Author's Note: I had to split this chapter because, holy Hell, Lucius was busy.

Lesson in the Dark

Lesson Two: Death

Part One

"What's our next lesson, then?" Harry asked as they landed on the familiar ground of his village.

"Looking forward to an encore performance, are you?"

"You have to admit, it was spectacular."

Lucius gave a strange smile and touched the corner of Harry's mouth. "Believe me when I say you won't like it nearly as much."

Harry frowned and studied Lucius' face. He couldn't imagine what unpleasantness Lucius would have him do; he could barely imagine doing anything with him that he wouldn't enjoy, having already watched the man feed. Unless he would make Harry feed now? He didn't think he could, not yet…

"I trust you," he capitulated. Whatever it was, Lucius had made it clear Harry would have to learn from it before he would turn him - so Harry would happily comply.

"Your acceptance is quite… appealing."

Harry stood on his toes eagerly, feeling the lips on his even before Lucius initiated the kiss. It was becoming easier and easier to anticipate these gestures and respond to them accordingly. He arched into Lucius when he traced his long hands down his back. He moaned when he felt those hands roaming over his bottom.

"Now, now, we mustn't get too excited…" Lucius murmured as he set Harry back down and straightened the boy's clothes as much as he could, brushing the boy's hair from his face and running his fingers through it. Harry had to take deep breaths once they parted, and he stared at Lucius' dazedly. He didn't sound breathless at all! "Can't have you looking so disheveled when you walk in, can we?"

"Well, that's not exactly all my fault, now, is it?" he grumbled, still put-out.

"I take full responsibility for ravishing you. I promise to make amends later…" The promises and threats ran up and down Harry's spine along the same path Lucius' hands had. "But for now, go home, love."

He leaned up, breathing against Lucius' lips. "I want…" His lips parted and he moved closer, but Lucius stopped him with both hands on his slight shoulders.

"I will give you everything you want… so long as you do as I ask."

He understood the challenge. If Harry continued obeying, he would continue earning such rewards.

"Will you be waiting for me?" he asked immediately, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it all the same.

He stroke Harry's cheek and obliged:

"Always."

As he slid through the open door, Harry realized he suddenly felt unsettled to be so utterly without Lucius, and only after such a short span of time. He had all but forgotten his human family dwelling within the simple wooden structure. He supposed he would have to thank his graces his entrance was silent. He stretched his hands forward to grasp the landmarks (Here's the table… the stairs should start right here-)

He almost made it to the doorway before he saw the flicker of flame from the top of the staircase.

"Sit - down."

Harry paled as he turned to obey. He didn't know how Vernon knew he wasn't home, or how he knew when Harry returned. It didn't matter now, did it? He trembled as he headed towards the chair Vernon indicated. Vernon eclipsed the warmth and safety Lucius had made Harry feel - as was always the case, the morning after Lucius had visited him when he was a child.

"Uncle-"

"Shut up!" the man hissed, spitting in Harry's face as he leaned towards him. "Don't you dare speak, boy!" From this new proximity, Harry could smell the sharpness of the drink in Vernon's breath. The man set the candle on the table and leaned over Harry. "After everything you put us through, you think you can go gallivanting around town like some ruffian? After everything we do for you, you spoiled, selfish, useless- Look at me when I'm talking, boy!" He demanded, grabbing Harry's chin and forcing his face forward again.

He didn't know what possessed him - maybe it was the rediscovery of what it felt to be loved again which empowered him, but he stood suddenly, slapping the hand away from him.

"My name isn't 'boy!'"

…Whatever it was which made him act disappeared quickly in the face of Vernon's rage. He fell to the floor as his uncle struck him. "You dare disrespect me? Where have you been, boy?"

"That's none of your business!" He wiped his mouth where he felt blood welling… Oh, Lucius wouldn't be pleased about that. Thoughts of the man made him more reckless. "I don't need to answer to you anymore!"

His blood ran cold the second the words left his mouth, for Vernon, drunk as he was, couldn't miss the blatant disrespect. He snarled violently and grabbed the boy's neck.

"You worthless mongrel!"

And the flurry that came next was so familiar Harry he almost fell into the lull of it, feeling his head jerk back with the first slap, curling into the kick to his abdomen, chanting a plea that never helped. So when it stopped - suddenly and much sooner than Vernon usually would, Harry remained on the ground, hiding his face beneath his arm. Leave me be, leave me be, just let me die here, please-

He had never been so lucky before; that wouldn't change so soon, it seemed.

Vernon grabbed him up by his hair, and Harry cringed and whined in the grasp. He raised his hands to scrabble fruitlessly at Vernon's thick fingers. In this position, he felt vulnerable once again - even more so when his uncle leaned into him and muttered, "You stink of a brothel… Is that where you've been?"

Harry spluttered and gasped. By now, he had surely recognized that look in the man's beady eyes. His hands, which had frozen at his hair once he heard the man's words, were suddenly bound.

Oh no no no, God, no-

His fat hand reached to tug off Harry's trousers, and so shocked by what was going on, he could only please, "No, Uncle Vernon! Please, don't - I was only -" He couldn't let this happen, but what could he do? He had never been able to stop the man before. Even so, he twisted in the man's grip, "Uncle -!"

Somewhere in the bedlam, they knocked the candle off the low table and rolled on the floor. In one moment, in the flickering, moving light, Harry stared in fear at Vernon's wide-eyed sneer. In the next, just as the light danced from them, he saw an even more horrific sight.

Lucius, his face contorted in rage, swooping over Vernon like -

Like an avenging angel.

The candle had rolled into one of the chairs and set it afire, casting Lucius in brilliant, fearsome light as he grabbed Vernon and threw him to the ground, leaning over him with fangs bared and eyes alight with rage. "How dare you touch what is mine?" he hissed fiercely. He gripped the sparsely-haired head, baring the thick neck -

Harry felt an unfamiliar fear bubbling within him as he saw the gentle hands morph to claws and dig into Vernon's flesh. The once-teasing lips formed a harsh snarl, and the soft purr became a growl. This was Death himself in the shape of Harry's hero.

He scrambled from the ground and pushed towards the stairs, not knowing or caring if Lucius noticed him - simply wanting to be away from the horrible image.

"Oh, but I won't kill you yet," Harry heard before he shut himself up in the attic, just in time to cut off the frightened cry from the one man Harry feared the most.

He slammed the door to his room quickly. How strange to think that only hours ago, this very same room had been the stage to that long awaited reunion. How awful, you mean, his treacherous mind tried to supplement as he tried not to think of what was happening below. He sat on his bedding and buried his hand in his hair. That… monster below… Harry could not forget that it was still a part of Lucius, one he had to accept, to become, even. Was that even possible for him?

Before tonight, he was content with his simple life. In the tavern, he was able to take part in the nightly unwinding of all those familiar faces, though he was still so distanced from them. In the village, he had a handful he could comfortably call friends; surely they would miss him? And what of the most obvious, pressing issue at hand - "I won't kill you yet," he had said…

Could Harry kill so easily? Watching Lucius feeding from that man was one thing, but he was sure this had nothing to do with hunger. He pressed his hands to his eyes, trying to press out the image in his head, though up here, he heard nothing of what was happening this very moment.

He felt a brief moment of panicked rebellion. Why should he change everything, become a killer, a fiend, overnight? He wouldn't do it. He couldn't, he who teared up every time he heard a mother wailing after the despondent physician leaving her house; he never failed to give a free drink to the kindly man those too-often nights.

When he heard the knob of his door turning, he shot up and back up to the window. Are you going to jump, you coward? he mentally berated himself.

Lucius stood in the open doorway for a moment; in that space, Harry felt a tension release in his relief when he realized he wasn't afraid of Lucius. Even with those wide, wild eyes, Harry was safe in the surety that this man would not harm him. He was in terror at the thought of what Vernon was put through.

Without hesitation, he raced across the room to wrap his arms around Lucius' neck, just as he flew to Harry with a determination that rightly should have given the young man pause. A part of him wanted to ask what was wrong with Uncle Vernon and to find out if Lucius was alright; the other part of him relished in the way he seemed to swallow Harry with his kisses - but he broke away and gasped as if to himself against Harry's neck, "It's not enough, no…"

Harry groaned and arched against Lucius' body, baring his neck, offering himself the only way he knew how to. "Yes." He whimpered and shuddered when Lucius licked a line up to his chin and almost cried out when he stopped.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he murmured lowly.

He stiffened in Lucius' grasp, wanting it more than he remembered wanting anything, but Lucius was not in a giving mood. He all but tossed Harry onto his bed, following only after he had locked the door. Harry tried to ask what was going on, but the man turned him over, pressing against the boy's back.

"I can smell him on you," he hissed as he began to thrust himself against Harry. He planted a hand on the wall in front of him as he started moving in time with the forceful thrusts, feeling the undeniable hardness of Lucius' desire against him. He felt like Lucius had given him pleasure in so many different ways, and he finally had the chance to reciprocate in such a simple way, allowing Lucius to pleasure himself using his body.

In a paradoxical way, he felt more in power now, face down in his this bedding and bent over uncomfortably, than he had ever felt before. He arched his back and pressed firmly back against Lucius, making the man moan suddenly. He grabbed a fistful of Harry's hair and pressed his face sideways to the bed. From the corner of his eye, he could see the hunger lining Lucius' face as he leaned over the boy.

"You are mine," he whispered into Harry's ear. "Say it!"

Harry closed his eyes and tried to gain control of his breathing, but he only succeeded in feeling more acutely the way Lucius' tongue traced the shell of his ear. He grasped and reached down to grab his own length unconsciously, stoking the heat of his lust and lost in the action.

"I- I am- hngh!"

His mouth opened into a gape as he fell into the rhythm: thrust back against Lucius, forward into his hand (a shiver, a gasp), back again-

"No," Lucius ground against him and took Harry's hand, now pressed both on the wall as Harry had done, one hand still clenching Harry's hip. "Say it."

In this position, Harry couldn't even achieve any friction for himself, but he hardly noticed, continuing to move his hips in time with Lucius'. The man groaned and he released the hand on the boy's hip as he fumbled with his own fastenings. When he roughly tugged off Harry's trousers, he ordered again, "Say it."

Harry blushed at being so exposed in front of Lucius, but his moment of embarrassment passed quickly when he began to move again in the same rhythm, but with an entirely new level of wonderful. He seemed to be able to feel every curve of Lucius' length rubbing against his entrance. He felt himself twitch and he could scarcely breathe when the smooth rhythm stuttered. Lucius was nearly there, he knew instinctively, and he struggled to get the words out. "I am -"

Lucius stopped, pressing his wet tip to Harry's opening. The young man felt Lucius' hand moving on himself, like Harry had. He closed his eyes, imagining just how it would look, with Lucius' hair still mussed from Harry's grip, with the man's eyes like molten silver as he stared down at Harry.

"I am yours," he whispered harshly, determined to vocalize the words he felt were true with his whole being.

And Lucius began to thrust against him, fitting himself between Harry's cheeks and nearly penetrating him. Harry felt a thrill at the intimate contact, gasping when Lucius starting stroking him in the same rhythm. He fell forward on his now-free hands. He felt himself teeter on the edge when Lucius stopped, gripped his base, and demanded cruelly, "Again."

"I'm yours, yours- Lucius!" he cried desperately.

He knew immediately what that heat spreading across his back was, and the knowledge that it was his body, his words which brought Lucius to release made him swell one final time before he spurted messily across his sheet.

He collapsed quite quickly after that.

AN: I almost didn't post this chapter, but it was finished anyway, so I thought, why not. Word count clocked at over 12,500 currently, but if I might pull the story if I don't get more than one review for the chapter. Is that too much to ask for? /end pity party

Also, character death coming up. Guess who's biting the dust.