Don't even ask why I switched from points of view AND from first to third person...*sigh* I was young. That's my excuse.

WILTED CELANDINE

Chapter Ten

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Third person, Hermione's POV

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Hermione watched warily as Draco bit his lip, in what she supposed was frustration. She decided to quickly get on to the bargain and ask the questions about his past; the things she really wanted to know. She would deal with the bargain—his side of it—afterwards. She was afraid he would refuse to answer her questions if she waited any longer. Besides…the teeth she could see biting his lip were…unusually long and sharp looking…

Hastily scooting to sit in front of the half-vampire, as he buttoned his trousers and donned a shirt, Hermione asked, "So? Tell me how it all began. When you became…what you are," her voice began cracking with nervousness, "and…etcetera."

Rolling his eyes, Draco replied, "Typical. Just typical. You want to know every bitty detail about my childhood. Like a reporter!" His hands were waving wildly as he spoke.

But suddenly, a strange calm came over Draco. He became solemn, chin resting on his knees, arms wrapped around his legs, staring at the floor, without quite seeing it. "I've been a half-vampire for all my life. I was born this way. I thought you, of all people, would have realized that by now. Half-vampires are born vampires. My father…" There was a long pause, in which Hermione feared prodding him to continue, and yet also feared his continuation.

Finally, Draco took a deep breath to continue. "My father is a vampire. His mother was forced to become one, and was…sexually assaulted. My own mother is half human, and half Veela. So I'm….a half-breed of sorts, you could say. An outcast from humanity."

Hermione felt a sharp pang in her heart at his words. No wonder the boy was so private, so harsh. He lived a world of pain, never quite feeling like he fit in, not sure if he ever really wanted to. She nodded, showing that she was listening. Talking about this, and to her of all people, was obviously difficult for Draco.

"Scientifically, the way it all works is this: I do breath, like humans. I'm half human, after all. But I don't breathe because I need oxygen. That's where the paleness comes from—lack of oxygen. Blood is my oxygen, makes me able to breathe, it makes me able to survive. When I don't drink blood, some of it is stored away, so I can still breathe, but not as well as after having dinner."

Hermione shuddered, as Draco gave a feral grin. Dinner to him was drinking blood. She wondered how many other scientific differences there were between her and him, species-wise. She decided not to ask, and just to let him continue. It seemed to make him more comfortable if he could simply talk and have her listening.

"It all began when I was five. I was such a bloody innocent. A total prissy. But the Manor was dark and lonely. I liked to explore, to touch things I shouldn't. I kept on breaking things. In fact," that laughter, low and rich, yet tinged with sourness, echoed, as he said, "I think little Draco was quite the spastic. Anyway, I was punished a lot for my naïveté. My curiousity always got the better of me. I was intelligent, yet spoiled, and a little too caged in. My mother coddled me, and I always got what I wanted—except when I wanted to go somewhere, or find something new. I always liked to touch new things, and when I couldn't touch them, I asked questions about them. I suppose that's a thing about being a psychic half-vampire…we're known to get a little touchy-feely.

"I was always sent to the dungeons for punishment. Often times, instead of waiting at the gate in between the dank horrors and our dusty cellar, I would explore the dungeons. My explorations weren't stumbles in the dark—I could see perfectly fine. One day I found this tunnel blocked up by boulders—it had caved in. My vampirism helped me there. I could almost say it doomed me, too, in a way. My excess strength helped me get past the boulders and into the tunnel, where there was a pool of water…"

There was another pause again, and Hermione sneaked a quick look at Draco. His eyes were clouded with thoughtfulness, eerie in their vacancy. He drawled on, "The pool was…fascinating. It was definitely magical. I was so curious about it…drawn to it. It was so…clean. Sparkling with such purity, unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was like an oasis in a desert. It didn't belong in the darkness, yet it was there, beautiful and pure, a beacon of light. I stood by it, looking in, leaning…"

Draco suddenly seemed to have problems breathing. Closing his eyes, he sat there for a minute, coughing, before resuming his tale. His voice pitched even lower now, morbid and frightening in its gloominess. "I leant too far, and fell in. The water consumed me. I didn't know how to swim; I still don't. It was so…I didn't think I was going to die. Death didn't scare me. But the thought of not dying scared me. I was afraid I would remain there forever, limp and helpless, suffocating, on the verge of death, yet not dying, an ounce of strength left—but not enough to stop myself from sinking.

"It was a dark abyss, unending, deeper than the middle of the ocean, for all I knew. It was almost like a well. It had that sort of shape, I think. The pool was magical. I found out soon after what it had done to me, how it had…cursed me.

"The pool gave whoever was submerged in it, or touched the water, I'm not sure what exactly one had to do, touch it, swallow it, be submerged in it, I don't know—I did all of those. But the effect it had was to give that person whatever it was they didn't have, and to give it to them in abundance, to the extreme. I had happiness, and sadness, and loneliness in my heart. I had wealth, parents, a home, and clothes. You could say that I had everything. But I was a young child. There is one thing children don't feel, one thing I didn't have…"

Draco turned away from Hermione. She almost thought, for a moment, that he was crying, for his body shook slightly, and before he turned away, his eyes sparkled wetly. But no teardrop came, nor sniffles. She couldn't see his face, but she felt pain well up inside her for him; she felt as if his pain, his sad tale, his life, his identity, all would burst her, shred her to pieces.

"Yes. There was one thing I didn't have…"

Draco turned back to her, and his gaze was the most fearsome, angered, vicious thing Hermione had ever looked upon. His agony was so palpable, his look not denying any emotion for once, the intensity of it so profound, so horridly real. Then he answered, told her what he didn't have, what that magical water had cursed him with…

"Sex desire."

There was no word to describe Hermione's feelings, her reaction. Astonished, shocked, terrified, sympathetic, confused, crushed, and astounded were understatements. The revelation, this pure and torturous exposure, it was hurting her, Hermione actually found it both physically, and mentally painful.

And she knew Draco felt it a million times more than she.

"Draco…" Hermione closed her eyes, consumed by fear. What would he do to her for having asked such questions, for making him reveal the hideousness of his pain, the darkness of his spool of secrets?

"What does that mean?"

For a moment, not even a second, the pain went away, and genuine surprise lit Draco's features. It seemed he expected her to know everything, to understand so much. But she didn't. Hermione was smart, but her mind was not flawless. The fact that he expected so much knowledge of her brain was frightening; for he had respected her only for her knowledge, when she had taught him private tutoring lessons. His shock was so great that it showed, for a fleeting moment. But then the grimness returned.

"It means that I feel the fire of need raging inside me every moment. It means that every step forward hurts more than the last. It means that a person's slightest gesture or movement can inflame me with lust. It means that I've popped more cherries than you could imagine.

"It means that I haven't been a virgin since…well, a long time. It means I get so easily aroused, or weak, that sometimes I…c-can't breathe well. And I don't care who it is. I know that I drain their energy, that I'm using people. But it's uncontrollable, incurable. I'm cursed. I'm not all human. If I have to drink blood to eat, I will. If I have to seduce someone and use my body just to have enough energy to stand up, to breathe, to wake up each day…I will. It's my only way of surviving. I have to."

Then Draco promptly stood up and walked out of the locker room, shoving Harry's studying planner notebook into Hermione's hands before he left. She stood there, stunned and immobile, before standing up and rushing to try and catch Draco and ask him one more question before he reached the castle.

Hermione never did get to ask Draco her question. Instead, she had to quickly go to the bathroom and make sure she didn't look as horrible as she felt, and then go to dinner. Quickly squeezing in between Harry and Ron, for a while, all was normal, and she read a book while Ron stuffed his face and Harry talked to Ginny about Quidditch.

But then page 225 began to blur in front of Hermione's eyes, and in an attempt to fix her tear-swept vision she had to quickly and inconspicuously rub her eyes—she added a yawn to the pretense, just to make it look totally real in case someone was looking. When she looked up, she found her gaze immediately pulled towards the Slytherin table.

The bunch of emerald-clad students were focusing all their attention on Draco, who shouted some inaudible words in praise of some sort. Then all Slytherins raised their mugs and tons of clinks of goblet against goblet were heard in a toast. Hermione watched with mixed feelings as many Slytherins drank quickly after the toast, whereas some banged their goblets loudly in giddiness.

Draco simply took a sip of the drink and then placed his goblet back on the table after the toast. Eventually he lifted it up again, tipping it back and forth, laughing as he and a few fellow Slytherins traded joking antics. Hermione stared at the half-vampire dully. Could he even taste the drink? How could he stand to eat and drink things every single day, while all he really needed to survive was sex and blood? The thought made her feel nauseous, and tossing away her blueberry muffin Hermione scurried out of the Great Hall, searching for the nearest toilet to throw up in.

After what seemed like a half hour of leaning over the toilet and retching horribly, Hermione flushed it and walked up to a sink. It was at times like this she wished she wasn't so busy. Myrtle wasn't there to help her find a way to make the old sink taps work, and she was too exhausted to rack her brain for the proper spell.

Hermione shrieked as, upon looking into the mirror, she realized that there was another reflection besides hers there. She quietly accepted the handkerchief he offered her, but then, after wiping her mouth, quickly tossed it away in disgust—who knew what it had been used to wipe away before. Blood, perhaps. Her terrified scream was cut off as his hand clamped over her mouth tightly, and as his arm moved to hold her against him, she could do nothing. For a few moments, she stared at his reflection looking back at her, those eyes dark with malevolence, his very presence an unstoppable, fierce wickedness.

She couldn't repress a shudder as a growl came deep from Draco's throat, and he opened his mouth wide to reveal to her his teeth. Hermione watched in morbid fascination, as those incisors gradually grew longer and sharper, becoming vampiristic, fang-like. She thought he was going to bite her, have his meal by drinking her blood like a demoniac glutton. But she thought wrong.

His fingers crept underneath her jumper and her blouse. Hermione sucked her breath in and exhaled it out in loud, panting gasps, goosebumps prickling up her arms as his cold fingers slid against her skin. She closed her eyes, gulping in deep breaths, as his hand slid out from under her shirt to glide up her torso. Then the most forbidden contact was made as he made no effort to hide his lust, fingertips grazing her chest with the lightest touch.

A tiny sigh escaped Hermione's lips, and in the heat of embarrassment that flushed her skin, she almost wished Draco had paused a moment more to untie the bow at the neck of her blouse. But then Hermione quickly reprimanded herself; that would leave her even more open to more illicit touching. She wondered suddenly if there was any way of escaping him, if she could convince him to spare her by using his lust for her—which was not allowed for a vampire to feel in regards to his victim—as a trap.

But she decided she couldn't, just couldn't, do that. Hermione tried to summon the courage, but knew not how to go about seducing a vampire, what to speak of seducing a vampire and then tricking him and escaping in the end. In her desperation, Hermione's hands flailed, and she accidentally let a hand lie on her captor's belt.

His eyes sparkling with an unusual glint, Draco murmured, "Oh? So you, too, can't deny your feelings of desire?" Shaking her head vigorously, Hermione groaned in protest as, wand pointed at her, the half-vampire began to one-handedly unbuckle his belt. Hermione decided to take a huge risk. Not one to be forced into something, she quickly moved to knee Draco in the groin before running away.

She felt cowardly, frightened, and despairing. There was no real way to escape. Ultimately, she would have to confront the half-vampire, and herself. She had to decide what it was she wanted, and where her heart truly lay.