Disclaimers: The characters do not belong to me, no matter how hard I wish. *sighs* To actually own Harry and Draco... XDDD Well, that would be the day, wouldn't it? Arrg!! *wishes very, very hard*
Summary: AU. A "faerie" tale with elves, vampires, and reincarnation. Draco's a transfer student who arrives at Hogwarts during Harry's seventh year, trying to fulfill a promise made nearly a hundred years ago. But what is this promise and does it have to do with Harry? D/H!
Beta'd by Mednar~ who's the coolest ever and one you should thank for getting rid of all my horrible, unstructured writing! ^_^ Without her, this chapter would be crap. ^^;;
Shamera
It wasn't long before the prince and the vampire realized
that they needed each other to go on. The vampire childe had turned his
back on the rest of the dark creatures to support the one he grew to
love, and the faerie prince had grown too dependent on the vampire
childe being there to make a single decision without looking to the
approval of his closest friend and one whom meant more to him than
anything else now that his parents were dead.
One day the faerie prince presented the vampire childe with a single rose of the deepest violet, the everlasting color of royalty. The boy vampire had taken the gift hesitantly; knowing that to be presented with a faerie rose was a high honor indeed. The roses that grew in the faerie lands were wild and uncultivated, but docile in the hands of those who love it. It held within its petals the innate magic of the land, and could only be handled by those who lived there.
'It doesn't matter what other people say,' the faerie prince had said when he saw the vampire's awe at being presented with such a gift; 'You are part of these lands, and a part of me. Those who wish you gone would have to wish me gone as well.'
But even so, the rose had faded slightly in the hands of the vampire childe, sensing that he was different than its previous owner, although not different enough for the rose to wilt completely. Disappointed by this, the vampire childe asked of the faerie prince, 'Would you keep it for me, then? So I would be able to see its beauty forever- it is much too wonderful to be handled by a dark creature, and I would rather see its purity untainted by one such as myself.'
The prince looked sad. 'It is not as pure as you think. The soils of these lands had been much tainted by the war, and what was once great and innocent is not that anymore. And I know that this rose would flourish under your care. Would you rather have it live forever in glass so that its beauty can be admired from afar?'
Seeing such sadness emulate from the faerie prince, the vampire stepped closer and cupped the other's face in his hands, bringing beautiful eyes up to met him. 'I would be honored to accept this rose. But I fear that I would not take adequate care of it and that I would never be able to give anything as beautiful as that back.'
'You don't have to give anything back. This is a gift from me to you, and I want you to take it.'
The vampire childe reluctantly accepted the gift, but not before making the faerie prince agree to contain the violet rose in a glass case, one that held the name of the faerie prince- so that the world would understand the beauty and significance of this rose. The prince had been slightly upset by the idea, but finally agreed that he was happy the boy vampire had accepted his gift.
The pale vampire strove greatly to find a gift precious enough to give to the faerie prince, but could not find anything that would meet his expectations for a gift that would befit the beautiful faerie prince.
And within that month, the faerie prince grew deathly sick.
Care of Magical Creatures was another class that the Gryffindors had with the Slytherins.
Harry was looking around as he got outside, lagging slightly behind his two best friends, allowing them the privacy to talk to each other more intimately than they could with him around. (Not that they stopped their cooing to each other- Harry had unfortunately been caught in the middle of it before because Hermione didn't want him to feel left out, and from then on Harry felt that he had better stay away from the sappy couple whenever they started making those eyes at each other.)
It was a beautiful day, with large clouds up in the sky and a slight breeze that carried the cold wind under their thick cloaks and warned them that while it certainly looked like a summer day, it was still early in spring. The grass was green and still wet with the morning dew, giving off a wonderful scent that was purely natural and made the students much more relaxed than they had in classrooms.
There were generally a few students milling around since class hadn't started yet, talking to each other or doing something off on their own. Harry's green eyes surveyed the scene before him, taking in the few people who were looking at him weirdly because of the change of his glasses. He already dealt with plenty of people that morning staring at him and then whispering to each other, and even a few girls come up to him to tell him that he looked great in those glasses.
But where was Draco? The other boy was never late for class from what Harry could tell, and at the moment he was nowhere to be seen. There were groups of Slytherins crowded at the sides whispering to each other about something or the other, and groups of Gryffindors scattered around and generally making a ruckus about rumors and whatnots.
There were subtle sounds of footsteps coming up behind him, and Harry smiled to himself before turning around, meeting the grey eyes of the boy whom he had befriended only the night before. "Hello."
Those intense grey eyes stared at him far longer than Harry had expected, an unexplainable emotion flickering in them for just a second. He was carrying a small package in his arms, held out in front of him. Draco reached out a hand to tuck away a strand of hair that had fallen away from Harry's haphazard mop and into the glasses before Harry's eyes. Harry's breath caught.
"Hello." Was the response that Draco gave, his voice deep with an emotion that sounded to Harry a lot like longing and sorrow.
Having given the thought of talking with Draco so much the night before, Harry couldn't seem to find his words now that he was face to face with the other boy again. Draco's hand had lingered above his brow and Harry felt as if his voice had failed him completely, the wind caressing his hair and allowing the wayward strands to brush against the Slytherin's pale hand.
It was as if all of a sudden the outside world had collapsed and Harry just couldn't understand why he was so… drawn to the other boy like this. It wasn't so much as a physical attraction as if he already knew Draco. Like an inner voice which was asking him to talk with Draco more, to understand the other boy because their lives were going to go alongside each other soon.
"Can I talk to you alone for a moment?"
Hermione had said not to follow Draco anywhere alone. But there were lots of people here, so surely it would be better to talk in a more secluded place. There was still time before class started, anyway. And besides, Harry would make sure that they would be within shouting distance to the others.
"Of course." He agreed almost instantly.
They walked a little away from where everyone else was, just to give themselves a bit of privacy and so they could talk as they wanted to without people listening in.
"I…" Draco was struggling to speak. It wasn't that he was nervous, but more because he didn't know how to phrase it. "Have you ever heard of faerie roses?"
"Faerie roses?" Harry was wondering why everything nowadays seemed to revolve around faeries. "No, I haven't. I don't think we've covered that in Herbology."
Now Draco seemed to relax a bit. He held up the glass container with the stunning violet rose inside, the bottom of the glass case intricately carved with writings that Harry couldn't understand. "That's because it's near impossible to get a hold of one. They only grow on the faerie lands, and die if handled by someone who's not had the permission to take it."
Fascinating. There had to be some sort of magic to hold up the rose in the case like that. But Harry wasn't interested in that right now. He just didn't understand why they were talking about the rose.
"Here." Draco was holding out the case towards him. "Please. I need… I need to test something. The rose is a good judge of character, as well. I know this seems awkward for me to present you with this, but… I need to know."
Harry was too confused by this. The rose looked beautiful enough, but he knew better than to accept things from other people. Hermione had already lectured him on that. And the small lurch in his heart at being presented with something so beautiful had been quickly squashed as he heard the desperation in Draco's voice about needing to test something.
He honestly didn't know Draco. But he had trusted him enough to talk alone with him, which was something that he didn't trust to do with any other Slytherin. Even so, Harry had enough bad experiences with portkeys.
Seeing that Harry was more than skeptical and wasn't about to take the rose, Draco pressed, "It's not cursed. I've been searching for something. That's why I usually stay back and watch people. It's someone I have to find… and I need you to help me, because I think I'm closer here than I have been in my entire search."
This went against everything that Hermione advised, but Harry found that he trusted Draco. The doubts that had lingered from their first talk together were not there at all, which was stupid because Harry had only really known Draco for less than a day…
Harry reached out. "What does it do?"
The pale boy looked relieved. "Nothing. If it works, nothing will happen."
"And if it doesn't?"
Draco placed the delicate glass case into Harry's hands. "Then this rose would need a recuperation period." He joked.
There was warmth in the glass that Harry hadn't expected. He had thought that with the chill of the morning air, the stained glass would be like ice to the touch, but instead it felt more inviting than just about anything he had felt more. There was not a hint of dark magic on it, indeed, not a hint of magic that had been casted at all. He looked up at Draco questioningly.
Draco took a step forward, and lifted the top of the glass case off, giving Harry access to the beautiful rose inside.
"Faerie roses, hm?" Harry murmured under his breath.
"Yes. It is the rarest of roses, especially since there's only one in existence of this color."
"How do you know there's only one rose of this color? Maybe whoever sold you this was lying to you, and there's thousands more out there just like this."
Draco smiled mysteriously. "Trust me. There's nothing in this world that has this beauty."
The tone of Draco's voice made Harry's heart start pounding, although he didn't know why. Was it because he was getting nervous about all the mystery that surrounded the other boy? The pale boy sounded so confident about what he said, and he was convinced that this rose was the most beautiful thing in the universe.
Swallowing his nervousness, Harry reached in a hand to take out the rose, cradling it gently in its palm and reveling in the warmth that spread over him at the contact. The rose seemed to brighten in his presence, as if calling out a greeting to an old and deeply missed friend.
Draco was watching intently, both hands holding to glass case when Harry took out the rose, cradling it as gently as possible for a human.
"It is beautiful." Harry breathed out while watching the glow of the flower. But then he lifted green eyes to watch the Slytherin, and asked, "What is it you were looking for?"
The petals were silky soft, open in the brightest bloom, with the stem and leaves of a soft waxy material that almost made the thorns seem to disappear. Instead of the petals getting lighter as they got the center, it turned a darker shade of violet that was close to black, giving the rose a dangerous look to it. A dangerous look that was completely deceptive, as Harry could feel there was nothing dangerous about the rose.
"I was looking for…. You."
Harry jerked where he was placing the rose back into its case, looking up directly in Draco's grey eyes. "What…?"
An acidic smell hit Draco's nose, and he looked downwards to see that Harry had pricked his finger on one of the thorns of the brilliant rose. The other boy hadn't even noticed, as those green eyes were so intent on finding out what Draco was thinking. The pale boy shifted the glass case to rest under one arm and used a hand to raise Harry's injured fingers to his lips, watching those green eyes all the while so he knew to stop if Harry really wanted him to.
He kissed those fingers gently, letting the blood smear over his lips and seep into his mouth.
I've tasted this blood before.
He heard Harry sharply draw in a breath as Draco's tongue swiped over those fingertips, catching more of that blood in his mouth. It was something that Draco hadn't wanted to allow himself to believe in, a feeling that had been suppressed and denied vehemently in case it wasn't true. In case it wasn't him.
But it was. It was him, and Draco could believe again because things were finally falling into place, and he felt as if he could relax again.
It was him.
Having cleaned the blood off Harry's fingers, Draco looked up again to see the other boy stared at him, enraptured.
Harry couldn't believe that he had allowed Draco to do that. He could distinctly hear behind him the start of class, and Hagrid wondering aloud where his missing students were. But that didn't matter.
I don't even like boys, Harry told himself.
Then he reached out with both hands to pull Draco's face down to meet his, and closed his eyes as warm lips met his.
'It's a curse.' Was the only explanation for the prince's ailment. The greatest healers in the land could not find out more, and the faeries despaired at that- sending out envoys of fey folk out into the wider world in order to find anyone with information on this curse. It was the largest amount of faeries out of their kingdom in all their history, but they were desperate enough that the kingdom was nearly emptied in search for a cure for their precious prince.
The vampire childe did not know what to do with himself, and so he took to caring for the sick prince. A year or two had passed before an envoy of Seelie faeries reappeared in the kingdom again, this time dragging with them a man- a wizard.
After many days of torture, the wizard revealed that he had something to do with the curse. He revealed that the dark creatures had employed him to destroy the Seelie faeries, and he had taken them up on the job.
But he had not been the one to cast the curse.
'You will be the one to undo the curse, though!' the vampire childe had roared at him. 'You will cure my prince!'
But the wizard had only laughed at that. 'There is no cure, dark one.' He replied evenly, as he was not at all afraid of the furious vampire. 'But I can tell you this: your precious prince will die before he comes of age, by the prick of his finger on his own heart's blood.'
The wizard had died before revealing anything more.
No one understood the ramifications of what the wizard had prophesized. They could not understand what he meant, only that their most beloved prince would prick his finger and die before he came of age. Any and all sharp objects in the kingdom were destroyed, and all their weapons were locked away in a deep underground room in the back of their kingdom, for they were too deeply concerned for their prince.
The faeries learned to make do with fighting hand-to-hand or with nature's magic, as they refused to fashion more weapons for fear that what they create would be the downfall of their own kingdom.
Being desperate, the vampire childe had written to the elvish princess, calling in on the fact that he had saved her life. He called for her to try and defeat the prophecy that the wizard had set, to heal his prince from the deathly ailment.
"How is it that Harry managed to disappear from behind us?" Hermione was grumbling to herself while she looked about. She wasn't exactly nervous about Harry's disappearance because she remembered specifically talking to him about danger the night before, and they were still on Hogwarts grounds and couldn't have gotten too far. It just peeved her to realize that Draco Malfoy had also been missing right along with Harry.
He better have listened to me! she was fuming. She whacked some of the bushes before her to take out some of her anxiety. Their class that day had taken close to the Forbidden Forest, but Hermione was sure that even Harry wasn't stupid enough to just wander off in there by himself, even if he was led by Draco Malfoy.
Especially if he were led by Draco Malfoy.
There was something about the pale Slytherin transfer student that nagged in the back of her head. While she was glad that Harry was once again interested in someone (she blamed his lack of social knowledge with romance on Cho Chang. She had so much hopes that Cho would be able to draw Harry out of his introverted shell, but instead, she had made him withdraw to the point that he hadn't ever dated anyone after that.), she just didn't trust the Slytherin like Harry had. Maybe it was because of their general disrespect towards her since she had arrived at Hogwarts, but he was too secretive for her to trust him with her best friend.
No, she didn't trust him with her best friend- especially with Harry. She barely trusted herself and Ron with Harry, knowing that the boy was already occupied with the thoughts of defeating the Dark Lord. She knew that he resented her for that, but she couldn't help but coddle him a little. He was just the type to make others want to coo over him. Poor Harry hated getting attention, especially the motherly and overprotective attention that the rest of his house just lavished over him.
Hermione snickered to herself at the thought. She remembered once when she had found both Harry and Ron is sticky situations and had yelled at them for over half an hour, ending the tirade with a sonorous, 'You're both grounded!'
The two of them had stared at her in disbelief.
She chuckled. Ahh, the memories.
But Draco Malfoy was someone that Hermione felt would change the tilt of her world. If Harry fancied him, then she would have to do everything in her power to either get them together or to resolve the situation. And she was sure that Ron would help out, despite his loud protests and dark scowls. The three of them would never be separated; not willingly, anyway. They were best friends… and Hermione hoped that they would be best friends forever.
But maybe that was just her sentimental girl side talking.
She pushed through some short trees and nearly gasped at the scene before her.
She had found both Harry and Draco… arms wrapped around each other in an intimate embrace. Harry had his hands cupping Draco's face while they kissed, and Draco had one arm tight around Harry's waist, pulling the short boy to him. Under Draco's other arm was a beautiful rose in a glass case which glittered under the sunlight.
They looked... amazing together.
The scene was beautiful enough, as both boys were a contrast of each other. Harry's warm, sun-kissed fingers lingered on the pale skin of Draco Malfoy, his hair of darkest ebony against Draco's near white-gold. Even the scarves that the both of them wore contrasted against each other- Gryffindor and Slytherin.
She was nearly entranced for a few moments before snapping out of it, turning red when she realized she had been staring. Hermione hurried away from the two of them, once more allowing the short trees which had once shielded them from view to fall back into place.
Then she allowed a silly grin to fall onto her face as she walked back towards the clearing where most of the other students had given up looking for the two boys. Well… that was certainly fast!
"Did you find them?" Ron asked her when she sat next to him, worry evident in his voice.
"Yes." Hermione smiled. "Don't worry. He's fine."
Harry slowly opened his eyes again, feeling his cheeks warm with the slow breathing from Draco's mouth. He remembered his first kiss with Cho… it had been nothing at all like this one, with its warm lips and firm contact that send electric waves down his back. Was this was a kiss was supposed to be like? So warm and familiar?
The wind was blowing against his back, reminding him that he was outside, perhaps doing something that had been interrupted by the breathtaking kiss. How did he get there again? He couldn't seem to think very well with the haze that surrounded his mind. It had something to do with following Draco when he wasn't supposed to, which Hermione had warned him again. But then, the pale haired boy had seemed so familiar… almost as if Harry had known him all his life, or perhaps even longer than that.
The arm that was encircled around him was warm and supportive, something that Harry rarely had in his life, and cherished greatly. No one had ever held him like that before, Harry was sure. And he knew that he liked the feeling of protectiveness very much, the feeling of not wanting to let go and not wanting for a single moment to end.
He could feel the warm hand pressed against his back, the cool skin under his fingertips as Draco opened his eyes as well, gazing down at him with an _expression Harry had never seen directed at him before. All he could make out of it was the warmth and tenderness that surprised him with its intensity, and. .. well… it scared Harry how old those eyes looked at that moment.
Pale fingers came up to his own face, that wonderful gaze changing just slightly to wonder as those fingers lifted the tinted glasses that he had on, the black frames that hid his eyes from the rest of the world. Harry blinked at the sudden brightness that assaulted his pupils, shaking his head slightly to get himself used to the bright sunlight of the springtime.
"It is you…" was the awestruck voice. "I've been searching for you for so long…"
"How is it that you were searching for me?" Harry questioned. "Why were you searching for me?"
It was that question that broke Draco out of his supposed reverie. The pale Slytherin snapped out of it, and seemed to finally hit reality again. He startled, but then stared at Harry like a miracle had happened before his eyes. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Draco finally smiled. "After dinner. Come to the Astronomy Tower. I'll explain everything to you then."
continued in chapter 5
Come into these arms again
And lay your body down
The
rhythm of this trembling heart
Is beating like a drum
It beats for you - It bleeds for you
It knows not how it
sounds
For it is the drum of drums
It is the song of songs...
Once I had the rarest rose
That ever deigned to bloom.
Cruel
winter chilled the bud
And stole my flower too soon.
Oh loneliness - oh hopelessness
To search the ends of time
For
there is in all the world
No greater love than mine.
Love, oh love, oh love...
Still falls the rain... (still falls
the rain)
Love, oh love, oh, love...
Still falls the night...
Love, oh love, oh love...
Be mine forever.... (be mine
forever)
Love, oh love, oh love....
Let me be the only one
To keep you from the cold
Now the
floor of heaven's lain
With stars of brightest gold
They shine for you - they shine for you
They burn for all to see
Come into these arms again
And set this spirit free
-"Love Song for a Vampire" by Annie Lennox
Authoress' Notes: I love this song. I adore this song, and I found it only because my best friend nagged at me to find it after she read this story. It's perfect for this story, and I found it last Sunday. This is now the official song for this story. O_O You guys have GOT to hear this song... I nearly cried when I first heard it while reading the lyrics. It's the song in the end of Dracula, which is a movie I love love love!
Right. The rose. Hopefully, it's not what you guys were expecting. Purple for royalty, and because it's unique. ^_^ I'm sorry that this chapter was so short- I'll try to make up for it by making the next chapter longer! It's just that it was the perfect place to cut off the chapter and I really didn't have anything else to write in chapter 4. Is this finally starting to sound like Sleeping Beauty? XDD