Desiring Other Times
Chapter 10 – Reluctance
Disclaimer: Harrius Potterus – a species that numbers theoretically seven, but only six have been found and tagged. The final animal has yet to be located. I do not own any of these creatures.
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Somehow, I keep thinking that things are moving too fast. That maybe if I hadn't been so well-read, so knowledgeable, I wouldn't have come to the notice of Lucius Malfoy. And I wouldn't have learnt Occlumency from Snape. And I wouldn't have been there that night Quirrell came to look at the Mirror.
But those are some pretty big ifs. I for one prefer to be as well prepared as I can for the future, as I can't afford to second guess whether my doing so will cause the ante to be raised. So long as I continue to keep on top of my game, I will continue doing things the way I have.
I cannot afford to waver on my path.
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A few days had passed and Draco had sent the others home to practice in private. It certainly helped that he had also started to become able to transform within the blink of an eye.
"When the time comes, Harry…" He muttered one night, quite inebriated on some Ogden's Finest Firewhiskey. "When the time comes, we'll show those… those… those fools." He declared, hands waving and gesturing madly, some of the alcohol slopping about.
"Indeed," I murmured, sipping carefully at a chilled Butterbeer. "But perhaps you should stop drinking, Draco, unless you wish to impress them by throwing up on their shoes."
He turned to regard me, a proud smile on his face. "Heh, I can hold my liquor, Harry. But what about you? You've just been drinking that pissy b… bu… beer… beer but… Butterbeer!" He finally managed to make out, and slashed his finger through the air to point it accusingly at the dewy glass bottle I was holding.
"So what? At least I can say Butterbeer without stumbling. Repeat after me, Draco. Butter. Beer. Butterbeer." I replied playfully.
He scowled. "Come on, Potter." Sneering a little, he fumbled a bit with an unopened Firewhiskey bottle that sat on the side table next to him (along with its other identical neighbours), then held it out to me. "Just try some. What'll you do if your parents start teaching your brother how to hold his alcohol before a big party? And if he can outdrink you?"
I knew he was trying to draw on my rather competitive streak, but drinking myself into oblivion was not exactly on my To Do List. Come to think of it, nor had actually spending this much time with Draco, either.
"Nah, maybe I'll try something less… strong the first time round." I hedged.
Draco's eyes lit up. "I've got just the thing!" Strangely enough, his words seemed less and less slurred – had he somehow enhanced his metabolism? What little research I had done into the bushmaster type of pit viper Draco claimed was his Animagus form did not hint at any sort of enhanced healing or accelerated metabolism. Perhaps a potion? Rituals? Or was he using something similar to my wristband wards? Regardless, Draco stumbled to his feet, one quarter-full Firewhiskey bottle still clutched in his left hand.
"Here!" He cried, pulling out a book from the bookshelf, then giving up and swiping almost all of the books to the ground, sending them flopping rather haphazardly onto the carpet. Ignoring the damage he had just caused to the books (probably around the seventy galleon mark), he reached into a cavity, and pulled…
"A mocktini?" I was incredulous, but a little curiosity tickled at the back of my mind. Perhaps Snape had been correct – if Malfoy were willing enough to buy a modern Muggle drink, there might still be hope for him… although if it was really worth it, I wasn't quite sure.
"Ah, good, you know what these are. Mug… mudblood creation, but it's actually not too bad." Malfoy covered up his slip with a hiccup. "Has some alcohol in it, and if you feel up to it, we can fix you up a real martini." He seemed oddly excited at the prospect.
"Um… thanks?" I set aside my Butterbeer, reached out with a tentative hand for the glass bottle, twisted the lid open and took a slow sip. The overly sweet tang of faux-strawberries slid over my tongue, and the sugary fakeness of it quickly overwhelmed the mellow syrupy flavour of the Butterbeer that still lingered in my mouth.
"Urgh." I grimaced and held the mocktini bottle at arm's distance.
Draco smirked, already back in his seat. "That bad, huh? All the people I've known that've tried it – they've either hated it or loved 'em. Wonder what the mudbloods put in it that makes it like that…" He mumbled wistfully. "If we put it into something like Firewhiskey, I'm sure it'll taste so much better…"
I snorted, having set aside the mocktini and proceeded to rinse the memory of simulated strawberry from my palate with good old reliable Butterbeer. "Yeah, and then you'd become an alcoholic. Or maybe you'd end up being unlucky enough to hate it instead of liking it."
He glared at me again. "Hey, don't ruin a man's dreams here!"
"Man, what man?" I looked about mockingly. "Oh wait," I smirked. "You mean me, don't you?"
Draco threw the empty Firewhiskey bottle at my head, other hand already reaching for a fresh bottle and twisting the lid open with a practised motion. I merely raised a hand and the projectile halted immediately, then flew back at Draco at an even greater speed. He yelped and tried to move out of the way, but it seemed that despite his enhanced metabolism, he was still quite drunk, no thanks to the whole two bottles and a half he had consumed in the last hour. Just before it made contact, however, I stopped the bottle and floated it gently to his side table, where it landed with a soft tink.
For a moment, Draco stared at the bottle, then whipped his head around at me. "That… that was wandless magic!" He tried to whisper amazedly, but it turned out as more of a stunned shout.
"No, Draco, it was a headless mullet. Of course it was wandless magic. Silent too, not that I think about it…" I tapped at my chin thoughtfully and grinned toothily at Draco, vampire teeth showing. He paled, then rather comically lifted his left hand as he had been doing the last hour and a half, but the Firewhiskey poured out with his head in the wrong position.
"Curses!" he well, cursed. Pulling out a wand, he pointed it at the front of his robes then seemed to think better of it. Looking at me with a rather calculating look, he put his wand away, concentrated on the patch of Firewhiskey staining his robes and waved his hand.
Nothing happened. "How in the bloody blazes did you do it, Potter!" He demanded over my laughter. He huffed impatiently when it seemed I wasn't going to stop chuckling at his rather poor attempt at wandless magic.
"Ok, ok." I managed to gasp out. "Well, it kind of helps when you don't have four and a half pints of Firewhiskey in you…" Draco growled threateningly but it didn't help that sometime during my mirth he had sloshed more Firewhiskey about. "Ok, so…" I tried to smother another bout of laughter. "…so you know how you have to… have to…" I snorted, then sniggered.
"On with it, Potter!"
Finally, I managed to calm down, my lecture only punctuated by a few sniggers and chuckles every now and again. "When you do the Cleaning Charm, remember how you have to jab the wand at the thing you're trying to clean?"
Draco nodded, then the proverbial light of understanding seemed to light up above his head. Enthusiastically, he stabbed his index finger at the offending patch, and some of it faded away. "I'm doing it!" He crowed a little drunkenly, unaware of how oddly disturbing it was for him to say that while pointing somewhere in the direction of his crotch.
Eventually, after several tries (the alcohol seemed to be setting in and he accidentally cleaned the Camembert cheese that had been sitting sliced up on a silver platter on the small bench between his and my chair), he managed to clean his robes up.
Looking at the clean robes proudly, he promptly fainted in his seat, the Firewhiskey bottle falling out of his limp hand. I'd managed to halt its fall and put it back on Draco's side table when I noticed his posture. Neck bared. Face pointing away from me.
I hadn't had fresh human blood at all. In fact, I hadn't even had packaged blood, either, although I sometimes wondered if stealing a batch of blood packages from the Red Cross would be better than attacking others for their blood. All Draco had been able to subtly procure for me was a few cups of cow's, pig's or chicken's blood at meal times.
Apparently, he'd had to threaten Dobby into not uttering a single word about it, but Lucius found out anyway, probably when he went through Draco's mind at night.
"May I ask what you're doing with all that blood, Draco?" He offhandedly asked one meal time.
Draco paled, but sat up a little straighter. "We're feeding a pet." Technically we were.
"And… what sort of creature would you be feeding blood to? A vampire…" Draco stiffened. "…bat?" Already, I knew the game was up. Draco desperately needed to take some acting lessons.
Lucius continued to stare at Draco, then turned to regard me. "Perhaps Harry here would have something to say…?" Discreetly, he cautiously moved into my mind, piercing the first 'shield' without problem. The red barrier wasn't really a shield, it merely acted as an alarm of sorts, and it also helped that every piece of important or potentially incriminating information was stored almost exclusively in the seventh circle.
He trailed about, before Draco let loose a sigh of defeat. "We're Animagi, Father. And we've taken Secret Oaths so we can't disclose anything without… each other's explicit permission."
Malfoy senior nodded slowly, although a little satisfaction entered his eyes, something bordering on pride. "I suppose Draco here can tell me his form?"
A pause. "Draco?" Malfoy senior's voice had taken on a more stern tone.
"A pit viper, Father."
Lucius' eyes widened. "Parseltongue?" Draco nodded, and Lucius turned to regard me.
"And you, Harry?"
I ducked my head. Eventually, I told him that my form was a vampire.
"Amazing, Harry. Simply amazing." Just as Lucius was about go on about how fascinating our forms were, Draco spoke up.
"Father? If… if you wouldn't mind, we'd like you to… to make us a Secret Oath. It's…" Draco's face had a tinge of pink that seemed completely out of place. "It's just…"
Lucius, however, smiled thinly. "Of course, Draco." He raised his wand – I did my best not to flinch. "I, Lucius Ferrus Malfoy do swear not to reveal nor allow to betray Draco Narciss Malfoy's and Harry James Potter's Animagus forms nor the fact that they are and have been training to become Animagi." I blinked, quite impressed as to how thorough his oath had been.
If the Secret Oaths the 'clique' had made hadn't locked away the memories so securely that even masters of Legilimency couldn't get at them, I might have been more than slightly worried that Malfoy senior had already leaked the information, but I was pretty certain he had had very little idea before now.
"Very well, Harry." He peered at me intently. "I suppose you wouldn't care to savour some beverages from more… intelligent sources?"
And that was precisely the situation I was in now, staring at the prone Draco's neck, hearing the steady thump, thump of his blood flowing through veins and arteries. I'd said 'no thanks' to Malfoy senior, but right now, the compulsion… the little niggling voice in the back of my head that told me I already considered him prey, seeing as I wasn't allergic to him…
Already succumbing to the desire to imbibe, I took at least one last attempt at checking to see if he really was asleep (through Legilimency and comparing his breathing patterns, although I still wasn't quite good at it yet), then I bent my head down. My teeth pierced his skin and almost immediately, blood flowed through the hollow of the fangs and down my throat.
Forcing a little control onto myself, I pulled my teeth out of him and made sure the wounds closed properly, so that no mark remained. Belatedly, I checked the door but fortunately it was shut and I remembered how Draco had locked it for our 'getting drunk' session. I stood up straight, and almost immediately I could feel the buzz, the sudden twitching and gyrating of the blood in my veins. Magic seemed to hiss about me, but then it dissipated quickly, and I could feel it forcing my magical reserves to increase just that little bit. Another effect was that I suddenly had a few of Draco's rather recent thoughts and memories floating about my first circle – all of which I packed into tight little boxes and shifted them into the fourth circle. It wouldn't do if he'd had his mind booby-trapped and I accidentally let them loose in the innermost echelon of my mind.
What pained me was that some of the alcohol in Draco's blood had been passed onto me, although it was less than what I expected, what with the 60 percent alcohol rating. Of course, this only proved that Draco really did have an enhanced metabolism. Eventually, my own system filtered out the alcohol and I didn't feel slightly tipsy at all.
I took a trip to the loo to ensure the alcohol really was out of my system, and spent the next half an hour sorting through the things that had been buzzing about Draco's mind.
"…he seems quite more amiable than you described him, Draco." A pause.
"I wouldn't know, Father. Perhaps he's like that to people he doesn't really know."
"Then what possessed the boy to accept your… our invitation?" A suspicious look glinted in Lucius' eyes.
"Professor Snape told him that it might benefit him if we became friends!" blurted Draco, and Lucius was surprised for a bit, before relaxing.
"I see… so Severus hasn't been lazing about in the castle. Perhaps I should send him a nice present. The Basilisk parts should do, yes…" muttered Lucius offhandedly, before he turned to regard Draco once more. "Very well – be careful, Draco. He may be more than he seems." Lucius tapped his temple lightly, then stalked away.
So Lucius was getting suspicious, but I'd expected that. In fact, I had pretty much expected him to be cautious from the outset, seeing as I was from the Potter family and I wasn't in Slytherin. Even if being in Ravenclaw was better than being in Gryffindor.
Finally, Draco began to stir. "Urgh…" he mumbled numbly. "What hit me…?" He blinked, when the bright lights made him wince.
"Dobby!" With a loud crack, Dobby appeared. Draco screamed, then shut up when his own screams exacerbated his hangover.
"Master Draco is hurt, Dobby-" began Dobby the house-elf.
"Dobby!" Hissed Draco. "Shut up, get me the hangover potion and don't make a sound." Dobby nodded frantically, disappeared without even a pop, then reappeared almost immediately with a small vial, filled with the same liquid he'd given to Blaise a little over a week ago. Draco guzzled down the potion, waving a dismissing hand at Dobby.
I waited patiently for Draco to stop massaging his temples like his life depended on it. Eventually, he stopped. "Draco?" He looked at me, taking careful movements so as not to jar his still sensitive head.
"Yes?"
"Why do house-elves make that much noise when they don't have to?" None of the house-elves in my house had ever moved silently… but then again, we'd never asked them to, either.
He grimaced. "Security. Pride. Things like that – wizards don't like the idea of a creature, a slave, mind you, that can sneak up on them. Not to mention most wizards can't manage to Apparate without splinching, let alone silently." I was slightly surprised that Draco could grasp the concept of overbearing pride, and that he could deliver his answer in an orderly manner.
"Really?" I murmured thoughtfully, then frowned when he subconsciously reached for his still open but not yet empty bottle of Firewhiskey. "No you don't, Draco. I do believe that's enough drinking for you, you man." I mock lectured, and he whipped his head around to scowl at me, but the sudden motion caused him to clutch at his head painfully.
"Ow." He muttered. "Fine, I won't drink any." He glanced at the clock, then stood up. I did too.
"Well," I muttered, stepping to the door. "I guess it's high time I got to bed. A nice bath wouldn't be amiss, either." I glared at him. "And brush my teeth, yes, what with that mocktini." Shuddering a little in disgust, I opened the door to leave as Draco chuckled softly.
"Good night, Harry."
I turned to look at him, then smiled. "Good night, Draco."
After a nice luxuriating bath and a rather thorough cleansing procedure of my mouth, I was sprawled on the bed, still revelling in the purely unique sensation of silk sheets. This was going to be the second to last night I was spending at the Malfoys, after which term would start again.
So close to term, Draco – and Lucius, and apparently Narcissa – had insisted that we have some fun on the last few days. Apparently this consisted of flying and duels (sometimes both at the same time) during the day and him trying to get drunk and me watching him succeed during the night.
"Seeing as this is your last night here, Harry, I must insist." Lucius prodded a goblet towards me. Narcissa had disappeared somewhere to 'freshen up'. The goblet contained fresh blood, and the aroma rising from it put me in mind of pigs, but it wasn't quite right.
"Human?" I murmured, and Lucius smiled widely.
"Taken from a perfectly healthy specimen." He reassured.
"I…" I began.
"I must insist. I'm sure that once at Hogwarts, the staff might baulk at such a… off-putting practice. So enjoy – it might be the only decent beverage you'll get in a while."
Considering how intently the pair were peering at me, I finally acquiesced and quickly drank from the goblet. After I'd checked it for anything illicit, be it curse or potion. Fortunately for me, it turned up clean.
I closed my eyes. Brief flashes of somebody else's memories, and I remembered how stored blood (even for a few minutes) was nowhere near as good at holding memories and thoughts like fresh blood. Vampires tended to drink from the neck, taking blood that had just gone through brain, all in order to get information without having to bother using their prodigious mind arts.
Malfoy senior had obviously known this, but he hadn't done a good enough job in ensuring the blood held no echo of its original 'owner'. Some of the flashbacks were of intense pain, of a furious Malfoy senior. No doubt a prisoner somewhere in the very castle I was staying in, who had been killed while still mostly whole of body, and had his blood drained for the purpose of feeding me.
"What is it like, Harry, feeling the magic seeping into you?" Malfoy senior was leaning forward almost eagerly.
It was then that I noticed that my scar tingled a little – not sting, definitely not burn, but tingle it did. Another flashback was of Lucius casting the Avada Kedavra, no doubt the cause of the little resonance reaction my scar was having. But whoever Lucius had killed was quite strong magically, very strong, in fact.
"It's… it's quite an amazing experience, I must say." I managed to make out, this being only my second experience with drinking blood taken from a magical human. "A little uncomfortable but… not bad uncomfortable, just… itchy."
Lucius leaned backwards, a small smile lingering on his lips. I resolved then and there to figure out a way that would cause any Animagus tests to turn up negative. If he somehow managed to find a way around the Secret Oath…
"Harry?"
"Oh, hey Terry!" I waved cheerfully at him, then greeted the others as well as they came to sit down beside or near me at the Ravenclaw table.
"Man, I don't know how I'll be able to eat any of this… you know they got some new stuff on the snacks trolley?" asked Felran Chase, the fourth male Ravenclaw first year. There only were the four of us, but Felran had only recently become part of our 'group'.
I shook my head 'no'. Of course I wouldn't – I hadn't been on the damn train! "Well, yeah, they did." answered Felran a little lamely, but his excitement made up for it. "There's all these things, like, like… Jupiter Slabs-" I snorted at the obvious copy of Muggle Mars Bars. "-and you bite into one and it's got all this chewy stuff, caramel, yeah, that stuff! And when you chew, everyone's heads around you start to look like you know, those models of Jupiter you see in Astronomy?" He continued on about the new selection of sweets, while the Muggleborn and mixed blood students didn't have the heart to tell him (or others like him) that the Wizarding World had copied the Muggles.
"I would like to welcome our new Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts, Professor Moody!" The scarred and prosthetic-laden Professor eschewed standing up, more in favour of glaring at all of us in turn.
Just as Dumbledore was about to dismiss us, Moody yelled out "Constant Vigilance!" and half the hall jumped. Some of the staff smothered their chuckles quickly, while others (like Snape) opted to glare at him.
"Well, hurry along now, chop chop!"
"He seems like an interesting character, doesn't he?"
"…heard he's an ex-Auror. You reckon he'll…"
"Well, anything's an improvement over q… qu… Quirrell." A few laughs at that one.
"Move along now! You can gossip inside of the common room, no?"
All in all, it was a much less 'interesting' start to the term than I had expected. Dumbledore hadn't really reacted much to the information I had managed to pick up (and happened to pass along) whilst at Malfoy Manor, but he had said it would be a great help.
That night, I didn't dream of a single thing.
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Author's Notes:- Let's see, what needs to be explained:
1. Draco's use of surnames – he only calls Harry 'Potter' when he gets annoyed at him. And drunk.
2. Blood drinking – vampires have such an enhanced metabolism that they can strip all sorts of things from the food/drink they consume. This includes magic and memories/thoughts, the latter in particular if the blood is fresh out of the brain.
3. Harry and Draco getting on! – they might be, they might be. But Draco is being warned into being more cautious than he already is, and Harry never trusted the Malfoys to begin with!
4. Mixed blood – like Harry, although it's not restricted to half-and-half, maybe quarter-and-three-quarters (kinda redundant saying more than just 'quarter magical' or 'quarter Muggle').
5. Moody – he's turned up! Why not Lockhart? Because it's in the middle of the year and he hasn't had time to organise it with his publicity agent!
The close of the Malfoy Manor visit, and the beginning of an entire new arc! Mad-Eye Moody is here, and Pettigrew hasn't even been mentioned yet! Things are getting mixed up in this AU, and things start getting confusing when Jeremy starts acting strange?
Also coming up soon, we change Perspective by changing the narrator! Who will it be? Terry? Lisa? Jeremy? Hermione? Flitwick? Scheduled for chapter 13, when the eighth type of magic, Chaos Magic, mixes up the Point of View! (Please note that in this story, Chaos Magic is a subdivision of Soul Magic.)