My high hopes are getting low
But I know I'll be alone
It's alright, we'll survive
'Cause parents ain't always right
By YUNGBLUD
Shadows dance across the forest floor as clouds drift over the sun, turning the once-peaceful meadow into something more sinister. Draco gives himself a fraction of a second – one self indulgent moment – to let the mention of his father crack him in two.
The world tilts on its axis, memories of cold marble halls and shattering expressions of disappointment crashing through his mind. But outwardly, he lets the familiar coldness settle over him like frost crystallizing on glass. He wishes he could pretend this feeling is foreign, that this casual cruelty is just a mask he's donning for survival. But he never truly shed his thorns, only learned to gentle them for Harry.
The forest holds its breath as Draco positions himself behind Harry, placing his hands over Harry's ears with deliberate precision. The warmth of Harry's skin burns against his palms, a reminder of everything he is not. He settles his chin on Harry's shoulder, turning them both into a macabre tableau against the darkening woods.
"I think not. While it pleases me to hear from father, Bella,"
Draco infuses the words with generations of pure-blood disdain. The shadows from the towering firs paint strange patterns across her face and he pretends to watch them, deliberately avoiding looking at his mother. Though he isn't able to entirely ignore her silent presence as every maternal gesture she'd ever shown him screams in the space between them.
Bella scoffs, her disgust echoing off the moss-covered trunks.
"Like father like son, still drawing out mealtime like it's some courtship dance."
A shaft of sunlight breaks through the canopy, turning Draco's skin to diamonds as he tilts his head to brush his lips against Harry's pulse point. The forest seems to lean in, watching with curiosity as Harry's heartbeat thunders against Draco's mouth. A surprised gasp escapes Harry's lips, sending birds scattering from nearby branches. The mingled scent of fear and arousal rises like incense in the cool air, and Draco's nostrils flare involuntarily. Each breath is torture – a reminder of how much he wants Harry in ways that have nothing to do with hunger.
"And why would I not when it produces such enticing sounds and smells," Draco croons, burying his nose in Harry's shoulder to hide the way his face wants to crack, to show the desperate love he's trying so hard to disguise as predatory interest. The damp earth beneath his feet feels ready to swallow them both.
His aunt's eyes take on that familiar dark gleam that used to make him hide in the manor's secret passages as a child. The surrounding forest seems to darken with her mood, shadows reaching with grasping fingers across the grass.
"If you are so content to continue your little game why not bring him with you?"
Inside, Draco's heart splinters at the thought, but his voice remains bored and unbothered.
"I would rather not spoil his taste with too much fear. I'll let him go for now and return for him when I come back."
"I think not," Bella tuts, her voice carrying over the whisper of wind through pine needles.
She moves like liquid shadow, suddenly before them, her pale fingers forcing Harry's chin up. The contrast of her white skin against Harry's warm tone makes Draco's unnecessary breath catch.
"I think your little pet has seen far too much to return among the rest of the livestock. He would surely tattle about the monsters in the woods."
The forest floor trembles as Bella's fist connects with Draco's face, sending him crashing through low-hanging branches and skidding across the carpet of dead leaves. He's back on his feet in an instant – only to freeze as her hands find Harry's throat. The meadow's beauty turns grotesque as Bella's laugh rings out.
She shoves Harry forward, and Draco's entire world narrows to the fear in those green eyes. The same eyes that had looked at him with such trust mere moments ago, now wide with terror. The forest seems to hold its breath, waiting to see what choice he'll make.
"Come along, Draco, your father awaits your return."
Rage and terror war inside him, but his face remains a perfect mask of aristocratic indifference. As he falls into step behind Bella, the trees seem to close ranks behind them, erasing their path like the sea swallowing a sinking ship. He has no choice – his father's summons was never really a request in the real world he doubts it is different here, and Harry's life hangs by the thread of Draco's compliance. The meadow, their sanctuary, recedes into shadow as they walk deeper into the forest, taking them far away from their home.
A mix of angry and anxious chatter filters around his ears as his children argue and bicker about Draco's disappearance. Unnecessary air forces its way through his nose as he heaves a heavy sigh.
"I'm telling you he ran away!" Theo shouts over Pansy, "I bet you anything he and Harry are holed up in one of father and mothers many properties and he just didn't tell us so no one would berate him for acting like the reckless fool he is,"
Blaise scowls as his hands bunch into fists, the Newton child thankfully in the kitchen and no longer holding his hand. Severus fears Blaise's inattention would have shattered his every bone.
"Draco isn't that reckless, Theo," Blaise growls, baring his teeth.
"Yes because we all know him so well with all of his memories of the past missing,"
"Theo," Pansy hisses, as a hungry expression crosses Hermione's face.
Severus curses Pansy for attracting an intelligent human and Theo's careless inability to recognize it. Blaise thankfully picked one who only seems to pay attention when food is involved or he fears their secret would be long since discovered.
"And what exactly do you mean by that?" Hermione asks, her eyes narrowing with that dangerous glint of curiosity that makes Severus's dead heart clench. Before Theo can dig them deeper into this hole, Severus clears his throat.
"That's enough," he commands, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. The children fall silent, though Theo continues to bristle with barely contained agitation. "Your speculations help no one."
But their words have already stirred the pot of his own dark thoughts. They don't know – none of them know – the true danger that lurks in Draco's past. The way Lucius had shaped him, broken him, before Draco finally escaped. Severus can still remember finding the young vampire, wild with fear and stripped of everything he loved following behind him as they ran for their lives to America.
Hermione's gaze burns into him now, too perceptive by half. Next to her, Pansy shifts uncomfortably, no doubt sensing the same intelligence that makes her human companion so dangerous to their secret. At least the Newton child remains blissfully absorbed in his sandwich in the kitchen, oblivious to the tension crackling through the room.
The weight of secrets presses down on Severus's shoulders. How does one tell their family that their brother was taken by the most dangerous coven of vampires in existence? How does he explain that Harry – sweet, mundane Harry who had somehow wormed his way into their lives – is now caught in the crossfire of a centuries-old power struggle?
His children watch him, waiting for answers he can't give. Not yet. Not without revealing everything – Draco's past and his connection to Lucius and the Death eaters. The truth would shatter their carefully constructed life in Forks.
Severus rises from his chair, decision crystallizing in his mind. They can't face this alone. The old alliances will need to be called upon, dusty connections renewed. He moves to his study, already composing letters in his head to those who might still remember their debts to him. Grindwald in particular would understand the gravity of the situation.
Because if Lucius has truly found Draco – if he's reclaimed his "son" – then the peace they've built in this rainy corner of Washington is about to be tested by a storm they might not survive.
War is coming. Severus can feel it in his ancient bones, can taste it in the air like ash. And this time, their human companions – their loves, their friends, their confidants – will be caught in the crossfire unless they find a way to protect them all.
Crunch
With dispassionate eyes, Draco watches as the vampire's body falls to the ground with an empty thud, their red hair spreading across the dirty alley floor like a spurted out flame. He clenches his teeth as his moth- Lily's face flashes in his mind's eye. It doesn't do good to dwell on thoughts of home.
Amycus and Alecto, his ever-present shadows, pick the empty shell up and carry it with impressive speed over to the fire they started earlier. The flames cast sickly shadows against the grimy brick walls, transforming the narrow alley into something from a nightmare.
Sanctimonious fool, Draco thinks disparagingly as the body burns, you should have saved yourself. It was such a Gryffindor thing to do, to spit in the face of evil regardless of the consequences. Regardless of the fact that agreeing to temporarily dirty one's soul could eventually bring down the villain in the end. If one has enough patience that is. A quality severely lacking in most lionhearted people. People like Harry.
Harry's fiery judgmental green eyes flash in his mind for a moment and squeezes his eyes shut as pain lances through him.
For you, I am is doing this all for you.
The acrid smoke from the pyre carries him back to that first day, memories washing over him like a tide of darkness. The tense car ride to the airport, Harry sitting stiff in his lap, trying desperately not to tremble. Endless hours on a plane to Italy, each minute stretching like years as he watched their captors for any sign of threat. Another long nighttime car ride to the compound.
Throughout it all, Draco had tried and failed to read any of their captors' minds. They seemed to be using the same mind trick that Severus had employed against him. Though some shields must have been stronger than others – he could draw out surface-level thoughts from Amycus and Alecto, but nothing from his mother and Bella. It felt like walking around with a missing limb, and he cursed himself for becoming so reliant on a temporary ability.
By the time they'd reached the 'throne room,' his 'escorts' had abandoned any pretense that he wasn't a prisoner. Not that Draco had deluded himself into thinking he'd convinced them otherwise.
Then there was the meeting with the monster.
The memory plays out in crystalline detail: the monster wearing his father's face, the cold marble floor beneath his knees, Harry's terrified gasp as Bella's lips skimmed his throat in threat against his lack of compliance. The familiar disappointment in those inhuman eyes as they lingered on Draco's golden irises. His mother's blank expression as she watched the proceedings, without a word. The monster's final command to Amycus and Alecto about changing Draco's 'appearance', and that first terrible moment in the small room off the throne room, when an IV bag of human blood had been tossed at his feet.
"I only drink animal blood," he'd protested, even as the mouthwatering scent assaulted his senses.
Alecto had only smirked. "Not anymore."
The memory fades like smoke, leaving Draco in the present darkness of the alley. That had been three weeks ago, and now he longs for even the small mercy of drinking from an IV bag. The days since have been an endless parade of horrors – recruiting, policing, killing – all to keep Harry safe and himself alive. His ledger runs red with both vampire and human blood, each victim chosen by his shadows with cruel precision. All of his 'meals' bearing some resemblance to Harry.
His shadows return as the last flame dies, flanking him while Amycus crosses another name off his list. The monster – Lucius, though Draco refuses to call that thing his father – is building an army. Of that much, he's certain. But no matter how he probes at his shadows' mental shields, he can't discover why or for whom. he just hopes their isn't a version of the Dark Lord in this book.
"So what did our little canary sing for you, Draco?"
Draco opens his mouth, silently telling himself he isn't to blame for the deaths that will follow. He can't lie, Amycus powers always seems to know and threatens to tell Bella to punish Harry.
"Her wife's name is Alice Lancing, now Porter, she is twenty-five, five-five, with brown hair and blue eyes and a slight limp in the right leg," Draco recites mechanically. The words taste like ash in his mouth, each detail another betrayal.
A cruel grin spreads over Alecto's mouth. "And Alice loved this Felice Porter? Felt a part of her," she asks, twisting the knife deeper.
There's something hungry in the way she emphasizes the word 'loved' in the past tense, something that makes Draco's skin crawl.
Draco forces the word out, "Yes."
The memory he'd pulled from the victim's mind flashes unbidden – Alice and Felice's wedding day, the moment Alice had signed her new name for the first time, feeling more herself than she ever had before. The pure joy of becoming who she was always meant to be.
Something crosses Alecto's face as the information settles in. Draco watches, suddenly alert, as her expression shifts from concentration to twisted satisfaction. He's seen this transformation countless times, but never what triggers it.
Alecto's satisfied smirk pulls him back to the present moment. She's already plotting the coordinates in her mind. One more innocent he sacrificed to keep Harry safe.
For now, though, he maintains his mask of indifference as Alecto's eyes gleam with predatory anticipation. The Death Eaters blur away into the darkness like red caped dementors, following Alecto's lead, leaving him alone with Amycus. Draco watches them go, a familiar frustration gnawing at his dead heart. The pattern repeats with each victim – they force him to extract seemingly random details, slightly different each time, through careful questioning. Hair color, height, a childhood memory, a nickname. Never anything that should help track someone down. Yet somehow Alecto always knows exactly where to find their victims' loved ones.
It's like assembling a puzzle with half the pieces missing. He's tried varying his questions, tried to understand the connection between what they ask him to find and how Alecto uses it. But the logic escapes him. Sometimes they ask about physical characteristics, sometimes about memories or emotions. The only constant is that the information always seems useless for tracking – until Alecto gets hold of it. Because if Alecto is so powerful, why was it Bella who finally broke the vampire's supposed long record of hiding and forced his homecoming and not Alecto?
"Who is next?" Draco asks, not caring either way but needing something else to focus on than the terrified screams he imagines right now.
He's tired of this game, tired of being a tool in a system he doesn't understand. Each piece of information he pulls from their victims' minds feels like another betrayal, another step away from redemption he was trying to build with Harry. But he'll keep play their game, ask their questions, and add one more piece to the puzzle he's slowly assembling. Because understanding how Alecto's tracking works might be the key to eventually escaping them all – if he can just figure out the pattern before it's too late.
His wicked grin gleams in the dying firelight as he scans their list of condemned.
"We are to visit an old friend," he sneers, "Gellert Grindelwald."
Harry shrank in on himself as he is dragged down the hall in the cold grip of the wild eyed vampire. Her face is lined with angry lines because whatever torture she wants to put Harry through failed her a few moments ago and Harry assumes she needs to rethink her plan. Without warning the vampire holding him stops causing him to jerk in her grip to avoid running into her. Standing before them is the blonde female vampire that seems to possess some power in the small group. Her soulless red eyes look over Harry dispassionately and Harry fights the urge to look away not wanting to be branded a coward.
"Where are you taking the boy, Bella?"
Bella's grip on him tightens as the crazed look her eyes increases.
"That is none of your business, Cissy," she hisses.
Cissy wears a neutral expression as she took Bella in from her stained dress to her disheveled her.
"Your powers don't work on him." Cissy says, the words not phrased as a question.
Bella growls as she yanks him closer until he feels like his arm in going to be pulled out of the socket and he is facing her.
"Of course, I can," Bella growls, her eyes drilling into his, "Pain,"
Harry cowers but just like all the times before he feels nothing.
"Pain," Bella all but screeches, spit landing on Harry's face.
"Interesting," Cissy says wearing a fascinated expression as if Harry is a bug under a microscope.
"We need to tell your husband, he could be some form of creature, like the Children of the Moon, we have never stumbled upon before,"
"That will not be necessary," Cissy says in a haughty voice.
"And why not?" Bella demands, her fingers digging deeper into Harry's arm. "He could be dangerous. Your husband needs to know about this immediately."
"Does he?" Cissy's voice takes on a dangerous edge. "Just like he needed to know the moment you found Tom and Draco?"
Bella freezes, her grip on Harry loosening slightly. "What are you talking about?"
"Come now, sister dear." Cissy's red eyes glitter with cold calculation. "Did you think I wouldn't discover that you found them months before you claimed? That instead of reporting back, you chose to indulge Tom's vendetta against this boy's fathers and get tangled up with one the Children of the Night?"
Color drains from Bella's already pale face. Her mouth opens and closes several times before she manages to speak.
"You wouldn't dare tell him."
"Wouldn't I?" Cissy raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Release the boy to me. I'll handle this... potential threat myself."
Harry feels Bella's fingers twitch against his arm as she weighs her options. Finally, with a snarl of frustration, she shoves him toward Cissy.
"Fine. Take him. But when he proves to be dangerous—"
"Then it will be my responsibility," Cissy cuts her off smoothly. She places a cold hand on Harry's shoulder, her grip firm but not painful like Bella's had been. "Come along, child. I have a suitable place for you."
As Cissy guides him away, Harry catches a glimpse of Bella's face contorted with rage and suspicion. He doesn't know why Cissy intervened, but he suspects he's just traded one form of captivity for another. Still, anything seems better than remaining in Bella's cruel grasp.
Cissy leads him through winding corridors, her pace brisk but measured. Neither speaks until they reach a circular tower room, its furnishings elegant but austere.
"You'll stay here," she announces, her tone leaving no room for argument. "The servants will bring you meals. Do try to make yourself comfortable."
Her lips curve into what might be the ghost of a smile. "It may be a while."
With that, she sweeps out of the room, leaving Harry alone to wonder whether he's been saved or simply transferred to a more gilded cage.
In the days following Draco and his capture, Harry remains stubbornly fixed in the first-floor sitting room, moving only to pick at the meals brought by silent servants or to attempt sleep on the stiff, ornate furniture. The circular room's stone walls seem to close in around him, their cold presence a constant reminder of his imprisonment. Despite its grandeur, with elaborate chairs and polished surfaces, the room offers no comfort to its unwilling occupant.
Fear keeps him rooted there initially – fear of what might lurk beyond the doors, of the vampires who brought him here. But as days pass with nothing more threatening than clockwork meal deliveries, his natural curiosity begins to overwhelm his apprehension.
Finally, he ventures toward one of the doors, discovering a winding staircase behind it. The second floor reveals itself to be a bedroom decorated in rich greens and silvers, with snake motifs coiling across the furnishings. The attached bathroom featured an impressive circular bath that dominates the space, while the toilet seemed almost apologetically tucked into a corner, as if added as an afterthought.
As Harry climbed higher, the air grew fresher and the surroundings became less grand. He stumbled upon his favorite discovery – a library. The room itself seemed to embrace him with its graceful curves, the walls lined with towering bookshelves that followed the shape of the tower. Each shelf was filled to the brim with books of all shapes and sizes, begging to be explored. Plush, worn chairs sat scattered throughout the space, inviting visitors to sit and dive into their chosen literature. The stone floor, softened by aged rugs, felt comforting beneath his feet. This was the only room of the three that looked lived in and well loved. Unlike the lower floors, where everything seemed staged and artificial, this room had a sense of warmth and authenticity. As he made his way towards a window, he was met with breathtaking views of the city below. And just beyond the window, a small balcony extended into the open air, offering a peaceful escape from reality.
Running his fingers along the leather-bound spines, Harry selects a volume at random. The book, Raisons Pour Lesquelles Je Déteste le Soleil, written in French by Pierre Talleyrand, a vampire he learns after a few pages, proves to be long winded and boring. However, halfway through its dense passages, he discovers something extraordinary – carefully sewn within its pages was a complete copy of "Little Women."
Intrigued, Harry begins pulling more books from the shelves. Each heavy volume reveals a similar secret – classic works of literature, expertly bound within the pages of vampire texts, hidden away like precious contraband in this tower room high above the city.