Chapter 19

To say he was sore would have been a grave understatement.

His dreams had been warm, comforting, but he woke to consciousness in a cold room, aching from his feet to his head. What the hell did I do last night?

Draco felt a giddy sort of smile reach his lips. Oh, yes. I remember now.

And while that thought brought back a bit of his lacking warmth, a shiver of shock swept through him. He'd let a vampire screw him. He'd let Hermione Granger grind him into the floorboards, quite literally. And something else had happened, too. He wasn't sure what, though.

He opened his eyes, blinking rapidly, and pushed himself up onto his elbows. His eyes darted around the room. Cobwebs made a glowing halo over the four-post bed, their silver threads shining in the slight glow of the moon light from the closest window. He was surprised to see the world outside; obviously the window had been boarded earlier, as a pile of planks lay on the floor below, ripped nail and all from the frame.

"Morning, Draco."

Hermione was at the doorway by the time he turned around. She was stretching her arms out slightly and the silhouette of her curling hair was a mass of disarray.

"Or evening, for everyone else, I suppose," she said, her voice somewhat nervous. She stepped into the room and her bare feet kicked up a layer of dust. Draco noticed that the bed he was lying on appeared the only clean item in his vicinity. "You slept the day away," she explained.

"So did you," he said, attempting to accuse. It faded away.

He could see a slight smile on her face. She patted his arm, and he rolled towards the right of the bed, allowing her room to sit down. Instead she crawled in beside him, beneath the ragged blanket, and propped her face on one hand to stare at him.

"It worked," she said. She shyly cast her eyes down to the flat pillow she'd claimed. "It's hard to believe, really, but it did. It. . . satisfied my hunger."

Draco was silent a moment. "Good to bloody know," he finally replied. "You vampires don't require much, do you?"

"You weren't complaining," she noted. "Well, at least not after I. . ." Her eyes darted up, suddenly, a look of panic on her face. "Merlin, Draco, I practically--I'm so sorry. It was the only way I could think of. . .Oh, God, Draco, I didn't want to do that to you."

She rolled of the bed, putting her back to him, her face in her hands. "What the hell did I do?" she muttered.

Draco reached out, hesitantly touching her black dress. Apparently, she'd dusted that off, too. A slice of fire ran through his shoulders; his collar bone was fractured, at the least. The sensation reminded him of his lack of a wand.

"As much as it pains me, if you must know, it was preferred over death."

She grew quiet. "You're trying to make me feel better?"

The wizard sat up, putting his back to the head of the bed. "No," he said, "of course not. I'm just stating a fact."

"No," she hissed. She turned quickly, staring at him as if he'd grown a set of horns. "No, I can tell. You said that to make me feel better. I know, Draco, I can tell what you're feeling if I concentrate."

"Oh, please!" he sneered, retracting his hand as if she'd burned him. "As if I could care about your precious feelings."

Hermione's brow furrowed. "There's something wrong with you, Draco."

"You're the dead one."

"But you're not being yourself!" she snapped. "Your behavior is changing—this blood bond is changing you. I know I said it before, but I didn't realize this would progress so quickly. I knew that Darien had a pull over you in the house, but I never knew how easy it must have been for him to drink from you. I shouldn't have chided you. He could have gotten anything from you, if he'd tried a bit harder."

"Would you not bring up Darien while discussing sex," Draco requested. "It's a bit off-putting."

Hermione's mouth opened and closed. A snort of laughter left her.

"How did we get into such a strange situation?" she asked.

Draco cocked his head, attempting to think of a decent retort.

"Trying to do something ri. . ." His sober voice broke off. His eyes darted to Hermione. She knew what he had meant to say, he could tell, but he didn't want to discuss it, not at the moment. He didn't feel like bringing up those who were both dead and gone. "When we were, uh, together, that is to say, reaching the end of our. . .activity last night, did you notice something strange?"

Hermione looked as if she had something else to say. She nodded, addressing his question instead. "Magic," she stated. "It almost tore the floor down. I'm not sure what caused it. But I've been thinking about that."

Her voice suddenly perked up. "Do you remember when I was carrying you and you asked if I was using magic to run?"

"What of it?"

"Well," she continued, "none of the books I read addressed it as magic. They addressed vampires as magical creatures but didn't actually explain how their abilities came into being. I have a theory." She sat up a bit straighter. "I think that the vampire species is a mutation of magic. A witch or wizard uses a wand to channel magic, but perhaps magic behaves differently when a person becomes a vampire. Its uses change, its properties are mutated—it's for that reason that the victims themselves appear to take on a change. It's actually magic at work, probably some division of the type of studies done in ancient times pertaining to the use of blood in magic."

Draco blinked. "Yes, alright. What?"

Hermione threw her head back in aggravation. "My point is," she began again, "that vampirism has never been studied as a type of deformed magic, though vampires have long been studied as a species. If I'm right, then there might be a way to reverse the harm done to ones magic, also reversing the effects of the vampire's bite."

"Some sort of cure," Draco breathed. He shook his head. "Wait, there's a flaw. Muggles can become vampires as well. If there's no magic to be mutated, how do they become vampires?

"Draco," Hermione sighed, "where do you think muggle borns come from? There's obviously some magic to muggles or there would be no new wizards coming out of them."

"Perfect," Draco snapped, "we're going to go into theory on magic genes now, are we?"

Hermione frowned. "I suppose someone who's a purist doesn't want to discuss a logical explanation."

Draco grew quiet.

The vampire stood from the bed, pointing an accusing finger at him. "See, that's what I'm talking about. Now would be a perfect time for you to going into a speech on pure-bloods and their perfectness, but, instead, you're dropping the subject. "

"I'm dropping it because someone as thick skulled as yourself wouldn't recognize good sense if it stuck a stake in you!"

"That was weak, Draco."

"I'm exhausted. Shut it."

Hermione shook her head.

Draco growled, jumping off of the bed. "Fine, fine—maybe I'm behaving a bit strangely, but it's not as if you can't say the same. For Salazar's sake, you bloody attacked me to get in my pants. That's not the bookworm I loved to hate, damn it!" His nostrils flared in sudden anger. " I've a right to fucking act different, Mistress Hermione-Fucking-Granger! I've been cast out by my own kind—I was going to be put to death in front of my family! And I was traded off to a vampire, a bone to the bloody dog. And now I've slept with someone I despised for my last few years of freedom!"

He released a heavy breath. "So quit telling me how odd I'm behaving. I know! Let it go already."

Hermione didn't speak, but Draco could see her eyes growing darker. She reached out to the side table, picking up two full vials. She handed them to him.

"Take this," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I picked them up in Hogsmeade when I first woke. It'll help your bones heal and renew you."

My blood, she means. Draco felt his throat ache at the thought.

"I'll be needing you again soon," she finished.

She left him to the night.

Draco leaned back and thought of leaving, again. But he couldn't muster up the strength. And he wasn't sure if he could go, if he wanted to. He uncorked the two vials and turned them up at once, swallowing them in one go.

If she needed him, he'd be ready.