Dark Temptations

A/N: Well, here is the official chapter for all of those who have been faithfully waiting. Me re-reading all of your reviews made me remember this, I can't put it of for forever. So I am posting it now, though a little shorter than normally, Sorry about that. But I promise the next chapter will be longer, and this time I will post up sooner! I promise, or else you can send me thousands and thousands of hate letters!!

Oh, and this chapter also gives some background info about how Malfoys became the outcast and about Draco's older brother, having been mentioned in the first chapter.

Disclaimer: It belongs to me not, so go bite something.

P.S.: I just found out what 'lemon' means on stories here. My poor virgin eyes, my mind, I skipped half of the paragraphs. They were too visual. . . my innocent thoughts, oh dear. And I'm only so old. Why me???

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Chapter 8 – Uno Killer

~+~

Foresee a shadow in the night.

It shimmers in the moon's beauty light.

If it comes into my room,

Will it bring me joy or doom?

~+~

Morning. The sunlight streamed into the hospital wing, falling over the bed both Draco and Harry occupied. Or only Harry occupied.

Draco had smelled the tickling warmth that comes every morning with each sunrise, awakening all that had been asleep, just as Harry was beginning to stir and rose, hair uncombed, eyes shiny and still filled with sleep. And vision as normal as a person may have it, with the only difference that a headache was beginning to form in his mind.

'Again?' Nothing weird had happened for it to have returned, only that he had woken to find only himself in his bed. Had it been a dream? But if it had been, then the bed wouldn't still be warm where a recent Draco had occupied it.

With that knowledge a void slowly began appearing in his soul, causing him to hurt deeply on the inside. "Draco," he whispered out into the loneliness surrounding him, pulled up the covers, and cried in silence.

~+~

Draco had run away during the nigh. Feeling Harry's warmth and being able to smell him brought back what he thought had been banned out of him for all eternity. But it had returned with a hunger to drink deep and without a hope for its victim. The monster that was part of him; the beast that hid within his other half. The creature that was part of his soul and would either destroy Harry, or bring salvation to both of them.

"You're pathetic, do you know that?" she asked somewhere nearby.

"What do you want, Savannah?" Draco asked mentally, not being able to move his jaw under the packed ground. He heard that irritating giggling of a little girl keeping a secret for a reply. He had met her only a couple of times and was introduced to him as Gregori's plaything. But yet here she was, talking to him as if she'd done it for ages.

"You should know very well a carpathian can't stay away too long without going haywire without their soulmate being nearby," she said in that matter-of-fact tone that reminded him so much of Hermione.

She didn't just say what he thought she did, did she? "Did you say soulmate?" he couldn't keep the suspicion out of his 'voice'. He lay still for a moment, being able to feel something very different about her then when he had last seen her.

He sensed her rolling his eyes at him. "Duh. You can't expect me to stay sane by being a whole half continent away from Gregori. If he hasn't been feeling weird until now, I might as well go into retirement. Honestly, how dense can you sometimes be, Draco?"

Draco was stunned. He truly didn't know what to say as a reply. "But Gregori had said that him and Lolita where soulmates."

Now it was Savannah's turn to be shocked. "No, Gregori is my soulmate. If him and Lolita truly WHERE soulmates, then one of them would have been dead long ago. You know exactly how hard it is for them to get along without supervision from somebody."

He could feel that she was telling the truth. So it was Gregori and Lolita who had been lying to him. But why? "How high is the sun, Savannah?" He needed some questions answered as soon as possible.

"Well, it's almost sunrise," she said from what sounded a great distance, "and I'm starting to feel Morpheus sing to me. I'm going to retire to my chambers now and leave you to think and rest in peace now. Good night."

With that she left him alone under the ground now, deep in thought. He knew that they had come because of some hunter loose on the grounds. They were afraid he wasn't strong enough to take him on his own. And what if he had back up? But that still was no excuse for this stratagem they had began building around him. He had the right to know what was going on, and he would use them to the limit. He would find out, even if he had to go and talk to Mikhail in person, he would know what was going on.

~+~

"Harry?"

He turned away from the voice, afraid of whom it could be. Maybe he was overreacting, but without Draco nearby, he felt very much helpless.

'Helpless?' he asked himself, starting to laugh in his mind. 'Since when is the great Harry Potter anywhere near being helpless?'

He thought about it, truly not finding anything he had done without the guidance of someone else, but he had never been 'helpless'. Nor would he be helpless now.

"Harry, are you still sleeping?" the girl prodded him in his side, causing him to jump up. "Oh good, you are awake." She smiled at him.

At first he thought Lolita had grown overnight, but it seemed that she was different from her. This person seemed gentler, more compassionate than Lolita. Her face was rounded and heart-shaped, and instead of bringing a vibrance to her image, her hair fell to give it an even more childlike complexion. He slightly blushed at her motherliness.

She noticed him staring at her awkwardly and got up a little shaky and introduced herself. "I am Savannah," she curtsied. This made him avert his eyes in another direction, or anywhere but meeting her gaze. It was steady, determined, and held the wildness he has seen in only one person. But unlike Draco, she was obviously exhausted.

"How do you know me?" he couldn't think of anything else to ask, but that question was even more ridiculous than the regarded silence between them.

She smiled, lighting her face up in a miraculous way he just sat in awe.

~+~

"Gregori!"

Draco hurried through the dungeons, heading straight to the room most dared not even look at. He had questions and wanted answers now. Passing by the other students, he didn't notice how quickly they moved out of his way, his fury making him oblivious of the world.

Gregori felt him coming, but didn't bother to think of any kind of excuse. He should have thought ahead as soon as Savannah had come. It was too late now.

Draco slammed the door open, barely even touching it to make its impact against the wall ear splitting. "What is the meaning of this, old man?" he asked as calm as he could manage.

Gregori looked him in the eyes, wondering if he should try and search out Lolita from her classes. He sat in his chair, cool and calm. "Please clarify your barging in on me like this."

Draco stared at him, keeping every last nerve he had tightly under his overblown ego and image he had to uphold. "I mean," he began through gritted teeth, "what was your reason for lying to me?"

He sat completely still, allowing Draco's anger and frustration to wash over him. "What reason do I have for being honest with you?" he shot back coolly. Gregori didn't always have to be nice; he could be just as cold and as mean. "Don't forget, it was a Malfoy that abandoned the clan and nearly allowed our king and queen to die, nearly ending the line of carpathian. You may not know any of this, but that does not change your line of heritage. What guarantees us the fact that you will not do the same?"

"Excuse me?" Draco's temper had been rising, but what did he mean by doing the same?

"Your father," Gregori sighed, rubbing his brow, "left our clan long before Voldemort of course. But after he met Narcissa, he slowly began to change. I was a good friend of his, and he was very kind as well. Though he always did have a slight need for power, he never craved after it like he does now. Tormenting innocent humans for fun, destroying souls, making them lose their minds. Lucius became cold and dead like the snow, very much the blood-killing beast we hunt. Luther was not so."

Draco stood there, his mind spinning slightly. "So," he asked slowly, not sure if he wanted to know the answer or not, "what really happened to Luther?"

Gregori inhaled, having not expected that question. "I would originally say it is not my place to tell you, but I highly doubt you will receive an honest answer from your father. Very well, I shall tell you. But you may want to sit."

A chair appeared from behind the door and Draco sat cautiously down, his frustrations having died away into a curiosity and slight fear.

"Luther, like yourself, was also stubborn and a hot head." Draco didn't know if that was a compliment or an insult, but he kept quiet all the same, though frowning slightly. "He was a lady killer and a heartbreaker as well, but he never hurt anyone. He also know when to stop his drinking, so his deeds and actions weren't held for serious. Narcissa, a cold woman, had expected him to be cruel, somehow like her. I'm sure you've heard of the sirens in Greek mythologies."

Draco nodded, wondering how much of his life could end up being a lie. "They sang a song that brought sailors to their death. Or else they called out towards the sailors as the person they loved the most."

"Yes, that's all the niceties and whatnot, but you know the part of them luring men to their doom. She had called out from her lonely beach as Lucius had been sailing underneath the deck in secret among the cargo. The crew sailed over to her island, thinking her a helpless woman in need obviously. He had not been among the ones to leave, but soon the rats that had snuck on board were dry as a leaf, and he was becoming ravenous. Tea?" Gregori asked, feeling parched and wanting something to drink.

"No thank you," Draco answered, eager to hear the rest of the story. "So, when did my father finally come out?" he asked, having waited patiently for him to stir in the sugar and honey that had appeared on his desk as well.

Gregori took a sip, then leaned back thoughtfully, having a slight Dumbledore image about him. "I think it took him about two weeks to figure out the ship wasn't leaving anytime soon, so he finally decided to go on the upper deck and find out what was going on that night. He saw her sitting alone under a tree, the only thing that offered any kind of shade on her little beach. What also noticed the random body parts of the crew laying around her, bones and bloodied sand around her feet." Gregori sighed again, looked as though he was about to stop, but continued onward.

"That should have been a warning to him that this woman was no good, and he should have formed into a Seagull and taken off. But no, he had to go and talk to her, ask her what she had been thinking and already he was suckered into that vixens' grasp. But what she didn't know is that he wasn't human. So that made her attempt to eat him a little difficult, but instead, they both somehow 'fell in love' with each other as they gazed into each other's eyes. It was pathetic, I tell you that much."

"But how come you know what happened?" Draco asked, wondering if Gregori had been spying on him or something.

"Very simple," he said, taking another sip. "Lucius told me the story repeatedly after he came back home. I almost killed him myself after the twenty-seventh description of how her eyes had sparkled that night compared to the moon."

Draco just sat in silence, thinking about what he had heard. "But, what does any of this have to do with Luther?"

Gregori's aged eyes fell upon the ignorant youth's face, then he almost seemed sad. "Life works in mysterious ways," was all he answered, then placed him empty cup on top of his table, leaning back in content. "Luther," he began carefully, "wasn't your mother's son."

"Explain please," Draco tried making sense of this. Not his blood?

"Oh no, you are his blood yes, but not your mother's," Gregori read the question appear in his mind, "which was very confusing. Somehow, he was connected to Lucius, though none of us know for sure how. Narcissa had raised him as her own, but there was one problem."

"Which was?"

"He didn't have the need nor want to kill. He was kind, as I told you before. And exactly this is the reason he was exposed to the light."

What?

"Your mother killed Luther, there's no other way to explain it. Or at least, she thought she had." Gregori smiled that odd smiled, like a cat knowing something but no matter how much you beg, it will never tell you. "And another thing that is similar between you two is how you picked your mates."

Draco was fixing to leave, feeling betrayed of course, but never such an utter loneliness as before. He and his mother of course never had a strong connection, but that lied to him most of his life was something he would have to get used to. Especially all of the other things that didn't make sense until a bit of a clarification came. He slowly turned around to look at Gregori, feeling as if his strength had been drained from him. "How are we similar?"

Gregori coughed once, clearing his throat. "It's true, you are the first to have a male for a love, but if you know one unruly person with spring-green eyes and raven dark hair, then you might have seen them all."

"Aren't all carpathian women black-haired?"

"But not green-eyed. See if he knows of anyone in his family having ever been removed."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." He grinned at Draco, "but you might be surprised."

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Please don't hate me for making it not as long as usual, but I really wanted to post it, and I thought 'Hey, this could be a spiffy ending,' so I ended it here. I warned you guys I would end it here. And also really sorry if it seemed sort of boring, but I had to get this out as well. Also, I want at least SEVEN reviews before I post the next chapter, so I'm thinking this should take some time. ^.^

And if you want some people to appear in this story, please E-MAIL me, so I can see what I can do. But I am turning down any requests for some kind of lemon fic. That just totally corrupted me today, I am so sorry, but it's the truth. I am still underage, and pretty naïve I admit, so don't even think about it! That was just too graphic. . . I will never be the same again. Anyhoo, happy living and send in those requests, suggestions, flamers, reviews, whatever is on your mind!