Disclaimer: If you aren't smart enough to clue in then doom on you. (Doom on you, doom on you, doom on you, doom on you.)

A/N: Party! Party time! We've come to the magically important chapter 10! (can I get a WOOT?) I'm so glad that I've finished this chapter. Pick up cray-diddly-ayon and colour me tickled pink!

Chapter 10: And lovers will die

There is noise, somewhere in the back of my universe, but I take no notice. Perhaps the splintering of wood… what does it matter?

There is no cry of joy that can do justice to this blinding moment of paradise.

Blood! It courses down my throat in a thick, intoxicating stream. It tastes all the more rich and delicious for having gone so long without it.

Cut off from everything except for the pure moment of feeding, I am caught off guard by the withdrawal of my prey from my reach. I snatch forward in an instant too quick for human measure and bite down even harder than before, chewing greedily at the flesh. I draw the blood forth with such need and intensity that my head rushes with the exhilaration.

As I have said before, my desires as both vampire and man have a habit of intermingling. I pull my struggling victim as close to me as I can, craving contact. I bring one of my legs around him, shoving our bodies together. While one hand grips roughly at his neck, the other tears his shirt and runs along his sensual mortal skin. All the heat, adrenaline and panic from this human fills me— revives me— chills me with its intensity. Oh, how I am in love with this moment of primal rapture.

The heart is dying. Its crazed beating stumbles and falls into nothing. I suck at the neck to draw as much as I can before the blood flow becomes little more than a weak trickle. My newfound energy and strength surges inside me and I laugh in celebration. I wipe my mouth on his shirt and begin to lap blood from around the gaping neck wound.

I am in a perfect state.
I could die now…

I-

I…

Oh, dear infernos of Hell…

I've done it.

I, Draco Malfoy, have killed him. Someone I loved and had been willing to give up my life to save. I wanted so much to be with him… even though I told myself I shouldn't. What am I now? A raving blood-crazy lunatic. It's too much. I can't… I can't…

My writing desk is to my left… I snap a leg off, the perfect tool for a speedy death.

Somewhere underneath this blinding pain, I sense part of me disapproves of my cliché surrender to suicide. I don't care. Every minute my crimes become clearer and clearer in my mind. I can't bear the weight of these hideous thoughts.

I summon every ounce of vampiric strength within me as I drive the shattered wood towards my chest.

SMACK!

A strong blow stops me at the last second. The desk leg bounces onto the floor with a hollow sound.

Daniel! Only vampire could have been so quick. I jump up, but he pins me to the wall.

"Draco, look at me! Draco! Snap out of it!" I blink in confusion and slowly, I begin to see who is really before me.

But…

"I'm still dreaming!" I moan.

"No, no you're not." Severus says sternly, shaking me by the shoulders. "Daniel will be back soon… you have to calm down."

I look into his eyes, trying to ground myself in reality. Suddenly, I understand what this means.

"You're alive!" I cry out, too relieved to care that I'm stating the obvious.

"Well- I'm…" Severus looks away from me and I get a clear view of his neck.

"Oh…" A vampire. I don't know what to say. I'm glad Severus changed, survived… but maybe he's not so pleased about it.

"Yes, it would seem that I've won the ancestral lottery." He says dryly, betraying no emotion.

I wrap my arms around Severus, holding him tightly. I can feel him stiffen against the excessive human contact, but I don't stop. I can't say whether I do this for his benefit, or my own.

"We need to leave." Severus says, edging his way out of my embrace.

"I don't care anymore." My voice comes out hollow. "It doesn't matter."

"Come on!" Severus shouts at me, pulling on my arm.

I throw him off aggressively, as he lurches back I strike him hard in the face.

"No!" My voice comes out in a snarl. My fangs are bared in a grimace of hatred.

Let him go. He may still value his existence, that's fine with me. I, on the other hand, have enough shame and anguish coiled inside that frankly I'd rather have Daniel rip me to pieces.

"You're still not awake, are you? Gods, Draco! Open your eyes!"

"Shut the fuck up!" I scream. "I can see perfectly fine! I can see what I've--"

I break off, looking down at Harry's corpse. Pain surges inside me as I take in the motionless body… the curls of sandy-coloured hair matted with—

My entire body goes so entirely still that rigor mortis could not have improved the effect. I regard the room with new eyes and take in what my mind had written off as delusion.

Harry.

He's standing on the far side of room. He looks desperate, watching me with the hope that I've come to my senses. I take slow steps towards him with the lumbering gait of a sleep walker. The stresses and extremes I've gone through these past minutes have mashed what was left of my heart into putty. I feel if I move any faster he'll disappear like a mirage.

He's holding a bit torn fabric from his sleeve against his neck. I did bite him. But then—oh… that split second I was pulled away…

"Harry?" My hand reaches towards him of its own accord. The numbness to my senses starts to fade and I detect waves of human emotion. Fear.

"You're… you're afraid of me."

He's about to reply—

"GET UP HERE! THEY'RE ALL ALIVE!"

Daniel is in the doorway, yelling at the top of his lungs. In an instant, the room is flooded with vampires and dark wizards. They drag us down the stairs; the mob of captors has more effect on me than the wands pointed at my throat.

When we exit the tower, Harry is thrown roughly to the ground. Unfortunately, Daniel's undead thugs are not completely brainless… Severus and I are held back by four vampires each.

Daniel walks towards Harry and puts one foot on his chest. He notices the bite marks on Harry's neck.

"He would have killed you, you know— if he hadn't been stopped."

He reaches down and wipes some blood from the wound. Daniel then sucks the blood off his own fingers, makes a face, and spits it back out in Harry's face.

"You aren't even worth drinking!" He says in disgust.

"Why don't you and I face off?" I shout out. "Isn't this all about destroying me?"

Daniel turns around. "Well yes, but this way is so much easier. I don't have to gamble on the outcome."

And despite the fact that I couldn't care less about honour, I mutter: "You pathetic, gutless coward."

Daniel smiles at me like we've shared some private joke. "You can torture them now."

(Two hours later.)

Before this, I would have thought that torture began and ended with the cruciatus curse. That there was nothing more that could be added to the experience to make it any worse than it already was.

There is.

Some of the vampires are very powerful psychics. While the three of us shuddered, twitched and cried out in pain, our minds were wrung through the most horrible visions they could come up with. Terrors that had been dug up from our nightmares and ghastly beasts that seemed to be tearing us apart. They could not create physical pain… but the multiple cruciatus curses more than made up for that. The strangest thing of all is that none of have lost our minds. Maybe we have the psychics to thank.

No one laughed. There was no maniacal rush or mad giggling. No, they enjoyed it on a different level. They kept a smug silence as we writhed in agony… the smiles on their faces gave them a satisfied, peaceful look.

It's over now. I hang limply in the hold of three vampires. At this point they are all that keep me from collapsing onto the ground.

Daniel is beaming. He claps his hands together like a child.

"Wonderful! That was wonderful, everyone, I am very pleased!" He pulls Harry to his feet and props him against the tower wall. Harry sways on his feet, too dazed to react. Daniel backs away and gestures to one of the wizards.

"Kill the human." He says, looking me in the eye.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Holding my full weight, my captors are completely caught off guard when I break away and run towards Harry.

The curse hits me in the chest, just barely below my neck. Brilliant green light flickers in front of my eyes, like thousands of billowing candle flames. I feel my back slam into the ground and then there are hands shaking my shoulders.

The green light is disappearing…

To the men and vampires on Daniel's payroll, the scene before them is hilarious. They laugh merrily as Harry shakes Draco by the shoulders, his voice raw from shouting the vampire's name.

"Draco! Draco! DRACO!"

Draco's head lolls from side to side, his eyes staring sightlessly at the predawn sky.

A/N: eek! (hides in case of flying objects)