Harry Potter is property of JK Rowling. I write this out of pure personal pleasure, and the desire to bring happiness to other fans. And my pockets don´t want anything in return. Thanks.
Warning: This story contains yaoi, it means love between men. As much as drama and suffering, supernatural creatures and sex related scenes.
Summary: When seven years after the war, Draco Malfoy escapes from his cell in Azkaban, the ministry has no choice but to send his best Auror, Harry Potter, to capture him again. Between the walls of the world's toughest prison, Harry will discover not only the origin of the most terrifying creatures, but a love against time.
Note: Thanks Yamimoukin and TroMin for cheering me so much. ^^ And Yaoifanfake yea, you have go it ;) Draco is turning into a Dementor… and I hate Ron XD I think my feelings are bleeding into the fic.
Now I present:
Dementor Kiss
Chapter 5 – Fear
"In that case we can start now. Stop at eight, come back here for dinner, if there´s any problem, send your patronus. Good luck!" - All nodded and split up to go to their respective duties.
"At last the hunt begins!" - Ron said cheerfully.
Harry looked at his watch.
It had passed half an hour since Hermione and Henry went searching the lower levels. Surely, they would have separated already to cover more space.
He looked at Ron. He and Harry were searching the stores of the first floor, some of whom had been deserted nearly a century ago. The disuse easy to see in the way his best friend was trying to open one of the doors lining the hall. The wood swelled with moisture over the years, was caught in the jamb, making opening it a really difficult task.
"Ron."
The redhead turned wiping in his sleeve the sweat from his brow.
"You are leaving now?"
Harry nodded.
"Do you think they have believed it?"
"I don´t think they suspect anything. Maybe we're being a little paranoid ... but that spell didn´t made itself."- Ron crossed his arms thoughtfully, leaning against the wall.
During the war, and even before, the difficulties they had to overcome together, taught them, that to rely on anyone that wasn´t one of their friends could be the last thing they did. And especially, in a case like this, who reeked of corruption, they couldn´t afford such mistake.
When Hermione got up after fainting, and told them that ... they knew certainly that trusting the guards was no longer an option. That kind of spell... in a secured place? Impossible for anyone to have run something like it without the guards knowing. But there, in the hall, without knowing for sure where the suspects could be, it hadn't been prudent to speak.
They weren´t the bests for nothing.
They knew how to work perfectly coordinated, had been in many similar situations, were best friends… that gave them an understanding of each other that didn´t need words. So Ron, whose hatred for Malfoy was well known, had done what he did best, blame the ferret and downplay the whole thing. If they thought the aurors didn´t give the incident more importance than that, it was likely they would drop their guard.
And, if any of them had been the caster of such magic, they, certainly, wouldn´t hesitate in using it to protect themselves if being cornered. So the three friends had separated like nothing was wrong, until a time such as this, when they could act. When they were for sure where each of the guards were.
How could they suspect that the three aurors would use the valuable time of searching, for planning their next move?
"Then I will stay and cover for you." - The red-haired auror looked seriously at his friend.-"You know, If Henry or Thomas come looking for us, say that we separated to cover more ground."
Harry nodded.
"Thanks Ron. See you in a couple hours. If anything happens you know what to do."
"I'll send my patronus. Don´t worry. – And turned to the door rolling up his sleeves. - Well, let's see if I can open this."
Harry undid the way to the resting room being careful to stay hidden in the shadows.
Finally reaching the door, and after making sure that nothing could be heard inside, he entered and took from his backpack the invisibility cloak.
"Let's go."
Hermione felt a slight movement in the air at her side and turned sharply in its direction, but saw nothing.
She was on the first floor of the basement, at the end of a dark corridor flanked by heavy silver doors magically sealed, and as far as she had been able to go from Henry, with the excuse of ground cover.
The coursed area intended for werewolves.
The sounds of tearing claws against stone or metal, the inhuman screams, growls and howls put her mind on end. She grasped the wand harder.
"Meat, meat ..."
"What ..."
"!"
"Hermione." - Harry´s voice made her jump.
"Don´t do something like that ever again." – The ginger haired woman hissed between sharp teeth, somewhere among scared and angry.
Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing, Hermione looked like a scalded cat. Especially with her hair sticking out of place. The female auror abruptly snatched the invisibility cloak from his body, and threw a bubble of silence charm in its place.
"Is it safe?"
"Don´t worry; I casted a detector spell at Henry. If he comes near us, I will know." - Mione said.
"Okay." - Harry leaned against the wall, hiding in the shadows, just in case. – "So, do you know something of the spell used in Malfoys cell?" – He asked.
Hermione sighed.
"No. Sorry, but that was true. If only I haven´t fainted I could have pretended the spell had failed, but as things were, pretending wasn´t going to help. And to show that I didn´t know it was black magic, especially of that level; would have been even less believable."
"The best thing would have been to do as we hadn´t discovered anything. But..."- They couldn´t afford to deny it since any guard could had been watching them. And to throw a spell to see if they were spied upon, would have exposed their suspicions.
Mione sighed.
"Besides, I can´t get out of Azkaban so soon after returning, it would look too weird. I guess our best shot is to send an owl to MacGonnagal, maybe she can lend me certain useful books about what kind of spell we are dealing with."
"Meanwhile to see if we can come up with something about Malfoy… If he isn't dead already." – Harry murmured.
Hermione said nothing to that, a magic so dark left little hope for the one casted upon.
"We'll have to watch Henry and Tomas. –Harry continued- You can take care of Henry, since you are registering the basement together… And could you ask Ron to deal with Tomas?"
"I'll send my Patronus. - She volunteered. - But what are you going do?" - Mione asked.
"I'll see if I can enter the tower. I don´t know why, but I have a feeling that there´s where the key of this case lays." -For a moment he seemed to look intensely at nothing, until his focused again.
"Be careful, okay? Try not to dive headfirst into danger, at least this time." - Harry smiled mischievously at Hermiones words.
"You know me." – His friend shook her head hopelessly.
"I don´t know what I'm going to do with you. – She undid the bubble of silence- Hope you have some luck."
"You too." - He said softly.
The dark haired auror threw the invisibility cloak again over himself, and waited for his friend to go out before heading to the tower.
Draco was sitting by the fireplace watching the flames move without seeing them. His knees pressed against his chest, hugged in a feeble try to keep some warm. But each passing day feeling warm turned more difficult, as if he were being slowly frozen from the inside.
"I guess that´s not very far from reality." The curse was turning his blood ice. He needed a way to undo it before being too late. "The problem is that I don´t know how it was done either." At the time he had been semi-conscious, freezing cold, sick ... he couldn´t remember anything.
The creak of the door behind him took Draco out of his thoughts:
"Lady Margaret." - He greeted.
A Dementor carrying a tray entered in the room, carefully depositing the food on the table.
"Good evening, Draco. - The voice, though slightly hissing was that of a woman. - I brought you something to eat." - The hood she wear was removed and Draco suppressed a shiver.
At some time in the past she must have been a beautiful woman late in her forties, but now his brown hair looked like a pile of dead seaweed on her head, atop skin as pale as a corpse, with eyes covered in a whitish gel-like film. Although Draco knew she wasn´t blind. Of the same height as him, thin like a broomstick, she looked like a body that had been taken out of the muddy bottom of a swamp. Still yet, it was better to see her like that, than as a Dementor.
Draco knew that the only reason he was able to see this human form, was because he also was becoming one.
"Why do you help me?" -He said softly. The Dementor waved a bony hand resting importance to his words.
"I never liked to see a kid go hungry. And if you don´t want to eat properly..."
"I will not eat the soul of anyone!" - The blond exclaimed angrily, rising from his position before the fire. Margaret hit him in the chest with a finger.
"That's something you can´t prevent young man. You are what you are, and should get rid of those silly human complexes." - Her voice was maternal, and Draco could read in her face that she really cared for him. They meet only a few days ago, but the strange and erratic creature had taken instant affection to the young prisoner. Perhaps, because he was the youngest in the tower.
"I'm not a Dementor ..." - his voice sounded weak even to his ears.
"Don´t worry so much, it isn´t so terrible of a existence.- Margaret gave him a few pats on the shoulder. -Well, I better continue with the clean-up, there´s still much to do. Take a little rest, sweet, you look sick." - the boy held a grin, "Look who is telling me that I look bad ..."
Lady Margaret was who maintained the order and cleanliness of the tower. The elves were too frightened to be able to keep coming, so the Dementors Lord had entrust the task to another, namely, her.
Margaret was muttering to herself again before closing the door in her wake.
gRRRRRRRRRrrr Draco put his hands to his stomach feeling suddenly very hungry.
Finally sitting at the table he looked at the small dish of porridge, slice of bread and glass of water, feeling his mouth water. It was what happened when one wasn´t able to prove more than stale and mouldy bread for almost seven years. He quickly ate it all, but even them, somehow, he still had a slight feeling of hunger...
The blond threw his hood upon his head, hiding in it. Not wanting to think.
It felt like he would end up crying if he continued worrying about it. He was exhausted from so much stress.
Draco hugged himself trying to find some comfort.
"I needed to forget about everything for a while, I needed some peace. Maybe I should follow the advice of Lady Margaret and get some sleep"
A web adhered to his cloak as he moved in front of the old door of the tower, and Harry cleaned it as best he could.
"Why can´t they live in a cleaner place?" He muttered to himself and shook his head raising his wand to better see the latch; it seemed that the door was locked. "Logical. They don´t seem to receive many visits"
"Nox." - murmured softly before taking it in hand, making sure to remain hidden by the invisibility coat. Slowly he began to turn the latch, avoiding squeaking hinges, and sliding it open slowly, before slipping in and closing the door behind. Thus ending in a short hallway, at the end of which could be seen candlelight.
"That's weird." He thought, and crouched maintaining a defensive posture, since he was invading a forbidden territory, in which if he was found out he would have to fight just to get out. For a moment Harry stood still, recalling the soft laughter of his mother, to be prepared in case he needed to use the patronus. But when he neared the light source ...
"Wha ...!" – Instantly Harry bit his lip realizing the noise he must have done.
The interior of the tower wasn´t nothing like the passage that preceded it. Before him lay another stone corridor, but clean, warmly lit by candles and flanked on both sides by dark wooden old, but polished, doors. Worn carpets, faded tapestries... The place exuded a sense of tarnished nobility.
He took a few steps in; inspecting fascinated the moving images of the tapestries. There was a huge castle beside a lake, the summer sun reflecting on the leaves and the gentle movement that produced the breeze:
"Hogwarts ..." It looked much newer and shiny, but the magnificent college was unmistakable. "What´s making here a tapestry of Hogwarts?" He went to see the next one when his sensed warned him of an icy sensation behind himself. A Dementor with what looked like a bucket and a mop was ailing in his direction.
The Auror frowned confused. He had been so focused on the tapestry that hadn´t realized the monster had come so close. But even if he was pretty sure that his form wouldn´t be seen, even by those creatures, inside the invisibility cloak, he decided not to risk it. Taking advantage of the thing being looking the other way, Harry opened the nearest door and slipped inside, gently shutting it in his wake, trying not to make noise.
As he turned he saw that he must have entered a bedroom. The room had one large window covered with dust beneath which was a carved stone seat wall. But even if the window was all dirty, like in the hallway the furniture here, old but well preserved, wasn´t.
The fireplace was lit with orange flames... It was quite possible that the owner of the room was still there.
"I should have checked if it was empty." He raised his wand, ready to conjure. The space carefully searched at a glance. At first there seemed to be nobody else. A solid wood bed completely carved with lions and plants, canopy crimson velvet with gold embroidery curtains worn by time, closed at the time, was the biggest furniture in the room. It reminded him of the Gryffindor ornaments, and Harry couldn´t prevent approaching the bed, filled with curiosity.
"Anyone living here could be sleeping…"
He was so curious...
"Do Dementors really sleep?"
Before thinking better of it, he carefully drew one of the curtains. The golden light of the candles fell inside slightly allowing Harry to see what was there. A delicate figure clad in a white robe, sleeping under a thick blanket of red velvet.
"The white Dementor."
He was on his side, his hooded face turned to the other side.
His fingers brushed his robe when it escaped from them like a wisp of fog, before the pale appearance disappeared around the corner. "So soft .- whispered, looking surprised at his own hand. Soft. Something cold leaving a tingling on the fingers, almost intangible as smooth as it was. Harry recalled it perfectly.
Was really so good touching it? Needing to know, Harry reached out and gently touched his covered by the robe shoulder. A pleasant shiver ran through his fingers:
"So soft ..." - His fingers roamed the contour of the shoulder gently, a feather like touch.
Draco felt someone touching his shoulder and his senses were put on alert immediately. He sat up abruptly and pushed away the attacker. His hand hit ... Air?
Harry put his hand away quickly, surprised by the reaction of the creature. When the Dementor hit him sliding his cloak to the floor, and leaving him exposed.
"You!" - Draco said seeing Potter emerge from thin air. Immediately he put his hand to his mouth. "No - He thought hysterically- If Potter discovers me I will be thrown in that cell again. No, nonononono. I will not survive it again. I can´t go back to that hell."
He felt the beginning of a panic attack taking rot in his mind. Immediately Draco lowered his head hiding his face in the shadow of the hood, gasping. His muscles tightening brutally, when Potter came even closer. Grasped the cloth of his tunic in his hands, to avoid the auror noticing his trembling.
"I knew you understood me." - Harry said softly with a smile.
The Dementor seemed terrified. Taut as a violin string. He put the wand in his belt and raised his hands to show that he didn´t want to hurt him.
"He looks so scared ..."So fragile in the centre of the huge bed, that for a moment Harry felt the need to hug the pale apparition.
"Hermione's right, I have a hero complex," he told himself slightly amused. Anyone who knew that he felt the need to protect a Dementor, surely would die of laughter.
"Hey, quiet, I´m not going to hurt you."
Draco swallowed convulsively. Thinking: "I ... I haven´t been discovered" he let out the breath didn´t know he'd been holding, shakily. Raised slightly his hooded eyes, knowing the shadow would prevent Harry seeing his face.
"Why are you so scared that I know you can talk?" - The dark haired man asked sweetly.
Draco couldn´t believe his luck. It seemed the auror hadn't noticed anything... Maybe he could use him to help his needs. He seems to be preoccupied for him after all. And grimaced, since Harry couldn´t see it. "Potter hasn´t changed anything." Draco remembered the hero complex of the Auror, and unhealthy habit of caring for any helpless creature, starting with Longbottom. He evaluated the pros and cons. "It's worth a try. I can´t tell the whole truth, but I can say part of it. After all, the lies based on truth are easier to remember."
He let his shoulders fall slightly:
"It's... Only the Lord is allowed to speak." - His voice trembling slightly, trying by all means to sound soft. He didn´t want to be recognized.
Harry felt a pang of tenderness… "Wait! Since when Dementors cause positive feelings? " Harry looked down slightly, pretending to be compassionate. "A white Dementor who produces tender feelings, not frightening ones, (he realized that he had never felt uneasy in the presence of the elusive creature), who is afraid of me and don´t want to talk: Malfoy" Although how so an unpleasant person had learned to look even delicate, escaped him entirely. "Azkaban does strange things to the mind of its inhabitants" The memory of Sirius reappearing for a moment. How he had managed to escape and pose as a Dementor he didn´t know, but he would make sure it didn´t pass again.
"Why don´t we stop playing Malfoy?"- He hissed.
Draco drew back terrified, not fast enough to stop Potter, who in one fluid motion grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed them boot into the mattress, holding the blond with his weight and clamping his legs with his.
Draco felt the wave of panic that he had been trying to contain finally break the weak wall of his sanity, eroded to almost the insanity from years of imprisonment and torture. The grasping hands on his shoulders, holding it as shackles, the unwanted weight on him, bringing too many nightmarish memories, the inability to move...
"Why don´t you show me your face?" - Harry's voice full of venom was mixed with another he wanted to forget. "Why don´t you show me your face? You look even more beautiful when you cry."
Harry grabbed his hood and pulled sharply. Draco screamed like a banshee.
The Auror pulled back abruptly at finding himself looking directly at the face of a screaming Dementor. And being beaten by an aura full of terror, that left him dizzy and disoriented for a moment, despite his training.
He jumped instantly away from the bed.
"What have I done? I thought it was Malfoy, but ... "He took his wand helplessly watching the screaming Dementor arch his back so much it looked like he were going to break.
The sound of wood hitting the ground…
Someone was coming.
Quickly he covered himself with the invisibility cloak again and hid in the corner of the room, far away from the bed.
Lady Margaret heard the cry of her boy and dropped the bucket she was holding, pouring dirty water on the floor and running to Draco's room, completely terrified.
"Please, don´t anything happen to him, not to my child. Not again "She burst into the room.
"What happened? - Ran up to the bed - Draco! Draco, can you hear me?" – She shook him gently and patted his face, but the blond didn´t react. He kept screaming.
"What do I do, what can I do?"
Harry watched under his cloak, invisible in the corner, as the new Dementor tried unsuccessfully to get a reaction from the smaller one. He couldn´t understand his hissing, but if a Dementor could sound concerned, this would.
His conscience was like a scream in his head, signalling all of this was his fault. And he didn´t know how to help. The wand painfully hard grasped in his hand, feeling useless.
Suddenly, the temperature dropped dramatically. Then a terrifying aura of terror coming closer, and finally, the rapid decrease of light in the room moments before the Dementor Lord entered, followed by another Dementor a couple of steps behind, his head respectfully lowered.
"My Lord!" - Margaret ran to kneel at the feet of the Lord. – "I don´t know what happened. He doesn't react."
The Dementor Lord gave her a disdainful look, and the other dementor that had come with him, immediately rushed her away dragging Margaret by her robe.
"Please have your way, My Lord." - He said politely.
Harry saw this. And although he couldn't understand what they said, he didn´t like the way the Lord and the other treated the one who came first, and that seemed to be trying to help the white.
The Dementor Lord approached the bed where the delicate creature still remained rigid and screaming.
"Draco, Draco.-the name sounded like an act of disapproval in his mouth.- This is what passes for not listening to me.- Leaned over him .- In the end, you need me."- With rare delicacy he took him in his arms.
Harry didn´t understand the words of the Lord of the Dementors, maybe because this time he wasn´t talking to humans. But saw with horror as the aberrant creature took in his arms the little Dementor. Furiously clenching his teeth resisted the urge to come out of hiding and stop him.
Cold, very cold. Soft lips. Quiet, a calm that could only be achieved in death. Draco was wrapped in it. Slowly he began to regain consciousness. Something warm came in his mouth and he had to swallow. Immediately he felt much better, no longer hungry. His lashes flickered slightly. The Dementor Lords face so close ... He pushed him breaking the kiss.
"Don´t touch me!" - The Lord released him, and Draco immediately threw his hood to hide his face in the quiet darkness. Turning away from the monster.
Harry felt a deep disgust and anger when he saw the Lord kiss the pale Dementor. That thing filled with darkness, dirtying something so delicate. Wrapping it in his robe until he could barely see it. He felt his own power beginning to escape his control. So when he heard the little one finally react with a resounding Don´t! He felt relieved.
"Why can I understand him, but not the others?"
"You are an ungrateful bastard Malfoy! If not for our Lord you would still be writhing on your pathetic nightmare." - Hissed the Dementor who appeared to accompany the dark leader.
"Enough already, William. –Intervened the Lord gently, stopping on the spot his servant. – Yet, Draco, you have to realize what your situation is, see reason."
Approached the white with the intention of touching his cheek, but Draco pulled away.
"What have you done?" – He asked, dreading the answer, but needing to know. The other smiled cruelly.
"Don´t worry. I couldn´t give you a soul even if I tried. You have to eat your first one by yourself. It was just a little memory so you could recover a bit."
The blond shuddered with disgust and fear. "No, please don´t. This will speed up the change" He began to feel colder, and Harry must know his secret. He couldn´t understand why he hadn´t imprisoned him yet.
His eyes started stinging, his throat under a knot.
"Leave me in peace." - said weakly.
The Lord came and Draco didn´t have the strength to reject him this time, when the monster decided to leave a kiss on his cheek.
"Whatever you want. We will go ... for now. William picks up that useless thing!" - The servant caught Margaret dragging her with them. But she didn´t mind the rough treatment, so happy that the small one was fine...
"Thanks, thanks, o thanks Lord for helping him." - The Dementor Lord didn´t even look at her.
When the door closed behind the three Draco felt his legs no longer able to hold him up, and dropped to his knees, trembling. "Malfoys don´t cry!" He said to himself furiously, but nevertheless, tears started rolling down his cheeks.
"What shall I do?"
Harry waited for the sound of the Dementors in the hall to disappear, before getting out from under the cloak.
Seeing the little Dementor on the floor, shaking between sobs ... he couldn´t resist it. The auror dropped at his side.
Draco hipped between sob and sob. He wanted to ask if he was going to be arrested now, but had no strength left.
"I'm sorry." - Harry whispered hugging him.
A lazy hug that didn´t made Draco feel caught, if not strangely comforted. The Auror wanted to grab and hug him tightly against his chest, protect the little one so no one could hurt him again, but he knew that that would only scare him.
Finally Draco began to relax, and after a time rested his head on Harry's chest listening to the soothing beat of his heart.
"Thanks." - He whispered.
It will continue.