Now I have finally fulfilled my obligation as author and churned out another chapter as that I won't be mugged of my mind, a very real threat I hope THE PROCRASTINATOR won't carry out ;)
Dur-dur-dur-drum, dur-dur-dur-drum, dur-dur-dur-durum-
Harry shifted in the armchair where he was seated, his hair once again blonde and his eyes blue under the glamour of Elijah Spring, yet the sparkle of excitement that seemed to make his eyes glow was entirely authentic. His fingers were drumming rhythmically against a side table – dur-dur-dur-drum, dur-dur-dur-durum – displaying his excitement and nervousness and also serving to annoy the other man in the room who was sitting regally in his armchair with a straight back, one leg resting over the other and arms on the armrests.
"Harry," he said in a low tone of warning.
"Oh yeah, sorry."
Silence settled over the sitting room with windows showing the garden that seemed more and more frozen for every day that passed, a crackling fire in a majestic fireplace and comfortable armchairs with small side tables and a low table between them on which a platter with cups and a steaming teapot and containers with sugar and honey and a little pitcher with milk and a platter of biscuits awaited the arrival of the guests, all of it kept under a stasis charm so that the tea wouldn't cool.
Harry sighed, shifted in the armchair again and tried to count the sugar cubes but quickly realized that he would have to empty them onto the platter to be able to see all of them. He sighed, let his eyes swipe the sunny room, sighed again and started bobbing his leg.
"Harry," Tom admonished him, causing the teen to sigh for the third time in a matter of minutes as he stilled his leg. Sitting still as Tom wanted him to do proved to be too hard, however, and it didn't take long until he was out of the armchair and was walking over to the windows to look out over the garden before he paced around the room, dragging his fingers along the walls as he went. It felt as if he had far too much energy for his body to handle, and even now when he was moving it felt as if something wanted to explode from within, making him nervous and high-strung.
A pop announced Minxy's arrival and made Harry swirl around as the houseelf bowed deeply before them, her floppy ears nearly touching the floor.
"Mr. Snape and young master Harry's friends is being arrived, Masters."
"Let them in," Tom ordered smoothly with slight relief in his voice, obviously irritated by Harry's restless behaviour.
A moment later, the double doors to the sitting room opened to admit Snape in his usual black robes and a dark look that made it clear he did not enjoy escorting teenagers while the two teens peeked interestedly around him to look into the room, only one of them trying to hide his curiosity while the other made no attempt whatsoever at behaving refined, brown eyes sweeping the room and taking in the furniture, décor and windows before setting onto the form of Elijah. A smile spread over her lips before being replaced by a minute frown, and Harry sighed as he knew that she was disappointed, probably having expected him to relieve his true identity to Draco. He had thought about it, almost decided to do it, but decided just that morning not to do it, too anxious of what Draco's reaction would be. Seeing how easily he had lost Ronald when changing his identity, he worried that Draco would leave him as well when finding out who he really was, especially when thinking of their history of enmity.
"Ah, Severus," Tom greeted the man, paying no heed to the youths as he rose from his seat and swept across the room with his dark robes billowing behind him, making him look every bit a Dark Lord.
Lord of Darkness of not, the man stopped in the doorway and turned to look at his little vampire, ruby eyes locking with innocently blues.
"Your friends will be returning to Hogwarts with Severus when I am finished with him, making your time together restricted. Use it wisely."
With those few words of advice, Tom turned and left with Snape in tow, making Draco and Hermione scurry out of the way hastily, the blonde Malfoy heir bowing respectfully when the Dark Lord stalked past. Silence settled over the room once the two older wizards had left as Harry watched him two friends uncertainly, suddenly nervous again as he had no idea of what they would say or think. He was standing by the armchair closest to the doors, his hand against the back as blue eyes watched his friends, the two of them barely having stepped over the threshold and watching him in return.
"Aw, you!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed, startling the boys and efficiently snapping the awkwardness as she rushed over to Harry and threw herself at him, her arms around his throat and her head on his shoulder, filling his mouth with bushy, brown hair and forcing him to grip the back of the armchair in order to steady them so that they wouldn't crash to the floor. Her arms squeezed tight and Harry found his breathing restricting, making him raise a hand to pat her back in warning.
"'Mione! 'Mione, can't breathe!" he hissed and she immediately released him to step back, a sheepish smile on her lips and he sucked in deep breaths of wonderful oxygen.
Draco chuckled from the doorway before walking over to them, a smile giving light to his aristocratic features and a glimmer of mirth in his silver eyes.
"Can't defend yourself against a girl, Elijah?" he teased, raising a pale brown in askance.
"Who was it that was punched squarely on the nose some years ago by said girl?" Harry answered with a grin, feeling truly satisfied when he saw blood rush to the pale face in a blush. Remembering their many secret encounters in different hideouts around Hogwarts made Harry swallow forced him to fight back his own blush, thought most of the attraction was gone, scattered by Tom and his delicious blood.
"Who told you that?" Draco demanded, a promise of retribution clear in his voice, and Harry realized his mistake. Turning to Hermione for assistance, he gave her a slightly panicked look, silently asking her for help. The brunet, however, simply raised her brows as if asking him if he really expected her to help him out of this, seeing as she thought he should simply tell the truth. Harry tried to communicate his acute need of help, seeing as this was most certainly not the way he wanted to break it to Draco.
"You told him?"
Harry blinked in surprise and turned to look at the blonde who, in turn, was looking at Hermione with a frown, allowing Harry to breathe a bit more easily as the Slytherin seemed to have mistaken the meaning behind Harry's look.
Hermione sighed, looking slightly disappointed by the fact that Harry's luck had saved him once again, but she didn't say anything. Turning to Draco, she gave him a shrug and a smile that could have been taken as apologetic, making Harry wonder when his friend became so accustomed to walking the line between lying and letting people believe in things that weren't true. Harry watched her in mute surprise, wondering what more could have changed and if Draco might have changed in similar ways.
Talking about change…
"How about telling me what's happened at Hogwarts lately?" Harry asked with a smile as he walked around the armchair to sit in it while gesturing for his friends to do the same, the trio gathering around the table with tea and making themselves comfortable as Harry poured them each a cup and offered biscuits. Considering a cookie but deciding that he didn't feel like eating one, he caught Hermione sharing a glance with Draco, silent communication passing between them and making him curious as to what had happened, his interest intensifying when a smile suddenly bloomed on Hermione's along with a glint in her brown eyes. Harry let his gaze flicker between them, a slight smile playing on his lips as if Hermione's grin was contagious, and when his vividly green orbs met with earthly brown ones he raised his brown is silent inquiry.
"We got rid of the toad!" Hermione exploded, apparently unable to keep it in anymore, and Harry blinked at her in surprise.
"You did what?" Harry asked in surprise, completely unprepared for such a statement and just as surprised.
His surprised question, voiced in a tone that might have been a tad bit too high pitched to be entirely manly, was more then enough to make Hermione throw herself into a detailed narration of their plan to get Umbridge suspicious of them to then have the twins set it all off with some newly developed bomb that seemed harmless enough but apparently could cause quite enough chaos. She told him of being woken by a furious Umbridge in the middle of the night and led through the castle in nought but nightgown and slippers, how they'd tricked her into going to the Forbidden Forest with them and how Umbridge had snapped and thrown the cruciatus curse at Hermione, with Draco ending up as the one on the receiving end of the unforgivable, her brown eyes darkening and the cheeriness dulling at the recollection. Harry listened attentively, his eyes wide as he leaned forward in his seat, a little now and then snapping his mouth shut when he realized he'd been gaping while Hermione recited the "explanation" they'd given the headmaster and their respective Heads of Houses.
Later, when they'd both woken up in the Hospital Wing, an Auror had come to take their statements and had explained that Umbridge would be detained as soon as she was found to be brought to justice before the Wizengamont so that the matter could be cleared up. Working under Fudge or not, the cruciatus was called an unforgivable for a reason, and when asked, the Auror had admitted that the matter would be taken to the Minister as well so that the man could explain how he could possibly authorize Umbridge as a professor.
After that, it hadn't taken long before another Auror returned from the Forbidden Forest with a grim look and a steady grip on Umbridge's elbow as he'd guided the woman towards the castle. Hermione described the toad with broken twigs and leaves in her hair, her pink clothes thorn and her skin dirty and bruised. She'd been stumbling unsteadily and mumbling incoherently, but she hadn't appeared to be gravely injured and what the centaurs had done to her remained a matter of speculation as the Aurors had left as quickly as possible to bring the woman to St. Mungos to have a healer see to her condition before she was to be brought to the Ministry for questioning.
According to Hermione, it had been quite hard to get away after that. The teachers, especially the headmaster, had thought it better if the two teens would have stayed in the castle instead of going to Hogsmeade, but they had argued that they needed the visit to the village as a distraction, and the teachers had relented. Once in Hogsmeade, they had been practically ambushed by the other students who all wanted to buy them a buttlebear at the Three Broomsticks or give them some candy from Honeydukes to get to hear the story of how they got rid of the toad.
"Everyone is completely sure that we are the ones behind it, even thought we haven't told anyone anything but what we told the teachers!" Hermione finished, her face slight flushed and her eyes wide and bright.
Harry stared back at her, his eyes wide and disbelieving as he was unsure of how to react. Should he be happy, congratulate them and celebrate? Probably, but it didn't feel right. It was so different, such a big change from how things used to be that he couldn't seem to wrap his mind about it. Hermione had changed. The bushy-haired girl he'd know would never have gone against a teacher in such a way, would never have plotted or agreed with a plan as underhanded and Slytherin as the one she'd just told him about. It wasn't honest, it wasn't Gryffindor – it wasn't Hermione. Or hadn't been, rather, because now, it seemed to be.
"I do expect some kind of reaction," Hermione said with a slight smile and awoke him from his thoughts, brown eyes searching his face.
"Sorry," he mumbled with a sheepish smile, glancing at the silent Draco who sipped his tea before turning back to Hermione. "I just didn't expect you to…" he trailed off with a shrug.
"You're a vampire living with You-Know-Who, and you're surprised by what we do?" Hermione asked with a brow raised in disbelief, making Harry shrug again.
Even if he didn't want to admit it, she did have a point, and he also thought he could detect an underlying meaning behind her words: if he compared his own change with the change Hermione had gone through, then the bushy-haired girl had barely changed at all.
"I guess you haven't changed all that much when compared to me," he admitted with a apologetic smile.
"Unless you have changed from being the saviour of the Light to being the Dark Lord himself, I really can't see how you would have changed more since it is an unbelievable change for a Gryffindor to go from foolhardy honesty to scheming with a Slytherin such as myself," Draco joked dryly, causing Harry to tense in his seat as Draco was too close to the truth for the vampire's comfort.
"Well, I'm not the Dark Lord," he pointed out nervously, making Draco frown slightly, obviously wondering what he had said that made Harry so worried.
Thankfully, Hermione decided to save him this time.
"I didn't come here solely to tell you that we have gotten rid of Umbridge – how have you been?" Hermione asked softly and Harry gave her a relieved.
"Good, just good," he answered with a smile. "Tom's been teaching me wandless magic, and I've gotten a new wand since my old one was snapped," he told them, feeling a slight tug at his heart at the reminder of his old wand and his fingers reflexively closed around the handle of his new wand.
He quickly scrambled for something else to tell them, and said the first time that came to mind: "I've also gotten to know Tom better!"
It wasn't until the words had left him that he realized what he had said, and even thought the wording was innocent enough, it made him blush since he knew the real meaning behind them. Getting to know him better sure was a nice way of putting it.
"So… you feed from him now?" Draco asked slowly, shifting awkwardly in his seat, and Harry felt his blush intensify.
"Yeah…" he mumbled, trailing off.
An awkward silence settled over the group as Draco tried to look anywhere but at the blushing Harry while Hermione seemed to try to come up with something to say to break the silence, but instead ended up looking much like a gaping fish out of water as she repeatedly opened and closed her mouth. Before she had a chance to succeed, however, Harry caught the sound of approaching footsteps and turned towards the doors thought which Tom and Snape stepped a few minutes later, signalling that their time together had come to an end.
The three friends said their good-byes rather quietly as the silence between Harry and Draco remained awkward, thought nothing could stop Hermione from practically strangling Harry in one of her hugs, not even the presence of the Dark Lord deterring her efforts of squeezing the life out of him. After promises and assurances of meeting soon again, his two friends were gone with the billow of Snape's black cape, leaving Harry to feel oddly empty. He was happy to have gotten to see his friends again and hoped that they could meet again sooner rather then later, but there was still something that felt wrong…
Guilt, Harry recognized after a while – guilt was what he felt, and once that was sorted out it didn't take a genius to realize that he felt guilty because he continued lying to Draco even now that they had become close friends – or perhaps especially since they had become close friends, as Harry did not wish to lose a second dear friend in a matter of months. That, however, did not seem to be the only reason for his guilt as it felt as if he had abandoned Draco, simple walked away and left him behind, dumped him. Of course he knew that that wasn't the case, seeing as he hadn't walked away willingly but rather had been imprisoned in Azkaban, unable to do anything about the situation and certainly not in any position to demand the right to give Draco a proper farewell. Still, it felt as if he had wronged Draco somehow, as if he was cheating on him, leaving an old lover behind when he was no longer interesting enough to run off with a new man – a new man who just happened to be Tom Riddle, the most feared wizard of their time, and it wasn't as much running away with a lover as taking the blood that was offered to survive and stay sane.
Sighing, Harry decided he would have to talk to Draco, properly, when the first opportunity presented itself.
Such an opportunity would prove to be hard to come by, however.
XXX
Hermione, as the brilliant young witch she was, sent a letter only days later, claiming in vague but obviously enthusiastic wording that she could get in and out of Hogwarts without problem and, consequentially, could come see him already the next weekend if only there was someone who could pick her up in Hogsmeade to take her to the Manor. Her ingenious plan proved to be quite simplistic when she was apparated to the Manor by a sullen Death Eater who was obviously not very highly regarded by Tom, as she told him that she'd simply sneaked out through the hidden passageway behind the statue of the one-eyed witch that lead to the Honeydukes' cellar, and from there had sneaked out to meet the Death Eater where Snape had taken them to apparate last time. Since it was the weekend and she wasn't required for any classes, meetings or detentions, it was unlikely that anyone would notice her absence if she stayed for a short time, and she promptly asked Harry if they had a library available as she opened her shoulder bag and revealed that she'd brought all the schoolwork that Harry had missed. His look of horror must have been priceless and it made the previously dismayed Dark Lord chuckle at his misfortune.
Tom wasn't overly happy about having a mudblood turning up at the Mansion regularly to claim time with his little vampire, but the revelation that Hermione would have him study seemed to placate the man somewhat, making Harry bite back his protests and obediently lead Hermione to Tom's office with its fireplace, plush armchairs and many bookcases. The young witch had been delighted to suddenly had easy access to such old and rare books, even if the contents of many of them were doubtlessly on the dark side of magic, and Harry eagerly told his friend about the books Tom had him read and the spells he practised, seeing an opportunity to escape from having to study.
His plan worked for all of fifteen hopeful minutes before Hermione directed him to read through her notes from the transfiguration classes he had missed, and he watched with dread as the scroll she'd copied her notes onto unrolled itself across the floor, no doubt long enough to reach across the office, from corner to corner. Hermione made herself comfortable in the armchair across from him with a dangerously swaying pile of books by her side and watched him expectantly, leaving him with no choice but to suffer in silence with the small, neat scrawl of Hermione's.
Silence settled over the room, only broken by the occasional crackle of the fire and the light rustle of parchment as Hermione turned a page or Harry moved along the monstrously long scroll of notes. Their studying went by without interruption for about half an hour before Harry caved, needing to ask what he'd been wondering since Hermione met him in the entrance hall with only the Death Eater as company.
"Hermione?"
"Hm?" Brown eyes glanced up over the cover of the heavy tomb she was engrossed in, her bushy hair pushed back behind her ears to stay out of the way.
"Did- Was there any particular reason for- Do you know why… why Draco didn't come today?" he asked nervously, dreading the answer. What if his lies and secrecy had already pushed away the blonde? What if Draco no longer saw them as friends and never wanted to talk to him again, let alone see him?
"Oh, Harry," Hermione sighed, her brown eyes softening and showing how much she cared. "Draco is, well… He has a lot to think about and come to terms with, and since things would no doubt be awkward between the two of you, he opted for staying in the castle today."
"What's he thinking about?" Harry asked, suspecting that he might already know the answer.
Closing the book with a bit of parchment between the pages as a bookmark, Hermione turned to him with the look of someone gathering patience and preparing herself for a long explanation of something that should have been more or less obvious.
"The two of you were… intimate before you were taken to Azkaban, weren't you?" Hermione asked gently but didn't seem to need an answer as Harry didn't even have time to start blushing before she continued. "You were close friends and, depending on how you saw it, perhaps more then friends. Then you're suddenly dragged off to prison to be saved after a few days, and then it was as if you'd fallen off the face of the earth – we were both very worried about you, but there was nothing we could do but wait even thought we knew nothing of your condition. I cannot say this for sure, it is but a guess on my part, but perhaps Draco assumed things would go back to the way it had been when you'd regained your health? If so, then it must have been quite a shock for him to learn that you now feed of Tom and that you are intimate with him instead. I can imagine it would feel a lot like being ditched."
Harry groaned and hid his face in his hands, rubbing it rather harshly as he tried to vent the frustration and slight hopelessness that wanted to set its claws in him.
"I've got no idea of what to do to change that, Hermione," he admitted tiredly. "How do I, I don't know – make it up to him?"
"Well, giving him some time to think it through might be a start, so perhaps it is a good thing that he didn't come along today," she suggested. "I do think he understands, though, since he knows that vampires need blood and that Tom's blood is no doubt better then his own since the difference in power between them is immense, but you'll still have to talk to him."
"And what do I say? What am I supposed to tell him?"
"The truth, of course. All of it."
XXX
Two weeks had passed since Draco had been to his Lord's mansion, two weeks since he had seen his friend Elijah. Hermione had already been there twice without him and made no move to hide what she thought of his avoidance when she'd stared at him from across the Great Hall at dinned that evening after having returned from her trip to the Mansion. Earlier that day, when she'd asked if he would come with her to see Elijah, he'd told her that he had prefect duties that got in the way, and it hadn't been a lie – though, if he had truly wanted to, he would have been able to get away from it to come with her. Truth was that he just wasn't sure of what to say to Elijah, how to behave around him.
He readily admitted that he had never harboured any romantic feelings for Elijah but more of an interest, the feeling of curiosity that accompanied laying a puzzle and waiting to get to see what the picture would be – because that was what Elijah had been, a puzzle, a mystery for him to solve, thought admittedly one with sexual aspects involved for which he blamed their shared teenage hormones. He had known that they were feelings that wouldn't last, that it was a passing attraction of his and that it would never be allowed to be anything else even if he had wished it to since they were both males and his father expected him to produce a heir. Still, when Elijah had been taken to Azkaban it had felt as if he had been ripped from him, taken from him without right, and when he finally got to see him again it was only to realize that Elijah had moved on – to their Lord, nonetheless. Merlin, he would never be able to think of Lord Voldemort the same again.
There were no hard feelings involved over the matter, however, since he knew from the very beginning that their relationship, if it could be called that, had been based solely on Elijah's need for blood and teenage hormones, both of whish Draco had used to his advantage. Being a Malfoy, he always got what he wanted one way or another. Thinking that Elijah would ever return to him, however, would be nothing but foolish since blood had played a central role and their Lord's blood was undoubtedly much more potent then Draco could ever hope that his own blood would be.
Even thought he made it sound as if he had it all sorted out, he really didn't know how to act now, how to behave around Elijah. Would they just return to being friends? Could they?
Hopefully, thought not certainly.
And most surely not right now when Draco's feelings had decided to move on without him, rudely ignoring the fact that he was just about to figure out what he felt for Elijah and barging on. These new feelings must have awoken after Elijah had been taken away, and from then on they had grown stronger, sneaked up on him while he was completely unaware of them and made a secure fortress inside him from which they had ambushed him that night in Umbridge's office. Seeing Hermione standing there, dressed in nothing but slippers and a nightgown with frizzled hair and an endearingly flushed face allowed the feelings to attack him with unrivalled force.
She was so different from Elijah, in every possible way, and not only when seeing to personality. Her body was soft and female, with breasts moving as she breathed and slim legs prickled with goose-bumps while Elijah's body had been hard and strong and very much male. The feelings she awoke were equally different, warmer and softer, more gentle in nature yet somewhat stronger. And while his feelings for Elijah had been passing in nature, his feelings for Hermione-
His head hit the tabletop with a thunk that rattled the chess pieces of the game Blaise and Teo were playing, the miniature figures in black and white glaring at him as they trudged back to their respective squares. Pansy, having been completely absorbed by the latest issue of Witch Weekly while her newly painted nails dried, almost dropped the magazine as she was startled by the sudden sound.
"Draco, please don't," she chastised him lightly. "You'll bruise your handsome face if you do that."
The only response she was given was a tired groan, making her roll her eyes before she gripped the magazine anew and returned to her reading with a shrug, leaving him to his misery.
His feelings for Hermione did not feel as if they would simply cease after a short amount of time – it felt as if they were long-lasting and would pester him until he fully acknowledged them and did something about… the situation. Acknowledging the feelings wouldn't solve anything, however, for if his relationship with Elijah had been unacceptable because they were both males, then the mere thought of having any kind of intimate relationship with Hermione, a muggleborn, must be positively illicit, perhaps to be punished by death. Elijah did at least have his ranking among the Death Eaters and close relationship to their Lord – what mitigating circumstances did Hermione have?
Father is going to kill me, he thought wearily, sighing deeply to express his misery.
"Okay, that's it!" Pansy exclaimed, slapping her magazine onto the table and turning to Draco who looked up at her with raised brows. "Talk to me!" she demanded, and Draco snorted in reply.
"Are you going to solve my troubles for me now, Pansy?" he asked skeptically.
"Um, Mr. Malfoy?"
The two fifth-years turned to the second year student who looked as if he was intruding in their private chambers and not standing by the table they occupied in the Slytherin common room. A majestic owl that Draco vaguely recognized as the owl that had carried letters to Elijah a couple of times perched on the younger Slytherins's shoulder, a envelope held in its strong beak. The yellow eyes locked onto Draco and the owl left the boy's shoulder in favor of landing on the table in front of Draco, tipping Pansy's nail-polish over and spilling the pink varnish onto the table, making Pansy hiss indignantly as she flicked her wand to salvage the table and her nail varnish. The owl ignored her haughtily while waiting for Draco to take the envelope, and the blonde complied obediently.
"It refused to leave me alone, and since it was your name on it, Mr. Malfoy, I figured that, well…" the second-year trailed off, clearly nervous and embarrassed as he fiddled with a seam on his robes.
"Thank you for your help," Draco answered lightly and gave the boy a most charming smile before turning his full attention to the envelope, his full name neatly written on the parchment just as the boy had said. Opening it, he found a simple card of parchment inside, folded in half – unfolding it, he found one single word written in the middle, penned out with a familiar hand in black ink.
Friends?
Gah, this chapter was hard to write - feels like I say that on most chapters recently, though =,=' We're getting closer to the end, so maybe I'm reluctant to finish it? Oh well, we have some relationships and secrets to sort out before that :)