Chapter Text
Theo falls into a chair at the kitchen table with a heavy, dragged out sigh. There is dirt smudged across his cheeks and his hair is still damp with sweat. But his eyes flick up and they narrow in on me as the early morning light streams in through the window from behind him. It’s bathing me in its glow, forcing me to blink rapidly at the way it suddenly feels too bright for my eyes. Like it somehow represents the past that led me here and it’s just too difficult to stare at.
Normally, I can stand perfectly still — something Theo hates— but not today. Now, I can’t stop twitching. Can’t stop clenching my jaw and flaring my nostrils, smelling – tasting – everything around me. The fruit on the counter, the food in Theo’s fridge. The blood in mine. The dirt stuck deep into our fingernails. The stench of rotting flesh lingering on my hands.
Everything is louder, brighter, clearer .
The beat of Theo’s heart. The slight breeze that pushes the leaves of the tree against the window pane. I can practically see the molecules of air in front of me, distracting me as Theo stares at me, expectantly.
And with every one that floats away, I see your humanity — our humanity — drifting away with it. I see the flicker of light fading in your eyes as they stare up at Granger. I see the relief in your face as you come face to face with death. And I can’t help but wonder, how did we even get to that point?
How could Granger have been there? How could she have had any part of my death? Is this betrayal? This unintentional reveal of a truth that I was never supposed to find out? Because I should have died. I should have bled out, my heart was punctured, defective. It could no longer function.
And Granger was a part of that. Her hand was holding the stake that pushed through skin and muscle and bone before it took my life. How ironic that the woman who took my old heart is the same to give me this new one.
Something in my chest tightens. The chain. The one that I wrapped around Granger. I feel like it’s tightening around my chest, crushing the cage of bones inside. Heartache isn’t the right word, but if it isn’t, then what is?
Theo sucks through his teeth and kicks out the chair across from him. “Sit down .”
I do and for a moment, he says nothing. I say nothing. Instead we stare at each other and separately, we are replaying the events from last night. Zombie Emmitt chasing down the man who slept with his wife. Zombie Theo attacking the man with him, his teeth ripping into flesh.
My death, the betrayal. I knew you thought about killing her. I just didn’t realize how close you had gotten.
“You’re out of control.” Theo finally says, with a sigh. His autumn eyes are bright and full of disapproval.
I sniff. “ You’re the one who ate a man..”
“I didn’t eat him.” He frowns. “I bit him once or twice. I told you that things might get out of control.” Theo pushes his lips together and leans back in his seat before he snaps his fingers. A bottle of honey colored liquid appears on the table with two short glasses. He uses his wand to pour us each a glass before he levitates one to me.
I wrap my fingers around it, lift it up to my nose and sniff. It smells like honey and caramel with a bite. The kind of kick that stings the little hairs inside of your nostrils. I watch Theo as he takes a drink. When he lowers his glass he licks his lips and he says,
“You didn’t have to kill him.”
“That,” I say as I lift the glass to my lips. “Was unintentional.” Mostly. I take a small sip and the liquid coats my tongue, pleasantly, before it pricks along my throat on the way down.
It feels weird, having liquid that isn’t blood in my stomach. But this liquid moves through my veins differently. I take a long drink this time and marvel at the way my body reacts. Warmth blooms in my stomach and my chest before it moves through my limbs, up my neck and then it’s like a comforting hand settling over my rotting brain.
“There’s a lot to digest,” Theo says with a nod, as if in response to a question I silently asked. “For instance,” he pauses and takes another drink. His lips purse together and his hair bounces around his face as he shakes his head, bits of damp earth still clinging to chestnut brown locks. Several sprinkles of dirt rain down onto the shoulders of his stained jacket. “What the fuck ?”
Because we watched me try to kill Granger. We watched as I got stabbed in the heart with an iron stake and died . Because of Granger . Kind of.
And then Theo tried to eat a man.
A man that we had to bury into the grave with zombie Emmit’s remains. Which meant that we had to dig all the way down to the coffin that was secured six feet under the ground. Theo used his wand but I used my hands.
You don’t see this kind of stuff on television.
But, if this was a television show, the audience would be laughing at Theo’s question as I drain my glass and hold it out for him to refill. They would laugh at the way he refills both glasses until they are brimming with liquor dripping over the sides. They would be laughing at the sheer absurdity of the situation we’ve put ourselves in.
It’s just that, this is real. As strange as it all seems, this is real. Not the canned laughter. Not the one liners dramatically delivered before a commercial break. And all I can do is close my eyes and replay the memory of Granger begging me for her life. All I can hear is the sound of her sobbing over my dead body.
I open my eyes and blink several times against a new, strange burning sensation just behind my eyeballs. “How could this have happened?” I ask quietly, my voice, this foreign sound passing through my lips. It feels like there isn’t enough space in my throat as the words crawl up and out. “Granger,” my voice suddenly dies in my throat. Plummets past my chest, and slams into the pit of my stomach.
“You were going to kill her.” Theo murmurs with a shake of his head. His eyes look troubled, distant.
“But I don’t want to anymore.” You might, but I don’t.
“I knew you had changed but,” He pauses and I watch as the distant look darkens and the skin between his brows puckers. He sees a vampire who used to be his best friend. The vampire who killed a man simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What of the friend who tried to kill an innocent woman doing her job? “I hadn’t realized how much you had changed.”
“So I wasn’t always,” I pause as I consider what it is I should call you. What word would best describe the man I saw tonight. A monster, surely. Only, a different sort than the one I am, now. “Cruel?”
Theo’s eyes soften, just a little, as he stares off into another time. A time where he knew you. A time before me.
“Not to me.” With a shake of his head, he returns to now and says, “You started to change around sixth year.” He frowns. “When you were about sixteen.”
“Why?”
He scowls as he pushes the pad of his finger around the lip of his glass. “The war. Your aunt. And like I said, the magic you became involved in was very dark. The kind that seeps into mind and soul.”
“And I hated Granger?” I ask this because I cannot fathom it. I ask this, because I want it to be untrue.
“Draco,” he pulls my name out slowly and his lips do that thing, again. They pull to the right as he frowns. “I care very much about Hermione.” He runs his fingers through his hair, shoving the dirty strands behind his ears. “She is very important to me.”
I’m not sure why he’s telling me this. “Do you love her?”
He wraps his fingers around his glass. “Yes, in a way. She is my friend.”
I nod, slowly. “Like I was your friend.”
Theo’s eyes flick up to me and he purses his lips, he tugs at a lock of hair. Theo is hiding something from me. He looks down at his glass. At the honey colored liquid sloshing around inside, and mumbles, “In a way.”
My head tilts as my eyes scan his face. His decadent mouth, his crisp autumn eyes. The slight blush to his cheeks. His heartbeat is still calm, still soothing. “I’m not going to hurt her, Theo.” Silently, I tell him that while Granger is important to him, to me, she is the world.
He frowns. “I still think that you should keep your distance.”
“That’s impossible.” This is the truth. It’s like my whole world revolves around her.
“Look,” he sighs. “I know you two have something going on. But, I have to confess that I’m a little worried about how things will go after what you saw tonight. Everything you feel, as a vampire, is more . And even as a human, it would be a lot. If you harm her, you will also be harming yourself. I think it will destroy you.” He sighs. “I believe that if that were to happen, it would devastate me .”
“You think I’m going to kill her.” He says nothing, only sinks his teeth into his lower lip. “Because of what we saw last night.”
Theo stops gnawing on his lip to frown and say, “yes.” And his eyes widen and he shakes his head. “Draco, she killed you!”
The bird in my chest pulls in his wings, tightening up. Bracing for the pain. How can I tell you that this bird is only a thing because you helped her take it in the first place? The bird is special and it’s terrible. It’s mine and I don’t know how to protect it. Even though it’s in a cage made of bones, it feels as vulnerable as the petals of a flower in a blizzard. So, I think about something else. Not my heart, but about the hooded figure.
“She didn’t, though.”
“What?” Theo’s tugging at a lock of hair, and there is confusion and intrigue mixing together brightening his hazel eyes to appear more green than brown.
“I’m the one who turned the stake on myself.”
He tosses the rest of his drink into his mouth and sighs out loud once he’s swallowed it all. He slams the glass down and shoves away from the table, but he doesn’t stand up. “That doesn’t make any sense!”
But it does.
“I think I was compelled to do it.”
“By Hermione?” Theo’s voice was pitched unnaturally, the sound of his blood pumping through his veins growing louder as his heart begins to pick up pace.
“No, the figure in the dark cloak.” He must have also knocked her out and possibly erased her memory. Theo says that witches and wizards can erase memories, carefully selected through a magic called obliviation.
Theo’s brow lifts, quizzically. “The who in the what?”
Whatever warmth from the alcohol that is inside of my blood quickly fades and my thirst reignites. I reach for the bottle of alcohol, forgoing the glass. “The one who whispered something in my ear as I died.” I lift the bottle to my lips and drink.
Theo’s face goes starkly pale and he goes very quiet as he stares at me for a moment. Until. “Mate,” he shakes his head. “There was nobody else in that field.”
I lower the bottle from my lips and stare back at him. My eyes are tracking the little telltale signs his face is using to communicate. The furrow of his brow, the pinch of his lips. The tilt of his head. Then I remember that he and zombie Emmit didn’t react to the cloaked figure when he appeared. I remember that I felt them. All of my senses, when looking at the past, were muted.
Except for when it came to the cloaked figure.
“There was but,” I narrow my eyes as I drag them away from Theo and focus on the mouth of the bottle, instead. “I think only I could see them because,”
When I pause, consider my words, Theo leans forward in his chair and presses his elbows into the table. “Because of what?”
Usually, Theo’s heart is calm and soothing. But now it’s the tense staccato of a cello, quick single note attacks that ricochet off of his ribcage. It’s nothing like Granger’s heartbeat but it reminds me of her, anyway.
Everything will always remind me of her.
This thing I feel for her is just like breathing. Only, it’s more difficult. More necessary than actually breathing. Because I died. I don’t need oxygen. But I need her, even if you hate her.
I need her and I can’t even begin to explain to you why.
“They’re the one who made me.” My fingers claw at my throat, desperate to relieve the tight ache inside that worsens when I speak. “The one who turned me into a vampire.”
The audience gasps, the ominous music plays but that’s not even the real twist to the plot.
Later that day, Harry shows up with a newspaper rolled up under his arm. When he greets Theo, the green of his eyes are bright, like emeralds that have been freshly polished.
Theo guides him into the kitchen and, as usual, offers him a cup of tea.
Potter shakes his head, a rapid movement that causes the hair sticking up at the back of his head to bounce around. “No, I’m afraid this has to be quick. I have a call to respond to nearby but felt that I should drop by and see you.”
Theo’s eyes darken as he settles into his usual spot at the table, with the windows to his back, pulling light into the room. It comes through the little strands of hair on his head, creating a halo. Potter’s cheeks burn bright as he slides into the chair across from him and I stand in the corner, near our refrigerators.I lean against one – the one full of blood – as I watch Theo’s foot slide under the table, the tip of his bare toes nearing the curve of Potter’s boot.
The scent in the room thickens as their eyes meet. Green and hazel eyes weld together and the damp crisp air causes my chest to warm and my gums to throb. Suddenly, I feel like the audience of a show I was never going to be cast in.
“There’s been a leak to the Prophet.” Potter drags his eyes away from Theo’s to look over at me.
“About?” Theo asks as I say, “I don’t know what that means.”
Potter frowns. “It means that someone from inside the DMLE has told the press that you were recently found and registered as a magical creature.” He tosses the newspaper onto the table and Theo frowns as he reads the cover.
I had not considered the fact that people would ever care who I was, nor what had become of me. It’s strange to think of them as anything that I could ever care about.
“As of right now,” Potter sighed. “Hermione and I are the only ones who know that Theo has you in his care.”
I move closer. “That makes me sound like a pet.”
Theo’s top teeth sink into his lower lip as his eyes flick up to meet mine, his hand going into his hair. But it is Potter who replies.
“Magical Creatures are not given the same rights as witches and wizards.” He sighs. “Look, it’s only a matter of time before everyone else figures out you’re here.”
I strain my neck and peer over his shoulder, taking in the cover of the newspaper. There is a photo of you on the front page, from when I was human. Only this photo isn’t standing still like the ones I’ve seen in the homes of the people I’ve killed. This photo of us is blinking back at me. We’re propped up at the bar of a pub. An empty glass sits on the bar, a cigarette trapped between long fingers. We have dark circles under our eyes and we’re scowling straight ahead before flicking our gaze to somewhere else, somewhere off camera.
It’s unnerving. Your eyes are off, unfocused. They are stark but there's something flickering in and out of them. Just like the night you nearly killed Granger. Like you can’t decide if you are alive or already dead.
“Shit is about to hit the fan.” Potter says to me, “I recommend you stay inside for now.” He looks at Theo. “No more morning walks.”
Theo smirks at him and leans back in his chair. “You do pay attention.”
Potter huffs out a laugh and runs a hand over that stubborn piece of hair at the back of his head. “It’s hard not to when you bombard my office with pastries.”
“Would you prefer that I send something else?” Theo shrugs one of his shoulders. “Roses? Jewelry? Letters of my affection?”
“Theo,” Potter sighs. “You don’t have to send me anything.” But Theo looks unconvinced.
“Then perhaps you’ll come over for coffee, and you can bring the sweets.”
The two stare at each other, filling the kitchen with their scents and their sexual tension. There’s something about this that makes me shift uncomfortably. I’m supposed to be rooting for the protagonist but for some reason, it bothers me. And I cannot tell you why. You might say it is because we are possessive. I don’t know if I can argue with you, anymore.
“What about Granger?” I’m asking them and I’m asking you.
Potter breaks their gaze to look over at me. “What about her?”
But it’s Theo who replies. “Hermione will be fine, Draco.” His crisp eyes sharpen on me, conveying more than he is saying. More of those little telltale signs humans use to communicate more than their words allow.
Without using his words, he’s telling me to stay away from her. This isn’t about the public, this is about me. He’s afraid I will hurt her. I used to worry that you would. But, not anymore.
And, the idea of staying away from her causes me to feel uncomfortable. It feels like there is something acidic being poured down my throat, filling up my lungs and twisting my intestines into knots.
Putting a barrier in between me and Granger feels like testing the gods themselves. I’d tell Theo he was wasting his time but I don’t know how to explain to him that what I have for Granger is beyond any of us. I want her. Terribly so. Not just sexually. But like that one wish you had as a child, growing up. The one you’d whisper into the ether when nobody else was around as soon as you saw that first star blink into existence in the night sky. You’d squeeze your eyes shut and wish with all of your might, knowing that it would never, ever come true. But the hope that it might, if you just made this wish, never left you.
It feels like that. Only, I will never grow out of this one thing that I covet more than any others. Because she already has me. It’s only a matter of time before I have her. Before I can turn her into something more like me.
The memory of you is becoming more familiar. The presence of you inside of me is stronger. Your thoughts, louder. Your intent, clearer. I can feel you with me. It’s as if you are not just brushing against the edges of my mind, but standing beside me.
“I still don’t understand what happened there, at the end.” Theo says, pulling our attention back to him. “You didn’t even look upset about being stabbed. You just…” Theo trails off, his eyes wide and disturbed as he stares at me from across the room.
I just took it. Accepting the end of our life with relief . It’s haunting me, just as much as you are.
Theo has dragged me down the hall to his study after Potter left and I can’t tell him why you accepted death with such relief. You’d probably tell me to let it go. To move on. To focus on what was important. But it feels essential to understand who you were in order to understand why everything happened the way it did.
When we get inside the study, Theo moves to the stack of books against the wall. He’s taking out books about Vampires. He’s taking out books about Wizarding history. He even pulls out a book on Muggle history. He stacks them all up on his oversized desk before he settles both of his hands onto it and with a heavy sigh, he lowers his head so that he is staring at the books.
“I’ve been doing some digging.” He moves a hand to the book on top. It’s a Muggle history book on Roman Britain. “This Iron Stake was found in the same area that used to be the province known as Britannia.”
I’m absolutely not interested in this. “Okay.”
Theo, sensing my disinterest, looks up at me. “Muggle history was never your thing.” He allows with a murmur but presses on. “Look, a lot of people think the first Vampire myth came from Old Russia, but according to this book,” he taps the book on Vampire with his other hand. “It started long before that, around the time of the Roman Empire.”
“Okay.” Even though I am a vampire, they interest me a lot less than humans do. I am not concerned with history. I am concerned with the now. I am concerned with Granger and I am concerned about you.
He rolls his eyes and tosses the Muggle history text aside before picking up a book on Vampires. “There is no information about this Iron Stake in the books. I had to learn about it from Hermione, who read about it in the Archives months ago.”
I cannot explain, nor do I understand, the way the bird inside of my chest stirs every time I hear her name. “Go on.”
“Hermione told me that the Iron Stake was found protruding from the chest of the mummified remains of a man with elongated canines, found inside of a burial site that was unearthed two years ago by a group of Muggle archeologists.”
Theo then tells me that Muggles these days don’t actually believe in vampires. But the archeologists believed that the muggles from when these remains originated were simply ignorant villagers and erroneously believed him to be a vampire. Theo says that the archaeologists assumed that people in the village most likely stabbed him in the heart and used the iron pegs to keep him from coming back, which were also found with the mummy’s remains. Theo sets the book down. “But, the Magical community was certain that they belonged to a very old vampire. Perhaps one of the oldest in existence. So, the Ministry of Magic made it their mission to acquire the remains and the artifact. They were able to snatch the Iron Stake almost immediately from the Muggles but before they could get their hands on the remains, they disappeared along with one of the archeologists involved in the excavation.”
“And?”
Theo rolls his eyes and says, ”Did you know it is believed that vampires can live forever?” He then goes on to say that I will never get sick. My wounds will always heal, that I will never grow old. I will always look like a twenty eight year old with nothing to lose.
I will always have hard lines and cold skin and pale eyes. A still life caught on the darkest day of your life, forever imprinted onto this body.
And I cannot imagine an eternity of this.
“Vampires can, however,” He says, interrupting my thoughts. “Go into a deep stasis. It’s as close to death as a Vampire can get.”
“How is that possible?” I shift closer, intrigued. Because, sleep is impossible now. It isn’t evasive, it simply does not exist.
“There’s only one thing that can send a vampire into stasis.”
Theo’s eyes lock with mine and I already know the answer. “Iron.”
“Iron!” Theo repeats. “But, not just any kind of iron,” Theo presses. “But the kind that is forged by Goblins.”
The world is a strange place. “What are Goblins?”
“That isn’t the point, Draco.” Theo sighs and fidgets with his hair again.
“What is the point?” I watch the way he curls the end of a lock of hair around his finger and tugs before he drops his hand and sighs.
“The point is,” He clears his throat. “I think I know who turned you into a vampire and I’m worried what might happen if he finds out where you are.”
This new life is endless. And that makes me feel things that are difficult to explain.
I used to only feel thirst. All that mattered was the mindless hunt for blood. There was only the relief of it coating my tongue, running down my throat. The way it coursed through my body like a jolt of energy. A flash of life. Like, for just a moment, I knew what it was like to be alive.
But now, there’s all this noise inside of me and I feel more alive than ever. And I don’t know what to do with it all.
So, I hunt and I feed, absorbing all of their pain. Or their grief. The dark parts of their soul that they hid from the rest of the world. Sometimes, I accidently absorb all of the life when I lose control.
Drinking blood, it only takes the edge off for a little while. All of this noise remains and all of it revolves around Granger. What happens in another hundred years? What will I do with my time? Right now, I spend a lot of time thinking about her. Missing her. Wanting her.
I spend time thinking about you, too. I wonder if maybe this is how you felt. Maybe you were relieved to die because when you feel everything, as much as I do now, there is no escape from the pain. No escape from the want. There is no escape from the overwhelming need to touch and be touched.
I think it’s this thing in my chest. The thing I wanted but now there is a part of me that needs it gone.
You looked like the kind of person who gave your heart to no one. Or maybe you just didn’t have one anymore. Maybe you gave it up long ago and never got it back. Because you wanted to hurt Granger.
And I can’t give you what you want.
The next day, Theo drags me with him into his lab that sits underground. As I roam the room, it becomes clear that he does more than just brew potions.
I am observing the jars of specimens on the other side of the room. In each jar is a piece of a person, submerged in a liquid. Some of them look like they are stuck in time. Simply floating, intact, as if a day hasn’t gone by since they were removed from the body they belonged to.
Things like eyeballs and hearts. Livers and hands severed at the wrist. “I thought you worked for the Ministry, like Granger.”
There are other things too. Little trinkets that pulse faintly with magical signatures. Things like jewels and lockets shaped like hearts. Watches that keep ticking away the seconds of existence.
Things like white mist that hovers inside of a jar. It’s like a storm cloud, but instead of being gray and full of water, it’s white like smoke and full of sorrow and grief. I can feel it, reaching out for us. It’s powerful and though it’s contained inside of glass, it pulses in response when I lift my hand to brush my fingers against it. Something about the way you recoil causes my hand to freeze, hovering just beside the jar.
Theo’s back is to me as he takes inventory of his potion ingredient closet. “I did.” He plucks a vial of little black seeds and shakes it around before setting it back on the shelf. “I used to work for the Department of Mysteries. Specifically, I worked with ‘The Veil’.”
Theo tells me that The Veil is thought to be a mysterious barrier between the living and the dead. “They had me perform many experiments over the course of several years. But, now I am able to put time into projects that are more centered around my interests without all of the bureaucracy hoopla.” He uses his wand to print something into a notebook in his other hand.
“Such as?” I ask as he reaches down to pick up an empty vial on the bottom shelf.
“I’ve been working on my own theories revolving around the mysteries of the afterlife.”
“Such as?”
“Do you remember what I told you about the difficulties of contacting the spirits?”
I find myself compelled by the jar of emotions. “You cannot summon them. They are like nomads. Lost and unsettled.” They are like me.
Theo nods as he glances over his shoulder at me. “The ministry thinks that is because they are stuck inside of a place beyond the Veil.” He rolls his eyes as he goes back to taking inventory. “The dead can come and go as they please.” He taps at a jar of fennel seeds before moving his attention to a jar of slugs, still alive and slithering around on top of each other. “They are difficult to summon because they travel. However,” his voice lowers, his words a murmur. “I believe that there are many that get stuck somewhere else. Sometimes they might even become quite volatile.”
“Why?”
“I assume unfinished business from their past life.”
“Where do they get stuck?”
Theo clears his throat before he replies. “I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “It’s just a theory, as of right now.”
“What else?”
“Well, they require experimentation that is rather unethical.”
“More unethical than destroying Emmitt’s soul and hiding the body of a man I killed?” I ask, genuinely curious.
Theo huffs out an amused breath, but he still refuses to turn around to face me. “Well, it’s all a bit sticky.” By sticky, he means macabre. Because Theo deals in the dead. He deals in the strange and unusual. He deals with things like me. “I have been trying to force memories out of the dead by way of electrotherapy.” He finally says with a sigh.
“How do you do that, if they are dead?”
“Well, I haven’t succeeded yet.” He grumbles. “But, the theory is that some of it lingers behind, with that bit of their soul. Like with Emmit Scott.” He shrugs, but does not elaborate further. I can’t help but wonder where the dead bodies come from that he experiments on.
I find myself smirking over at him, the amusement from the audience mimicking my own. “What else?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Rubbish. Theories that go nowhere.” His words are clipped and I can sense that he is unwilling to go further into detail. For now.
I pull my hand away from the jar of churning mist and it flares bright, like one last cry for help before it loses us. I can feel your relief as we move away from it. I don’t understand why this jar makes you uncomfortable. More so than when we are with Granger.
“It isn’t any less.” I say as I move to the center of the east wall. To where the large cauldron sits on a large stone table. Under the cauldron, the stone is carved out to accompany the fire that is used to cook all of the ingredients together. Like a large magical soup.
“What?” He finally looks up and over his shoulder at me.
“It only feels like I want her more.” Granger.
I’m standing at the workstation, running my fingers over the lip of the cold, empty cauldron before I move them to the chopping board. The knife sitting on top of it.
Theo thinks it has to do with the blood. Her blood, your blood, my blood. Our blood.
That having her blood before we died, as we died, connected us both in life and in death. He thinks that it is what brought me back to life. “As alive as you can be, anyway.” He shrugs as shuts his little notebook and stuffs it into his pocket. He’s talking about my heart reanimating itself in reaction to her blood.
I think about this. And I am completely different from when I first woke up. When I woke up, I was nothing. But, then Granger came back into my life and suddenly, I am everything . I think I feel more than you did even before that stake was driven into your heart.
I wrap my fingers around the hilt of the blade and lift it up to peer at the sharp tip.
What Theo doesn’t know is that it runs deeper than that. Because it feels like you’re keeping something from me. But everything we feel centers around her . We need to make her mine. I need to know that if I have to live forever then she will too. Even if you wanted her dead. Actually, because you want her dead.
Maybe love is stronger than hate. Either way, whatever I feel needs relief.
Theo straightens and turns to look at me, sliding his wand into the other pocket of his pants. “I still think that you should keep some distance, for now. Give yourself time to process everything.” His brow lifts as he eyes the knife in my hand. As he slowly makes his way over to me.
I don’t agree. How do you even process the fact that you are dead because of the woman you love? How do I process the fact that you have never felt more alive than you do now? Because of her?
I just frown as I stare at the hilt made of rosewood, intricately decorated with a moon and star made out of ivory. Because I cannot tell him all of that. He doesn’t know about you. Not really.
Ever since the night we watched me die, something is crushing the bones in my chest, threatening to kill the little bird that is still trapped there, flapping its wings and cawing out for something, anything, to relieve this tension.
I need love to be stronger. But, this little bird inside of me is such a nuisance.
It’s this little tyrant inside of me, dictating what I say and what I do. But it isn’t really telling me anything at all. It’s just creating more noise.
I hold the knife between us and Theo’s eyes flash with curiosity. “There is a living thing inside of me” I tell him. Remind him.
“What?”
Theo jerks forward, like he might stop me, but the blade comes down too quickly for him to stop it. It sinks into my skin, the tip of the blade landing right beside the pink scar left by the iron stake. It breaks through bone, before it pierces my heart.
I grunt from the pressure. The discomfort and pain . The pain feels familiar. And yet, there isn’t a thing I can compare it to. I feel weaker than I ever have. My body temperature shits from hot to cold.
My heart stutters. It hiccups and tries and tries to beat but there is no pressure. It’s ruptured by the blade. The little bird squeezes in its wings, tightening around the blade before it stalls. Then stops.
“Draco!” Theo’s skin blanches on his face, his lips remain parted, the O of my name silently hanging on, as if it could somehow save me. My blood isn’t warm as it trickles down my chest, but it still smells like green apples. Tart. Crisp.
I pull the blade free and watch as blood pools out of me. Liquid ribbons that fall and fall faster than you can count. I feel empty. But not in the way the endless thirst feels empty. I feel incomplete, hollow. My heart lays dormant again. I can’t tell if this is the result I was hoping for or fearing. I’ve come to associate the beat of my heart to Granger and the way I feel for her. It reacts to her proximity. It flutters its wings and puffs its feathery chest out, forcing the air up into my throat. It’s been a torturous, uncomfortable little creature.
But the pain vanishes. I regain my composure as we watch the blood flow slow down, the wound coagulating. The skin stitches back together. And then Theo is lifting his wand to my chest. The tip of it is siphoning up some of the blood.
His eyes flick up to mine. “You don’t mind if I collect a sample, do you?” He murmurs, his brow still furrowed.
“What am I going to do with it?” I ask him, seriously. But he laughs, the kind that erupts without warning. The kind that surprises even him. The audience joins in with him.
And then, so do I.
Granger shows up the next morning and I can feel the dead heart inside of me quake. As if it’s struggling to restart. I don’t know if it’s because of her scent or the sound of her heart. But it all melds together, creating one overwhelming sense of her that causes visceral reactions inside of this cold, dead body.
I’m tasting her emotions. Like little bursts of flavors shot into the air, misting the city in variations of sweet and spice, as she pounds on the front door. Theo isn’t home. He said he needed to run an errand. He told me to stay inside. He told me not to go after Granger. I didn’t understand why, but now I do.
I can taste it on the tip of my tongue. She’s upset. She’s sad. I can’t tell you how I can sense all of that. You wouldn’t care, anyway. Just know that I am attuned to her and something about that makes me feel more alive than you ever did.
With her this close, all of my thirst and all of the nothingness swells up and forces me to react on instinct. It forces me to act like the monster I am, because her scent is spicier than usual. Fireworks of anger and pain are shooting up into the sky, calling for a response.
I can feel and hear the blood flowing through her veins. Woosh, woosh, woosh . Over and over and over. Her scent is pushing and pushing, shoving itself down my nose, down my throat. It’s forcing its way into my life and I hate it, I hate it because I can’t imagine a life without it.
When I open the door, she’s panting and glaring up at me. She’s wearing her usual slacks with her long sleeve shirt. Today she’s wearing an off white top with brown pants that tighten around her hips, creating an enticing V in between her thighs. The holster she usually wears around her chest is gone. Her hair is wild, curtaining the sides of her face, cascading down and around her shoulders.
There’s something stirring inside of me, inside of you.
She steps into the home, shoving me back and closing the door behind her. This is a side of her I have not experienced. This is a side of her that makes you want to push me aside, it makes you want to reach out for her. Unintentionally, her anger calls out to you. You’re poking at the back of my mind. Telling me that this is what you have been waiting for and suddenly we both need her and it’s torturing you.
She opens her mouth — to yell at me, to insult me, I don't know — but I cut her off. I’m wrapping her up in my arms and pulling her with me. We disappear in a dark cloud that feels like a detached limb that obeys my every command. We pull her through space and time until we’re in my room on the third floor.
When we land inside of the room, I have her face in my hand and her back pressed up against the door. My thumb presses into her cheek with her chin cradled in my palm as I track the lines of her face. Etched upon her is a tale impossible to tell. Somehow, I can read little snippets of it, gathering some of the words that make up who she is and I latch onto every one. It could take me a lifetime to make out the entire story. Maybe an eternity.
I tilt her head back and forth, looking for signs of harm. I find nothing but the anger sparking in her eyes. It does wonderful things to her scent. It does strange things to me.
“Draco,” Granger huffs and her heart is pounding, pounding like a gong. It’s beating out the syllables of my name. Dra-co, dra-co, dra-co ! Her eyes dance around my face, taking me in.
“What do you see?” I ask her. “A monster?” I lean in close, her breath hot on my face as I say, “The villain in your story?” Because that is what she should see.
“What?” She shakes her head, her voice is breathy and her curious eyes narrow as her brow furrows. She looks hurt by my question, offended by my assumption. “No, Draco, I like you.”
And really, why can’t you like the villain? Because the television says so?
Those drab, prewritten plots are suddenly underwhelming. Inaccurate, in their portrayal of human behavior. Because I’m not actually upset with her . It isn’t the fact that her hand was on the stake in my chest, it’s the fact that you put her in that position. I’m angry at you. I’m angry at myself.
But you can’t just tell a predator to calm down.
“But,” she says with an exhale. Her voice drops to something small, and uncertain. “Please tell me you didn’t do it.”
Her cheeks are soft and warm as my thumb digs deeper into the ripe flesh of one. Just like a peach.
I can imagine it. My thumbnail digging in, creating the crescent shape of a bite before breaking through. I can imagine myself reveling in the texture of torn flesh, slick with her blood. And I can imagine closing my lips over the wound, sucking out all of that sweet nectar.
“Draco?” Her voice calls me back.
I shake my head and refocus on her big, curious eyes. “Do what?”
“Kill all those people. Harry responded to a call near here. A witch reported her uncle missing. He told me that there has been a rash of disappearances. Hundreds of people have vanished into thin air.” She swallows. “He thinks it might be you. That you’ve been feeding your way through the country.”
My nose twitches and I think about lying. Part of me hates that she’s even asking me that. Like I’ve been counting on her ignorance for some sort of free pass in life. The other part of me is relieved. Because doesn’t she deserve to know?
Shouldn’t she already know?
“Are you asking me if I remember every single person I fed from?” I frown at the way the words push past my lips. The words don’t feel like mine. “I couldn’t tell you one from the other.” The words feel like yours. And you’re lying. We could tell her the way every single one of them tasted. The minty ones. The sour ones. The ones who tasted like vanilla. The ones that tasted like cinnamon. But never both. Nobody ever tastes like her.
Nobody ever will.
“What is wrong with you?” Her voice is slightly muffled, my fingers pinching her cheeks until her lips push together like a fish. But her eyes flare. From here, it looks like they spark. Like bursts of gold flames igniting and fanning out around her pupils. They look like little supernovas encompassing a black hole that is constantly pulling me in.
What's wrong with me? To begin with, everything .
“You know,” I let go of her hand and my voice is doing that thing again as I take a small step back. That thing where all of the words I try to say swell and push against my throat, crowding the narrow passage. “You know what I am.” I clear my throat and I think about the monster I was before. I think about you.
“Draco, I have been putting all of my energy into solving your case, determined to find whoever did this to you and you’re making it difficult. Harry is already thinking about pulling me off of the case because I keep defending you!”
“To hell with the case. Forget about the Stake and whoever killed me. It’s not important.” She cannot get anymore involved than she already is. You know this. I know this. But she will never concede.
She growls. “Of course it is!” Her shoulders slump and her hands dig into her hair, nails scraping against her scalp as she whispers, “Draco, I believed in you.” When she looks back up at me, her eyes are lit with frustration and pain. “I fought for you!”
“You have no idea what you’re fighting for!” I cut my hand through the air and a powerful surge of magic pulses inside of the room. She clamps her mouth shut, her eyes widening when the lights flicker and the wooden bones of the house groan in protest. The magic is powerful.
The magic is mine.
She blinks at me several times. Eyelids flutter shut and then open, shut and then open. And with each blink, I see her in there. I see more words to a story that’s like the runes etched into an ancient temple, lost in translation. But slowly, I’m learning the language, I’m learning her.
You take several steps back, luring her in. And she takes the bait. She stalks forward, following me. The way her chin lifts, stubbornly, the rapid rise and fall of her chest? You love it.
She’s glaring at me, but I think she’s really looking at you. Like she can sense you inside, reaching out for her. Her cheeks are flamed bright red and everything about this interaction is familiar, but only just. She wants to fight me. She wants to fight you.
“There is nothing worth fighting for.” My words are as dead as the thing in my chest.
Granger shoves at my chest with her little hands. “How could you say that?” She demands.
I step back into her, pushing my chest against her hands. “You are wasting your time fighting for a cause that has already been lost.”
Granger growls as her hands slam back into my chest again. When she starts to attack me, her hands slapping at my shoulders and my neck, you light up. Something fills up the hole I once thought bottomless. That bottomless pit isn’t thirst . It isn’t hate, it’s just you.
Her little hands keep connecting, violently, against a body that cannot be wounded, sending jolts of electricity into our dead heart. And you love it. It feels good. It makes you smile. It makes you laugh .
“I was fighting for your freedom. For your rights, you selfish prat! I was fighting for you to have some semblance of a normal life.”
Our laughter dies. I wrap my hands around her wrists and pull her in close. “What is normal?” I ask her. “Is this normal? Wanting this thing who used to be a man that you hated. Who hated you? Is it normal for you to smile at me the way you do, after everything we have been through?” I shove her back and let go.
After a stumble, she quickly catches her footing and opens her mouth to argue but I cut her off.
“Why did you smile at me?”
Her eyes widen and her chin begins to tremble. She’s pressing her lips together and fighting the tears that stubbornly want to fall for us.
“Why did you smile when you knew what kind of monster I was?” She opens her mouth to interject but I cut her off again. “I’m not talking about this,” I smack the palm of my hand over the center of my chest and I can feel the bird clunk around, inside of this empty shell. Then I point my finger toward the window. I’m pointing into the distance. I’m pointing into the past. “I’m talking about the man you knew before I died.”
I’m pointing at you.
For a moment, Granger stares at me. We just look at each other. There’s so much pain stitching us together, so much ripping us apart. And I feel it all. “Is it normal,” I ask her, my voice gentler. “To want to hurt you, even when I love you more than anything?”
The tears that were already there, dancing on her eyelashes, begin to fall again.
“That’s not true.” Granger shakes her head, returning to me, and her voice is breaking into little bits of glass, just like the night you nearly killed her. Her hands go to my cheeks. Her fingers caress me, coaxing me into believing. “You don’t want to hurt me. You don’t hate me anymore, because you don’t remember. It’s a clean slate.” I can’t tell if she is trying to convince me or herself.
“There is a part of him still in here, don’t you get it?” I pull back just enough to look at her, to feel the fanning of her breath against my face.
“What do you mean?” I think she can sense it. She takes a tentative step back. “Malfoy, What are you talking about?”
You smile at her, basking in the way that name lights you up. But I’m wrapping my hands around her arms, pulling her in. She’s fighting against me, trying to free herself from my hold but I’m not. I’m not. I’m not letting go.
“He’s in here,” I say. “That monster is still in here and he wants to break you.”
“Then let me go.” Her words are pushed through clenched teeth.
I lean in close, our noses brushing and I say, “ No .”
She tries to shove me away, slamming her hand into my chest. But she’s full of life and she holds the power. The warm light that blooms from the center of her palm shocks and forces the reanimation of the little bird inside of my chest. It clenches before it sputters into a painful start. Before it takes off, flapping its wings until I think it might burst out of my chest, or fly up my throat.
Granger has no idea that my heart has restarted. She has no idea that as long as she exists, so will I. She just glares up at us. Her nostrils are flared, her eyes are bright and I just melt. She melts. You melt. We all melt into one brilliant mess.
Our mouths crash together and I exhale into her mouth as the bird pushes against my lungs, forcing air back out instead of in.
She has no idea, she just gasps and sucks it all in as she arches her back. I slide my hand to the back of her neck and force her mouth open with my own. I deepen the kiss and I am not careful as I kiss her. My fangs are clashing with her teeth and nipping against her lip.
Her hands rip at my clothes. They pull at my hair as she tries and tries to hold me and hurt me at the same time. It’s like something inside of her has snapped. Like all of the hate she used to feel is back and she’s punishing us for making her want me just as much as before.
I can taste her blood as I kiss her deeply, running my tongue first along the inside of her bottom lip and then the top. I growl in response to the taste. Because she’s invading me. The taste of her, the scent of her, it’s everywhere. I feel it coating the back of my tongue, running down the sides of my throat. I feel it in my chest and deep in my groin. I have been taken hostage. She wins, again. Or maybe, this is you winning. I can’t tell anymore. Because you enjoy this side of her. This angry and violent mess.
I break the kiss, allowing her to catch her breath.
“You don’t remember, do you?” I ask, running my lips down to her jaw.
“Remember what?”
I want to tell her everything. And she wants to save me. She wants to catch my killer. Maybe I should let her think that she can.
My fingers latch onto her chin as I tilt her head to the side, licking and sucking a path down, hypnotized by the way I can feel and hear her heart working overtime as it pumps blood through her veins. Her pulse is like a butterfly, its wings fluttering against a heavy breeze.
Fragile and beautiful.
I’m so at odds with what I want from her. I want all of her, I want her to take all of me. My mouth hovers her pulse. I want to break the skin, I want to drink until my stomach feels full. But mostly, I want to love her.
“You would have told me, right?” My voice is a broken whisper.
It doesn’t matter how much blood I drink. It doesn't matter because it has always been there. Even before I died. You were always hollow because you were always in pain.
“Tell you what?” Her hands are in my hair, combing it back away from my forehead and my temples. Like I’m a sort of pet of hers. Like I’m not a monster, like I’m not dying to sink my fangs into her.
“That I died for you.”
Because, I think that this is true.
I died for Granger. Not in some romantic attempt to save her. If it was, that was unintentional. Because I was going to kill her. I wasn’t ever going to save her. You were never going to love her.
But then you died. And here I am.
“I died so that you wouldn’t.” I murmur against her throat.
“Draco,” Her voice has dropped to a soothing croon and she presses her lips against my jaw as I nuzzle into her neck. That is when I know for certain that she cannot remember. She doesn’t remember a single thing about the night she put that beast to rest. “I don’t know why you died,” she murmurs. “But it wasn’t for me.” She speaks into my skin, against it. But when I don’t respond, she stills. “Right?”
She’s quiet for a moment as my nose twitches and my lips part. I run my tongue over the artery, enjoying the feel of those little wings beating against the tip of my tongue. And you’re pushing me, begging me, telling me to just do it, do it, do it !
“Why would you say that?” Her whispers come out with a tremble. I can taste the salt in her tears as they track down her cheeks. As they transfer onto mine. Her heart beat is fast, faster than before.
I whisper, “I don’t know how to act anymore.” I confess this as I pull away to look down at her. The audience is quiet and still. Like the scene has come to an end but the story keeps playing out in front of empty seats. “Because you gave me this thing.” I take her hand and put it over my heart. “And it hurts. Constantly .”
“It’s here,” I flatten my hand over hers. We’re pressing our hands over the spot where the bird is trapped inside of a cage of bones and all it wants to do is get to her. “But it’s yours.” I move my hand from my chest to hers and I find myself counting out the beat of her heart.
Life used to be measured out by the lack of music. The lack of life. The weekly rotation of sitcoms on a little flat screen. Now, my life is suddenly measured out in beats. It’s measured out in quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenths. The song is speeding up and I don’t know how to dance.
“It’s all very confusing.” I whisper as her eyes slowly lift back up to mine. “I am yours, Granger.” I lick at my lips and I ask her, “Are you mine?” We belong to her , I tell you. But you say nothing.
Her fire-flecked eyes stare straight into mine. I wonder what she sees there. Because her lips press into a tight line, and her eyebrows are slightly furrowed.
“Yes.” She finally says, her voice soft and hard all at once. “I’m yours.” Her head lowers with the admission.
“And does it hurt?” I ask, planting my hand more firmly against her breast. I’m asking about her heart. I am asking her if loving us is as painful for her as it is for me.
“All the time.” She confesses in a murmur that feels like the darkest secret she’s ever had is spilling into my soul.
“I’m sorry.” We murmur, running my thumb down to the point of her chin. She sighs when I replace it with my lips. Cranes her neck back as I pepper kisses down the length of it, stopping to run my tongue over the hollow of her throat.
I pluck the collar of her shirt between two fingers and hold it open so I can press my lips against her clavicle. She says nothing in response, only tilts her head back, allowing me access to more and more of her skin.
“Forgive me,” my lips brush against it, and she shivers in response. “Forgive me for whatever it is I did before.”
She doesn’t reply. She just lets me lower her down to the floor. Laying her down on her back.
I pin her hands up over her head and she lifts her hips up, pressing them into mine. Her eyes latch onto me as I slide my hand into her hair, cradling her head as my hips press back.
“Forgive me for what I’m about to do.”
Her eyebrow quirks and her hips stall as I settle my weight more firmly over her. My hips lock hers against the floor. My hands tighten around her wrists.
Her lips part, an attempt to say my name, but her voice gets trapped in her throat when my eyes lock onto hers. Because, I’ve got a hold on her. I think of the night I died. I think about the memory that was erased from her mind.
And in my mind, I say. I beg her; remember .
She does.