Preview
By his hand: there were ghosts in her eyes. . .
The lights therein forever dulled.
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The Chosen Legacy
Hence I will anoint and whisper wholeheartedly
The creed of Hades and beyond
As I succumb to inevitable sin
Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat at the same table in Potions. Malfoy sat on the opposite end of the classroom, brewing his potion with a nonchalant ease. Harry looked up from his own potion to stare at him for a moment.
"He's not a Death Eater, Harry" Hermione said, annoyed, following his gaze.
"He's something worse" Harry muttered.
"Excuse me?" she asked, not quite catching his reply.
"It's nothing"
"Stop looking at him" Hermione scolded. Ron frowned.
Harry was trying to catch the blonde's eye, to see a glimpse of those red pupils again. But even from across the class, he could see the eyes were bright and silvery today.
But Malfoy didn't look at him, and this infuriated Harry more than ever. Harry took to glaring at him while he stirred his potion.
Malfoy had nice features. They were sharp and angular but not unpleasant; he had a slim face with a pointed jaw and clear, pale skin. Harry put his glasses on so that he could see his Slytherin nemesis better. Malfoy had cold, bright eyes of bluish silver, framed by surprisingly dark lashes that Harry thought made him look like a girl. His eyebrows were thin and defined, arched in perfect symmetry. His nose was thin and straight, slightly pointed. His lips were full and soft-looking.
Harry unconsciously put a hand to his collarbone, where the marks were still slightly visible on his skin beneath his robes.
"You're burning your potion, Harry!" Hermione warned, shaking him out of his reverie.
After a minute Harry was watching Malfoy from behind his cauldron. Now that he thought about it, he really didn't know how no one else noticed. He was ethereal; otherworldly.
Malfoy, feeling Harry's eyes on him, suddenly flipped his hair back in a very feminine fashion. Harry got annoyed. Was he flirting? What the fuck?
Harry fiddled a bit with his potion and looked at Malfoy again. His hand gestures when he was pouring ingredients or cutting up root of ginger were so . . . feminine! It was irritating Harry.
That evening, Harry couldn't sleep. He decided that he'd take a stroll around the castle beneath the Invisibility Cloak instead. Taking care not to wake Ron or the other boys in the dormitory, Harry snuck out and quietly left the common room.
He wandered the corridors aimlessly, thinking about Malfoy, wondering what the truth was, ending up somewhere near the dungeons. He really hadn't told him much. It had been a week since the Incident in the Forbidden Forest.
And those hand gestures! The subtle flirtatious movements. . . He was like a-
'-girl?' Malfoy scoffed in his head.
"I was wondering where you were, asshole" Harry spoke into the night.
'Believe it or not, Potter, I have better things to do than sit and listen to your thoughts' Malfoy said in a condescending tone.
"Well you seem to do it quite a lot" Harry pointed out. "Which is why I noticed immediately when you stopped adding your two-cent comments to everything that I think"
'Aw, did you miss me?' Malfoy laughed mockingly.
"I was glad to be rid of you" Harry said, quite truthfully. He had Malfoy on his mind enough lately without him literally being in it.
"Do I . . . intrigue you, Potter?" Malfoy's voice came from behind Harry, no longer in his head.
"How can you see me?" Harry asked, not really impressed by this ability. He was more annoyed.
"These beautiful eyes are not just there to look pretty" Malfoy answered, stepping into Harry's line of vision, looking him straight in the eye despite the fact that Harry was invisible.
"Spare me your self-praise please. Beautiful eyes? Vain, much?" Harry asked, rolling his eyes.
'Ah, but you thought so yourself' Malfoy's voice said as he smirked. Harry blushed, half from embarrassment and half from anger.
After a few seconds of strained silence, Malfoy said ever so politely "Well, there are things I need to do, so if you'll excuse me"
"Wait!" Harry said. Malfoy looked at him with an impatient raised eyebrow. "Tell me more about your. . . power"
Malfoy laughed. "Since when has such a thing as power interested you, Potter?"
"I don't mean it like that" Harry said. "I just want to know what your story is"
"I feel rather thirsty now" Malfoy commenting, ignoring Harry's statement.
"Thirsty?" Harry enquired.
Malfoy smiled, revealing sharp fangs Harry was sure weren't as prominent a moment before. Harry barely had time to register the surfacing veins and gleaming red eyes.
There was that horrible, sharp pain again, only this time it was a bit lower than last time, now at the top of his chest.
Harry managed to stop himself from fainting this time, clutching a fistful of Malfoy's white-blonde hair and inadvertently pushing the fangs deeper into his flesh. He could feel his blood being drawn out, viciously and somewhat wantonly. His knees were going to give out; he felt weak. His surroundings were blurring in and out of focus so Harry just closed his eyes. This was his debt. . . He had to pay it. For what, he wasn't even sure.
For I cannot enslave myself
With imaginary words of salvation
Harry's could feel his grip on Malfoy's hair slackening. "Stop" he said, the quietness of his own voice surprising him.
He expected a snide remark but instead felt a rush of cold where air hit the spot to which Malfoy's mouth had been latched.
"This is disgusting, you know that?" Harry said weakly, the smell of his own blood overpowering him.
Harry gasped at he felt Malfoy's tongue sweep up his chest, licking a stray trickle of blood.
"Oh dear, I've ruined some more of your clothing, haven't I?" Malfoy said with mock disappointment, tossing aside the shirt he'd torn from Harry's body.
"Fuck off" Harry replied, finally falling to his knees.
"And leave you here for my secret to be discovered? I think not, Potter" the blonde scoffed. He swept Harry up in his arms like a princess with apparent ease and strode up to Gryffindor Tower with unnatural speed.
"You're a fucking pervert" Harry said through the small slits of his barely-open eyes.
Malfoy dumped Harry unceremoniously on the floor in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady.
"Don't die on me. I like your blood" Malfoy said without a smile. And then he was gone.
*
A few days later, outside Herbology, Hermione commented that Harry looked pale and tired. Ron wasn't anywhere to be seen.
"Do I?" he asked disinterestedly.
"Yes. I think you need to stop obsessing over Malfoy" she said with a stern look.
"Obsessing? Are you serious?" Harry looked at her incredulously.
"That's what you're doing, Harry! You're always looking around for him when he's not here and staring at him when he is" she sounded worried.
"Fuck you" Harry replied.
Hermione slapped him, hard. Her eyes were swimming with angry, bitter tears.
"Don't you dare do that ever again" Harry said darkly; dangerously
"What's gotten into you lately?" she sobbed angrily.
"You know what? I'm sick of you always telling me I'm wrong" Harry's voice was getting louder and people were beginning to stare. "You're so critical, so analytical. It's annoying and degrading! You're overbearing and I can't handle you right now"
"I don't even know you anymore, Harry!" Hermione cried though thick sobs.
"Maybe you never did" he replied, casting a dark glance before walking away.
"Where are you going? We have class now" she shouted after him. He ignored her, walking on.
The hypocrisy that surrounds my temple
Is assisted by pretenders to the throne
He was sick of feeling miserable. He missed Sirius terribly. Ron was preoccupied with his own life and girls; Hermione was unsupportive and irritating. He had no one.
Harry felt like he could do no good. He felt like everything was messed up. Everyone expected him to be okay after the ordeal at the Ministry last year. After his traumatic experiences with Umbridge.
Well he wasn't!
He looked at himself in the mirror and felt disgusted by the lightning-shaped scar that had made him famous. He felt disgusted by everything.
Harry pulled his t-shirt off over his head and tossed it on the bed. He ran his fingers over the four fading scars on his collarbone down to the four fresher ones on his chest. He thought that they weren't too bad; they had a little charm about them, the little puncture wounds.
'Pretty little patterns, aren't they?' Malfoy said. Harry couldn't quite interpret his tone. It was a mixture between admiration, disdain, and sarcasm. Harry looked at them again appreciatively.
"Do you need it?" Harry asked quietly, alone in his dormitory.
'The blood?' Malfoy clarified. 'Not exactly. I'm old enough to survive a few years without it' he told Harry, his tone now unreadable.
"Do you want it?" Harry asked, turning away from the mirror and not looking at anything in particular.
'Would I take it if I didn't?' he replied.
"How would I know? I don't understand you at all" Harry said, somewhat sadly.
"You don't understand yourself at all" Malfoy corrected him cryptically, appearing out of a dark corner.
"You're creepy, you know that?"
"Am I?" Malfoy laughed, gliding slowly until he was right in front of Harry, a little bit taller than the black-haired teenager. He bit into him, tasting him once more, making four little marks just below the previous ones.
The winds that blow purity signify my chosen legacy
"Why do you serve him?" Harry asked. They were out by the lakeside in the late afternoon. It was almost romantic.
"I serve the Dark Lord only for now. Consider it a stepping stone" Malfoy answered, twirling his blonde hair between his fingers lazily, leaning against a tree.
"To what destination?" said Harry.
"All these questions, all the time. . . You know Potter, you're rather bothersome" Malfoy sighed.
"Answer the question. What exactly do you want to achieve?"
"I will be the Dark Lord. Voldemort will fall and I shall be there to take his place" Malfoy stated proudly.
"That's horrible" Harry replied, without much conviction however. The warmth of the setting sun and the gentle breeze was too relaxing for Harry to muster up any real anger about it.
"No, it's not. I want power for different reasons"
"You have power" Harry told him, picking some grass and pulling its roots out.
"Is it ever enough though?" Malfoy's eyes were darker than usual today. A stormy grey like the sea during a thunderstorm.
"I have none" Harry commented expressionlessly.
"Do you want power?" Malfoy asked, surprised.
"I only want enough power to defeat Voldemort" Harry replied, looking at the floor between his crossed legs.
"Don't think about it" Malfoy said casually. Harry found his careless advice to be almost . . . comforting.
"I have such ideas, Potter" Malfoy smiled. His eyes were far-away.
I was born to opposition
A contender to creation
In Sorte Diaboli
"What's happening to you, mate? You come back here some nights looking like you've been attacked" Ron asked.
"It's nothing" Harry lied effortlessly. He was used to it by now.
"Have you been doing . . . dark magic?" Ron asked. 'Not far off' Harry commented mentally. Malfoy smirked in his mind.
"Or maybe you have a girl you're not telling me about, and she's. . . rough or something?" Ron speculated, doubting the possibility.
This one actually earned a snigger from Harry. "Something like that" he muttered under his breath.
"Have you been cutting yourself, Harry?" Ron asked. He looked truly concerned about his friend's wellbeing. "Your wrists are bruised and cut. And for God's sake you have horrible holes in your palms! I don't even want to think about what the rest of your body looks like"
"Well don't, then. Keep your mind –and eyes- off my body, thanks" Harry snapped. He pulled down his sleeves so that his wrists and palms were covered.
He remembered the ritual.
Malfoy had nailed him to a tree in the forest. A thick, long nail pierced through both palms, over Harry's head, pinning him to the large oak tree in the Forbidden Forest, rough ropes around his wrists and ankles.
Blood had run down the bark and on to the dusty floor, becoming contaminated; like a network of roads, the blood snaked its way in trickles and then torrents all over the sacred tree. The streets ran red.
Harry smiled. It had been painful. It had felt good.
He deserved the pain that Malfoy was inflicting on him, because even though it hurt. . . It never hurt quite enough.
For my sins, I will ask no forgiveness
For my sins, they are not to forgive
'Are you ready for the next ceremony?' Malfoy's voice asked excitedly.
"You're getting more twisted every day" Harry replied.
'The funny thing is, so are you. And I've always been this way. You just never noticed' that drawling voice teased.
'Are you ready?' Malfoy asked again mentally.
"Does it matter?"
Malfoy pulled Harry beneath the surface of the Black Lake. Harry's instinct was to struggle, but he fought the urge, holding his breath. Malfoy pulled him deeper, neither inhaling nor exhaling. He had no breath to lose.
Harry began to suffocate. Malfoy tied his ankles to a rock so that he wouldn't float to the surface. Brandishing a sharp dagger from his robes, Malfoy began making deep, long lacerations all over Harry's almost-bare body. He carved all sorts of patterns, polluting the water with pools of crimson.
'This is fun, isn't it?' Malfoy grinned as Harry started to lose consciousness.
'Yes' Harry thought back.
*
Two days later, Harry was awake again, this time in the Slytherin dormitory.
"Wakey wakey" Malfoy said teasingly, sitting at the foot of his four-poster bed.
"What took so long?" Harry asked groggily.
"Your brain didn't get oxygen for quite a while. It was bit more difficult to revive you this time than I thought it would be" Malfoy replied, grinning.
"How much blood did I lose?"
"Enough to make some pretty lines all over you" Malfoy said suggestively. He tilted his head to the side and smiled. "With enough remaining for me to have a drink"
Harry looked down at his bare torso, following the pattern with his green eyes. The first bites on his collarbone from few weeks ago were almost invisible now, with the second and third sets on his chest not far behind. The next three sets grew progressively darker from there downwards. The fourth set rested in the crease just below Harry's chest where his would-be sixpack began. The fifth was just above his navel and the sixth just beneath it.
"Seem to be going lower every time, Malfoy" Harry noted with a cocked eyebrow.
"I do wonder what will happen when I run out of space" Malfoy said with mock-innocence and a finger on his chin in mock-thoughtfulness,
"Pervert"
"I know you secretly like it"
"Like your fucked-up, power-hungry, bloody, warped-"
"You don't hate me as much as you like to pretend" Malfoy interrupted, resting his chin elegantly on his hand, almost as if he was caressing his own face.
"You made me this way" Harry said, almost bitterly.
"Oh no. . . These changing views of yours are not my fault, as much as I'd like to take credit" the Slytherin grinned evilly. "You've been rotting away on the inside all this time" he whispered.
'How ironic that you're the only one who noticed' Harry thought. 'I'm falling'
'No. You're descending, Harry'
So never speak of me quietly
Stand by my confession
"What are we doing for the next one?" Harry asked eagerly. Walking to Transfiguration by himself, he knew Malfoy would hear.
'I thought we might set you on fire' Draco replied with equal fervor.
"Sounds hot" Harry laughed. "Or maybe you can hang me. I liked asphyxiating"
'Or maybe I can blindfold you and let it be a surprise' Malfoy said flirtatiously.
"Ooooh, kinky" Harry laughed.
"Harry?" Hermione's voice startled him out of his conversation.
"Yes?" he replied impatiently.
"Who were you talking to?" she asked cautiously.
"No one. It's none of your business" he snapped, walking faster, hoping she'd get the hint.
"Are you okay? You look ill" she persisted.
"If you don't' get out of my face, I swear I'll curse you Hermione" Harry threatened.
"You wouldn't" she said, stopping in her tracks. Harry turned around to face her, trying to think of a curse to use. Suddenly the spidery handwriting from his tattered Potions book swam before his eyes.
"For enemies" it was labeled.
"Expelliarmus!" Hermione shouted, but her spellwork with defensive magic was not as quick as Harry's.
He'd already yelled "Sectumsempra!"
Blood spurted from the bushy-haired witch's face and chest as if giant slashes had been made. Harry looked on in horror: he hadn't known the spell would do that.
His watched as his one-time friend bled all over the stone floor. She was going to die if he left her there. Harry looked about him worriedly. No one was around so there were no witnesses.
Harry tried to recall the spell he needed to fix this. . .
"Obliviate!" he yelled. It was the first time he'd ever cast a memory charm in his life. Hermione's eyes went blank. Harry ran.
I voice your rebellion
Against the traitor of the world
'Naughty, naughty, look what the famous Harry Potter's done' Malfoy's voice teased as Harry ran as fast as his legs would carry him.
Harry said nothing. He just ran. Up and up and up he went, up the spiral stairs until he reached the highest point at Hogwarts: The Astronomy Tower.
'Harry, what are you doing?' Malfoy asked, panicked. 'We didn't plan this'
"Don't revive me" Harry said, choking back tears.
'Harry, no. Don't do it' Malfoy implored. 'I thought we agreed I could kill you! How dare you deprive me of that privilege?'
"Well you took too fucking long! You shouldn't have revived me, every single time. . ." Harry was crying. He was drowning in his despair.
Harry took a running leap and pitched himself off the balcony. He closed his eyes, falling.
'You have to descend, Harry' Malfoy said calmly. And all went black.
I am the first creature of this Kingdom
I will be the One to outlive His time
With the triumph of free will
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Well that was chapter two of In Sorte Diaboli. I hope you enjoyed it; there was lots of dialogue since that's what I enjoy writing most. Reviews would be appreciated.
I hope it was apparent that '. . .' are thoughts and ". . ." are spoken words.
Malfoys often speaks to Harry in his mind, hence the thought-quotation marks.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in a review or pm.
Oh, and just incase you were wondering, Harry hasn't been turned into a vampire.