[one-shots]: Endurance of Life, R, 2/2

[lomonaaeren]

This is an older one-shot that I never posted to my main journal. Don't start reading here; it's the second part, split for length reasons.



Draco was in time the next morning to hear an argument.

"Is this going to work?" That was Potter’s voice, and he had a suspicious edge to his words. Draco smiled and leaned his ear against the door. They were too involved in their row to notice him, he thought, and he had bribed the Healers for this corridor to stay clear of wandering trainees for at least an hour.

"They don’t know." Weasley’s voice was edged, too, but with nothing more complicated than anger. Draco heard a flat, sharp sound that was most likely her hitting the chair or bed with the flat of her palm. "Since when do you need to know so much before you began a treatment, Harry? They think this might return you to normal. Isn’t that enough?"

Draco grinned. Even if Potter still believed there was a special spell or potion that might help cursed vampires, he had at least taken Draco’s words into consideration, or there would have been no reason for him to struggle so against people who believed they were helping him.

"I don’t know," Potter said. His voice was deeper than normal, and Draco shifted and put a hand down to caress his cock, hoping that he wouldn’t simply stain the inside of his pants before he had a chance to speak to Potter. He didn’t want to go in there reeking of sex and languid with an orgasm. "When I’ve talked to them about it, most of them smell like fear and act like I’ll attack them before they get out the door. Healer Morton is the only one I trust."

"Well, he’s the one in charge of this experiment," Weasley said, and her voice was a little softer, Draco hoped she was thinking about the way she probably smelled to Potter, and then hoped she wasn’t. The more thoughtless she was, the more careless, the more likely that Potter would end up leaving her. "In fact, he’ll be casting the spell, and brewing the potion before they give it to you. Does that help?"

Potter sighed deeply. "It does. I think-it’s this stupid sense of smell, Ginny. They all stink when they’re around me. Reek of terror, and hatred, some of them. As if I’m no different than any vampire who might have attacked their patients in the past, even with all the differences in how I was made."

"You don’t need to pay attention to your sense of smell," Weasley whispered. Draco heard more soft sounds that were probably her leaning across and kissing Potter, or running her hands up and down his skin. Draco rolled his eyes. He would have been jealous, except a Potter who let her still do that was not a Potter he wanted for himself. "You could ignore it. It’s simple."

"Not anymore," Potter said. "It’s pervasive, Ginny. It’s like the way you read words the minute your eyes land on them. You can’t just ignore what the letters are saying. You’ve read the word whether you want to or not. You know?"

There was silence that Draco presumed was baffled. Then the noise of a kiss, and Weasley’s footsteps coming towards the door. "Just try, Harry. That’s all I ask. They’ll be here in an hour, so you might want to get some rest."

Draco ducked neatly out of sight before she could open the door, and noticed the way that she peered carefully up and down the corridor before she hurried away. Perhaps she had already learned to be wary of autograph-seekers. He chuckled and stepped into the room in her place, shutting the door behind him.

Potter whirled around, his hands digging into the bed and his mouth opening in a snarl. Draco stopped and stood where he was, giving Potter’s vampire senses a chance to work on him and see what threat he offered or didn’t offer. His heart was pounding in his chest, but that was more from excitement than fear, and his scent would tell Potter as much.

"Malfoy. I should have known." Potter sagged to a stop, rocking back on his elbows and giving Draco a disgusted look. "What do you want?"

"I’ve made it clear by now," Draco said calmly, and walked over to take his usual seat. "Unless you want to hear more about my desires? I wouldn’t be averse to telling you."

"If you were hanging around outside the door," Potter said, sitting back and covering his fangs with his lips again, "then you must have heard about the experiment they’re going to try. Concentrated vampire blood in the potion, and a spell adapted from a ritual. They’re hopeful that it will change me back to human."

Draco let his level stare and his silence speak for him.

"You’re not an expert on vampires," Potter said at him, letting his mouth flare open and his eyes blaze before he remembered. He glanced away and busied himself with smoothing the bedsheets back into place. Pathetic, Draco thought with a snort. He’s still pretending to be human for the good of Weasley and nothing else. If he followed his instincts, he would be happier by now. "You don’t know it won’t work."

"I’ve read enough about them to know that no cursed vampire has ever been made human again," Draco said quietly. "And some of them have gone mad trying all the spells and potions and rituals that the Healers have promised would help. Literally mad, Potter. They can’t accept what they are, and so they kill themselves."

"What?" Potter shot him a startled glance, and then laughed, though Draco knew his own face was perfectly serious. "That’s ridiculous."

"It’s not," Draco said. He leaned forwards, placing his hands on his knees, and spoke quietly, trying to fill his scent with seriousness, so that Potter would have to listen to him. "It’s one thing if you’re half-Muggle, perhaps, or half-Veela. Those traits don’t manifest at all times, or they can be hidden. You can pretend that you’re a whole being with only one kind of heritage if that’s what you want. For that matter, if you’re half-wizard and don’t want to be, you can refuse formal training for your magic. It always calms down eventually, though it might give you a few years of misery first."

"I can live with a few years of misery." Potter was giving him that noble, tormented look Draco had expected of him. He had never met someone so determined to become a martyr. Perhaps it had helped him when the Dark Lord was still hunting him, but Draco thought he would find it a grave hindrance to a normal life.

"But vampirism is different," Draco continued. "That’s the whole point I was trying to make, Potter. You display visible signs of difference, and you’re reminded, by your senses and your thirst if nothing else, of what you are. No one else will be completely comfortable around you. You can’t relax, because blood is on your mind from the minute you open your eyes, and you can’t walk freely in the sunlight, so you’re forced towards a nocturnal existence.

"Now. You’re going to live longer than a normal wizard, too, and your body isn’t going to age in the same way. Imagine eternity of ignoring something that stares you in the face every day." Draco sat back and spread his hands. "Now tell me that you still think it’s ridiculous some cursed vampires kill themselves."

Potter stared at him, his lips slightly parted, though not enough so that he would have looked anything but human to someone coming upon him unexpectedly. With a bit of pity, Draco wondered if that was how he’d been living with it so far. I can hide it, he might say to himself, looking in a mirror. Someone close to me in a dim room wouldn’t notice the pallor, or that I wasn’t breathing.

But the too-bright eyes, the way he used his nose, the flexible movements, the fangs, and the inability to enter sunlight...

"You’re only doing this to benefit yourself," Potter accused in a low voice.

"I’m doing it because I want you," Draco said, unabashed. "I think the world would be a better place if more people acknowledged their desires and worked to meet them in ethical ways."

Potter snorted.

"I wasn’t the one who turned you into a vampire, was I?" Draco challenged with one eyebrow lifted. "Even though I wanted you. Even though I dreamed of something like this happening. And I’m not doing anything like cutting a vein and dangling the blood in front of you, either. Only telling you the truth as I understand it, and offering you the choice."

Potter shook his head. "I can’t give up and become a monster because you’d like it, or because my body wants it. I have to strive to be-" He paused, then, and a frown wrinkled itself across his face.

Draco chuckled, knowing the problem he’d run into. "You can’t find any words for what you are that don’t sound stupid, can you? ‘Good’ is such a shallow word, and you know that Aurors aren’t on the side of good all the time. You don’t want to strive to be a Ministry flunkey." He lowered his voice and leaned in. "And if you say that you’re striving to be human for the sake of your friends and your fiancée, then you’re proving my point. You’ll give up your desires for anyone else who wants to impose rules on you, for the sake of an ideal that won’t benefit you even if you achieve it."

Potter pushed an open palm at him, and sat looking away. "A hero," he said, voice low and ugly. "I was going to say that I have to strive to be a hero, Malfoy."

Draco laughed again. "You still want to be one after the end of the war?"

Another steady glare from Potter, and Draco knew the answer. Potter didn’t like admitting it, but being a hero was addictive. Perhaps he didn’t want the praise and attention as much as some people would have, but they were pleasant, and at least this way he could be sure he was doing the right thing-which had always seemed important to him.

This needed more gravity. Draco leaned in again. "Being a hero only matters if the struggle you’re in matters," he said quietly. "And the one you’re in doesn’t."

Potter jerked as if slapped.

Before he could start raging, Draco continued, trying to sound both as honest and as intense as possible. "Think about it. There’s no one and nothing to conquer, no evil to fight. You won’t become a monster if you only take the blood that you need. You won’t be overcome by bloodlust, so there’s no fear of you ravishing someone because your animal instincts tell you to. If you remain chaste of blood, on the other hand, there’s no reward. All you’re denying yourself is something you badly need."

"And helping other people," Potter said. His hands slowly massaged the sheets in front of him, wrinkling them up and pulling them down again.

Draco slapped his left hand against the right. "How? How, exactly? You make them a bit more comfortable, but they aren’t ever going to forget that you’re a vampire just because you don’t drink blood. You can’t take away your capability to do so, and that’s what they’re worried about."

"My friends won’t abandon me." Potter took on that martyr’s look again.

"They can do plenty of things that hurt you short of that," Draco said shortly. "Tell me how you like living with the scent of fear all the time."

Potter shook his head, an infuriatingly calm expression on his face. "They’ll be better than that. I know them."

"Really? They’ve had three days now to get used to it. And I know that you haven’t drunk any blood in that time, or made a single threatening gesture towards them. You would have been sleek and sated if the former was true, and been still wailing your angst loudly if the second was." Draco tilted his head slowly, not blinking, never letting Potter retreat or recover from the full force of his stare. "Has it made a difference to them? Or do they still stare at you sidelong and whisper about how they need to get you back to normal? Can they ever accept you as you are? Or will they hold out the promise of just one more potion, just one more spell, for as long as they can?"

Potter crossed his arms. "You don’t know them at all. They care about me. They’re determined. I’m more likely to give up before they do."

Draco nodded. "Exactly."

Potter stared at him, eyes bright with flames of guilt, but before he could say anything, the door opened and Weasley came in.

"Healer Morton will be here in a minute, Harry," she said soothingly. Then her eyes focused on Draco, and she jerked to a stop, gripping her wand. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Think about what I said," Draco told Potter, not deigning to answer Weasley’s question. He walked to the door.

Glancing back, he saw Potter looking at Weasley, his nostrils flaring out delicately.

Draco smiled.

*

They finish the dance with everyone staring at them, and Harry knows that most of the people there know who he is by now.

And what he is.

It’s a surprise how comfortable he is with that, after two seasons of hiding at home and pretending nothing is wrong and that he can’t hear the breathing or smell the emotions of absolutely every person who approaches him.

There were a lot of interviews, Harry thinks as he leads Draco towards the first of the fires, Draco’s hand clenched tight in his, his eyes so expectant that Harry feels commanded to jump simply by looking into them. Interviews with the Hero who had managed to avoid becoming a monster, interviews where the reporters were congratulated for emerging from the house alive.

Maybe it was a consequence of his past, when so many people seemed to see him as an avatar for their fears no matter what he actually did. They’d been happier to believe he was lying and mad-despite what it would have meant if he was their Savior-when they didn’t want to believe Voldemort had come back. And they had used him as a sign that things were going well since the war whenever he arrested a criminal.

Or maybe, as Draco said, their prejudice was simply so strong that it didn’t matter what he did, if he lived the rest of his life in spotless purity and married Ginny and appeared at Ministry ceremonies and very publically drank wine instead of blood. They would still be watching him, because all the good marks in the world cannot stand up to one slip.

How much better, Harry thinks as he and Draco run towards the first fire, to live my life the way I choose to, in accordance with my instincts.

When the last moment comes that their feet can remain on the ground, Harry sweeps Draco into his arms and leaps, spinning through the air, driving them both faster and further than they could go on their own-Draco because he’s mortal, Harry because he doesn’t see the point of showing off his skills if he has no one to show off for.

Draco clutches him around the neck, mouth falling open as he stares at Harry in almost drunken desire. Harry laughs and holds him tightly.

Then they come down, and they’re settling to the ground beyond the fire, and Harry’s whirling to take the momentum, and Draco laughs in a way that no one has laughed around Harry since he was cursed.

Harry lets Draco to have a moment to catch his breath. Then they trot towards the second fire.

*

Draco opened the door and chuckled when he realized the room was still dim and Potter lay on the bed with his legs folded up to his chest and no signs of discomfort showing. "The potion and spell didn’t work, I take it?" he asked, shutting the door behind himself and taking up a delicate perch on the edge of the chair.

"Shut up," Potter snarled, turning his head.

Draco bowed his head in mock humility and opened his shirt collar to bare his throat again. The heaviness of Potter’s anger haunted the room like the rushing edge of a storm. Draco didn’t need to speak. He could wait.

"I don’t understand what you get out of this," Potter said suddenly. Draco looked up and saw that had twisted his head back towards Draco, his eyes glowing with their unnatural sheen as well as the glaze of blood-hunger in the night. "A lover, yes, you can say that, but is that really enough for the amount of time you’ve spent talking to me?"

"Less than an hour altogether?" Draco chuckled. "Yes, I think so."

"You can’t know that you’d want it forever," Potter continued stubbornly. "You can’t know that you wouldn’t get tired of me. You can’t know that you wouldn’t hate it when I drank from you. I’m a new vampire. I’d mess it up."

Draco licked his lips. He would never have spoken like this if he wasn’t considering it. He would just retreat behind a wall of silence and glare at me until I left. "I can’t know that about anyone," he answered. "For all I know, staying in here means that the love of my life walks past me and I never meet him, or I could walk away and give up and miss something even more wonderful. But I’m willing to take the risk and chance. I told you. Long years of fantasies and desires have sharpened my perceptions of what I want and what I’d be willing to settle for."

"Not me," Potter muttered, and moved restlessly, flipping over on his side with a swiftness that would have made most people at least grunt. Potter didn’t so much as look uncomfortable. He was already getting used to being able to move like a vampire, Draco thought, whether or not he wanted to.

"Since when have you ever paid attention to your own desires and fantasies?" Draco asked, raising an eyebrow, and had the satisfaction of seeing Potter flush. He clucked his tongue. "Poor little Potter, thinking he doesn’t have the right to his own happiness."

"You’re asking me to do something mad," Potter said. "To embrace this-this thing which has happened to me, and which they might still reverse, and leave the woman I love, and join a-Malfoy, I still hate you, and I’ve never been with a man. Your ideas are stupid."

"Are they?" Draco asked calmly. "Wouldn’t you make a commitment to reorganizing your life if you suddenly had an incurable illness, or a disability that made it impossible for you to work? Or if your Weasley decided to leave you, or you fell in love with someone else?"

Potter stared at him, a little frown between his brows, and said, "This isn’t like that. They’ll cure it." And before Draco could berate him for having fantasies that were too strong, he added, "Besides, it’s not as though I’d fall out of love with Ginny, or her with me."

"Good God," Draco said, when he could find his voice. "You really believe it, don’t you? I thought it was just a stereotype about heroes, not something you would actually believe, but you do." He shook his head, stunned.

"What?" Potter demanded.

"You think you’ve paid your debt," Draco said, and made a sweeping gesture with one arm. He knew he wasn’t graceful or restrained, but he doubted that Potter would notice, and no one who would was in the room with him. "That everything you’ve gone through in your war has somehow freed you from grief, and that you can live happily now, without anything ever happening to you. That you’ll have the fairy tale ending and the perfect marriage." He leaned forwards. "See if Weasley goes through with the marriage now that you’re a vampire and can’t have children."

Potter shut his eyes.

Draco sighed. "Didn’t they tell you that, either?" No, they probably hadn’t; Morton was decent, but he had other patients to attend to, and there were protective Healers on this ward who would try to keep distressing information from their patients as long as possible. It had taken weeks for them to admit to Draco’s mother that she would probably never gain full feeling back in her hands from the Cruciatus Curses that she’d suffered during the war. "If Weasley wants children, she’ll have to find someone else."

"If they can’t cure it," Potter whispered.

"What do you want?" Draco snapped. "An insane hope, which you’re always going to defer, or something more complicated and real, something that you’ll have to deal with as it comes? You were always saying to the papers that you wanted a normal life, weren’t you? Well, here’s something that hurts and is inevitable for you, just like everyone else. Welcome to normality."

Potter snarled, and his lips parted this time enough to allow Draco to see a flash of white, a glimpse of tearing tooth stronger than steel...

Draco said nothing, and sat still, and he knew that nothing gave away his interest or his emotions but his scent and his quickening heartbeat.

Potter grabbed a book off the table next to the bed and threw it at him. Draco ducked easily, but never took his eyes from Potter’s.

"You’re not human anymore," he whispered. "Isn’t it time that you accepted it?"

"Get out!" Potter shrieked.

There was already noise in the corridors outside, the sound of rapid footsteps and someone demanding to be told who was with Potter. Draco sighed and slipped out.

*

They approach the second fire. It’s bigger than the first, leaping into the sky in thin tongues of flame that turn blue at the edges and lift a glorious halo against the darkness. For the first time, Harry feels his shoulders tense. Beltane is a festival of light, of summer, of fertility-all things that are supposedly anathema to a creature like him. It’s not impossible that the fire could destroy him.

Then Draco laughs beside him, and clasps his arm, and spins him around, and Harry finds himself watching eyes that dazzle him as much as his own eyes did when he first looked into a mirror after his transformation.

"Why should you be afraid?" Draco whispers. "When you have me, when you will always have me?"

Harry can’t speak his reaction to that promise, so he briefly pulls Draco against him and nuzzles him with fang and erection before they run towards the fire.

Harry doesn’t even use much of his immortal strength this time, and yet he and Draco still leap the fire as if they have wings.

*

"I’m sorry, Mr. Malfoy." Healer Morton’s eyes were calm and looked genuinely regretful. If it had been up to him, Draco thought, Draco would still have had access to Potter. "But I can’t permit bribery in my hospital."

Draco gave a sharp little nod. "But he isn’t getting better, is he?" he asked when the Healer started to turn away. "Potter, I mean. You’ve tried spells and potions, and neither one has benefited him."

Morton turned his head back, but his gaze had sharpened in a way that indicated Draco’s words had found their target, though how well they had done that, Draco didn’t know. "Not yet," Morton said. "But it’s early days yet. It’s entirely possible that we will find something to help him with just a bit more experimentation."

"If you don’t?" Draco took a step closer. "You were the one who had the courage to tell me what my mother would have to endure to heal. Are you going to tell Potter the same thing? That no one has ever successfully cured a cursed vampire?"

Morton smiled slightly. "I can tell him that, but that doesn’t preclude us coming up with something in the future, as you ought to know. I have thoughts on experiments we could perform to ease your mother’s lingering pain."

Draco shook his head. "But it hasn’t happened so far, despite all the research that anyone has ever done in the history of Healing. Are you going to tell him that? Or is he going to go on believing that hope is enough?"

"Hope is what he needs most right now," Morton replied in a calm, inflexible voice, before he hurried down the corridor that contained Potter’s room.

Draco went home, because he didn’t want to be seen lingering around St. Mungo’s as if he had nothing else to do. But when he reached his room, he sat down and wrote the kind of letter that he knew Potter needed to receive, the kind of letter that no one else would show him. And how was Potter going to move on and really recover if someone didn’t let him know that he couldn’t depend on other people forever? He needed to do his own acceptance and his own recovery, or it would fall on him all at once, in a noiseless waterfall.

It had fallen on Draco like that, when he realized that the Malfoys would never again be what they had been before the war, because it would take them years to gain back that power and reputation, and when they did, it would be a different kind of power and reputation. He would have done much better if he had had the time to think about it and grow into the thoughts over time.

Potter, he wrote, and the words tore themselves smoothly from his quill, and not just because it felt as if Potter was the answer to his fantasies. He was thinking about Potter lying alone in a dim room, staring at the ceiling and feeling the bloodthirst pulse in him like a second heart. Was he thinking of the years ahead? Was he thinking about being immortal and always fighting his desire for blood, always trying to fit in as a human when he was fundamentally different from them in one important way?

The Healers have tried for centuries to change this curse, or even make the consequences of being a cursed vampire less severe-making you able to eat food as well as drink blood, for instance. Nothing has worked.

I understand if you need to refuse to believe this for right now, if you need some kind of hope to keep you going. That’s what Morton said you needed, and I can accept that, because he’s one of the wisest Healers I know. But there’s a difference between having hope and being outright ignorant, like pretending that your thirst will go away.

I can give you the titles of books that deal with the curse that changed you and which I found helpful when I was trying to understand vampires and the sort of person that I wanted to be with. The Silence and the Thirst. Vampire Curses from the Founding of Hogwarts until Now. The Differences Between Vampires and Werewolves. Those are the ones that I found most intriguing or informative.

I know that you’ll think I’m only doing this because I want to sleep with you. But I swear it’s more than that. You could choose someone else as a lover and a donor, after all. I have no way of forcing you to be with me. But I can hope that you won’t torment yourself with useless delusions for years.

Draco Malfoy.

The letter came back unopened.

*

The third fire is the tallest, sending so many flames writhing up towards the trees that Harry doesn’t see how the branches can avoid catching fire. But he reckons he’ll trust the fact that there are leaves hanging within a few inches of the heat and they haven’t crisped to death yet.

Draco smiles at him and turns sideways, hanging onto Harry’s hands. It’s clear to Harry that he wants to lead this leap. He swallows and nods, despite the fate he can all too easily envision Draco burning if he doesn’t jump in time.

Draco crouches, staring upwards, the cords in his neck bulging as the muscles in his legs flex. Harry has never been so grateful for the sharpness of vampire eyes. They allow him to watch every movement before it begins, to see the swallow that bends Draco’s throat, and to catch glimpses of the firelight reflecting in the tiny beads of sweat on Draco’s forehead.

And then he is leaping, and Harry’s eyes greedily absorb all they can of that straight, smooth, swift movement before he has to join it.

Together, they rise, and it seems as if they will never stop. Harry could believe that Draco is taking him flying to the stars. They ascend, and ascend, and then Draco twitches, half-steps in the air, faces the fire.

Harry’s hands twitch with longing, with need, to take hold of Draco’s body and guide him. But he holds them back with an effort. For whatever reason, this is something Draco needs to do, and Harry wants him to do it because of that.

As it turns out, the half-step is not a mistake, or Draco losing his confidence and misjudging the landing. He swings forwards correctly, and Harry feels himself pulled over the fire. He seems to weigh much less than he does, and his laughter bubbles out of his chest and runs past his ears like cool water.

Draco smiles at him over his shoulder.

And then they are on the cool grass again, and Draco is laughing hard enough to make Harry’s mouth hurt in sympathy, and they are turning, and they are under the shadows of the trees, and Draco bares his throat, and Harry leans forwards to taste human blood for the first time.

*

Draco sent two more letters, and they both came back with their seals still in place. So next he sent a Howler. He figured out that would get a response, because if nothing else the Weasleys would come to scold him, and that meant he would get a chance to question them on Potter’s condition without their noticing.

His Floo connection went mad less than an hour after he sent the Howler. Draco lowered his book and turned around in pleasant surprise. If they responded that quickly, the Weasleys must be very angry.

"What the fuck do you think you’re doing?"

Except it wasn’t one of the Weasleys in his fireplace at all, but Potter. And Draco could only stare, because the short time since he had last seen Potter had wrought changes in his body and face.

He was as pale as any turned vampire now, and Draco could see the flash of fangs when he spoke. Of course they would be extended if he was hungry all the time and smelling the scent of blood from the people around him, Draco reminded himself, but his heart still flared with excitement as if this was a compliment to him specifically. Potter’s eyes had lost their glaze and acquired a brilliant sheen instead-many times more beautiful on him than on other cursed vampires because of that stunning green color.

Draco had never seen him looking more glorious, or more desirable.

Or more desperate, and that was what reassured him he was getting through. Despite all Potter’s faith and hope, the Healers and his friends hadn’t managed to help him or cure him or calm his bloodthirst. Surely he must realize that the best thing to do would be to accept the inevitable, and do it in such a way that he wouldn’t violate his own principles or make himself suffer. Such as by accepting Draco as a donor, for example.

But I can accept it if he won’t, Draco thought, clasping his hands in front of him and staring into Potter’s eyes. I must accept it. In the end, whatever I want and whatever I’ve worked for, he’s the one who has to make the decision.

Once, that acknowledgment would have cost Draco such pain that he probably would have lashed out at Potter before he opened his mouth, attempting to force him to choose what Draco wanted. But since the war, he had learned lesson after lesson about what he could have and what he could compel. The lessons were written in the headlines of the Daily Prophet, in the wrinkles around his father’s mouth, in the shaking of his mother’s hands. Draco had learned to act when he could and wait for the rest.

"What do you want?" Potter spat. A green flame flickered around his tongue, making him look like a roaring dragon for an instant.

Draco smiled in spite of himself. "That’s the one thing I didn’t expect you to ask, Potter," he said. "I thought I’d made it perfectly clear what I wanted."

Potter shook his head. "That can’t be it. That wouldn’t be enough for you to send me multiple letters and keep bothering Ginny."

"Who said anything about bothering Weasley?" Draco shook his head. "I addressed the letters to you. Surely they should bother you more than your fiancée."

"She wanted to know what they were doing there," Potter said, his voice so fierce and so quiet that Draco felt sweat gather on the palms of his hands. He had to wonder what he was about to attain that he had-and hadn’t-dreamed of. "She asked me questions that I couldn’t answer."

"I don’t see why not," Draco said, still puzzled. Potter was taking an odd line of argument. Draco had expected more cursing, among other things. "You could tell her the truth, and you would still come out of it looking heroic and doing what she wanted you to. I’m the one who’s being evil and urging you to abandon the line of research and hope that she wants you to follow."

Potter clenched his jaw. The way his fangs ground against his lower teeth made Draco lick his lips. "That isn’t what I mean, Malfoy, and you bloody well know it," he said, spacing his words now as if he thought that Draco was stupid and needed things spoken slowly. "She knew about a few visits you made to me. She didn’t know about the rest. And so it looked like I was encouraging you, because I never told her about them."

"That’s not my fault," Draco said, still puzzled but also beginning to be amused. "The letters weren’t opened, and anyway, I barely said anything in them about the visits. You were still free to tell her about them, or not, as you saw fit."

"If you hadn’t come stalking into my life and brought these things up in the first place," Potter said, his voice a bark now that actually did make Draco jump, "then she wouldn’t have been thinking I thought about them, and I wouldn’t have been thinking about them, damn you!"

Draco let a small space of time pass so that, among other things, he could slow his heartbeat, before he laughed. Potter stiffened, though Draco doubted someone who had spent less time observing him would have been able to see that slight movement through the flames of the Floo connection.

"So," Draco said. "That’s the reason for this firecall. The words are spinning around your head, and you want someone to blame for them. You’re rowing with Weasley, and you want to make me the major cause, instead of a minor cause, as I suspect I am." He leaned nearer and lowered his voice to a confidential murmur. "You want to make me into a villain for speaking the truth to you. Watch out, Potter, or soon you’ll be blaming me for the curse that turned you into a vampire as well."

Potter watched him, and panted, and said nothing.

"I understand how you feel," Draco said, when he had let some moments pass in silence. "It was hard for me, as well, to understand how my life had changed after the war. I sat alone for hour after hour making lists of who to blame for it, and plotting ways to take revenge on them. Your name was at the top of the list."

"Then you really might have cast this curse," Potter said, his face brightening with the satisfaction of an easy solution. "And that means-"

"Your name was at the top of the list," Draco cut him off quietly. "It’s not now. I changed, Potter. I grew up. I threw away my list and decided that my best revenge would be finding out how to survive in this world and then prosper in spite of all the enemies who might wish me ill. It was a better way of fooling the mass of people I thought hated me, rather than a few small-minded individuals."

"But you still might have cast the curse," Potter repeated stubbornly. "You implied that you wanted me transformed into some vile supernatural thing-"

"What a set of words to speak about yourself," Draco said, with gentle mockery, and that silenced Potter, as he had thought it might. "No. I was in hospital, watching my mother receive treatment for her nerve damage, when you were cursed. I have multiple witnesses who can prove it, including the witnesses who were with you."

Potter clamped his mouth shut hard, and then shut his eyes. He remained motionless for so long that Draco dared to lean in again.

"I know it’s hard," he murmured. "Beyond hard. This sudden change has come over your life, and you wish you could get rid of it. But it’s here to stay. This is what I went through, Potter, and my parents. I can at least help you bear the burden, if you’ll let me, and I won’t even press you to sleep with me or drink my blood, as long as I know that you’re not making the same mistakes I did for a little while."

"Why would you care if I was?" Potter breathed, opening his eyes. There was a glaze over them again, but Draco didn’t think it was the vampire hunger; Potter was fighting to hold back tears.

"Because it’s wasteful, that mourning to no purpose," Draco said quietly. "And I’d prefer that people not be wasteful."

"I’m never going to be like you, Malfoy," Potter spat suddenly, pulling back and lifting a hand in front of his face as if he could block the sight of Draco out. "Never."

"You already are," Draco said, but he was talking to an empty fireplace.

After that, he sat and thought about what he should do for a long time, before he went to write another letter.

*

Harry’s fangs slice through Draco’s skin.

There’s a moment when Draco goes stiff in his arms, and Harry worries that’s hurting him.

But then Draco moans, the sound of someone given a gift beyond price, and he begins to pant in pleasure at the same time that the blood floods Harry’s mouth.

Oh, Harry thinks, half-dazed, then wholly dazed, incoherent, as the blood dances and sparks on his tongue like the words of a new language, like the light of new stars, like the sight of new colors. Oh.

Draco told him what he would be missing, told him that he would never be whole without this, and that by denying it he was denying his own nature. Harry has heard the words again and again, from Draco and in his mind since Draco last parted from him. But he didn’t know.

There’s warmth in his mouth and salt on his lips, but the physical sensations are the merest part of it. There’s also the way the blood seems to sink straight to his stomach, and the sharp fireworks as his brain races, and the heightening of his senses, and the soundless chant in his mind of blood, blood, blood.

And the easing, for the first time since the curse, of the hunger in his belly.

Harry pulls back his fangs slowly. He doesn’t think he would drain Draco dry by accident in the first feeding, but he’s heard of such things happening, and he doesn’t dare risk it. It’s more than not wanting to kill someone, too.

He could never bear to kill someone who gave him this, willingly.

When he looks into Draco’s face, he finds it flushed and blissful, his eyes half-shut, his head lolling back so that his hair drapes across Harry’s shoulder. There’s still a trickle of blood coming from the bites in his throat, but it doesn’t look as violent or unnatural against Draco’s skin as Harry assumed it would. His lips are parted, as if he drank in air while Harry drank in life, and his breath is tiny puffs of air against Harry’s fingers when he reaches down to check.

His eyes snap open. They are bluer than Harry’s ever seen them. After a moment, he realizes that’s because they’re dark, with pleasure and arousal.

"Fuck me," Draco whispers, and Harry comes to him without another word.

*

It wasn’t Draco’s best letter; it had rambling sentences and lines that he crossed out entirely and words that he knew weren’t spelled correctly. But it was the best letter he could have written to Potter at the time, and it contained an honest offer of all the words that Potter wouldn’t have let him speak in any conversation they had, even if Draco spelled him to silence.

There’s a holiday called Beltane. It’s on the first of May. It’s a holiday of fertility, the beginning of summer and the quickening blood. Some old traditions say that children conceived on Beltane are especially blessed. But men can come together on that holiday, as well as men and women.

Some wizards celebrate it, usually in a hollow at the foot of the Brecon Beacons. Ask anyone who has official connections and they can tell you where. The Ministry probably has someone keeping an eye on it, for that matter, ensuring the pure-bloods don’t rise again.

That’s the place I’d like to meet you, if you’re ever able to turn your back on your denial and come to me. We’ll do the dance sand leap over the fires together, and you’ll drink my blood and lie down with me if you want to, and I won’t ask you any questions. We’ll begin anew, in the summer light.

I won’t wait you for any other time of the year. I have my own life to lead, and my own duties and pleasures to pursue, and I’m not going to enslave myself to anyone else’s expectations again.

But I’ll wait for you on Beltane.

Draco didn’t bother signing it, the same way he hadn’t bothered writing Potter’s name at the top. He figured that Potter would either know what it meant sure enough, or he would pretend not to know, and in that case, nothing could help him. Either way, Draco wanted Potter to make a bit of an intellectual effort for once.

He sent the letter off.

There was no response to that, but Draco cherished a bit of hope, because the letter didn’t return unopened, either.

Soon after that, he heard that Harry Potter had left hospital and moved in with his fiancée while he tried to figure out how to reorganize his life. Draco put aside hopes too intense to be borne for the moment and moved on.

He told himself he wasn’t counting the days until May.

*

It’s surprisingly simple, when you get right down to it.

Draco has the lube. Harry doesn’t know what’s in the pale blue liquid, but at least it’s nothing that smells offensive to his singing senses, and Draco makes a contented moan when Harry pushes one finger into him. That’s good enough for Harry.

They’re on the grass in a sheltered part of the valley with a tree drooping over them and Harry’s robe beneath Draco. He wanted to go somewhere more private, but Draco gave him a direct glance and said, "It’s Beltane," and that was enough to explain to Harry.

Really, he thinks dazedly as he kneels down for the first time to watch his fingers gliding in and out of Draco, everything is enough for me, right now. I wonder what I’ll feel like once I get down from the high of his blood.

But whatever it is, he doesn’t think he’ll regret this, anymore than Draco will regret letting Harry drink from him in the first place. He’s watching now, his cock so swollen that Harry finds it painful to look at, his lips still parted the way they were when Harry first finished feeding.

He licks them when Harry rises up to position his cock near Draco’s entrance. Yes, Draco licks his lips and spreads his legs wide in welcome, and Harry groans as he sinks home, shivering, his skin tightening all over his body.

"What-why did you choose me?" he whispers to Draco. "Like this, you could have had anyone."

"Do you think I’m like this with everyone?" Draco asks, his voice soft and echoing, as if the words have to travel a long way to get there.

Again, it makes sense for right now, and that’s enough.

Harry moves slowly at first, his thrusts thick, muffled noises leaking out of Draco’s mouth and his arse, where the lube eases their movements. Draco opens and closes his eyes in random patterns. A pink flush runs over his chest and his neck, spreading both up and down. He touches his cock once or twice, but gently, with idle strokes, as if he knows that he doesn’t need that much stimulation to come.

Harry’s going to make sure that he doesn’t need more.

He throws his back into the thrusting, his chest heaving with breath for the first time since his transformation. Draco smiles lazily, as if surprised, and stretches out one arm that seems impossibly long to caress Harry’s hair. Sweat falls from Harry’s face to mingle with the precome on Draco’s belly, and Draco trails one finger through the mingled liquids.

"Harry," he says finally, and it’s the wonder in his voice, more than anything else, that makes Harry begin to come.

He hasn’t had an orgasm this powerful since he transformed, either, and knows it must be the effect of the blood. He feels as if he’s among the living again, his body surging with strength, his delight ripping him from the inside like claws. He throws his head back with a silent howl and strokes Draco with the very last of his erection, sharing the pleasure as much as he can, sending it home.

Draco closes his eyes and exhales through shaky lips. When he comes, it’s a soundless arch of perfection, except for the sob at the very end, and the soft sizzle and splatter of his come landing where it will, and the creaking of his tendons. Harry can hear all of that, and he marvels at it for the first time.

This is a night for firsts.

When Draco has finished, they lie down among the golden lights and shifting shadows of Beltane, and Harry leans his head on Draco’s shoulder, and links their hands, and wonders, for a moment, what the morning will bring.

He doubts that it will be anything too terribly bad. Even if this turns out to be a mistake, they’ve both lived through worse.

Draco turns his head and kisses him, and Harry is reminded that morning isn’t here yet.

*

It wasn’t Ginny’s fault.

Harry knew she had tried as hard as she could. She was the one who looked for jobs in the Daily Prophet where he could work at night, and wrote angry letters to the Ministry protesting their decision not to let him come back as an Auror, and sat holding his hand when Harry shook with rage and hunger denied. She talked to him into going out and trying all sorts of different foods when he would have given up and sat sulking at home, dreaming of the one thing he could never have. Through her, and Ron and Hermione, he kept in contact with the rest of the Weasleys, and he thought they finally accepted that he wasn’t a ravaging monster.

But she never lost the smell of fear.

Drinking from her was impossible, even the few times that she offered. She stood with her head turned, stiff and still, bowing her neck in a submissive fashion that Harry hated. He broke away each time and stalked away to the far side of the room, shaking his head. And he heard the sigh of relief she gave each time she could cover up her unmarred neck.

No, Ginny always tried. In the end, Harry was the one who couldn’t bear it.

He was the one who sat there with Malfoy’s words turning over in his head, and looked at the letter sometimes, and wondered if death would be better than this thirst.

He was the one who grew towards a dark sun as the months turned past and Beltane came closer. He was the one who learned to enjoy the way he could smell a dozen subtle scents beneath a bouquet of flowers, and who began to turn his head when he heard nuances in others’ voices they might have tried to conceal from him. He was the one who found himself on the roof one day, crouching in shadows away from the sunlight and baring his fangs in defiance.

It was stupid to deny who and what he was. The Dursleys couldn’t make Harry stop being a wizard, and he couldn’t make himself stop being a vampire.

In the end, he accepted it, and he set Ginny free, because she deserved better than this. She went with backwards glances and tears, but she went.

And then Harry waited for Beltane-not sure of what he was doing, still half-doubting Malfoy’s reasons, but sure that he should try.

*

Draco draws Harry’s head onto his chest and lifts his own head to look up at the stars. Still hours yet before they’ll need to move to make sure that Harry’s out of reach of light when the sun rises.

Contentment makes him languid, makes him golden. He strokes Harry’s shoulders where he lies naked on Draco’s chest, traces his jawline and the edges of his nose, and learns his throat and his muscles with kisses.

It’s wonderful.

It’s everything he ever wanted.

And now, Draco thinks in satisfaction as he tightens his arms and clenches down to enjoy the burn in his arse, we’ll teach each other new things to want.

A stir of limbs, accompanied by no stir of breath, and then a flash of eyes makes him smile. Harry is awake and alert again.

Draco winks at Harry, and gives himself up entirely to their own, private celebration of summer, and change, and the endurance of life. Even beyond death.

The End.