Note: Hi again, and thanks for your kudos and comments.
This chapter Harry may seem bipolar, or like he can't make sense of himself, but I promise it has an explanation later on. Into other themes, next chapter there will be rape, just so you are warned.
I think I must warn you all, again, I'm a truly evil and heartless writer, who does it to put out stress. And because I'm addicted to the thig feeling it grips me, every time I'm writing something truly horrible, and I'm about to cry. It's fantastically liberating, and it leaves me light. So yea... That's that. XD
If you are sensible people, you should probably not read this fic, ever.
Welcome to:
Spiderweb
Chapter 4- Father
'What has he done to me?'
What had the monster done to him? What had he done?
He could not move, could not stop shaking. He was so ... cold ? hot ? sensations passed so quickly from one to another, it was impossible to know.
A new shudder made him groan, and Draco shrunk tiredly on itself. A movement born of reflex, more than of conscious thought.
Too exhausted to try anything else.
He felt another arcade painfully made its way up his throat, forcing him to cough up a thread of dyed-red bile.
It trickled down his chin, sticky. His stomach, empty, had nothing else to give, and the effort of coughing up the mucosa, made the pain intensify. It felt, as if his stomach, had been rubbed inside with salt.
Still, his body continued to convulse, again and again, trying to expel something that could not be vomited.
The arcades loosened slowly, but the agony did nothing but grow and spread to other areas: his throat was scorched by the bile he had expelled. His stomach so empty and aching, felt like an animal gut hung out to dry in powdered chalk. His mind was cloudy with fever...
His thoughts, scattered, sought the elusive memory, of the only other fever that had plagued Draco, with such virulence.
He had been seventeen.
For a month he stayed in bed, throwing up every few hours, sometimes minutes, almost unable to keep any food, too ill for anything other than sleep. Draco had laid between life and death.
Scorching heat and terrible cold, like now, had light up his nerves with constant fevers, that made him tremble violently. A feeling, agonizingly similar to this, making his skin tight, as if it would break by invisible seams.
He vaguely wished it was not the same disease. But it was becoming increasingly difficult to think, stay aware and focus, on nothing but the blazing fire in his veins.
The first time the disease had almost killed him.
He remembered his mother by his bed, marked lines of worry and anxiety, on her beautiful face. Her increasingly blurry, pale and desperate semblance, as his energies went out...
A long parade of mefi-wizards that only managed to further deplete his meager forces. And his father ... his father constantly there as a silent, watchful, and protective, presence ...
Until that night, when he heard the voices of both his parents, raised violently in a discussion he did not understand.
The memory was washed away, and it was more a cluster of vague feelings consumed by the disease, he could barely gather. Yet, he was sure that at some point, her mother was gone, because he had not smelt her warm floral perfume anymore.
He was lifted in his father's arms. Warmth, the gentle voice of his father, smelling dust, rough, cold stone, under his limp body. And he thought ... Draco was not sure, the rusty smell of blood.
Everything else was blurry, and then the smooth darkness of unconsciousness.
In the morning he woke up in his bed, mind clear as had not been in weeks, without fever or pain. Only a slight vague fatigue, and hunger result of long subsisting on soup, tea, and milk, nipping playfully at his belly.
He never asked his father, what he had done to take him from the brink of death.
Only black rituals could return a man to health, with such unnatural ease.
Yet, the disease would have killed him, if his father had not done so. And Draco could not blame Lucius, not hound him with questions whose answers, he knew, he had not been prepared to listen to when still a teenager.
Not at the time, when Draco had still been, in many ways, a child.
He had preferred to remain in ignorance.
And then, years later, when he had already been an adult, to understand and accept the answers, a dark ritual had become such a minor offense, in light of all that he had already witnessed in the war, that it had lost all importance.
But now, this second time, his father was not here to save him. And have he been, discovered Draco's betrayal, Lucius would not have lifted a finger for him, unless it was to curse his son.
His guts contracted and churned like snakes, taking the spy out of his revery, with another groan of agony between clenched teeth.
Something was beginning to swirl in his lower stomach, creating in his mind a picture of a bloody, swollen and ulcerated, mass. It was getting worse... his kidneys ached, his legs felt swollen to the point of pain, but did not look bulky at all.
A sharp, new, temperature change, swept through his veins with the most intense seizure so far, and when darkness tried to take him away, Draco let it drag him into unconsciousness.
Thankful not to have to stay awake.
oOo
Harry looked at pale like ash fingers, tangled in fur, clinging tightly, as Malfoy panted, curled up in fetal position even after fainting.
There was cold sweat on his forehead, sticking his hair to his cheeks and neck, and sliding down his skin, to build up between his shoulder blades, in the hollow of his collarbone, soaking the skins.
Malfoy looked at the very limit of his endurance. His body unable to take changes, that were too radical for someone his age.
The metamorphosis should have happened in his adolescence, when the body is still malleable, flexible, and is already experiencing its own changes.
The spell that Harry had broken so eagerly, had not been hiding his true nature, as he had believed, it had been stagnating the mutation. And now, retaken in a body already formed in the final step of maturity, it demanded changes too violent, for something not ready to cope with them anymore.
Changes healing spells were insufficient to amend.
Malfoy would die.
When the forest needed him alive at all costs.
Harry snapped his jaws.
In the woods, there was only a single being, with magic powerful enough, and the knowledge, to save Malfoy.
'I must take him father.' He closed his eyes tightly, almost aching with the decision. Not wanting to.
The health of the Great Spirit was already precarious as it was, asking him to spend more of the little power left to him, to help a wizard… It was blasphemy ... but ...
'It's the only way.'
A new cry of pain, made him look again to his former enemy, now limp in his nest.
The greenish light of fungi, made his already pearly pale, and glistening with sweat, skin, look even more discolored. Spectral, ashy.
Spasmodically, the blonds muscles moved under his flesh, as his breath came shorter, and shorter. The wounds were threatening to reopen, despite the spider web that enveloped them...
The skins that covered the battered slytherin, seemed coarse and abrasive, against his naked body.
Malfoy was faltering, and the changes had not even begun to affect his appearance. If he didn't get help soon, the overwork would kill him.
He did not have time. They had no time.
The arachnid closed his eyes.
Another part of himself, imprisoned by thick mental barriers, received consent to manifest, and the chains fell off, allowing its return to the surface.
It came to the front of his mind, with the same natural elegance and power, of a dragon taking flight. He felt the man's personality, the remains of the Gryffindor, the human, completely seize control, by pushing the beast, the fierce murderer, to the shadows of the back of his mind.
His body changed to suit the new matrix, like a snake emerging from its old skin.
Bones and muscles, organs… mutating quickly and gently, painlessly.
Then, Harry Potter... opened his eyes.
The icon of light stood naked in the place, where it had been, not a moment ago, the great acromantula. His short hair, black and wild, that looked to have been bitten off, more than cut, fell in uneven wild tufts, framing his face.
His eyes were still that luminous green, inheritance of his mother, who was unmistakable. Yet, its depths were darkened, inhabited by disturbing, impossible to clean, icy shadows.
Harry blinked languidly, (it always took him a few moments, to adapt after the change). Malfoy was still unconscious.
He nodded in satisfaction.
Currently, Harry didn't want to reveal who he was, or rather, who he had been.
He was no longer the skinny and frail boy, remembered by those who had called themselves, his friends. The last ten years had operated noticeable changes in him.
The development that began in his teens, had culminated in a height of almost one meter ninety, a powerful build of broad shoulders, and strong but flexible muscles. If someone underestimated him, they will quickly find how extremely easy, and painful, might be dying.
He crouched next to the other man, carefully removing the skins that covered him. There was no need to hurt him more.
At seeing him naked and sick, frail... Harry felt a pang of sympathy course through him.
Almost gently, he raised Malfoy's shoulders, picking him up against his chest. His blond head languidly fell on his shoulder. The blond shook convulsively in his arms. But when he passed his other arm under his legs, to lift him... the movement made his gaze fell in the dark mark printed on his arm ... And all compassion and kindness died in Harry, as he remembered.
Wizard.
With sudden determination Harry stood up.
And ran.
oOo
Draco shuddered violently, when a new arcade tried to break through his throat, despite his stomach being already empty even of bile.
The pain briefly tore the veil of consciousness away, and made him aware of the arms that held him, the warm chest against his cheek, the rhythmic beating of a heart.
'Who…?'
He smelled sweat, but ... for some reason, it was reassuring. Confused, he tried to open his eyes ... but the malaise gripped him again with an internal flare, dragging him back, into the depths of unconsciousness.
Upon leaving the cave, the last light of evening was already fading behind the treetops, turning the snow that covered everything gold and red with sunset light. Even if it was only four in the afternoon. What little could be seen of the plants and trees, under the white blanket, was an ashy, withered and sickly, green. The animals and creatures in its path, in its race to the centre of the forest, seemed nervous, scared.
As always, the sight made him want to do something for them. And now, if Malfoy survived, he could.
His steps became more vigorous, his feet practically flying over the snow.
Until finally, he stopped in front of a green curtain of vines, thorns and mistletoe, so tight it seemed solid. No one who didn't known what to look for, would have differentiated this hollow area, from the stone wall around it.
"I come to see FATHER."
His tone, kind, hurried, made the plants open for him a path, with quiet whispers of welcome.
"Be welcome guardian. Be welcome."
Beyond the short tunnel, the heart of the dark forest opened.
The darkness was spreading slowly, turning off the last light of day. The fog began to come from the lake, extending through the trees, winding nebulous tendrils, between the roots and branches of the huge tree, overlooking the clearing.
The knots of the trunk, thick and elderly as huge rocks, spoke of old, more atavistic than human history could remember, times.
Its roots sprang from the bed of dead leaves at its feet, as immense natural bridges. Its branches, ancient, tired, bent toward the ground, laden with draperies of vines, mistletoe, and moss. All around, dozens of acromantulas climbed its roots and branches, silent guardians of the powerful magic that it kept.
As he was the great father of the forest, the first tree to rise on this ground, the body of an ancient spirit as old as the ground it sprung from.
And at his feet, between his roots, the only clean area of snow and vegetation, stood. A perfect circle of dried blood stained earth. An area that seemed to whisper with the powerful magic that emanated from it, like lilting water in a stream.
Sacred, the air seemed to moan.
Sacrificial altar, temple of miracles.
Spiders bowed to Harry as he advanced between the roots. The rustle of leaves and snow under his bare feet, the faint moans of pain from Malfoy, his own breathing after the race, the murmurs of the acromantulas...
"... Guardian ... Guardian, Guardian ... The keeper has come ..."
He bowed his head in greeting, watching the space around with reverence. Even after ten years, stepping on the most sacred place of the forest, quickened his breathing, bristled his hair with the brush of its power, made him feel lulled and loved.
It made him feel at home.
A sigh escaped his lips involuntarily. Draco seemed quieter here, too, not as shaky.
'This is my home.'
"My son, I was waiting for you." the spirit's voice, a whisper of branches swaying in the wind, made Harry immediately kneel at the edge of the altar. Draco in his outstretched arms, as an offering without words.
"Father." he muttered, and bowed his head to receive the caress. The tip of a branch brushed his hair, giving him welcome. "I'm ashamed to bring you a wizard. Please forgive me."
The branch stroked his cheek softly, reassuringly.
"You must not feel ashamed, to bring your chosen here. He's only what he is, because his spirit is still not free. Come, let him rest in my heart, and I will heal him. Much depends on you both."
Kindness, exhaustion, and affection, dripped from his voice, and made Harry feel, not for the first time, the almost convulsive need, to alleviate the burden of the great spirit.
'If I had known what was Malfoy before now …' But there was no use thinking about the past. It it wasn't late already.
No, it couldn't be. Not now when he had, finally, the way to deliver for the great spirit, a new and renowned life. He needed but nine months. Only that.
"Thanks, father." he whispered with resignation and relief. And carefully deposited Draco, in the bloodstained ground.
His pale body shuddered at losing his touch, as if, without Harry's heat, his veins ran cold.
Malfoy's skin had lost all color, ashen and as thin as tissue paper, under which he could guess, the delicate fabric of his purple veins.
His white as snow lips parted in a cry of pain, when small sinuous roots began to emerge from the earth around him, looking for his veins, piercing his flesh to get into them. Crawling inside, and mixing the powerful sage of the spirit with his changing blood.
Draco howled.
He writhed desperately, but the torturing tentacles continued undeterred, getting deeper and deeper. Almost unconscious, but unable to bear it, instinctively he tried to pull them out.
Harry grabbed his wrists, preventing it.
"Take it easy, it will end soon." the old Gryffindor whispered, almost involuntarily, though he knew Malfoy could not hear him.
The thing was, that seeing Malfoy suffering, awoke the memory of his own transformation, of how painful it had been...
Cutching his wrists with one hand, Harry stroked Malfoy's hair gently, as he would have done for a wounded animal, tangling free fingers in the thick blond locks.
"Sshhh, it will soon pass." - What was he doing…?
Draco groaned and shifted weakly. But gradually, his agonizing efforts to get rid of the tendrils, died down to nothing, as the scorching influence of the roots, was becoming a caressing heat source.
Finally, he fell still.
Heat gently rocked Draco. So nice, so sweet ... It whispered reassuringly, told him to surrender, that he would not be hurt, to embrace the changes it was bringing.
It felt so strange ... something inside him was mutating, adapting in terrifying ways that he couldn't understand.
It was awful, disgusting.
He didn't want it!
But the heat didn't stop pressing, like a spell that forced him to remain calm, motionless, letting everything happen without being able to oppose it. Frantic, Draco tried to resist, pushing the presence out of his mind with all his strength. But could not muster enough will to achieve it, it was too powerful.
"Sleep, my child, sleep now. When you wake, everything will be as it should be." The whisper covered him like a soft blanket, stifling his conscience.
"No! No, no, no ... .. n .." sleep washed everything away...
And Draco felt afraid of what he would see, when he woke up.
oOo
Awakening was a slow and elusive process. Full of small pieces of information: The sound of his own breathing, the feel of fur under his body, fatigue languishing his muscles and making him want to go back to sleep...
However, someone was insistently carding his fingers through his hair, calling him awake, with little caresses.
And slowly, Draco found himself responding with murmurs, until finally, his eyelashes quivered, and his eyelids opened with sensuous placidity.
'Who I brought this time to bed?' he asked himself.
It must be a new lover, no one had awakened him this way before. But when he looked up, the creature before him, wasn't anything he would have called human.
He sat bolt upright, his mind, now filled with the memories of the previous day. What had the great acromantula done to him?! And what was the creature before him?
The creature was about one meter ninety tall, and his powerful musculature was humanoid, but covered in shiny black chitin, from head to toe.
The only parts dipped in colour, were his unnatural green eyes, and sharp white fangs dripping emerald poison.
Long fingers ending in sharp points like blades, similar to the legs of a spider. Short black and thorny, hair, framing an almost flat face, no nose. Huge eyes, oval, big, like those of a nymph ... or insect.
And yet, despite his frightening and strange, somehow, appearance, Draco felt ... attracted to him.
He swallowed.
The rational part of himself howled that this monster could be dangerous, and he was unarmed. And Draco pushed his instinctual attraction, down.
With slow deliberation, as not to warn the other, he turned away toward the edge of the skins, ready to make a run for the exit, if necessary.
He didn't kind himself about his chances in a physical duel with something of that size and constitution. After all, he just was a meter seventy-five. But perhaps if he could be faster. As his gaze drifted to the exit... the spy was grabbed by his arm, with the speed of an scorpion.
"Do not even try. You have nowhere to scape." that hissing voice… Draco had heard it before.
"What do you want from me?" he asked without giving an inch.
With this creature, as with the great acromantula, he knew that it would be unwise to show weakness. Even if his skin suffered a shiver at his touch.
"What I want from you?" the creature bent, almost touching his lips to Draco's. His voice full of contempt and hatred.
The worry, however brief and strange it has been, that Harry had felt for the blond, died at hearing the question. And the burning desire to help the forest, came alive in his arteries.
Malfoy, wizard, murderer, torturer ... and he remembered, he. remembered, Snape's apprentice too.
Potions Master.
Innocent creatures reduced to ingredients ... beings who had feelings and lives, more human than the creatures that thought themselves so. More than any wizard… sliced and dissected.
'He deserves punishment.' Harry knew within him a wave of poison and flames.
He squeezed Draco's arm harder, until he felt the bone about to break under his fingers. Suddenly, he brought his free hand to rest on Malfoy's pearly-pale belly, in a possessive caress.
This time Malfoy shook visibly.
"I want you to carry my offspring."
To be continue.