What is this attraction?
I only feel the pain
There's nothing left to reason
and only you to blame
Will it ever change?
Barely Breathing, Duncan Sheik
Dudley had come round from the multiple-stunning assault and had not seemed to remember what had happened when he'd previously woken up in the cottage. He seemed oblivious to the fact he had attacked Hermione, or that he was a vampire at all.
After most of The Order had dispersed, Dudley stood framed under the archway of the hall while Hermione, Harry, and Theo cleaned the house — the muggle way, as was Hermione's demand. He wasn't a particularly tall boy, but his mop of hair added a good inch to his height. And he wasn't a very round boy, though he didn't have the chords of muscle that stretched beneath Harry's skin, either.
Hermione had never met Dudley before. But somehow, by the end of the night, she'd already seen far too much of him. The way Harry had always described Dudley, she'd expected a bumbling baboon with suspenders and a cane. What she actually found was a young blond man with soft edges and a bit of a dopey smile.
He was perfectly normal, as it were.
"Feel like a bloody lorry rolled over me 'ead." Dudley's hand cradled the back of his skull, and his eyes squeezed shut as he stumbled into the living room and promptly plopped down on the nearest high-backed chair.
"We need Draco," Hermione muttered out of the corner of her mouth to the wizards at her side. "What if he attacks us?"
"We're protected , apparently," Harry retorted back, pulling a grumble from her in response.
She decided to try a different tactic, since her best mate currently seemed to have his head up his own arse. Hermione schooled her tetchy features and focused on Dudley instead.
"Er, Dudley?" Hermione spoke softly and attempted a kind smile, drawing his blue eyes to her. They flashed, and she winced, her body remembering the feel of his arms wound around her waist and the way his teeth sank into her neck. "How are you feeling?"
"Already said, din' I? Feel like a dog's arse." With one hand on either side of his head, he ducked his face between his legs. "Fuckin' hungry 'n all. What smells so bloody good?"
Hermione took an instinctive step to the side and bumped her shoulder against Harry's arm. "Get. Draco."
"No need." Four heads whipped toward the silky sound of his voice, which came from the roaring fireplace across the room. Behind him, there was a large, oddly-shaped black box that immediately gave Hermione the creeps. "What, did you believe that I'd leave you to deal with a new vampire on your own?" He snorted and levitated the box — the coffin , upon closer inspection — to the center of the room. "All of the Felix Felicis in the world wouldn't help you lot with this task."
"Is it unnerving to anyone else that he has complete access to the cottage now?" Harry asked, the ghost of a nervous laugh on his lips. He glanced back and forth between Hermione and Theo; the former nodded her head, the latter shook his. "Pretty certain this is my worst nightmare."
"Not Voldemort's resurrection?" Theo raised a pointed, perfectly shaped eyebrow.
"Kittens compared to this," Harry responded immediately, jutting his chin in the direction of the two blonds.
Theo wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulder and pulled him close. Hermione, however, agreed with her best friend's sentiments and steeled herself. Hands shoved firmly into her pockets, she watched as Draco sat down next to Dudley and introduced himself.
"Are you all like 'im?" Dudley jutted out his thumb and aimed it at Harry, who grimaced.
"Do you mean to ask if we're magical?" Draco's voice was reserved, quiet, and Hermione watched as a nerve ticked in his jaw. "Yes, we are. But we— " his index finger moved like a pendulum between him and Dudley, "are also something more ."
"What?" The poor bloke's mouth hung open and he peered around the room. His eyes narrowed when they landed on Harry. "You havin' a laugh? What'm I doing here, anyway? 'Ow'd I get here? You havin' me on, then? Another one of your funny things?"
"No, Dudley, it's not like that. See," Harry glared in Hermione's direction as if she had something to do with his cousin turning up on their doorstep. "This is exactly why I wanted him out of the house before he woke up."
"That's just not practical, Harry," Hermione grumbled at him. She took a seat in a chair on Dudley's other side. "Dudley." She reached for his hand, but retracted it at the last second; the thought of touching him made her skin crawl. "You're a vampire."
"It's you ." Dudley's blue eyes darkened, nearly black, as he swung his gaze from Harry to her. "You're what smells so good. Blimey, you smell like mum's sponge cake."
He moved, just a small jerk in her direction, but stopped when Draco placed a hand on his chest and moved between her and Dudley. Hermione's breath caught in her throat; she hadn't had any time to realize what was happening.
"She's off limits," Draco said through his molars, and he pushed Dudley further against the cushion of his chair. "If you even look in her direction again, I'll kill you myself."
Hermione watched the exchange, having to poke her head around Draco's body as it blocked her view of Dudley. He seemed to consider Draco carefully, and didn't dare bring his gaze to her again. He sniffed, and settled himself into the chair with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Alright." Dudley lifted his chin and Draco's shoulders visibly sagged. "So then, I'm a vampire. What's that even mean?"
"It means you now live on a diet of plasma, courtesy of the human bloodstream." Draco withdrew his wand, gave a stiff flick, and a small plastic bag filled with dark, crimson liquid appeared in his hand as if from nowhere. "This is the only Ministry-approved method of consuming blood."
Dudley pulled a disgusted face and jostled himself away from Draco. "Eugh. The Ministry approves blood drinking? That's disgusting."
She heard Draco huff and watched his shoulders straighten. "Minister Shacklebolt has—"
"Minister who ?" Dudley's face screwed up. "Our Prime Minister's name is Macdonald. You have your head in the sand or summit?"
"Potter," Draco snapped, "I'm going to murder your cousin."
"Fine by me," Harry said and shrugged. "Always been a prat. Not likely to change. Now he's going to be a prat forever, and that's a terrible plague to set on the world."
"Harry!" Hermione jumped from her seat behind Draco and scowled at the lot of them. Honestly, men were the reason that the world would devolve into shit, she was convinced of it. "You're not helping. And we need Dudley if our plan is going to work, so if you could pull your head out of your arse—"
"What plan?" Dudley looked at her, dead in the eyes, and his fangs popped out over his lips. He pointed to them and crossed his eyes to try and see them. "'The fuck is this?"
"You need to eat." Hermione's gaze flicked to Draco and the bag of blood in his hand. "It won't be so bad once you feed."
"Load of bollocks," Draco muttered, but he thrust the bag into Dudley's waiting hand anyway.
An eerie silence fell over the house as Dudley surveyed the bag in his hand. For all of Draco's talk of how turning into a vampire was a singularly painful experience, she was surprised that Dudley seemed okay, bar that he winced when the light caught his eyes. Perhaps it was the potions she'd fed him while he was lying in their infirmary, or maybe there was something different between how muggle vampires turned, compared to magical ones. Whatever it was, she felt it warranted more study. If they could make the change easier for future vampires, then it was one step closer to affecting real change for creature rights at the Ministry.
"What'm I supposed to do with that?" Dudley held the bag up to Harry. "You a vampire now, too?"
"No." Harry pushed his cousin's hand away and grimaced. "I'm just the lucky sod that gets to explain this to your mum and dad."
"Shit." Dudley frowned. "Mum and dad are going to kill me."
"Or, you could just kill them." Draco smirked, and Hermione swatted him on the shoulder. "Sorry; perhaps you should just pretend to be on holiday for a while, until we figure out the particulars of your new existence."
Dudley grumbled before ripping the plastic seal from the bag in his hand. As he caught the scent emanating from the bag, the fact that it contained blood didn't seem to matter to him anymore; he brought the lip of the bag to his mouth and stared at Draco, eyes as black as onyx. He drank long, greedy pulls from the bag until it was empty. It wasn't until he was done, and tossed the emptied blood-stained bag to the side, that Hermione realized Draco's hand was curled like a vice around the arm of the chair.
"Dudley?" Hermione tried to pull his attention away from Draco, but he paid her no notice. "Draco?"
Dudley and Draco were locked in a stare as Hermione turned to Harry slowly. "See if Tracey's still here? I think she mentioned grabbing some stock from the infirmary before leaving."
Harry nodded and vanished down the hall. It was Theo that finally broke the tension in the room. He placed a hand on Draco's shoulder and coaxed him with a gentle nudge. The spell was broken between them. Hermione raised her brows at Draco when he glanced up at her, but he only gave her a slight shake of his head.
"Do you need to eat?" Hermione asked him, noticing a darkness overtaking his eyes.
"I'm fine." Draco eyed the empty blood bag and squared his shoulders. His fingers plucked the button of his suit, and he pushed himself further back into the chair with his foot raised over his knee. "It's fine. I took care of that before I came here with his coffin."
" Coffin ?" Dudley paled. His finger stretched toward the big, black box in the center of the room. "Crikey, is that for me? You aren't joking about this vampire business are you? It's — I'm actually a — a — thing ."
"Blood from a bag, you weren't convinced, but cozy place that blocks the sun and you're a wreck?" Theo snorted, his eyes rolling to the ceiling as he sat down on the arm of Draco's chair. "Merlin, and I thought wizards had a bizarre set of priorities, but you muggles with your strange foods and fear of small furniture…"
Hermione hid her small laugh against the back of her hand and used the opportunity that Theo's intervention had provided to distance herself from both of the vampires in the room. As Tracey and Harry entered, Hermione sat herself down on the edge of the large sofa across the room. Harry gestured for Tracey to sit down, and then joined Hermione on the sofa with his elbows on his knees and fingers in a steeple below his chin. He looked tired, but mostly annoyed, and it plagued his face in the downward turn of his lips and the way his eyes narrowed whenever Dudley glanced in his direction.
"Tracey Davis," Theo said, breaking through the silence that had once again settled. "This lovely gent to your left is Dudley — er—" his eyes found Harry and he whispered under his breath even though the entire room could hear him, " what's his last name, Potter ?"
"Dursley," Dudley answered before Harry had the chance. He stuck his hand out to Tracey like a proper gentleman. "'Mr. Dudley Dursley."
Hermione had never known Tracey to smile, and she didn't break this habit as she grasped Dudley's hand in her own and gave it a firm shake. "Pleasure. So, you're the new vampire?"
Dudley straightened his shoulders, adjusted his posture so he appeared taller, and adopted a crooked sort of smile that pushed the lines of his dimples deep into his cheek. "I am. And are you, er, one of them, too?"
If Tracey was surprised by the question, Hermione couldn't tell. She merely shook her head of long, brown hair and withdrew her hand from his. "Just a half-blood, I'm afraid. So, what do you want me to do with him, Potter?" Tracey's eyes shot toward their sofa. "You don't expect me to house a newly turned vampire on my own, do you? I do have a life outside of the Order."
"Oh, I won't be much trouble," Dudley said quickly, twisting his torso so that he was facing her straightforward. "I 'ave a coffin already and I've eaten. Can't be much more to it than that, can there?"
Tracey's lips pulled up, her perfectly white teeth lined by lips coated in thick, dark red lipstick. Hermione had never seen this sight, not once in all the years she'd known the former Slytherin girl; not around Daphne or Pansy or Theo, or even when Draco put on the ridiculous Malfoy charm — Tracey's face had never broken into a grin. And yet —
"Oh, bollocks." Harry's hands curled over his forehead and he grabbed chunks of his hair, pulling hard at the roots. He groaned and laughed and Hermione wondered if she heard a sob in the way his chest squeezed all the air from his lungs. "Tell me this isn't happening, please, for the love of all that's holy, tell me Tracey bloody Davis did not just smile at my cousin."
Hermione leaned over and knocked her shoulder against his. "Come on, it's just a smile, Harry. It's not like—"
"As a matter of fact, love, there are many things that vampires do differently to muggles and magical-kind." Tracey scooted herself closer to Dudley and placed her hand on his knee.
Hermione's eyes couldn't possibly get rounder, and she glanced about the room to see that everyone else was riveted by the scene as well. Theo's shoulder knocked against Draco, who watched them with a hand on his chin and a notch between his brows. Harry, to her right, scrubbed his face with his hands and crossed them over his stomach as if he were going to be sick.
"I can show you some of the fun things, if you'd like?" Tracey finished, her finger drawing a small circle on the fabric of his jeans. "I'm quite partial to one trick in particular, but we shouldn't have an audience for that."
Dudley's face, alight with a blush from just having fed, split into the most ridiculous grin Hermione had ever seen. His hand moved over Tracey's and he circled her fingers in his own. "Sounds brilliant."
"First he's a vampire, then he finds a witch." Harry rested his head against Hermione's shoulder and let out a quiet groan of frustration. "Petunia and Vernon are going to bloody kill me. And you. They'll probably burn down the whole world for corrupting Little Dinky Diddydums."
Hermione prodded Harry in the ribs, a laugh easy and light on her tongue. "Oh, come on Harry. He deserves to find someone who's not going to judge him for being a vampire. It's already a hard enough life, don't make it more difficult with your whinging."
She glanced up, but was caught by another stare from across the room. Draco's dark eyes were on hers, and though he'd said he'd fed before coming over to fetch Dudley, there was no blush on his face. Instead, he looked as if he could devour her whole. Her face heated up and, after moments of torturing herself about thoughts of what he could possibly be thinking, she finally pried her eyes away from his. But she could still feel his eyes tracking her movements, down to the very bend of her lips as she spoke.
"I'm glad that you two get along," she said primly, and tried like hell not to glance to Draco. "But we need to go over the strategy before you leave, and we'll need to coordinate properly if we're going to be able to use Dudley effectively."
"Use me effectively for what?" Though he spoke to Hermione, his eyes didn't leave Tracey.
Merlin's beard, did anyone care more about the state of the world than getting their jollies off? Or was it just her? Because, as Tracey and Dudley were lost in a surprising and totally inappropriate heated stare, Harry was trying to press his eyeballs into their sockets with the heels of his hands, and Draco and Theo were leaning over to one another whispering about something she couldn't hear, and by Godric's bloody sword, she was, once again, the only person paying attention to the matter at hand.
"Would you all please pay attention!" she exploded, palms slapping the tops of her jean-covered thighs. "I can't very well win a fight against a muggle vampire on my own, so if you could just hold your personal existential crises and secret plotting and love affairs until after our meeting—"
All eyes turned to her, and she didn't back down from any of them. She glared, arms crossed over her chest, before she ducked her chin once. Theo glanced at Harry and his lips twitched; they were having one of their frustrating silent conversations again, but she plowed through the moment by cutting her gaze to Draco.
"Dudley and Tracey can stay here tonight. You're welcome to stay as well." If her invitation surprised him, Draco made no show of it. Instead, he inclined his chin and toyed with a bit of fabric on the arm of the sofa. She turned to Tracey. "If he's going to be of any value to us, Dudley will need to integrate with Desdemona's coven sooner rather than later. I think Draco should remain with you for a little while to help him acclimatize to his role."
"You don't think this is moving too fast?" Harry asked, touching her knee to draw her attention to him. "He's only just turned tonight, and by all accounts he should be trying to murder us all. What if he goes rogue?"
"Then we kill him." Everyone stilled, and Draco swung his gaze to Dudley with a quirk to his lips. "One rogue vampire spoils the lot. If Dursley can't play with the other kids, we'll remove him from the equation and find another avenue."
"I don't think—" Hermione started, but was interrupted by Harry.
"Malfoy's right. If Dudders can't behave himself, then all we really have on our hands is another bloodsucking menace that'll destroy everything we're working to change."
A sudden movement to her left caught Hermione's attention and she turned from Harry, whipping him in the chest with her wildly uncontrollable curls. Dudley stood from the sofa, his body strict and tense, and a deep frown tugged his lips down. His eyes were dark and trained on Harry. Theo moved slowly to grab his wand. It appeared to everyone that Dudley was going to attack and the room was poised to take down the new, volatile vampire. But when Dudley spoke, it was quiet and directed at the floor by his feet.
"If you want to kill me, fine. Go on then." He waved his hand vaguely and then scratched at the back of his neck as he brought his eyes back to Harry, and Harry only. "I know I'm a right prat, alright. Never treated you good an' all. Felt rather shit about it the last few years, too." His teeth bit down onto plump and chapped lips, and his attention dropped to the floor again. "An' I'm sorry, alright. I — I'm just sorry."
"Everything just got tense," Theo whispered to Draco, but everyone's attention remained on the two cousins who were caught in a long, silent stare.
Hermione encouraged Harry to stand, pushing at his arm until he jostled from whatever stupor he'd been in. He crossed one arm over his chest and grabbed at his bicep, rubbing at the bare flesh until it was pink and irritated. He exhaled, and then glanced down to Hermione who nodded her head for him to continue.
"I guess I forgive you," he sighed, and Hermione kicked him lightly in the calf. "Ow, bloody hell, Hermione. Fine." Harry stepped closer to his cousin and stuck out his hand. "I forgive you. Let's start over, yeah?" As Dudley clasped his hand, Harry's face bloomed with a smile. "As long as I don't have to join you for Sunday dinners with your parents."
Dudley chuckled, face split in a dopey grin. He used his other hand to point at the fangs that were still poking out from under his upper lip. "Don't think I'll be doing much of that, either, to be honest."
"Right, now that the warm and fuzzies are out of the way." Tracey stood from her spot and placed her palm against Dudley's arm. "We'll go to mine tomorrow evening, so make sure you get a good kip. I don't want a moody vampire as a flatmate."
"This is weird, right?" Harry muttered into Hermione's ear, and she held in her laugh.
"Really weird," she agreed out of the corner of her mouth. Then, she clapped her hands together and addressed the room. "Right. Everyone off to bed, and we'll sort out the rest in the morning. Draco, can you get Dudley set up with his — er, bed , please?" She gestured at the oddly shaped coffin and tried to keep her expression neutral so as not to upset the poor bloke. "Harry and I will review the plans for the upcoming week, and I'll create a detailed schedule of check-in times that you can take with you tomorrow when you all leave."
The room broke into quiet motion as everyone began their night time routine. Harry moved to the kitchen, and Tracey took off to the spare bedroom down the hall. Draco levitated the coffin up the stairs and Dudley followed after him. Theo sweeped out of the room, tossing a wink in Hermione's direction as he went.
"Do vampires sleep at night?" she heard Dudley ask as they disappeared under the cloak of darkness down the hallway up the stairs.
Hermione took a deep breath and swiped her hands on the rough material of her jeans. The room was finally free of the mounting tension, and her chest loosened as the air around her lightened. Harry returned from the kitchen with a bottle of wine and two glasses. He set them down on a nearby coffee table, poured a healthy amount into each stemmed glass, and lit the fire with his wand.
"Here," he said, shoving the large glass into her hands and plopping himself down on the small sofa. He tugged at her shirt until she gave in and sat down beside him. "You know, I think we'll need to distance ourselves from Gawain's help now that we know he withholds information from us."
She took a large gulp of her wine and made a noise of assent in the back of her throat. "It's not very shocking though, is it? There's so much classified information, they won't want us to get ahead of them in any investigation. It's also not very surprising that Draco is his informant — we should have known."
"Mmhm." His glass was empty in seconds and he filled it up again. "Speaking of Malfoy—" Harry raised his eyebrows high above the rim of his round glasses and stared her down. "You two were acting strangely tonight."
"Me and Malfoy have always been really strange, Harry." Her shoulders lifted in a quick shrug and she held out her empty glass for more wine. He obliged, like any good friend would do.
"Why is that again?" The teasing quality in Harry's voice didn't go unnoticed, and she rolled her eyes as she worked on draining her glass a second time.
"Are you really going to make me relive it?" He nodded, and she tossed her head back to the cushion behind her, revelling in the dry sting of the wine as it slid down her throat. "You're the worst, do you know that?"
"It makes me feel better, knowing that you fell in love with a Slytherin bastard, too." His grin was impossible over the lip of his glass. "Theo's not as big of an arse as Malfoy, of course, so that makes me feel even better."
Hermione smacked him with the back of her hand and set her empty glass on the table. "I wasn't in love with him! It was only a few dates, and then…"
"He got bitten by a vampire and became a recluse?" Harry supplied for her in that tone that made her think that he really didn't understand the gravity of the situation at all. He was all stupid smirks and playful eyebrows, and she groaned as she reclaimed her glass and held it out for a third refill.
"Yeah, guess that about sums it up," she said, unable to find a better way of putting it. "We hadn't even gotten to the fifth date."
"Fifth date?" Harry's brow rose and he shook the bottle of wine — empty. Bugger it.
Hermione's eyebrows waggled, attempting to make her best friend uncomfortable. "Fifth. Date."
Harry's mouth popped open, lips stained red from the wine. "You make blokes wait until the fifth date? You tease."
"Yes, Harry, of course I wait until the fifth date to put out. Have you met most men?" Most men expected sex no later than the third date, so she could gauge their true interest by the fifth — and if they couldn't wait, then they weren't worth it in her opinion. Hermione had stuck to that strategy, and it had worked out just fine so far, thank you very much.
Harry grimaced into the little swill left in his glass, before tossing it to the back of his throat. "I slept with Theo ten minutes into our first date. And it wasn't even a first date, so much as a fateful case of being in the same place at the same time."
"What!" It was Hermione's turn to stare at him with a slack jaw. "You complete slag , Harry Potter!"
He chuckled and flung his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. His chest rumbled under her ear and she couldn't help but grin. It was decidedly easy to be best friends with Harry Potter, and she wasn't entirely sure what she'd do without him in her life. When she lifted her head to tell him so, a short, one-breathed laugh left him.
"I don't think fighting this thing with Malfoy is going to do you any good, love," he said. His gaze shifted and settled to a spot beyond her; he seemed to be caught in a staring contest she couldn't see. "He would have ripped Dudley to shreds tonight for even thinking about getting his hands on you."
She didn't answer. Her throat tightened and she put her head back down onto his chest, forcing her heart to slow down. They sat like that for so long, Hermione fell asleep before she even realized that she'd closed her eyes.
