VIOLET (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

15.

He circled the coffee table several times trying to work out what to do. He hadn't thought this through nearly as well as he'd thought he had. Finally, sure if he waited any longer, it would be another month before he tried again, he approached the cup and, somewhat awkwardly without a a way to hold it still, positioned his teeth against the edge of the glass, felt them puncture the plastic wrap he'd taken from his mum's baking drawer in the kitchen, and he bit down hard.

He shut his eyes as he did so, so he couldn't confirm whether anything actually happened, but he swore he felt several drops of liquid drip out.

Marlowe did this three times before he couldn't take it anymore and then he climbed back onto the couch, tucking his limbs up underneath him. He felt short of breath. It hadn't been enjoyable, and that's what he had been so afraid of, but he still found himself almost itching to bite something else, anything else. He tried to fight the urge, tried to tell himself to go to sleep, even though he could never usually sleep on these nights, and that in the morning, that feeling would be gone.

After twenty minutes, he broke down. He bit down on his own forearm — which was the nearest thing he could reach — hard enough to draw blood, and instantly he felt the rush of endorphins or dopamine or whatever chemical it was and wished he hadn't done it. At the same time, he wanted to do it again. He didn't even feel the sting in his arm, didn't care that a bead of blood was dripping onto the couch cushion. All he could think about was how he felt like he'd been designed to do this.

The rational part of his brain was horrified. The human part wanted to turn back time, to erase what had just happened.

The wolf part of his brain felt like it had finally woken up from a year and a half of being suppressed.

Marlowe did not know who he was.

—-

In the morning, Marlowe left the shed as quick as he possibly could. His vision blurred and he felt off-balance. He hadn't slept at all. He had wanted to. He had really tried. But that desire to bite something had been there all night, quiet enough to resist except for that one time because he had, after all, taken the wolfsbane potion, and yet loud enough to notice in a way he never had before.

He didn't take the cup with the venom he may or may not have successfully collected. He didn't stop to look and see how much he had bled onto the couch. He just made his way blindly inside, half-blinded by a pounding headache. He felt dizzy.

His arm did hurt now, but he didn't want to look at it and see the shape of the bite — inhuman. He wished he'd left a sweatshirt or something out in the living room that he could pull on before he went into his bedroom so Caiti wouldn't see it right away, but there was nothing.

He was sweating anyway. He'd never have lasted in it.

He pushed into his bedroom and saw Caiti fast asleep still and suddenly he regretted even asking her to stay here, because now he had to deal with the fact that he was what he was and she was perfect and she didn't deserve to be held back by whatever monster had gotten stuck inside him.

But then she started to stir and, eyes barely open, she mumbled, "Well, come lay down. Aren't you exhausted?"

So Marlowe laid back, his joints sighing with relief and he listened to his own heartbeat which seemed weirdly amplified inside his eardrums and he tried to push back the waves of hatred he was feeling for himself, but it was so hard.

Caiti stretched next to him and then she rolled over and he felt her hand touch his shoulder and then lift up again. "Oh," she breathed. Her fingers brushed the skin just under the bite. Marlowe winced.