National Theatre and The Phronistery. I made a beeline for The Olympic Library, and having registered my details with the Welcome Witch, darted here and there for about an hour, picking out the books that would appeal to me and the Good Doctor.
I paid a special fee for express delivery, and left to find my mother and Mr. Crane. I saw them across the street, laughing and smiling at some joke store window, and noticed for the first time what life without my father actually meant for my mother. She looked delightfully happy.
'Hey, Mum.' I said as I approached. 'I've done everything I need.'
'Well, I guess that's us done for the day,' mother said to Fraiser Crane, 'It was lovely to meet you. You must be in touch.'
'It was indeed a pleasure.' He replied, taking my mothers hand and kissing it. 'I work at the Eddie Nervosa hospital, just up there,' he pointed to the north of The Olympia, 'and we need some new pictures, some soothing gentle pictures, for my ward. If you are interested, Draco, of selling some of your work, you should come see me.'
Stunned for words, I shook my head in agreement and shook his hand goodbye.
'He's a mind healer, you know.' My mother said, leading me down the street and away from The Olympia. 'Head of the ward. Nice hands. Invited me for dinner tomorrow...'
I laughed.
X
I sat on my balcony the day we arrived home, feeling rather refreshed to be back in Forks. Mother had a sweet glow on her face which I surmised she received from the enthusiastic approach Healer Crane had to taking her out nightly when in Seattle. I was happy that she was happy. Laid out on the table in front of me were the books I had loaned from the library, and it felt weird to read books where the diagrams moved and the words rearranged themselves in an affliction of perfecting grammar.
I had sent word to the Cullen's that I had succeeded in finding text on vampires but since hadn't heard back from them. I roamed my eyes over Potions for Creatures with a dull satisfaction. I didn't want to be into this world any longer, but the sense of home it gave me was hard to resist.
I came across a few uses for vampire venom; most notable was its use in death hindering potions, but the tome was of little else for me. At a humouring level, I did learn the way to stop vampiric cows rampaging was to inject them with the blood of a newborn calf, but that was the extent of it.
I moved on to The Darkness in Brewing, and there found a few potions that could indeed be used by vampires. I made a mental note to investigate the uses of normal, everyday potions on immortals. I wondered on the effects of Pepper Up potion and my thoughts soon turned to more exotic, more complicated brews such as Felix Felicis. Would they work too?
'These books are rather interesting, aren't they?' Said a deep and sweet voice behind me. I stubbed out the cigarette I had been smoking and turned around with minimal shock. As a wizard, you got used to people showing up silently and in the most unusual ways.
'Oh, yes.'
'I have never seen pictures move like this.' Jasper said, leaning over me and running his fingers over a diagram of a cauldron, with a stirring stick moving counter-clockwise three times and clockwise four. It also showed an explosion, if the brewer didn't adhere to the stirrings correctly, and as such the contents of the cauldron exploded all over the page.
I tried very, very hard not to turn around and look at him in such close proximity. 'We have moving photographs too.' I said in response. Jasper's breath tickled my hair.
'Carlisle is held up at the hospital,' he gave me as reason to his presence, 'so I said I would come over, so you didn't think we were ignoring you.'
I thought back to the first moment I had met Jasper, really met him. Close up he is so dirtily angelic, so alluring and so perfect. My heart started to beat faster and he seemed to stop breathing. 'Don't you find it hard to be around humans?' I asked.
I turned a page in the book and pretended to study it intently, moving away from him by an inch or so. 'Yes.' He said so clearly, I think my heart skipped a beat. I might have, should have been worried that he admitted a weakness which could be potentially lethal to me, but I stayed mightily calm under the circumstances.
I had lived through a war and had to fight to stay alive. I had to fight to be the alpha male in every field possible, and I had to keep my head held high when I didn't win. I had done terrible things to people and had terrible things done to me and I had seen darkness and had seen death and I wasn't afraid of it any more. To have Jaspers perfect mouth lock on to my neck and suck the life from me would be a pleasure, and almost honour.
'We don't respond well to people willing to let us kill them.' He said as if he himself were reading my thoughts. 'We can feel your submission. You are not afraid of us, Draco?'
'No, I am not. Slightly wary, but you are nothing to what I have seen.'
'And what have you seen?' He asked with such a division in his voice between pure interest and wicked humour.
'Death, torture, rape. mountain trolls that would crush you to death, and werewolves that liked to play with their food. I've seen dementors and I was in the party of Death Eaters, that answered to one of the most vile and evil wizards of history.'
'And who was that, Draco?' Jasper asked, clear humour now. It irritated me and then I felt a sense of calm come through the hot read of annoyance.
'Voldemort.'
'Hmm,' Jasper said, his hand an inch away from mine on the table, 'he doesn't sound too scary.'
'Well he was.' I said, the irritation very strong now. 'He tried to make me kill Dumbledore, and if it wasn't for Snape-'
'Dumbledore?' Jasper asked with sparkling amusement. 'Snape? Oh this is priceless.'
'I'm sorry? Priceless?'
'Too good to be true. It's all so... archaic and English.'
'British.' I corrected. 'It was rather horrifying living through it all, whether he sounds scary or not.'
'So have you found anything interesting about us, Draco?' Jasper asked, his breath once again tickling my ear. I shifted so he had to move out of my way and went to stand on the opposite side of the table. I pulled a smoke out of the packet and lit it with the tip of my wand, which Jasper followed with his eyes.
'Not really, I've only just started reading.' I said through an exhale of smoke. Jasper breathed in deeply.
'Can I have one?' He asked, already taking it out of the packet. 'Light it, with your wand?'
I did so. I wondered why on earth a vampire would want to smoke. But he looked glorious, inhaling and exhaling and in the dull light coming through the canopy of trees, the ember of his cigarette glowed against his glittering skin. I had a feeling he was doing it for me and I kept my gaze away from him eyes.
'So you haven't found anything?' He asked teasingly.
'Well I found a potion that can stop a vampire from thirsting for human blood.' I said nonchalantly, as if it was common knowledge. I hadn't expected him to loose all composure and start stuttering like a fool. 'Are you okay?' I asked and all of a sudden I felt the most compelling euphoria light up inside me. Until that moment, I hadn't realised how much of a whelp I had become, post-Voldemort and how affected I was by the decisions I had made and the things I had witnessed.
I knew he had pushed the feelings onto me and I wasn't upset by the invasion of personal space. It felt good, to feel good. I had missed being excited about something to the extent of it taking over me.
He phoned Carlisle who, with much persuasion, managed to calm Jasper down. 'Carlisle said he would love to talk to you about this.' Jasper said when he'd hung up the phone. 'If that's okay with you?' I was sure I should have felt manipulated, but for the life of me I couldn't bring myself to feel that way.
'Sure. When?'
'Tonight, when he gets home from the hospital. I'll ask everyone else to be there.'
'Could you ask them to come here?'
He looked at me deeply. 'Yes, of course.' He buzzed around on his phone for a while and I pretended to be interested in the books on the table. I spent a few minutes gazing over a book of magical photo editing and ignited a burning itch to start manipulating some of the muggle photographs I had taken of the woods.
'Are you okay?' Jasper asked me. I nodded. 'You seem... eager.'
'I am. I want to go and turn some of my non-magical pictures into magical ones.'
'Can I watch?' He asked with vigour.
'Sure, wait here.' I said whilst I got a few prints from my computer desk. 'Here, these are from the forest.' I said, gesturing around us. 'I want to make this bird fly.' I said pointing to a small creature I had caught on a high shutter speed. I looked through the book and found a page dedicated to fragmented motion.
Jasper inched his way towards me whilst I worked. It felt nice to not be embarrassed when I magically made a mistake, because this vampire wouldn't know what I had done to go wrong. The magic running through my veins welcomed me using it. Very soon, as I was getting a handle on making the little bird move around the photograph, Jasper was standing close enough our bodies touched frequently. I was humiliated to realise that he must sense the spikes of fuzzy attraction to his presence.
My attraction seemed to double and my humiliation fade away.
'OK, I think the picture is done. What do you think?' I asked him. He leaned into me slightly and stared for long moments as the bird flew around the frame.
'It's beautiful. I have never seen anything like it.'
He looked incredibly earnest when he said that. He fingered the photo, slowly and lightly. 'You can have it.' I said.
'I couldn't.'
'And why not?' I asked, slightly put off.
'Because if you gave it to me, I would be constantly looking it and thinking of you.' He turned to me and looked at me and this time I had to look in his electric honey eyes.
I lost the ability to breathe for a moment. 'Then take it and stick it to your wall and only think of me when you pass it.'
'I would spend hours staring at it. Alice would think she had lost her best friend.'
'Well then, don't take it if you don't want it.'
Jasper placed a hand over his heart. 'I never said I didn't want it.'
'Take it then!' I said with crystal clear annoyance.
He smiled at me. His teeth, I noticed, were seductively crooked and for a second I was overcome with a lustful longing to have those teeth close to my skin. I shuddered away the feeling; what was I thinking? Wizards did not, with a clear mind, akin themselves to dark creatures. But it was too late now, I was starting to like the Cullen's.
'Do you have anything planned for the rest of the day?' Jasper asked me as he held the photo lightly between his fingers.
'Nothing concrete, why?'
'Well, I had this idea...'
'Go on.' I encouraged. I was prepared for him to suggest more magical or vampiric things to do, which thrilled me and dulled me at the same time.
'I thought you could come to my house and we could watch a couple of films.'
I laughed. 'That sounds normal...' He smiled at me. 'I would love too, let me just clear up these books and-' I was cut off by a blur of Jasper, flitting around my table and disappearing into the bedroom. One second the table was scattered by books and the other it was decidedly clean. I peered into my bedroom, and on my work desk there they sat, all neat and tidy. Jasper held my wand out to me.
'I need to change too... But please, don't ghost around and get me naked. That would just be weird.'
I listened to him laugh as I went to dress.
X
Jasper's idea of films and normal bordered on the criminally amusing. He had picked out movies that played on the clichés of magic and vampires, and I suppose he had to guess what might be cliché or downright wrong for me because he certainly was no authority on the subject, and we talked enthusiastically all the way through the films. His dark and cave like room, so unlike the rest of the Cullen's light and airy abode, was darkened further by the absence of light from his black out blinds.
'Some times at night,' he explained to me, 'to just sit or lay in the dark is like being asleep.'
We sat in front of his television on his sofa which put us in quite close proximity. 'That thing,' he said to me after one of the films ended, 'about vampires going crazy in close contact with humans is true, you know.'
Cheekily, I answered: 'That thing about wizards being driven mad by handsome vampires... it's true, you know.'
In the light from the static television I could see him smile winningly at me. 'Well, I hear the Doctor has come home.' He said, breaking the mood. I allowed him to pull me up and take me downstairs.
'I can hear Draco's stomach rumbling, Jasper.' The good Doctor said as we came down the stairs into the living room. 'Have you not thought about feeding him, Son?'
Jasper pushed a fleck of him humiliation onto me, to show he was sorry, and I guess he did that in lieu of flushed cheeks. 'It's okay, I'll eat when I get home.'
'Well let me drive you,' Carlisle said, removing his doctors coat and hanging it over a chair, 'I am quite eager to see what you have procured from the library.'
'Okay, thank you.' I replied.
'Are you sure you're okay with the rest of the Cullen's coming over too?' Carlisle asked me. I looked over at Jasper and smiled.
'Naturally.'
After the others got wind of Carlisle at my house, it wasn't very long until they all arrived and a light of hope shone through each and every pair of eyes. A sort of interested mood settled in my dining room, where we all sat milling around and settling down. I was quite surprised to see Edward and his girlfriend in attendance; his actual human girlfriend. She eyed me warily, at least I thought she did, until I noticed Jasper standing tightly behind me and her gaze slightly above mine.
'Don worry, Bella,' Jasper said. 'I'm not going to try anything, I swear. Draco would stop me anyway, wouldn't you Draco?' He asked, placing his hands on my shoulders, 'And Draco's found a potion to take away the blood-lust.'
'Reduce it, not remove it.' I said and that's when Bella did stray here eyes from Jasper and let them land on me. She gave me a weak smile and I held my hand out to her. 'Hi, I'm Draco Malfoy.'
'I know,' she replied, shaking my hand, 'Jasper can't stop thinking about you and Edward has to listen to it all the time.' Jasper growled behind me, so deep in his chest was the sound that I felt the briefest flicker of anger towards Edward myself, that ironed out all the discomfort of having such personal information shared so freely.
'Right!' Carlisle clapped his hands together and called attention. 'Draco, would you please tell us en mass what you have managed to find out already?'
I blanched a bit, and looked towards my mother who was standing looking at me with infinite pride. I considered whether she had lost the plot once again. Jasper nudged me in the back and it hurt enough to jolt me into talking. 'Well, I... I have found a potion to reduce the blood-lust in vampires.' I said weakly. I wasn't happy with the seven pairs of golden eyes turned on me, and Bella and my mothers eyes wistfully watching. 'It's called The Golden Fix. It takes about a month to make and it looks really expensive-'
'That's alright. We are willing to pay for your services, young Malfoy and for all of the ingredients.' Carlisle assured me. I gave him a fleeting smile.
'Are there any side effects?' Rosalie asked, her gaze turned to her husband, Emmett.
'The book didn't say so. I haven't had much time to go through and find out more, if anything at all on the potion or others that can work on Vampires but-'
'You don't need to.' Jasper said, his presence so close I could feel him. 'I'll try it out. I'm the one with the worst blood-lust here.'
A few of the vampires snickered. I ignored them and ploughed on. 'That's not an option, Jasper. As much as my curiosity would like to experiment on your magical nature, I don't want to harm any of you.'
'Experiment?' Alice asked with a slight dispritment.
'Draco would like to see whether the potions that are harmless to him, will be effective to us.' Edward said, and I wanted to turn to glare at him and to say get out of my mind. I left it.
'Well, I'd be up for that!' Emmett cried from beside Rosalie, who looked mildly interested.
'Oh no, Rosalie,' Edward chastised, 'You can't seriously be thinking about signing up with Mengele here, just because you are bored!'
'Yes, Edward... I am. If he agrees to it, I agree to it. Can you imagine a potion that would let us sleep? Or have children...?'
I wanted to say that the likelihood of those things happening was incredibly rare, and I knew immediately from having thought it that I had unwillingly given Edward ammunition, because he was smiling joyfully at Rosalie.
'Immortal children are not legal, Rosalie!' Alice hissed from across the room. 'The Volturi would be all over us!'
'Immortal children?' My mother asked. 'She's not talking about immortal children, as in babies turned into vampires. I think what Rosalie means to say is half human, half vampiric children.'
'That's impossible.' Edward said, glancing at me as he said it.
'No it's not,' my mother said fiercely, her warm toffee eyes flashing, 'My great-great grandfather was part vampire!'
'Absurd, Mrs. Malfoy! You would be-' Edward said, faltering in the process when he must have seen in her mind flashes of truth.
'Is it true, mum?' I asked quietly.
'Well you do prefer red meat to anything else, don't you sweetie. And we all know how you and I would disgust your father,' she turned to Carlisle, 'who's vegetarian. Soft stomach.' Giggles seemed to uplift everyone's spirits. Except Bella, who turned to me with a keen look of jealousy. I was sure of it. 'That's why your luminescent in the sunshine sweetie.' My mother said to me.
'You are a remarkable kind,' Carlisle said to me and my mother, who had come to stand closer to me. Jasper floated off somewhere, whilst I milled about talking to people, and for some odd reason I burned with missing his presence. I answered as many questions as possible, until I got decisively bored and excused my self from the evening, having gained at least two volunteers for trials of potions.
For Jaspers sake, I agreed to start on The Gold Fix the very next day, after some financial persuasion from Carlisle, who wrote me out a cheque for more money than I would possibly need, or charge him for. He told me to buy a car with the left overs.
With a weighty kind of excitement pooling around my solar plexus, I entered my bedroom and beelined for the balcony, where a lone figure sat reading by the out door fairy lights I had strung around the banister. Silver and honey tones came back at me in the half light. 'I thought you had gone home,' I said with earnest.
'I came up here to help you research. I thought two minds are better than one, and you did hire a lot of books.'
'Thank you.'
'Are you tired?' He asked, turning to me now to look deep in my eyes.
'Not at all,' I said, moving closer to him and leaning over his shoulder like he had done to me earlier that day. 'Ah, Moste Potente Potions. It's a good book.'
'It's quite easy to understand.'
'Did you think it wouldn't be?' I asked, curious. 'I have to send off an order for ingredients.' I called for my owl, with a loud "Jazmine!" and waited, quite aware of Jasper watching me.
'If you have the most difficulty controlling your blood-lust, how come you haven't tried to kill me yet?' I asked as the owl came swooping in from the east. I let her rest whilst I spelled some paper and a pen from inside my room
'I told you earlier; your reluctance to be afraid at what I could do to you takes away the fun of the kill.'
'That's quite morbid.' I said.
'No, what's morbid is you being so accepting of death.'
'Everyone dies- in one way or another-and I have seen worse ways to die than blood being sucked out by some God-like creature.'
'But you are young... so very, very young. It wouldn't be fair to loose life that early.'
'I have a theory,' I said in return, 'why the magical community has such a vast amount of vampires.'
'Please share.'
'I think that when a vampire sucks our blood, it goes just like any muggles blood does. Except when that vampire hits our magical core- where some say the gold veins run- it cant draw the life from us any more. Our magic can rejuvenate us way before we die, and transitions us into vampires with ease.'
'So you're not afraid of me, because of a theory?'
'In the war, we had the head Werewolf- Fenir Greyback- working for the Death Eaters. He hunted both wizards and muggles. Ninety percent of the muggles he bit- not ravaged- died. The ones that survived were kept as breeding tools or for entertainment values.
'But ninety percent of the wizards he bit survived.'
Jasper looked at me long and deeply and I shuffled away from his gaze. He grabbed my hand to stop me. 'Do you think your magic has something with not feeling how cold I am?'
'Cold?'
'Yes, ask Bella... She is always cold around Edward. Because to you, we feel cold. Well to humans we do.'
'I guess it's the vampire in me, eh?'
Jasper gave a humph of laughter. 'You don't think that I'm able to resist you, because your not able to die, do you?'
'I don't know why you can resist me, Jasper.'
'You smell so good, you know.'
I looked at him questioningly. 'Good? Like aftershave good or...?'
'Your human scent. It's like nothing I have ever smelt before. You smell...'
'Like magic?' I asked.
'Yes... I think so. When Narcissa was showing us those magic tricks, every different one had its own smell. But your smell is unique to you. There's that tinny smell of blood and the sweetness of flesh but underneath it all is the smell of something powerful and emotive.
'It's as if at moment you could explode in a swirl of aromatic feeling.'
'We do explode, sometimes...' I said and didn't like the implications those words had on my libido. 'We have magical outbursts when we are angry or on edge. I've had them when I have been over-exhausted or weak with fear.'
'What happens?' Jasper asked as his eyes clouded over with intensity.
'It's kind of subjective. There's a rule of thumb that says any elemental spells you have used in recent memory will collide with one another and dominate the space you are in. It has been recorded of wizards in remote areas causing landslides and earthquakes.
'You get them a lot as a kid, too.'
'Why?' Jasper asked, leading me around to sit on the table in front of him. I worried as he placed his hands on my hips, but he seemed quite intent on staying there and it seemed to ground me to the table in the most delicious way.
'Your magical core is growing and it tries to root itself into the centre of nature. That cant really happen until you utilise something organic to apply mother natures rules with. Like a wand.'
'Do all wizards use wands?'
'No. The Asians have a tendency to use chopsticks.' I said with delectable joy of seeing him start at the response.
'Chopsticks?'
'Oh yes, Jasper. And the Australians use Kangaroo femurs.'
I kept my face straight at thought of nothing but seriousness. I really wanted to have one over on him. 'What about the French?' He asked, awed and quiet and apparently quite disturbed.
'The ribs of a whore...' He looked at me trying to decipher if really, I was teasing him. He looked away.
'I'm not sure I want to know... but, what about the Africans?'
'Well... now, they use object less magic... very rooted in tribal arts. But they have to wash their hands in the dung of a local animal every day to cement their relationship with mother earth.'
I lost it then and burst out laughing. He looked at me strangely and soon a grin broke out on his beautiful face too. 'It isn't often when people get me like that.' He said. 'That was really good.'
And then he started laughing and the sounds washing over me unhinged my sense of propriety and reason. I watched him, barely noticing him loosing self control and digging his fingers into the flesh around my hips. When it finally kicked in how much it was hurting me, I yelped and flinched and he drew his hands away as one would from a boiling cauldron. 'Oh my! Draco... I'm so sorry!'
'It's alright Jasper,' I said as I lifted up my jumper and examined the livid red marks on my skin.
'Draco, I could have gone right through your flesh.'
I looked at him seriously as I fingered my wand until I held it at the right angle to administer a bruising reductive charm. 'And if you had,' I said, eyeing him seriously as I said it, 'it would have given my mother a delicious excuse to go see her suitor.'
'Pardon me?'
'A mind healer. He was our guide for the wizarding districts of Seattle for a couple of days. And he works at The Eddie Nervosa healing centre and everything would have been fine.' Jasper watched me dubiously. 'Look, they have already healed themselves.'
'You really aren't a weak little human, are you?'
'Not one bit. I know how to incinerate you, remember?'
'Oh yes. And I can drain your blood, don't forget that.'
'Ah, but you wouldn't.' I said, slapping him playfully on the shoulder. He took my hand mid flight and held it close to his mouth and kissed it.
'Neither would you.'
