Author's Note: Yeah, so life has taken a huge dump on me. But that's ok, because the muses helped me take out my frustration. (Also, sorry for the wait - I had this chapter ready for a while but completely forgot to post it!)

Lessons in the Dark

Lesson Two: Death

Part Two

When Harry's opened his eyes again, not too long after that dangerously powerful orgasm, he felt Lucius' body draped carefully over his. Slowly, as if in repentance for his unprecedented roughness, the man slid down Harry's body, eased by what Harry could only assume was the same fluid he produced in his pleasure. He was too exhausted, he knew, having released three times that night, when he had never before experienced such before. He hummed when he felt Lucius' tongue reverently mark a path down his spine.

"Hn, what are you-?" He stiffened immediately when he felt a warm, slick tongue at his entrance. "Lucius!"

He was almost ashamed at the whine he let out; mostly, he was startled at the sensation. Of all the amazing things Lucius had done to him, with him, this was one of the farthest things from his imagination. He lavished in the attention as Lucius carefully cleaned up every drop of his release. There was no way either of them could become aroused against so soon, and it warmed him even more to think that there was no motive of pleasure in the act, only love.

When he was finished, Lucius lay against Harry, pulling him close and burying his nose in Harry's hair.

"You've driven me to madness," he whispered. "How?" as if Harry knew how to answer such a question.

He stroked the back of the hand against his chest.

"What did you do to him?"

Lucius sighed tiredly. "I suppose I'd have to show you eventually."

For a moment, neither made any motion to rise. Harry didn't want to see. He didn't want to know. He didn't want to be afraid.

He wondered if Lucius was feeling the same trepidation - Did he finally see how ill-equipped Harry was to handle such a thing? Was he disappointed? Was he angry?

"Come," Lucius murmured, rising and dressing himself and Harry again. The boy tugged at the looser waist of his trousers.

"Damn, I only have two pairs," he groused.

Lucius scoffed and gently brushed his hair from his face, "Please, you won't need them again after tonight. I've taken care of everything."

Harry warmed with happiness. He hadn't lost his chance, after all; Lucius still seemed to be planning to take him.

"Now, you will not like what I'll do; don't say I didn't give you fair warning."

His face fell slightly, but he nodded.

As he tried to follow Lucius down the stairs after he unlocked the door, he stumbled into the man; his sight wasn't very good even in broad daylight. He felt Lucius chuckle, "Wait here," and he was left in the dark for only a moment before Lucius returned, lit candle in hand.

"I certainly can't let you fall to your death now that I have you."

"Well, excuse my weak human eyes," he mumbled, causing Lucius to laugh lowly again. As they made their way down the stairs, passing the hall with the Dursleys' rooms, he wondered for the first time if Aunt Petunia and Dudley were even in the house. They must have heard something, between Vernon being attacked and… what he and Lucius had done.

Thoughts of them flew from his mind when he caught sight of Vernon on the floor. He looked like a trussed pig, hands and legs both bound tightly behind him. His mouth was gagged by a strip of his shirt. There was a sizeable lump on his head from where Lucius must have knocked him senseless.

Harry set the candle down by Vernon's head, letting it at as a meager barrier between him and the grotesque disfigurement of the once familiar, cruel face. It was obvious that Lucius made the most with the short time he was downstairs.

He seemed to do the most damage he could without spilling blood.

"Anyone you love will be but a brief flicker in your life." Lucius stood by as Harry kneeled beside the bulbous man. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he gave off an air of boredom, but there was enough light for Harry to see the quiet rage in his eyes. "In the end, you will be as alone as if they had never lived at all."

"What a foolish thing to say." He was surprised by his own terseness, but he suddenly couldn't stop himself. "No death can erase a memory."

"Memory, what good is memory? What I am, what you will be - we are above memory. We are the present and our company is the living."

"So you'll kill him to teach me such a lesson?"

"Oh, I won't."

Harry looked up at Lucius sharply to see him offering a white pillow. In confusion, he stood and let Lucius push the pillow into his hands. His fingers clenched it automatically, and he noted it was much to soft to be his own. His heart sped with the realization that it must have come from either Dudley's or Petunia's room.

He found himself croaking, "You would have me murder my family?"

Lucius spat, "Family? Him?" He kicked Vernon sharply and the man opened his eyes with a muffled cry. "Speak, you animal." A pen knife seemed to appear from air into Lucius' hand; he cut through the gag, which he tore from the man's mouth. "Tell him why you kept him!"

"You have no right-! Once the law gets on you, I swear-"

"Do you know?" Harry asked furiously of Lucius. He never did figure out why, if his family so hated him, they took him in when he was a child. They could have figured out some was to abandon him somewhere and come up with a reasonable, socially acceptable explanation. But why did they force themselves to house him, and force him to bear their disdain? "How?"

"Did you think I would forget you while I was gone?" Lucius asked, shifting quickly from rage to surprise.

"Well, I didn't expect you to… do research!" he sputtered.

"Quite the term, but that sounds much too neat for the work I did."

"Prideful thing," Harry muttered. He wrung the pillow in his hands, looking at Vernon, whose eyes stayed locked on Lucius, like trapped prey.

"There are some things I'm not at liberty to tell you," he continued with a small scowl. "But it took years to get information on you from my… acquaintance."

Harry felt a chill knowing that someone knew such things about him - someone other than Lucius knew Harry was unwanted, unloved. Someone knew and left him to his fate. And what of the sudden secrecy? The only other time Lucius sounded this way was when he talked about his first feeding.

Lucius didn't give him the chance to question this.

"But he," he nudged the man sharply with his boot. "He can tell you. Tell him why you kept him, you beast."

Vernon's face was damp with sweat when he blubbered, "I can't, I can't, he said -!"

"Whatever he threatened you with cannot possibly be worse than death," Lucius sneered. "Tell him now, or die and let me tell him - which will it be?"

"A man!" Vernon sobbed. "A dark man, he gave us the boy, he wouldn't take it himself - but we did! We took you," he finally turned to Harry, "He wouldn't have you, but we did! We fed you and clothed you and -"

Lucius grew frustrated with the drivel. "He said to take care of Harry, didn't he? He said to treat him as your own. Did you? Is this how you treated your son? Did you try to break him, too? Use him? Crush him?" He crouched over Vernon, grabbing the thick throat and squeezing carefully. "Oh, but of course not," he said with a feigned gentleness. "You loved your son. But Harry?" As his lips spread into a snarl, his pointed teeth became more pronounced, and Vernon flailed, useless against the cloth binding his limbs. "He meant less than nothing to you."

"Stop!"

The vampire looked over to Harry to see him covering his face with the pillow meant to suffocate Vernon. Just who was Lucius trying to hurt? Didn't he realize how callous he sounded? Didn't he realize how very raw his words made him feel?

He wrapped his arms around Harry's wrists, moving the hands away from his face, trying to convey his love and remorse in the same gaze.

"Don't."

"The most he did for you is keep you alive," Lucius whispered. Harry closed his eyes and bowed his head in resignation. His hands were limp within Lucius' hold, only barely holding on to the pillow.

"But for that, I should thank you," his voice sharpened again when he addressed Vernon. "I suppose my gesture of gratitude will be allowing Harry to kill you rather than having your for myself."

Harry started at the almost casual mention. He clenched his hands on the soft mass of down. He recognized it now, so often had he set it neatly against the headboard; this was Petunia's. So it she wasn't sleeping, safe in ignorance and unconsciousness, where was she?

"What if he fights me?"

"I will help you," Lucius said, as if it should have been obvious. "But only so much."

Still leaning over Vernon, he held down Vernon's thick shoulders, his blond hair failing past his shoulders in a way Harry could have appreciated in any other scenario. Harry knelt above his uncle's head, squeezing the pillow compulsively when he stared down at the man. Vernon was still making pitiful noises, begging Lucius, trying to bargain with him, as if he had anything the vampire could want.

"I'm sorry," Harry found himself whispering.

Vernon looked up at Harry in bewilderment, as if he forgot just who his threat was at the moment.

"Goodbye, Uncle Vernon."

And that was the last him he saw the man's face morph into a look of pure hatred, his chest swelling to spew slurs at him. He put all his weight into the pillow, shutting his eyes as if he could block out the sin, though he felt the man struggling as much as he could under Lucius' strength. There was no forgetting that below the soft material, there was a living, wheezing thing. He shut his eyes and pressed down, blocking out the moment when the twitching stopped, or the gentle prodding of Lucius trying to get him to relax.

"Harry, please…"

He felt the hot tears trailing down the side of his face against his wishes.

"My love…"

He sobbed, bowing his head into his arm.

Whether it was impatience or desperation, Lucius finally lifted Harry's hands, almost without effort. The boy collapsed against Lucius, crying for reasons unknown.

"Harry," he raised Harry's face, looking into the glittering jade feverishly. "I'm so proud of you," he heard before he felt Lucius' tongue in his mouth, and he tasted the sweetness of his blood.

Whatever heaviness lay in his heart in the aftermath of his crime faded, and his hunger surged. This wasn't the hunger he had felt before, where his whole body shivered and yearned; he needed to feed the frightened thing inside him, he needed to quell it before it overwhelmed him.

"Harry," Lucius groaned and pushed Harry away. He pressed his face into the boy's neck and breathed heavily, and Harry struggled to cling to the taste, to allow it to overtake any other thoughts which he surely could not handle just yet.

He let Lucius lead him to his feet, and moved to the stairs at Lucius' gentle urging.

"You must never stay near the body. Never let the death be traced back to you."

Harry nodded, and allowed Lucius to lead him from the corpse.