Updated: 10-1-04

Author's Note: sorry. (hope you like this chapter)

chapter 48: UNIFICATION - wrapped together in the darkness

Ron had followed Draco for several paces down the corridor, but it wasn't until they turned into an old, deserted classroom that he recognized where they were. They had been here before, the night of the new moon.

After Ron stepped through the door, Draco turned and shut it carefully, locking it. His movements were precise, controlled to the point of losing control. When he turned back, Ron was surprised to see that the look on his face was not one of pride or assurance, or even of intense focus, but rather one of extreme vunerability. His mouth opened and shut several times before he finally managed to say something, and when he did it was uncertain, not at all Malfoy. "I'm sorry, I just...I don't know why...I need..." He gulped a ragged breath but couldn't seem to come up with anything more to say. His eyes, flashing now ice blue, now empty black, spoke for him. The demon was wakeful this night.

Ron didn't say anything. From the moment he'd stepped into the room, from the moment he'd felt the demon's hunger pulsing through the air, everything had gone clear. All the horror and doubt that had been clouding his mind all day simply fell away. At that moment he simply was, and he was needed. In the darkened room he stepped foward, offering himself.

That gesture was all Malfoy needed. Swiftly he moved forward, without another word wrapping his arms around Ron and driving them both into the wall at Ron's back. His teeth sought the flesh at the base of Ron's neck hungrily and he bit down hard. Ron gasped at the bright pain and at the intensity of the need that he could feel radiating from Malfoy, the need that he could feel quickly wrapping itself around him as well. The need for blood, for violence, the need and the endless hunger. Such hunger. Ron could feel it as though he were Malfoy himself, as though the the salty blood was flowing past his own lips, hot and thick and never enough. The wall scraped roughly at Ron's back and part of a nearby desk dug into his hip, but it was only the need that mattered, the need that consumed them both. Sudden and harsh it nearly overwhelmed him.

Malfoy was trying to hold back, trying to reign in the hunger and keep a hold on sense and sanity, but Ron could feel him slipping, could feel the drive for more getting stronger, and with every moment that passed, more blood drained from Ron's veins. This wasn't the normal hunger, wasn't something that could be contained with forms and ritual offerings. It was darker, and more powerful. Ron's own mouth ached to quench this, whatever this was, and he could feel Draco drowning in himself.

Wrenching Malfoy away from him, he cried out as teeth were torn away from flesh. Malfoy snarled, hunger and passion filling his eyes, and quickly Ron leaned forward and captured Draco's lips with his own. He drank the other boy in, not so much kissing him as taking him over, gathering the violence and intensity into himself. Draco kissed him back just as hungrily. The barriers had fallen and now the only thing separating the two boys was this wanting, this needful hunger that knew no satiation.

Hermione stood in the darkened infirmiry looking down at the vague shape on the bed. Even with the lights up it would have been just a vague shape, a fuzzy suggestion of a boy, masked by heaped blankets and long lengths of gauze. He seemed dead. Only after watching very carefully was Hermione able to detect the slight rise and fall that meant that he still breathed. Even still she couldn't be sure. Here in the dark it was all too much like a dream, the memory of when she found him overlaying her thoughts and screaming at her that there was no way he was still alive.

"Come on. We can't do anything for him right now." Hermione started as Harry's hand landed on her shoulder, even though his touch was light and he spoke softly. Turning to look at him in the indirect light from the doorway, she felt lost, and it was only then she realized that she was crying. How long had that been going on? It couldn't have been long, they had only been there a minute or two.

She nodded her head and Harry squeezed her shoulder before letting her go and heading for the door. She followed after him quietly. No words seemed like they could really mean anything in light of what had been done. Outside in the hall where it was lighter, heading back toward Gryffindor Tower, speech finally seemed permissible. "I always hated him...distantly. He's a Slytherin, and an annoying git, but now..."

"I know." Harry's words were heavy and Hermione glanced over to see him staring resolutely ahead. "He's a person too."

Hermione nodded, considering to herself how previously she couldn't have cared one way or another what happened to Blaise Zabini. In fact she probably would have liked to have seen him in a bit of pain. But after such a horrible thing happening, after finding him and fighting to make sure that he lived... How much worse would she be feeling if it had been someone she was close to? It was then that Hermione was able to make out the great anger that she kept seeing spilling out of Harry. He was afraid that next time it WAS going to be someone he was close to, someone who was his friend. Thinking of Ron and the seemingly impossible situation that had developed, Hermione bit back fresh tears.

She tripped going through the portrait hole into the common room and Harry had to catch her. She was glad they were together in this. Looking up into his face, seeing his resolution and will to pervail that was so much a part of his character, Hermione was reminded of her own part. No use sitting around feeling sad and scared. They would figure this out, just as they had everything else. "I'm going to the library." Harry made no protest as she hurried away.

They were on the floor. They were on the floor and their robes had been torn aside, along with most of the rest of their clothing. Ron didn't know how this had come to be, nor did he particularly care. Hunger and violence were still surging through him, and all he knew was the need to consume. Consume the hatred and the anger, consume the pain. Consume Draco, just as the other boy would consume him.

His swollen lip throbbed with each assault by Malfoy and, though he couldn't be sure, the taste of blood suggested that it had split open again. Every grasp and turn, every struggle sent sparks and jagged edges of pain shooting through his body from the miriad of bruises he had accumulated in their fight earlier that day. He didn't avoid the pain, but welcomed it. The memory of his hand, and the knife drove him on. He wanted... He needed.... It would never be enough. Thrashing and twisting and scrambling madly against each other, he heard Malfoy hiss in pain just before their lips were brought bruisingly together once more and another piece of clothing was wrenched desperately aside.

Emotion that he hadn't realized he was restraining poured forth from him now. The memory of that horrible night with his sister, the knowledge that she had done it to someone else, stoked the fires of his anger, his rage, his fear and self-loathing. Tearing away a last scrap of clothing and pulling Draco even closer to him, Ron relished the pain that shot outward from a bruise on his hip, savored the feeling of smooth skin pressing against his own. Sharp teeth bit into his lip, into his shoulder, and the memory of arcane symbols and dark fire danced before his eyes. He smothered it with Draco's lips, Draco's tongue. As close as they were, Ron felt the hot need washing through them both as though they were one, pulling them in a tide of lust and hunger and fierce possession.

At some point Ron found himself on hands and bruised knees, unable to turn and grasp at Malfoy who had his arms wrapped tightly around Ron. Malfoy pressed in against him and Ron felt a tearing, felt such intense pain stabbing through him and washing over him that he cried out. It was almost enough to lose himself in. He felt his emotion, lust and pain and violence and love, twisting around Draco's so that he could no longer distinguish one from the other. The pain washed through him again, and again, and again, and again, until it was no longer pain, but something else, something that would be enough. He didn't even register the hardness of the floor, or the way the wood drove splinters into his hands.

Harry was sitting on the couch in the common room when it happened, trying to think of a way to help Hermione find something that would be the answer, but he wouldn't remember that later. He would remember how her face had been white with terror, how blood had ended up on his hands as she pulled him franticlly towards the door, and how that horrible calm had decended upon him once more when he realized what she was saying.

Ginny had almost pulled him halfway down the tower steps before he realized that they needed to turn back and bring McGonagal with them, and by the time the three of them made if over to the first floors of the North tower, Ginny had calmed somewhat, but had also ceased speaking leading them on in grim silence. She refused to go back into the room, refused to even watch as they entered. Harry couldn't blame her and, though he knew it wouldn't do any good, part of him wished to flee into a nice corner and be sick.

McGonagal had merely given a shocked gasp before turning to swift efficiency and business. In short order she had checked Dean's pulse, found it weak but steady, and wrapped him gently in a thin blanket before levitating him expertly up from where he had been left sprawled, naked just as Zabini had been, on the floor. In fact, aside from being left to the more normal influences of gravity, Dean looked to match Zabini almost exactly, wound for awful wound.

McGonagal lead the way to the infirmiry, with Harry following close behind keeping a sharp eye, though for what he couldn't have said. He wasn't sure what to do when Ginny pressed up close to where Dean was floating and tightly grasped the boy's hand. He couldn't imagine that it was doing any damage that hadn't already been done, so he left her be, but wondered that she seemed oblivious to the blood that was soaking through her robes and had already matted somewhat in her hair. In fact she seemed oblivious to everything but Dean, squeezing his hand, and stroking it lovingly, even as her own trembled, white and pale against the blood.

Ron felt the tears on his face long after they had dried, leaving behind tracks of salt and tight skin. Like a throat set to screaming for hours, his whole self felt raw and used up. In an odd way, he felt clean.

They lay where they had fallen, on the hard, dusty floor of the abandoned classroom, limbs tangled about one another. They could have spoken, but there was no need. For minutes that seemed like hours their minds had been just as locked together as were their bodies, and after that there was nothing more to say.

Close to his ear Draco's breath sounded soft and even. It was the only sound in the stillness of the room. Ron thought Malfoy was awake, but couldn't be sure. Either way, he couldn't imagine moving. He felt like something inexplicable would break if he tried, and though the floor was hard and the room cool, he felt he never wanted to move again. Time lost its meaning in the stillness, and eventually he slipped into sleep.