The good news was I was getting my clothes back. Fred and George, who confessed a skill for breaking and entering, were going to my house at midnight to collect my things. I'd made them a list of the stuff I definitely didn't want left behind, they'd turned their noses up at my request for my leopard print clutch bag and matching neck scarf but to hell with them. If I was going to die I was going down with my clutch. I'd also drawn them a floor plan of my house, indicated to them the areas of the house my parents were likely to be occupying and told them where the spare key is kept. Who'd have thought I'd ever be helping burgle my own home?
The bad news? The hummer was no more. Draco had already abandoned it in a parking lot and tonight Kingsley was going to take it out of the city and burn it out. It was useless now anyway, too easy to track.
Remus had organised a car to come pick us up and bring us to Bite. But of course we couldn't get picked up from Grimmauld Place and thus give away our top secret location, instead we were two streets away, loitering outside a chemist. Sneaky little buggers we are.
"I'm a bit cold. When's the taxi getting here?" I asked rubbing my chilly arms. So I looked cute but the wife beater really wasn't cold resistant. Yeah you heard. No fancy corset and leathers tonight because Draco, the stupid fool, had blown his double agent role to the Dark Lord and none of us thought that old Voldie would be alright with us popping back to the manor for costumes.
"The car should be arriving any moment now," Remus checked his watch and glanced up and down the street anxiously, "Any moment."
"If I get magically murdered because your stupid taxi is late then I'm coming back to haunt you," I told him pleasantly. The sun was setting, painting the sky a delightful shade of magenta but none-the-less not exactly warming me down to my toes, "The same thing applies if I die from phenomena by the way,"
"Do you ever shut up?" Draco snarled but he was wearing a jacket so he could go fuck himself.
"Do you ever not kidnap people?"
"We are not having this conversation again."
"I hate you."
"I hate you more."
So sex and intimate touching in front of strangers hadn't exactly brought us closer together emotionally. But hey, I didn't expect to shag and then fall deeply in love. I mean hello, what is this? Shakespeare? No.
"Remus have you ever kidnapped anyone?" I asked moving to stand beside the werewolf man and shoving Soulmate boy out of the way to do so.
"No?" He gave me a look that very obviously questioned my sanity.
"Just checking,"
Draco shoved me. I think he'd been trying to resist but in fairness I had given him my back. I stumbled forward. "Oh you didn't just do that." I made to jump at him but Remus, with superhuman reflexes might I add, managed to grab my waist and pulled me, struggling, off the ground. I flailed helplessly in his arms for a moment before sullenly going limp.
"I hate you both."
"Here's our ride." Remus declared without setting me down. "Now behave. Both of you,"
Our ride was in fact a long, beautiful, Bentley limousine. I stared at it in awe, no longer bothered by the fact I was being held a foot off the ground by an aging man-wolf. I mean some things, like fancy limos, just take priority. Draco stormed forward and flung himself into the back of the limo, Remus carried me to the door and chucked me inside. I landed, an ungraceful heap, on the cars shag pile carpet and loved it.
"Are you sure you've never kidnapped anyone?" I asked and Remus nodded as the driver closed the door behind him. "Is that champagne?" I gasped pointing at the ice bucket, I crawled over to it and pulled out the chilled bottle, "My God it is!" Further inspection, "Is that a mini bar?" More scuttling, "My God it is!… Are those cocktail sausages? My God they are!"
Draco stared at me, "Are you truly so uncultured?" He sneered. I just glared at him and continued trying to physically pull the cork out of the champagne while simultaneously unscrew the top of a mini bottle of cider with my teeth. "You're not planning on getting drunk are you?" Draco asked watching me in disgust. I nodded and gave the cork a mighty wrench, it popped out and champagne began to bubble and froth out of the spout, I let the cider fall to the ground and commenced in lapping up the flowing drink.
"Aren't you?" I asked finally when the bottle had calmed down.
"No?"
"So you're going to let fang boy suck your blood… completely sober? God help you son." I took a swig of champagne but then found the bottle being wrestled from my grip by Remus. "Hey!" I fought back but the man is indecently strong. It must be the wolf thing. "What are you doing?" He poured the champagne out the window and closed the mini-bar.
"You're seventeen Naomi. It's illegal for you to drink." He said it so calmly. Like he wasn't crazy and cruel.
"Oh whatever!" I gasped. I mean come on! "So mister morals I'm old enough to be brought to a nightclub where the creature of the night is going to guzzle my blood and old enough to face down an evil dark lord but your not going to let me have a glass of champagne?"
"I don't recall a glass." He raised his eyebrows at me and I knew the battle was lost.
I took a seat at the other end of the limo from the two men on my hate list and stared out the window trying to find my trip in a Bentley limo fun, but I really couldn't muster the enthusiasm.
"I think that's really stupid." I said finally.
"What is?" Remus asked whilst Draco pleaded, "Just let me die." whilst staring at the ceiling.
"The whole age thing." I said ignoring Draco and focusing on Remus, "I mean right now I'm old enough that I could get married, have kids, drive a car but I'm not allowed to drink? I mean that's really stupid." Remus opened his mouth and I held up a hand, "Don't interrupt furry. Did you know that Britain has the biggest binge drinking rate in the whole of Europe? Yeah. That's right. And they're allowed to drink in Italy when they're like four years old."
"I know-,"
"No I don't think you do. I think that if-,"
"Naomi please shut up." Draco actually sounded genuinely suicidal.
"Draco please die," Maybe if I asked nicely he would?
"I hope Reuben hits an artery with you." Boy, some people are just tetchy.
"I hope he turns you on."
Draco turned slightly pink and I couldn't help but be pleased with myself. Naomi one, Draco nil.
I stared out the window, my enthusiasm for conversation lost, and watched London zoom by the window. But the further into central London we got the less scenery zoomed and the more it crawled. Inner-city traffic. It's a bitch.
Hundreds of people were crowding the pavements, pushing past each other with umbrellas decorating the space above their heads like multicoloured, hexagonal, clouds warding of a fresh pattering of rain. The roads were grid locked with people going home from work and I couldn't help but sigh a little bit. I mean what I wouldn't give to have been able to hop out of this stupid limo, that was receiving many an admiring glance, and just get lost in the crowds again like I would have been able to do a few days ago. What I wouldn't give to have no one trying to kill me and no Soulmate to hate my guts. What I wouldn't give to take back my virginity and save it for someone who actually deserves it. This was worse than the drunken fumble of hands I'd expected to loose it during, I had actually had sex with someone who detested me, who hated everything about me. Someone who I hated a little back. Not only that but I wasn't able to run away from him and never look at him again, in fact he was sitting opposite me in a limo and unless one of us was murdered we were going to be living together for a very long time. Eternity even.
Would I ever be able to just go home? I mean I was a kidnapping victim now, I was big news, would my life ever completely go back to normal? Would the Dark Lord ever just sit back and let me do my a levels? It was a tad depressing I was probably going to miss my prom, I'd already bought my frock and paid my bit of the limo money. I'd been so excited about getting a limo to prom and now here I was in the mother of all limos and I would rather have been anywhere else. Well almost anywhere, back in that dungeon not so much.
The glass of the window was cool and moist against my forehead, I had my flesh pressed against the window and still none of the normal, mortal, people outside would see me through the tinted glass. I was in a way lost to normality and it sucked ass. I wondered briefly how my friends would react when I tried to explain my new living situation to them and by living situation I mean forever. How would they fair on the subject of eternal youth? Or a magical world? Or an evil dark lord? It didn't bare to think about. They'd probably ship me off to a loony bin.
My breath fogged the window and I breathed heavier until I had enough area to draw on with my finger tip. I made a paw print with the heel of my hand and my knuckles, it was a nifty trick I'd picked up in primary school, it was a mark I'd left on school buses for years until it became uncool to draw on bus windows and then I'd stopped.
"What are you crying over now?" Draco snapped me out of my memoirs and I stared at him unaware until that moment that I was crying.
I wiped my eyes quickly and turned back to the window, I so could not be bothered with him anymore.
"Well you can stop your moping," He continued and I felt the first risings of anger in my stomach, "Tears aren't going to do us much good are they? Grow up for Gods sake."
"Shut up." I snarled as my face began to burn with not only embarrassment but hot, heavy rage.
"I'm the one who should be crying! Stuck to you of all people! You are the most annoying, whiny person I have ever met and you're supposed to be my Soulmate? That's a laugh! You're a muggle, a sad excuse for a human being at all! You barely deserve to wipe the dirt of my shoes and I'm being told I'm bound to you for all eternity? I would rather die. I would rather the dark lord take me and destroy me!" His eyes were burning with rage and the unfairness of it all, "STOP CRYING! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO CRY?"
"I'M NOT CRYING!" I yelled at him even though I was practically in hysterics now.
"Mr Malfoy-," Reuben tried to cut in but Draco ignored him and continued yelling at me, his pointed face burning red in his passion.
"YES YOU ARE! YOU'RE CRYING! YOU'RE WEAK NAOMI! FUCKING WEAK!-"
"SHUT UP!"
"- YOU'RE A DISGUSTING, WEAK, EMBARASSING EXCUSE FOR A PERSON! AND I TOUCHED YOU! DO YOU KNOW HOW DISGUSTING THAT FELT? MY SKIN STILL FEELS AS IF IT WANTS TO CRAWL OF MY BONES AND ROT! YOU ARE REPULSIVE TO ME! THE SOUND OF YOUR VOICE- HELL YOUR BREATHING!- IT MAKES ME WANT TO CLAW AT MY EARS! THE SIGHT OF YOU MAKES ME WITH TO DIG OUT MY EYES AND THE MEMORY OF TOUCHING YOU MAKES ME WANT TO CUT OFF MY HANDS!"
"Mr Malfoy!" Lupin admonished but I barely heard him. My ears were ringing with Draco's words and I felt myself slipping inside myself, folding away until all that was left was fury. How dare he speak to me that way? How dare he! Who did he think he was to talk to me like that? Did he think I set out to seduce him? Did he think I lusted after his body? Did he think that the fact he didn't lust after mine would hurt me? Was he so self involved? How dare he! How dare he treat me this way! How dare he treat anybody this way?
In that moment I knew true rage, true hate and I screamed. I put every ounce of pain and anger I was feeling into the sound and the noise was awesome. My voice wasn't my voice at all, it was so loud, so unbearably loud. It reminded me more of an animalistic roar than of my own voice and at the same time it was totally me, totally what it should have been.
The noise itself was the first sign that my scream was not a normal one, the second sign was the explosion. The windows of the limos shattered with a tremendous smash, glass flew everywhere, Remus grabbed Draco and threw him to the floor, trying to protect him from the speeding, razor-sharp, shards.. I felt the glass cutting up my face and I didn't care, I screamed more. I wanted the destruction, I wanted the release. It was the same feeling I got when frustration drove me to destroying plates or kicking doors. My dad had got me a punching bag to save money when I flew into rages but punching the bag had never been enough to sate me, it didn't break and therefore it wasn't enough.
The tears streamed down my face as I screamed and I knew that there weren't enough things in the world to destroy. The whole limo was shaking, shuddering, the steel of the car groaned and cracked under my power. I was vaguely aware that people were screaming, our faceless driver had abandoned us and the limo, all three tonnes of it, was starting to rise into the air.
I felt someone grab my shoulders, I stared at Draco as I yelled and saw my fury in his eyes. Soulmate amplification had struck again but Draco didn't scream, Draco didn't destroy because unlike me Draco stored up emotion. He had his own, personal, rage too, I could feel it, caress it deep within him but Draco bottled things up, he always bottled. He'd never broken a door down in a fit or thrown a bedside table from a second floor window. He knew how to swallow his rage, how to hide it and so he didn't become a slave to the destruction. He shook my shoulders and when that didn't work he did the only thing he could think of and my connections with him were so complete that I knew his next move didn't repulse him, didn't disgust him the way he claimed it would. He wanted to be repulsed as he kissed me, but he wasn't.
He covered my squealing mouth with his and ate down the sound, ate at my mouth as if he'd eat me from the mouth down and he muffled my scream. Calmness washed over me in waves and I felt my rage become submerged and powerless. His touch calmed the anger just as it had calmed the lust earlier in the day.
The limo dropped from its position three feet above the road and Draco stumbled as we hit earth. The steel stopped groaning but the screams of our audience continued.
"Apparate!" I heard Lupin gasp before a loud popping noise. I opened my eyes, realising they'd been closed, and saw Lupin was gone. Draco forced me back on the seat, wrapping his arms tight around me, his tongue still pulsing in my mouth and then with a pop everything became black.
I felt as though I was being squeezed through a too tight tube, with Draco pressed tightly to me, my eyes felt like they would pop out of my skull and I couldn't draw enough breath to cry out. But it only lasted a moment and then we arrived, sprawled on the floor of Reuben's living room.
Draco was on top of me, his mouth still pressed to mine as I tried to breathe, tried to recover from my first teleporting experience. He raised his hands cupping my face in his large palms and he continued to kiss me until a distant door opened and Reuben's voice gasped, "Mon Dieu! What has happened?"
Draco rolled off of me and I sat up, black ribbons streamed through my vision and I fell back against the carpet, gasping and shaking in exhaustion.
Draco scuttled towards me, pulling at my shoulders and trying to help me sit up, "Someone get her water!" He yelled before very nearly swooning himself. He pulled my upper body onto his knees and patted my face as if he very much wanted to slap me until I came through. I blinked and when I opened my eyes again I was laying in a large bed with a cold flannel across my forehead. That had been one long blink.
"They were arguing," Lupin's voice sounded distant and tinny, "He said some rough things and she got angry, she went into some sort of rage. The limo damn near collapsed in on itself, the windows shattered and we began levitating. I think she would have killed us all but when he kissed her it was as if he drained the power from her. A street full of muggles saw, I'm not sure if they saw us apparate but they damn well saw the limo float. I tried stunning her but the spell just bounced, it was like nothing I'd ever seen before."
I blinked again. This time when I opened my eyes Draco was at on a chair beside the bed with his head in his hands, sleeping I think. I felt weak but definitely better. I was able to sit up and rest my back against the headboard. I was in the biggest bed I'd ever seen, it was all deep red and black silks with a gold throw and a dark mahogany footboard. The headboard probably matched but I didn't turn my head to check. The rest of the room was painted black with gold, oriental designs, it should have made the room seem small but it was so huge that the colour didn't matter. Draco raised his face from his palms and blinked sleep from his eyes, "How are you feeling?" He asked and I just shrugged.
"Where is Reuben?"
"With Lupin, he'll be in here soon. He's been checking up on you every half hour."
"I didn't know he cared,"
The silence stretched between us, thick and uncomfortable. I took to stroking the silk of the duvet cover as something to do then something struck me, "Since when was I wearing pyjamas?"
"You threw up all over your clothes, so Reuben got you changed into those." So I'd vomited and couldn't remember it. It was like waking up after a really bad night on the sauce.
"Sorry what?"
"Don't worry, some woman changed you. He wasn't leeching over your body whilst you were unconscious."
"Oh great, some random lady cleaned up my vomit and saw me naked. Well that's just peachy."
Draco just looked at me and the silence was back. "Look," He said finally, "That stuff I said in the limo-,"
"I don't care." I snapped and I really didn't. I didn't want to hear his excuses or his apologies, in actual fact I just wanted him gone. Just wanted him to leave so I could curl up under Reuben's covers and pretend I was home.
"But-,"
"I'm pretty tired. So if you could leave that would be great."
He glared at me and stood up, "Fine. I'll send Reuben in." He said it like it should have been a threat but I just waved a hand at him.
"Bye."
He left and I slid back down into the covers and let the numbness I was feeling overwhelm me. Nothing felt quite real, my head was feeling a bit light and floaty and I didn't even notice when the vampire came in. That had to be a bad sign.
"Ma Cherie," Reuben flopped onto the edge of the bed and smiled at me, a broad smile that flashed his fangs, "You have awakened! At last! How are you feeling?"
"Tired but better," I said honestly, I sat up again, "Thanks for letting me use your bed or whatever."
Reuben dismissed my gratitude with a flick of his pale hand. Tonight the vampire was dressed in a silver jacket with large black buckles and baggy, cream, linen trousers that creased as he curled up beside me, like a contented cat. He reached a hand out to me and took to stroking my hair as if I were a prized pet. I scowled at him and tried to shuffle away but he just laughed, a deep stomach jerking laugh, and let his hand fall to the pillows. See, I'm harmless. Yeah right.
"We must discuss what happened, cherie," Reuben rolled onto his back and stared up at me with his black eyes that looked blind in the alabaster glory of his face. "You broke my limousine,"
"I would offer to pay for it but… well I'm kind of broke-,"
"Non, non!" Reuben chuckled, "That is not what I mean! The question I am raising is 'how?'. How does a girl of no magical ability do what you did? It is true that when suffering great emotion witches or wizards can often perform accidental magic. But you, Naomi, are not a witch and this should not have happened."
"Maybe I am a witch and you guys just missed me?" Ever hopeful, that's me. But Reuben just shook his head.
"Non, you are no witch." Darn, "However, I feel I have devised a reasonable explanation for what happened,"
"I'm all ears," And I was. I mean it's not everyday a girl levitates a limousine with her mind.
"I asked myself, how is this possible? How could a muggle girl do this? Then I realised perhaps this is not the question I should be trying to answer. The question perhaps should be: what happens when a muggle is bonded to a wizard? If it is true that you complete each other then what do you both gain from the bonding? Perhaps dear Naomi you gained magical powers?" I almost punched the air in victory but then he continued, "But this of course is impossible," I unclenched my disappointed fist, "But then it struck me, for the past few days you have been absorbing magic."
"Huh?"
"You have been absorbing the magic of those around you… maybe absorbing is the wrong phrase?" Reuben looked thoughtful and clucked his tongue, "It would not be true to say you have stealing magic from those around you, rather you have been duplicating it. You have been taking the power of the witches and wizards around you and copying it inside yourself."
I couldn't help but smile a little, "So basically I'm magic now?"
"It is not your magic Naomi," Reuben reminded looking suddenly and uncharacteristically stern, "I believe that this is the reason you so easily lost control of it. It is my belief that to become dependant on the magic you replicate would be a grave mistake for, if my estimations are correct, the borrowed magic is but temporary. I believe that if you were to try to use magic now you would be unable to, as you have already used the large reservoir of power that has been building for the past few days."
I stared at him. My temples were suddenly throbbing, I massaged them and concentrated very hard "I think I get it," I pondered until I felt I had some sort of comprehension of what was going on. Reuben watched me patiently, he had taken to stroking my temples for me, I was going to push him away then figured 'heh, he's hot, my temples hurt, why not'. "So you're saying I can copy magic when I'm around it but the magic can be used up. So magical people sort of charge me up like a battery? And I can use up the energy. So I'm like a rechargeable battery. But it's not my magic so I'm going to find it very hard, probably impossible, to control."
"Oui." He looked pleased, "You have grasped the situation well, ma cherie."
"Do I absorb stuff from you?"
"I am not a wizard."
"But you're magical right? So do I?"
"I can not be sure,"
"Ok."
"Are you feeling better, cherie?" He was still stroking my temples, his black eyes look unnaturally concerned and I nodded.
"I'm feeling pretty much A ok."
"Good," Reuben stood up, he didn't say anything but suddenly the door opened and Remus came in followed by Draco, "Now we can seal our alliance, oui?"
Oh dear.