Author's Notes: Here it is! Chapter 3 up and running! Again, all mistakes are my fault as I am still currently unbeta'd. So sad for me. *pouts* If you see any glaring errors, be sure to let me know and I'll get them fixed ASAP! Oh, and if you have already read Chapter 2 you MIGHT want to go back and read the last little bit, as I made some dialogue changes. Nothing that completely changes the plot, just some information that my sleep-deprived brain forgot to put in last go round. Thanks again for all the reviews I've gotten so far! I hope you enjoy it! Next chapter may be a couple of weeks in coming as I am getting ready to make a major move and thus my writing time will be limited for a bit...Enjoy what you can in the meantime!
Warnings: For this chapter only, we have some of those promised torture scenes I mentioned before. I don't know if I have the stomach to write anything as gruesome as I like to read, but just for those of you who get squicked by certain things...Yeah, just FYI...Also, language is probably a little worse here than it was in previous chapters, but emotions are starting to get involved a bit, too, so there ya go...
Chapter 3 – Voices
It was an hour before sunset when Hermione and Ron both stepped through the floo of Harry's flat. After each had roughly dusted the soot from their robes, Harry reached out to hug both of his best friends, pleased for their company. Since Malfoy had been found, the Ministry had insisted that Harry stay within his home to "guard the prisoner." Harry had argued with Kingsley, telling him that Malfoy was "a potential eye-witness to the activities of DarkStar's hive – hardly a prisoner." He continued the argument to Kingsley that he was strictly interested in Malfoy's use as potentially helpful to his case, which seemed to keep the Minister from shoving Malfoy in an uncomfortable holding cell until he had healed up, if at all. The truth of the matter was that Harry simply couldn't stand to see someone in so much pain, and regardless of who Malfoy was, Harry felt it imperative that he ease his suffering as much as he could. To do so would be a crime against his own soul, if nothing else.
"Harry, you saw me not two nights ago," Ron said, his face flushing, though he returned the hug with gusto.
Hermione sighed but did not allow her own grip on Harry to slacken. "Yes, yes, I know. Having only the maimed but vampiric and thus still dangerous Draco Malfoy for company must certainly be driving Harry into incredible depths of loneliness."
Harry grinned at Hermione's tone and pulled away. "It's not like he's AWAKE most of the time he's here, and with you doing research and Ron keeping the Ministry off my back for having a former Death Eater chained to my bed, it's hard to keep myself sane and occupied."
Ron blushed. "Is it REALLY necessary to keep him chained to the bed, Harry? It gives me all sorts of thoughts that just DON'T belong in a man's head." He shivered slightly.
Harry smirked. "Get your head out of the damn gutter," he snickered as he gestured toward the living room sofa. He watched as Ron fussed and fretted into helping Hermione sit on the couch.
"For Merlin's sakes, Ronald. I'm only eight weeks pregnant. I PROMISE you I can still handle sitting down on my own at this point." Hermione still flushed under the attention and eventually acquiesced to her husband's demands.
"Oh, let him fuss," Harry called from his own seat in his worn but comfortable recliner. "It's a man's prerogative to pamper someone carrying his baby. Heck, when Ginny– " Harry's speech seemed to drop abruptly and his eyes quickly shot to the floor. He couldn't lift them to see the concern in the eyes of his best friends, so he abruptly changed the subject. "So, what information have you gotten for me? I'd love to get Malfoy healed up, get any information he's got filed away, and onto whatever is next in his undead life, so that I can get on with mine."
Hermione paused as if to try to re-direct the conversation onto previous topics, but seemed to think better of it and just sighed. She quickly dug into a robe pocket and withdrew a small bottle of what seemed to be some sort of cream. "Specially brewed vampiric regenerative potion. It ought to help the healing of his skin, although I don't know if it will do anything for his legs or not." She handed the bottle over to Harry, who stood looking at it.
"I just don't know how you do it, Hermione. Who do we know that could brew something so relatively unknown so quickly?" Hermione flushed and looked as if she might change the subject. Harry wouldn't let her. "You did it yourself, didn't you?" Her lowered eyes answered the question for him, and Ron quickly turned and grabbed his wife's hands in his own.
"Mione! You've got to stop pulling stuff like this! You know the mediwitch said you should be careful of doing any potions work now with the baby—"
Hermione cut Ron off before he could get any further. "Please, Ronald. I know very well what ingredients will and will not cause trouble for the baby, and I even had one of the mediwitches at St. Mungo's confirm it for me. I am PERFECTLY FINE!"
"So what should I do with this?" Harry asked finally, not wanting to interrupt the couple's bickering, which he found quite amusing, and a distraction from everything else.
"Like any other lotion-type potion. It just has to be rubbed on the affected areas, which should hopefully—"
"Hermione!" Harry interrupted. "You do realize his entire body…ENTIRE body, was affected by the sunlight. Who the hell is going to get close enough to him to give him the rub down? I have a desire not to lose my bits, thank you very much."
Hermione just smirked at him. "Oh, Harry love, I doubt you'll lose your bits, seeing as how the man is still CHAINED TO YOUR BED and WITHOUT A WAND." She gave an innocent grin. "Besides, seeing as how Ron would just as soon kill him as help him, and I certainly am not going near a vampire's fangs in my condition, that just leaves…you."
"I love you, Hermione," Harry said through his hands, which had come up to cover his face. "But I am likely to kill you, you realize this?" Hermione just giggled lightly.
"In any case, he'll be waking soon. Do you have that goblet ready?" Harry unceremoniously tossed the cup in her direction.
"Ron, slash your wrists," she said lightly before handing it to him.
Ron just blinked at the empty vessel. "Um, excuse me?"
Harry sighed and rolled her eyes in exasperation. "We can't have Harry giving ALL his blood to a newly turned vamp, now can we? He needs to save some of it, particularly if HE'S the one keeping YOUR rear end from having to guard it all the time."
"Fine, fine, fine, I get it." With his own eye-roll he quickly cut his wrists and filled the goblet. Hermione pressed her wand to the wound and healed it before Ron could do it himself, and both stood.
"Now, he ought to be waking up anytime. Let's go visit, shall we?" With that, the three strolled towards the bedroom, goblet in hand.
Whoever said vampires couldn't dream had been sadly mistaken, Draco's thoughts reeled as he struggled to swim his way again to consciousness. He had thought, erroneously it seems, that once DarkStar had given him the honor of being turned, the nightmares would stop. Since now his body was not spending so much energy frantically trying to protect him from the sunlight, it seemed his mind could continue processing during the time he "slept."
That night, he had been blessed with memories of an evening not too long after he had been robbed of his parents, in one of the first of many nesting sites DarkStar and his minions had brought him.
Draco had been scarred from his time during the war. Tragedy and the wrong choices seemed to follow him everywhere he went. But none of the fear, the terror he had felt as he ran and fought from day to day, trying desperately to keep his family intact, none of those feelings could shelter him or prepare him for what he felt now. Draco had, of course, felt the effects of the Cruciatus Curse as much as any other young Death Eater, but he had learned how to roll under the pain, to ride it out until it was over. At least, as crazy as most of the other Death Eaters could be, they were human.
Now he was no longer dealing with humans. These creatures, several of whom were centuries old, seemed to have long forgotten any sense of humanity within them. Humans were neither to be pitied nor loved, hated nor despised. They simply were. Humans were food and playthings, but little more, not worthy of either scorn nor mercy. Somehow, the blank looks in the eyes of his captives as they watched him be toyed with was a hundred times worse than the crazed joy or contempt in the eyes of Death Eaters as they took their victims. No, at least to a Death Eater, he was a person, worthy of pain if nothing else. To the vampires, he was nothing.
The first night had been the worst. He had awoken with his hands and feet bound to the corners of what appeared to be a large stone table. His body was aching, but whether from actual physical punishment or simply the strain of being confined to the table, he didn't know. His face had been pressed to the cold stone, and he shivered as he realized he was both wandless and completely nude.
"Nice of you to join us, Little One," a deep baritone voice called from somewhere behind him. Draco turned his head to look in the direction of the voice, but its owner was clothed in shadow and in dark robes. Draco had not been a Slytherin for nothing. He decided it would be best to keep his mouth shut and hope further information would be forthcoming. He closed his eyes tightly as he felt a series of hands begin caressing up and over the backs of his thighs and calves. He hadn't even noticed the others in the room, but now he had no doubt that he was on display for anyone who managed to walk by. Maybe they'd even all convened to "welcome" him. Who knew? He realized at that point that survival chances for him were relatively slim, but decided to keep listening and waiting for an opening.
"Such a pretty thing, and so responsive, too," the baritone continued as Draco began trembling under the light caresses of several sets of hands. The owner of the voice gave off a presence, not unlike that of the Dark Lord himself, so Draco knew he had not yet approached. "We may have to keep you for a while. If you are well-behaved, you live. Nod if you understand." Draco swallowed a whimper and nodded, his eyes still firmly closed.
Draco felt a wave of magic wash through what he assumed was an underground cavern, and immediately the surrounding beings stepped back and away from his legs. His trembling did not decrease, as the owner of the voice stepped closer, his footsteps echoing through the cavern. Draco felt a single finger, its nail somewhat sharp, begin tracing patterns down his spine. He had seen these kind of mind games being played on the Muggles the Death Eaters had often capture, so he ignored the feelings of disgust and fear and focused simply on breathing. In and out, in and out. His heart was beginning to race faster and faster, and still he tensed and waited as that nail continued working its way down its spine to points lower. He felt it dip, just slightly, into the crevasse of his arse before returning and continuing down his left leg. When it had reached a trembling foot, the owner stopped, lifting his finger. Its absence unnerved Draco more than its presence had.
In that moment, a burst of pain flared from the top of his right thigh, and Draco ground his teeth as he tried desperately to suppress a scream as he felt that sharpened nail rip a line through the skin and muscle of his thigh.
"Oh, Pretty One, you needn't suppress your screams from me. I rather enjoy them. Such melodic sounds you humans make while in pain. Someone really ought to save them, compose some of those Muggle symphonies out of them. So exquisite, so beautiful." With that, the finger lifted, and Draco felt a brief relief from the agony, though he could feel the skin and muscle split open and his blood running quickly down his leg. 'Maybe if I bleed enough I'll pass out,' he thought with a somewhat desperate hope.
No such luck, however. "Tsk tsk tsk…Now we can't allow this. I intend to enjoy you for a while yet. With that the creature kneeled next to the stone table, gently allowing his tongue to lap up and down the cut, and then dipping almost reverently into the torn tissues of his thigh. Draco DID scream at that point, before he heard a whispered incantation, which seemed to halt the bleeding and cause a quick fire to burn through the wound. Draco realized it had been cauterized. 'I suppose I really didn't NEED to be able to use that leg,' he thought with a good bit of hysteria rising into his thoughts.
A brief reprieve followed before Draco felt that nail plunge again into the top of his left thigh, and the voice continued muttering what he MUST consider sweet nothings to Draco as he repeated the process. Minutes, or hours later, Draco knew he had no less than eight long, deep, and cauterized cuts lining the back of both thighs and calves. He desperately hoped that he would be allowed to go into unconsciousness, and thought for a moment he might be allowed the blessing. It was not to be. Wonderful.
"Oh, Lovely, it's not quite time for you to sleep, not just yet. We all have hunger that must be fed." The voice paused momentarily. "Open your eyes, Mr. Malfoy." Draco found himself incapable of disobeying, his eyes opening and flaring into the face of the Monster he'd been subject to all evening. The dark onyx eyes seemed to glow with an otherworldly power. There was no hatred, no contempt, nothing but the power, reaching in and caressing Draco's mind into unwilling submission. "I am a man of my word, Mr. Malfoy. So long as you obey, you will live. Do you understand?" Draco nodded, almost unconscious of doing so. The Monster seemed to smile then, but the smile did not reach his eyes. "You may close your eyes again, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco gratefully allowed his eyes to be drawn into blackness again, though he was sure the peace would not last for long…
"Malfoy…Wake up. Malfoy…DRACO! Open your eyes, damn it! Ennervate!" Draco felt a wave of magic washing over him, which was followed almost immediately by the return of the hunger burning in his gut. His eyes quickly washed over the room and landed immediately on a pair of emerald eyes. He could feel the pulse rushing under that skin and practically leapt to the end of the chains as it he had the night before, and he vaguely registered the skittish jumps from two other beings off to the side. The emerald eyes held his without flinching, and soon he saw a goblet levitating slightly in front of him.
"Drink," the emerald eyes commanded, and he grasped the cup to lift it to his lips, awaiting that merlot-flavored warmth to trickle down his parched throat. However, something was wrong. The liquid was far too sweet, tasting faintly of rotted berries rather than fine wine, and as it began to flow through his throat he felt all his veins and stomach explode as if on fire. Without thought he flung the goblet to the side of the room where it shattered, the liquid staining the cream of the walls, before his body flew into convulsions.
Something is wrong, the small sane portion of his mind whispered. You've been poisoned, that has to be it. Finally you'll be free. As his bodies convulsed helplessly, he vaguely registered other voices in the room.
"What the fuck was that?" he heard a thickly accented tenor echo loudly through the room. "I thought you said the feeding was going fine!"
"It was!" a familiar bass echoed back. "I don't have any clue! Hermione, what's wrong with him?"
Ah, Draco thought, so the mudblood must have done it! Not that I can blame her…
"I am not entirely sure," the sweet alto rang through the air, though it sounded slightly shaken. "Harry, Reparo the goblet. Let's try yours again."
A whispered incantation or two, and moments later Draco felt those emeralds staring back into his own. Though his body continued to thrash beneath him, his eyes returned the stare and waited for its command. "Try this one," it said before cautiously, ever so cautiously pressing the goblet to his lips. As soon as the familiar liquid touched his tongue he felt his body began to calm and his mind begin to return to reality. The familiar feeling of satisfaction coursed through his body, and after a few more moments of heavy breathing his voice returned.
"Potter," he sneered while continuing to glare into the emerald eyes, "What the fuck was that? What are you trying to do, poison me?"
"What the hell, Malfoy?" Potter screamed back. "We were just trying to use someone else's blood so you don't leave me bloody EMPTY, you prat! Although I suppose we might have expected your reaction to a Weasley's blood."
"The WEASEL is trying to give me his blood? Oh Potter, you should certainly know better. His would be simply beneath me. No wonder my body rejected it." Draco smirked and moved to cross his arms, although shortly thereafter he could feel the return of the sandpaper on his skin from the night before and decided better of it, gingerly lying himself back on the duvet instead.
"Oh yeah?" Harry countered. "I can't imagine why you seem to be so ENAMORED with the life-force of a half-blood over a pure-blood, regardless of who it belonged to."
"Whatever, Potter," Draco choked out, all his will to fight drained by the pain returning to his aching body. He shifted slightly on the bed, trying to gain a better position, but none ever came.
Potter sighed from the side of the bed, turning his attention back to Granger. "Hermione, why do you think that is? I should think that one source of blood should be no different than the other, especially since it's not like Malfoy's a WIZARD anymore anyway."
The last comment hurt Draco more than he could stand to think about at the moment, so instead he simply closed his eyes and willed himself to roll under the pain for the time being, hoping that answers would be forthcoming.
"I don't rightly know, Harry," Granger answered from across the room. "Yet another thing to add to the list of research topics. I promise, this case just gets more and more curious. I suppose it serves to reason that Draco Malfoy couldn't manage to even be a normal vampire."
Draco couldn't help but smirk slightly at the comment. "Malfoys don't DO normal, Granger."
"A little hard to make that statement when you're the only one left, isn't it Malfoy?" Draco could almost FEEL the heat and anger radiating off the redhead at that moment and chose to keep quiet rather than exacerbate it. His skin already felt like it was on fire. No need to add to it.
"RON!" A duet of voices seemed to fly towards Weasley. "That was COMPLETELY uncalled for," Granger added. A hush settled over the room, and Draco could feel the three humans in the room shifting slightly on their feet. Draco felt slightly placated.
"We can discuss what is or isn't called for later," Draco finally allowed himself to drawl from the bed. "For now, why don't you tell me why the FUCK you thought it would be a good idea for me to be shackled to Potter's bed and drinking what I have gathered is his blood rather than leaving me to the Ministry?"
Potter snorted. "Kingsley's friend or not, the Ministry itself is cracked. I see no reason to leave a potential informant in their custody when they can do no better a job of healing you than I can, and quite possibly throw you in Azkaban when I NEED the information you have."
Draco started just a bit before schooling a mask over his confusion. "What information could I possibly have that you want? And just how did you find me in the first place?"
"DarkStar," Weasley chimed in. "We had planned a raid on the hive's nesting site the night we found you, but the hive had moved on. Left a whole trail of bodies throughout the cavern, although I don't get why YOU were left behind. I thought vampire hives were supposed to be loyal to their sire and all that shit. Why would they leave you alone? Too much of a prat for them were you?"
The heat rolled over Draco's skin again, and he couldn't help a pained whimper from escaping.
"Ronald, go back to the living room," Granger said. "You're all heated and upset and the magic is making Malfoy's problems worse than they are. I've got Harry to guard me here and we have work to do. I'll be there to follow you home in a couple of minutes." Weasley seemed to want to protest, but a glare from Granger shut him up and sent him on his way. Draco felt both relief at his absence (and the absence of the heat) and amusement that Granger DEFINITELY ruled that relationship.
"Malfoy, let's make this simple," Potter seemed to take up the reigns of the conversation once more. "I need information, you need healing. I heal you, you tell me everything you know, and then you scamper on your merry way to wherever the hell it is you want to go. Sound acceptable to you, sir?"
Draco's eyes clenched more tightly shut as pain continued to shoot up his skin through its contact with the duvet below. "Yes, just…fuck…just…whatever you can do to make it stop hurting so damn much at the moment…I'll tell you whatever I can, though it probably isn't much, if you'll just make it stop." He thought he felt the salt of a tear roll down his cheek, briefly burning the cracked skin underneath on its trip down.
He heard Granger gasped as he felt her twitching uncomfortably across the room. "Right then," she finally said, breaking the silence. "Let's get this potion worked into your front, then we can see about turning you over and checking those legs." Draco, somewhat incoherent from the pain at this point, simply nodded his assent.
He felt Potter shift and sit gingerly on the bed before he felt a whispered incantation remove the shackles at his feet. Then, he felt his skin catch fire as two calloused hands began delicately, almost reverently, rubbing a soothing balm into the skin at his feet. As the hands worked their way up his left leg, he felt the fire of the initial touch melt into a tingling, then a numbness in the limb. For the first time since he left the cave, his nerve endings were not on fire, and that alone warranted a pained sigh.
Potter's breath seemed to catch momentarily from the sigh, his hands stilling. Draco took a chance. "Please, don't stop," he whispered, though he felt his pride crumbling with the plea. Potter took a deep breath before continuing up to his torso, then down the other leg to the foot. His body shifted again, and he was sitting at the head of the bed.
"Open your eyes, Malfoy," Potter's voice drawled from near his right ear. Startled by the familiarity of the phrase, his eyes shot open and met immediately with Potter's. "I am going to release the shackles temporarily so we can get your arms treated and then roll you over, but I'm going to have to replace them after. Okay?" Keeping his eyes locked on Potter's, Draco simply nodded before Potter whispered the incantation to release the chains. He continued messaging the potion up each arm and hand, before gently brushing his hands across Draco's face and neck. They seemed to linger just a moment over Draco's lips, and Draco briefly felt the flutter of a pulse. Surprisingly, Draco did not feel hunger in that moment, only sublime peace in the knowledge that that lifeforce, or at least a portion of it, was running through his system. And what an odd thing to think, Draco managed to think through the haze of welcomed numbness that was settling throughout his limbs.
"Malfoy, it's time for us to turn you over," he heard Granger call from a distance across the room. She seemed to have no interest in approaching the bed itself, just supervising carefully from the doorframe. That suited Draco just fine. He heard her quickly cast a mobilicorpus before he found himself hovering just inches off the bed. Potter very gently, as if afraid of damaging the still fragile skin beneath his fingers, managed to turn Draco onto his stomach. Draco then felt the spell gently being lifted as he floated back to the duvet below him. He quickly felt the shackles being replaced at his wrists and ankles, but could not care less as the burning scraping of the skin on his backside had been relieved.
Potter then continued his ministrations, gently applying the potion down his back, but when Potter's hands reached from his lower back to the curve of his arse, Draco felt himself tense his otherwise languid muscles unintentionally. Potter seemed to feel his tension and so called to Draco again. "Malfoy, I am not going to hurt you, do you understand? We are just going to try to get your skin better and see if this potion will help with those cuts down your legs as well. Is that alright?"
Draco took a few stuttering breaths before nodding quickly. Potter's hands continued gently down his arse and each leg before finally resting near the closest cut. Draco could FEEL him peering at it intently.
"Mione, what do you think?" Potter called across the room. "He's shackled again, so I'm sure it's safe to come look." Granger—I wonder if it's Weasley now, he thought—moved carefully towards the bed and seemed to peer at the wound intensely.
"Well, I just really don't know, Harry. His skin already seems to be looking a little healthier, if still dry and cracked. Are you feeling any relief, Malfoy?"
"Mm-hmm," his boneless voice felt muffled by the soft pillow under his head. Though he had not done much other than sleep and lie in this bed over the past couple of days, it was as if the relief settling into his body made him more tired than ever.
"Good, at least that's one problem taken care of." He could hear her pause as if in thought. "It still bothers me that we can't get those legs to heal though, even with the regenerative potion. Malfoy, do you think you could answer a few questions for us at the moment? Or would you rather get some rest?"
Draco thought for a moment before lifting his head and turning it to face the two humans. "I could rest for the next two centuries and still feel tired after everything I've been through, but I'd much rather work on trying to get myself back to some semblance of normal. If that requires my talking to you, so be it." Hermione nodded at him.
"Can you tell us how old these wounds are? And how they were inflicted? That might help us figure out how to heal them." Draco's body began giving away a faint amount of trembling which he promptly tried to conceal through a few deep breaths.
"I can tell you that, if Potter's been telling me the truth, the wounds themselves are probably close to eight years old." Granger gasped at his statement, but he ignored her and continued. "They were part of the 'initiation' for those of us who were kept around as…toys." His voice faltered more than he had wanted it to, but he pressed forward. "The first time I awoke after I was taken from the manor…That's when…he did it. As far as details…" Draco took a deep breath before continuing. "Look…I just…I don't think I can talk about it. Use legilimency if you have to, but I don't think I can give you that information without completely losing my pride." Granger frowned, but Potter just nodded in something akin to understanding and knelt on the floor next to the head of the bed. Gray eyes met green briefly before a wand was pointing towards Draco's head.
"Legilimens," the command was issued, and Draco quickly built his occlumency shields around every memory he wanted protected except for the one of that first night, then one he'd had nightmares about the night before. Once Potter had viewed the memory, he pulled out of Draco's mind in an almost gentle manner, although the pounding headache that always accompanied mind invasion began almost the second the connection was broken.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be more gentle, Malfoy, but I am by no means a master legilimens." Draco, in an attempt to cover up the returning pain of his headache, looked towards Potter and gave a small smirk. Potter looked almost green, but Draco supposed that was just from Potter's inept attempts at reading his mind.
"No offense, Potter, but I had that figured out already." Potter gave a half-scowl, but it seemed without heat, so Draco let it go. "In any case, I really don't think I can handle being awake much longer, so if you don't mind…" He abruptly turned his head away from Potter's emerald green eyes and closed his own, willing the darkness to take him again.
Draco heard the retreating footsteps and whispers heading towards the doorway, but he was quickly losing himself to the darkness and felt something akin to relief for the first time in years. "Thank you, Harry," he whispered almost to himself before dropping off into what he hoped would not be nightmares.
As soon as Malfoy had returned to slumber – if you could even call what a vampire did while unconscious sleeping – Harry quickly saw both Ron and Hermione out with various promises to contact them with the information he had gathered so that both could continue working on their respective cases. Hermione had been particularly annoyed that Harry had insisted on owling her later with the details, but one look at the determined—and slightly sick—look in his eyes, and Hermione had dropped the subject.
The truth is, Harry needed time to process what Malfoy had just shown him before he could share the details with anyone else. He should be ecstatic to finally have at least SOME clue as to what DarkStar looked like – he was mostly cloaked in the vision, although Malfoy had seen those terribly dead eyes and some facial features – but what he had done…It was inhuman to be sure, but the sense of terror pervading the memory was far worse. Harry, like Malfoy, had seen his share of atrocities, both in the war and in his work, but to feel so completely…insignificant…even to those torturing you. Such a thing did more than damage the mind or body. It damaged the SOUL.
What's more is that Harry KNEW he hadn't seen the whole memory. Something told him that Malfoy had not lost consciousness at that point, and that there was more to come. Granted, Malfoy was still a bit of an arrogant git, and had been a Death Eater during the war, but no one deserved that sort of bodily violation. Harry shivered before wrapping his arms around himself. Harry's eyes looked out the window towards the approaching dawn as he dropped into his favorite recliner with a cup of coffee in his hands. He would rest for a few hours at least before owling what he'd discovered to Hermione.
Harry was shaken, to be sure, but he was also determined. He knew now that Draco had at least SOME memories, locked carefully behind his occlumency shields, that would be beneficial, even if it was just a clear look at DarkStar and some of the other vamps in his hive. He knew that Hermione, as intelligent as she was, would find a way to heal Malfoy's wounds. Maybe she would even discover why it was that Malfoy responded so differently to different types of blood.
In any case, Harry continued to wonder to himself – because he had become nothing short of honest with himself in the past few years – when he had gotten to be so sympathetic with the likes of Draco Malfoy? Maybe because he hated seeing a fellow person – for Harry still believed him to be a person, even if he wasn't human – suffer. Maybe because he had felt a sort of sympathy for Malfoy that entire last year of the war as he watched him through his connection with Voldemort. Maybe because, even once the wizarding world had stopped looking for him, something had still felt WRONG about a world without Harry's "nemesis" in it. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because he'd finally heard Malfoy call him "Harry."
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