Author's Note: Next one...Grrrr...
- Chapter 28 -
"Harry Potter, we meet again," was said, just softly enough not to truly echo, the words instead reverberating with a faux comforting warmness, like the nearby torch held in long pale fingers. "It's so good to be in each other's presence once more, don't you agree?"
Harry blinked a few times, his head swimming uncomfortably and his thoughts not cooperating as he stood, leaning back heavily against a damp cave wall for support, his chest weak but determined as it heaved in its effort. He didn't know how long he'd been there, or when the man standing before him had appeared, and he had no clue how much time had elapsed since he'd taken a drink of the offered water.
He shouldn't have drank the water.
It was cold, and the wet walls made his hoodie stick to his back. The air had an earthy, underground scent to it, but there was fresh air blowing in from somewhere, because he could feel the temperature shift. It was dark, but lit enough that his eyes were beginning to adjust.
A slow exhale rushed unpleasantly in the wizard's ears, and then a sickening sweet smell began to encompass his mind when he didn't respond, and he barely resisted nodding. "What, do you want from me?" he asked in a rough voice.
Red lips that were too close pulled up, revealing sharp white canines that gleamed under the dancing light. "Oh... Not much," was said in a silky voice.
"Right," Harry muttered under a labored breath as he forced his gaze away from the vampire he'd seen once before, his brain fighting itself as he struggled to make sense of what was happening.
He tried to focus on a nearby crevice in the wall just a few feet to his left he hadn't noticed in the dark, noting it started at the floor and looked to be just large enough to—He was flooded with an even thicker blanket of confusion.
"Aren't you happy here, Harry?"
Harry shook his head, trying to loose the growing tendrils wrapping more and more tightly around his thoughts, squeezing. "No. I... I want to leave," he said weakly, feeling like he was lying, he clenched his jaw tightly.
Silence ensued, the only noises the background sound of violent water and the wizard's own choppy breaths. What was he doing here? How had it happened? Where was—
"He's got quite the hold on you, doesn't he?" was said finally, a sudden heat behind the quietly spoken words, and then red lips crept closer once more. "We'll just have to fix that."
Draco stood squarely in front of a tall evergreen, his entire body tensed as he glared at it. A hand touched his shoulder gently. "Don't." The hand lifted.
"Draco, come sit down, it won't help to wear yourself out... we all need the rest, especially you," was said softly.
Grey eyes that were nearly the shade of flint closed slowly, and the blond sucked in a silent breath, his chest protesting at the simple action, because there were no markers in it that could help anymore, just woods and animals, and cold. "Pansy, just leave me alone."
Soft steps trailed away, and Draco inhaled more slowly.
The scent had disappeared right where he stood. They'd been following a trail for the entirety of the day, only stopping for bare necessities, and now it was gone. Like it'd never existed. If anything happened to Harry—A sick feeling in Draco's stomach stopped the musing; he couldn't think of that. The sound of a lit fire filled the tall blond's senses, and he resisted lashing out at the wizards behind him as they began to settle in for the night.
Round, shining yellow eyes slowly made themselves known in the tree just feet above his direct line of vision, and Draco glared up at the screech owl perched quietly on the lowest hanging limb, as if it were the reason for all his problems. He'd been being poisoned. How had he not noticed it, how had he missed all the warning signs? He'd been feeling tired and weak on and off for a long time now, which he should have known wasn't normal for a vampire, but he'd been too caught up in feeling sorry for himself and in Harry, consumed—Not to mention he'd been taking the Gryffindor's life magic at every turn like an addict, and now he knew why. He'd be dead if it hadn't been for Harry. Draco's chest clenched.
"I brought enough for all of us." Hermione Granger's voice sounded behind the tall blond. He resisted turning around at the sound of Blaise and Pansy reluctantly accepting some of the offered food from the Gryffindor witch, which in a less dire situation might've proved itself entertaining. Where could he have gone? He knew the person who had been messing with his blood supply was very likely who had also taken Harry, and if so, was almost certainly the vampire whose scent he'd picked up on several occasions as it bisected Harry's path too many times...
"Are there any other ways to track him since we've lost his scent? Maybe with his magical signature or something they couldn't mask?" Blaise's voice sounded unusually strained.
"Well... there is a spell we could try... but the problem is, due to the nature of it, it usually requires forethought or knowledge on the caster's part. It tracks the wizard's life magic signature, so you need to have sampled it beforehand..."
Draco tensed at that, turning around slowly.
Ron frowned, the red-headed wizard setting down his plate on the ground between his feet. "But we didn't get it ahead of time, did we?" he asked, looking confused but still hopeful nonetheless.
Hermione shook her head slowly, her hands hidden inside her jacket sleeves as they rested on her lap, her wand poking out of her right one, and then she was shooting a look over at the standing blond. "No, but if someone else had some of it, we could maybe use it," she hedged.
"Someone else have it?" Ron asked, sounding increasingly agitated. "How would someone else have some of Harry's life magic?"
Draco took a step forward, the bushy-haired witch's eyes widening hopefully and Blaise shooting him a wary expression out of the corner of his vision, and he steeled himself. "What do you need me to do?"
