[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Harry Potter's Life Contains Too Many Vampires, Harry/OMC, 3/4

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you for all the reviews! This story will have one more part in the current arc.

Part Three

“My lord has sent me to you.”

Harry shifted, embarrassed and intrigued and confused and unsure. He was standing in a cave that he hadn’t seen before when he was wandering around the Court with Constantine, and which Constantine hadn’t explained why they were visiting now. It was an immense crystal place, with a ridged floor and walls that Harry actually felt pressing close to him, unlike other places that he’d visited in the Court.

The vampire facing him now was so pale that Harry thought he could see her bones beneath her skin. Her hair fluttered around her, a whiter version of Lord Elfric’s fuzzy silver cobweb hair. And her eyes were liquid black, without pupils. Harry almost expected them to flow out of her eyesockets and down her cheeks like oil.

“Um, I don’t know why,” Harry admitted, when it became obvious that the vampire was waiting for an answer.

“My name is many, but for now, I am called Pythoness.”

Harry blinked, a faint memory stirring. “Like the oracle?”

“Yes.” Pythoness paused as if listening to voices that Harry didn’t hear. Then she turned away with a snap of the robes she wore, which were silver and curled around her like snakes’ coils. “Come with me.”

Harry followed her further into the crystal cavern, squinting. He didn’t think the light was brighter here than the faint, sourceless radiance that lit the rest of the Court, but it had more things to reflect off. It was like walking across a field of snow in the sunlight.

Eventually, they came to a hump of the wall in what felt like the back corner of the cave, and Pythoness reached out and laid her hand on it. A sharp crystal extruded from the rest and pierced her flesh. Harry gasped as he watched the slash open bloodlessly and continue to look like that no matter how deep the crystal went into her hand.

“Why isn’t it bleeding?” he whispered.

“I control my blood,” Pythoness said, “as all vampires. Now be quiet.”

She couldn’t back up her command with the kind of will that Lord Elfric could bring to bear, or maybe she just wasn’t doing it, but Harry shut up. He watched in fascination as the skin on Pythoness’s wound writhed back and forth, and then knit itself together so that it was wrapped around the crystal.

Pythoness turned her hand over and stared down at the crystal, twisting it so that it flashed sparks of light. Harry had to squint at some times, and turn his head away at others.

“I can see the prophecy that connects you to your lord.”

Harry swallowed revulsion. Arguing about whether or not he was really Voldemort’s heir wouldn’t do anything. The vampires all seemed convinced that he was. “What is it?”

“It is held in an orb in the Department of Mysteries. Be quiet, and I will go further and see if I can hear as well as observe it.”

Harry fell silent again. Pythoness closed her eyes and twisted her head back and forth the way she had been doing with her hand. Harry jumped when she faced him and he discovered that he could see the darkness of her eyes behind her eyelids the way he had thought he might be able to see the bones beneath her skin.

“I hear the prophecy,” Pythoness breathed, and then she began to sing, unexpectedly, in a high, soft voice. Harry was so distracted by the tone and the song that he almost forgot to listen to the words.

But then he heard them, and went cold.

“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…”

In the silence, Harry swallowed.

He did wonder, as if from a distance and through a crystal curtain much like the glittering ones in the cavern, why Voldemort hadn’t talked about how they had to slaughter each other.

And then a flame of anger woke in Harry, and he understood. Voldemort hadn’t said anything about that because he wanted to trick Harry into being his good, obedient little Horcrux and supporter, and reminding Harry that one or both of them would have to die wasn’t conducive to that goal.

“My lord asked me to relay the prophecy to you.” Pythoness’s eyelids flickered open. Harry was so enraged that he didn’t even flinch when her odd eyes appeared again. “Have I done as he asked?”

“Yes, you have. Thank you,” Harry added as he turned on his heel. He would make his way back to his suite of rooms, and he thought he could do it without Constantine’s guidance.

Of course, Constantine was waiting for him when Harry came out of the prophecy cave, and he quickened his steps to walk alongside Harry as Harry stalked up the crystal stairway that had led them down here. It hadn’t looked like this before, but like a ramp made of some slick, black, obsidian-like stone. Nonetheless, Harry was absolutely sure that he was going the right way.

“Was she able to tell you the prophecy?” Constantine asked.

“Yes.” Harry managed to slow down, but more because his breath and heart were laboring, and he didn’t want to gasp out what he had to say in case he looked weak. “She said that it’s a prophecy that Voldemort and I are destined to kill each other.”

“What? How can a lord and his heir kill each other?”

Harry spun around to face him. They were on what looked like a landing in the midst of drifting fog, which shone lavender at the edges and was filled with a low hum. Harry didn’t care. He wanted to settle this stupid misunderstanding once and for all.

“Voldemort and I aren’t lord and heir,” Harry snarled at Constantine. “He didn’t father me. He hates me. He wants to kill me as his mortal enemy, and the prophecy confirmed that he’ll do that. Or we’ll kill each other.” Harry honestly couldn’t imagine a scenario where he managed to survive Voldemort, even with the inferno of anger towering inside him. “He took my blood and used it in that resurrection ritual, and he tortured me, and he killed my friend. He fully intended to kill me. It’s only coincidence that he didn’t.”

“What happened?” Constantine whispered. His eyes were wider than Harry had known a vampire’s could go.

Harry took a step back and closed his eyes. “Our wands are brothers. They have feathers from the same phoenix. We cast spells at each other at the same time, and they got locked in this cage of golden light. And the spirits of his victims came out of the wand. The ghosts of my parents and my friend he’d just killed. And they helped me escape.”

Constantine was silent. Harry opened his eyes and discovered that the vampire had vanished, in fact, and Harry had been talking to silent, humming, fog-filled air for Merlin knew how long.

Harry swallowed against the unexpected stab of hurt. It was still true that he knew the way back to his rooms, and he turned and walked towards them.

He had a letter to write.

*

Voldemort, Harry wrote.

(He wasn’t going to call him Lord, not when he didn’t respect him and everyone else around Harry was doing it with more than enough fervor).

I don’t understand what you think you’re doing, trying to claim that I’m your heir and you won’t kill me. Of course you can’t make that promise. What did you think you were doing, telling me about the prophecy but not telling me that it says we have to kill each other? Did you think I would ever trust you after that?

Of course not. But then, you only think about yourself.

I’m not going to take any oaths from you. You still killed my parents and Cedric. You still tortured me. It doesn’t matter what you think of me. The only thing that matters is what I do and what I think of myself. Just because you don’t think that I should want to fight you doesn’t matter. Because I saw what you didn’t tell me.

We’re still destined to kill each other, and that doesn’t change because you want it to. And because I’m a Horcrux, I know that I would keep you alive indefinitely if I lived. So I’ll make sure that I don’t. I’ll go out struggling against you. I’ll irritate you until you have no choice but to kill me.

How weak will that make you look to the vampires? What kind of alliance can you have with them when you’ve killed your own heir and Horcrux?

(Harry gagged as he wrote that, but it didn’t matter. What he had told Voldemort was true. The only thing that mattered was what he thought of himself, and he had decided that he could live with the disgusting Horcrux thing for long enough to ensure that he wouldn’t live with it any longer after that).

You’re an idiot. I wish I could see your face when you get this letter, but then again, I’ve already seen you snarling in anger and hatred. It’s nothing new.

I’d sign this, but you’re stupid if you don’t know who it’s from.

Harry sat back, panting with rage, and read through the letter. It made the words that he had already been thinking seem to sear into his head, but that was all right. And maybe he had misspelled something, and maybe it was blotchy, but that was fine. He would still get the meaning across to Voldemort.

And make him angry. That was something, too.

Harry folded the letter up and called for Hedwig. She swooped down towards him, hooting softly. Harry knew she liked the Court. She didn’t have to stay in a cage here, and even though they were technically underground, she could fly through the caverns and across the enormous rooms all she liked.

Harry presented her with the letter. “Take this to Voldemort.”

Hedwig twisted her head slowly backwards.

“Yeah, I know what I’m doing,” Harry said. He had expected to falter and not feel that way at some point during this process, but the satisfaction was still burning in him. “Come on. Take it to him. He wrote to me, it’s only fair.”

Hedwig gave a soft ruffle of her feathers, as if to say that she didn’t think it was the same thing, but she did grab the letter and fly away. Harry tracked her flight. Constantine had said something about how owls could find their way in and out of the Court because the magic recognized their presence as not a threat.

Constantine.

Harry leaned back against the pillows at the head of his bed and closed his eyes. He hadn’t realized how much he had enjoyed having someone escort him around and not act like they were in awe of him because of the whole Boy-Who-Lived thing. Even Neville got like that sometimes, like when he assumed Harry would find some way to triumph over Voldemort without dying.

But Constantine had run away as soon as Harry had questioned his stupid ideas about lords and heirs. So he wasn’t really a friend, after all.

Harry would still miss him.

*

“Harry.”

Constantine dropped from the ceiling, where he’d been clinging like a bat, and landed in front of Harry. Harry gave him a flat look. He’d been walking through some of the corridors that shifted and flowed like water but always guided him, on his way back to visit with Sahafassa. While it was hard to determine the passage of time here, as always, he did think it was at least three days since he’d seen Constantine.

“Go away.”

“Why?”

“You acted like I told you something terrible when I told you about my wand and Voldemort’s being brothers. Well, congratulations to me, I’ve officially terrified a vampire.” Harry threw his hands in the air. “The last thing you should want to do is spend time with—”

“I had to speak to my grandfather,” Constantine interrupted.

“I didn’t know that!”

“I was not terrified of you.”

Harry shook his head. “It doesn’t really matter. We’re just from two worlds so different that they’re never going to meet.”

Constantine’s eyes widened until they looked as if they might spill down his cheeks, the way that Pythoness’s liquid dark eyes had looked. “What do you mean?”

“You think it’s an honor to be the heir of your grandfather. And he’s a fine Lord, so it probably is an honor.” Harry didn’t want to sound as if he was being disrespectful, but he wasn’t going to just go along with what Constantine and Lord Elfric were saying about lords and heirs, either. “But I’m not Voldemort’s heir. I’m his enemy. He wants to kill me. So no matter how many times you say that I’m Voldemort’s heir and everything will be fine, it’s not true!”

He discovered that he was panting, and cut himself off with a scowl. He didn’t want to look weak in front of a vampire who would probably despise him now. Harry wondered if he could request from someone that Constantine stay away from him in the future. Who would he talk to? Lord Elfric, maybe? Pythoness?

“Harry, wait.”

Harry hadn’t even realized that he’d taken a step away down the corridor. He turned back to Constantine, and froze, staring.

Constantine was kneeling on the floor with his arms stretched out in front of him. His hands were empty and curved up, and his neck was curved back so that he should have been looking straight up at the ceiling, but he was looking up at Harry instead. Probably no one but a vampire could have maintained that pose.

“What are you doing?” Harry whispered.

“Showing you that I am contrite,” Constantine said. His voice didn’t vary, but his eyes were locked on Harry, burning as bright as ever. “You could break or bite my neck this way. I carry no weapon and my fingers are not claws. I am surrendering to you. I am sorry for any harm that I caused you, any distress, emotional or physical.”

The words rang in a way that Harry knew meant they were ritual. Neville had explained to him how much of vampires’ lives was guided by ritual. It had to be, Neville had said. They were dangerous people and could too easily wipe out half the Court if one of them took offense and the others had no way of stopping it.

Harry sighed. “I’m not a vampire, Constantine. You don’t need to apologize like that to me.”

“But you could be one.”

“What?”

Constantine swayed forwards a little without leaving his kneeling posture. He was watching Harry intently. “I know that your friend told you about his great-aunt who is married among us.”

“Yeah, he did,” Harry said, still puzzled. He’d met Agatha briefly—she spent most of her time with Mrs. Longbottom—and he didn’t really see any difference between her and the other vampires. “How is she connected to Voldemort? Or you apologizing to me? Or you saying that I could be—”

Harry cut himself off. A jolt as great as when he’d first read in Voldemort’s letter about being a Horcrux settled into his bones.

“You want to turn me,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“Because you want to marry me.”

“Yes.”

Harry shook his head several times. Constantine bowed his head further back, until his neck must really hurt. Or not.

“Am I to understand that you are rejecting my apology and my contrition?” he asked softly. “Must I find some other way to apologize to you?”

“I’m not rejecting it, I’m bloody confused by it!” Harry snapped back. “Why in the world would you want to marry me? I’m fourteen—fifteen!” In the timelessness of the Court, it was also hard to remember that his fifteenth birthday had already gone by. “I’m destined to die at the hands of a madman! I can understand why you might have wanted to when you thought that it was going to be some sort of political coup to marry Lord Voldemort’s heir, but now that you know—”

“I was content to wait,” Constantine said softly. “I am immortal, Harry. I would wait for you as long as I needed to. I didn’t want to press my suit too soon, in fact, because I thought it would make you uncomfortable. But I meant what I said about spending more time around you than I usually do with visitors, admiring your Parseltongue, admiring your strength.”

“You didn’t say anything about that last one!”

“I thought I did.”

Constantine was looking puzzled again. Harry put his hand over his eyes with a sigh. Constantine had probably said something in that indirect, riddling way of his, and Harry had completely missed it.

“You belong here in a way that I rarely see with any visitors, Sidhe or human, vampire or ghost,” Constantine continued. Harry wanted to ask something about the ghost visitors, but Constantine was going on. “Do you understand how rare it is to find your way through the corridors of our Court without a guide? That the magic that embraces you is the sort that is usually hostile to outsiders?”

Harry scowled at him. “I don’t know how I know the way. I just do.”

“That is remarkable, too.”

Harry shifted uneasily. He didn’t—

Well, he had been thinking that he didn’t like the way Constantine was looking at him, but that wasn’t true. It was just unfamiliar. It would be better to say that he didn’t understand the way Constantine was looking at him.

“I can wait,” Constantine said, and bowed his head. “I will wait. But I could not stand for you to think that I despised you, or hated you. I do not despise you. I do not hate you.” His words were almost turning into a chant, and Harry shivered. “The Horcrux you bear makes you all the more interesting, Harry.”

And they were back to that. The reminder was like a shock of cold water in Harry’s face. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “No, Constantine. I have to die because I can’t bear for Voldemort to survive. And if I were turned into a vampire, then the Horcrux would probably die.”

“That is what I was going to offer as a solution.”

Harry stared at him, waiting for him to see the obvious contradiction. Constantine only stared at him.

“If the Horcrux died,” Harry said slowly, clearly, “then the things you find so fascinating about me would fade, too. And I would lose my Parseltongue. Then I would also lose whatever magic lets me speak to the Great One and makes me so at home here. Turning me into a vampire would work to let me survive, but it wouldn’t let us—get married.”

Speaking the words gave him a surreal feeling. How could someone want to marry him?

(In the back of his mind, a voice that sounded liked Aunt Petunia’s laughed and said that even for a wizard, he was a freak).

“That is what I had to speak to my grandfather about,” Constantine said, and gave Harry a shining, hopeful smile that kept Harry silent. “There are ways to turn someone that do not exactly kill them, and that leave a human perspective intact. They’re not often used, because of course most vampires who will live centuries do not want to think of time and life as humans do.

“But I think we could modify that magic. We could allow you to have your Parseltongue and whatever other gifts the Horcrux gives you—like understanding the corridors here—but remove the connection to Lord Voldemort.”

“But then I wouldn’t be his heir. And that’s why you want to marry me.”

“I want to marry you because of who you are, not what you are. I am talking about ways to preserve the former. There are other ways to solidify the political alliance,” Constantine said, and his smile flashed fangs. “Besides, who would tell Lord Voldemort that we have removed the Horcrux? That you are no longer precisely as you were, any more than you are precisely human?”

Harry’s mouth ran dry. Precisely human.

He shook with fear and temptation. Constantine finally unfolded himself from that ridiculous apology posture and stood in front of Harry looking the most human Harry had ever seen him, because he looked uncertain. His eyes searched Harry’s.

“What is it that you fear?” he whispered.

“Not being human,” Harry whispered back.

“We should speak with my grandfather. He will have a way to explain this better than I could.”

“Why?”

“Because he is older and wiser in the ways of the blood,” Constantine said simply. “Come, Harry.”

And even though Harry could have found his way to the throne room on his own, he thought, thanks to the strange Horcrux-inflected magic or Parseltongue-inflected magic beating in him, he accepted Constantine’s hand.

He still shook.

If I can find a way to survive…

At the same time, he knew that he might not, and that he couldn’t let himself be blinded by faith or temptation. Voldemort still had to die.

But if—

If I can fool the great deceiver…