"I find it intriguing," said Narcissa ponderingly, a beatific smile that hadn't been on her lips when she and her husband had disrupted Harry and Draco in the shower curling her lips. "All these short years you both seemed to harbor nothing but hatred for each other, and yet here you both sit, leaning against one another as if you've always done it. It worries me what else you two are comfortable with doing. Of course, I speak of the recent discovery in the shower."
Harry turned to the blonde at his side with a pleading look, but was unfortunately faced with an oddly wary and exasperated Draco instead. Harry sighed mutely and resigned himself to the inevitable. "You're going to give us 'The Talk', aren't you," he stated wearily.
"'The Talk'?" Lucius questioned, raising an eyebrow at the deflated look on the young raven haired man. "I, for one, have no idea as to what you're referring to. Perhaps we shall discuss the meaning of that later. But for now, we must focus on a far more important issue."
Harry almost whooped in pure happiness at being told that they wouldn't be getting 'The Talk', but he really ought to know that it was too good to be true. It was Lucius Malfoy, after all. He felt a sense of foreboding fill him when Lucius eyed them both with an almost amusedly devilish smirk. Narcissa was not much better, and in fact, seemed to make the ominous feeling intensify.
"We're going to be discussing the mechanics of sexual intercourse between men, and the consequences of not practicing precaution," Lucius drawled, the smirk widening at the intensely red skin of Harry's face, and the clearly mortified expression on his son's.
"But we've already learnt this before!" Harry cried, embarrassment filling him from scalp to toe at the mortifying thought of talking about sex with the Malfoy patriarch and matriarch. "You don't need to tell us anymore of what we already know."
Draco grimaced at his father. "I agree with Harry, father. We've already learnt about homosexual sex."
For a split second, Harry wondered how Draco had said that to his parents with a straight face, before shaking himself from his stupor and nodding along.
Narcissa sent her husband a sweet smile, one that was mirrored on her husbands face. "We know that boys, but sexual intercourse between a Vampire and their mate is a wholly different concept to that of wizard sex. Lucius and I shall tell you the differences."
Harry grimaced at the sickly expressions flitting between the two in front of him, and leaned more heavily into Draco's side. "Already know the difference, thanks," he said dryly, thinking of the toe curling pleasure of kissing Draco, compared to the flat, wet, and miserable touch of lips with Cho. "So we won't be needing 'The Talk' after all!"
Lucius sent him a look that spoke extreme lengths of doubt. "I do not know what this 'Talk' is," he stated bluntly. "For all I know, you could be thinking of something completely different to what we are discussing."
"'The Talk' is a conversation between a child and their parents that describes the mechanics of sex," Harry stated just as bluntly, slightly annoyed with Lucius' naiveté. "But I've already had it when I was younger, so we can just cut it short here and move on."
"So I suppose you already know that once you are bitten by your mate, the beginning of your bonding begins and you shall never part thereafter?" Lucius asked slyly, a small rumble of smug laughter passing through his lips at the blank look on Harry's face. "Or that once you mate - or in other words, engage in sexual intercourse, there is a high chance that you will fall pregnant on your first bedding?"
Harry stared at the smirking elder blonde. "Why yes I did," he lied through his teeth. "I read about it in a book once in third year for light reading. Interesting read. Not much use then though."
Lucius arched a fine eyebrow. "And you were fine with falling pregnant? Especially at a time like this?" He asked skeptically. "Especially at this age?"
"That's not a very wise choice, Harry, nor should you even be thinking of becoming a parent at this age," rebuked Narcissa, a heavy look of motherly disapproval on her regal face. "At the very least wait until you are both ready, or seventeen. Or perhaps when we're all not in danger."
"While male pregnancies are known to happen, mother, father," Draco hedged in cautiously, his hand finding its way to Harry's and entwining together comfortingly as the elder Malfoy's turned to him. "What makes you think that Harry has the ability? It seems a bit like you're putting false ideas and expectations into our minds."
Lucius gave his son the regal equivalent of a dumbfounded stare, his sharp grey eyes clearly questioning his son's intelligence. "Have you perhaps gone blind since your inheritance? Or can you not just plainly see that Harry possesses the body shape necessary to carry a child."
Harry blinked slowly and peered down at his own body, that somehow appeared more feminine to his eyes, even as Lucius continued on. No one noticed this except Narcissa, whose lip quirked in amusement.
"He has the hips, the curvature of the waist, and even the motherly ability to care for young. Or did the so-called test reveal nothing to you but a pair of wings?" Lucius drawled sarcastically.
"Lucius, be gentle with our boys, they need to be guided, not mislead," Narcissa chided, eyeing her husband with disapproval. "We were all focused on Harry's wings. If I remember correctly, you stared just as much as the youngest male Weasley, which was, by far, almost bordering on disturbing."
"I hadn't the chance to see such wings in my own lifetime," Lucius replied in a rumbling voice, settling a -very surprisingly- gooey look in his wife's direction. "All I've ever seen are pictures in books detailing wings that my father had once told me didn't even exist. I was awed, a dream that I've had since I was but a mere child was finally fulfilled. And by our son-in-law no less. And that Weasley boy is disturbing no matter what he does; all those lanky pale limbs, it's a wonder he isn't called a ginger spider."
Narcissa softened noticeably at Lucius' odd tone -despite the obvious attempt at changing the subject by insulting Ron-, and Harry supposed that that was Lucius' emotional voice. He did seem the type to never betray his feelings, and Harry was taken aback at the fact that Lucius had shared a -somewhat dull- memory with his wife in front of him. He was surprisingly unaffected by Lucius' taunts towards Ron however.
"Life truly is remarkable," Narcissa said softly, brushing a small hand down her husbands cheek affectionately, her smile widening just a bit when Lucius leaned his cheek into her touch. "Even when it does not start with a great beginning, it always tends to reward those who remain strong in the face of their obstacles."
"Those like us, more specifically," said Lucius deeply, his steel eyes touching upon Harry for more than an instance, before returning to Narcissa.
Harry needn't have asked why Lucius had looked at him like that, as if attempting to provoke him into some reaction. He knew. It was obvious, Lucius had been in the Creature Nest the night Harry had woken from a nightmare, he had seen how Harry had reacted. It rankled how quickly his secret had gotten out, and to the people he had once hated. To the people whom had once tried to end his life in the name of one of the most psychotic criminals in history.
Harry allowed a blank mask to fall over his face and cover the misery, and nodded to Draco when the blonde squeezed his hand and looked at him in concern. He was fine, as long as the elder Malfoy's didn't go digging into his past. He didn't need all the drama, just being Draco's mate would be enough for a lifetime. "I suppose I should get myself ready for the interrogation," he said, instead of continuing a conversation best left behind, and shuffling forward to get off the settee. "Remus and Snape will be here soon after all --"
"Sit down Harry, we still need to discuss the important details of your mateship," said Narcissa sternly, her tone brooking no room for argument and sounding not at all like she'd just been melting by her husbands affections. "It is imperative that you listen, for the consequences can be quite alarming if you do not heed our warnings."
"If by that you mean having children with Draco, I'm absolutely fine with that," Harry replied stiffly, looking both Narcissa and Lucius in the eye as he sat forward on the edge of his seat. "I've always wanted - pleaded for a family ever since I was old enough to think, so if you think that falling pregnant at the age of sixteen is a bad thing, you couldn't be more wrong. As for our mateship, I don't care about bonding to Draco before my majority, or if we're somewhere not as desirable as a manor bedroom, because I'm already considered legal and of age, not to mention Head of the Noble House of Potter, and as long as Draco is there and wants me, then I don't give a shit," he declared, before standing from his seat and striding towards the portrait door, Draco having loosened his hold on his hand considerably during Harry's rant.
"And also," Harry continued, looking over his shoulder at the stunned family. "I'm not afraid of a little blood being spilled, much less Draco biting me. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some werewolves to question," he said, sneering at the mere mention of the werewolves, before stalking through the doorway with a cat-like grace and allowing the empty portrait door to slam shut behind him dramatically, effectively causing the usually perfectly poised Malfoy family to gape at his departure.
"Well that went well," Draco muttered into the empty Creature Nest, no small amount of relief in his voice.
-oOoOoOoOo-
(WARNING: BLOOD AND VIOLENCE FROM HERE ON OUT.)
Harry was alive with anger, his skin practically hot to the touch from the rage beginning to consume him and rattle the heavy chains hanging from the dusty ceiling. One werewolf had managed to chew itself from its rope bindings and had attacked the wizard guarding it, even on stumped legs, and William Weasley was now in the Hospital wing, resting. They were all tense, especially Molly and Arthur Weasley, whom had both rushed down to the dungeon chambers to see their injured son cradling a viciously shredded and bloodied arm to his chest.
Harry was seething; if he didn't know any better, he'd say smoke was pouring from his ears. He had rushed his way to the chambers, ignoring a strained and serious Remus and Snape along the way, and had all but pounded his way through the heavy shuttered door separating the wizards from the werewolf responsible for attacking Bill.
And there he hung in the very center of the cell, strung up by the heavy chains and dangling from the ceiling like a slaughtered animal. It was still in wolf form and growling threats it knew it couldn't act out. What a dead wolf it was going to be.
"What restrictions are there?" Harry asked a pale, grim Remus, whom stood in the doorway of the musty cell with Snape and a few of the Weasley clan cluttered behind him.
"Don't kill them," Remus answered quietly, his thoughtful green eyes watching the struggling werewolf with detached pity. "We need them alive for leverage if Greyback wants them back, and believe me, he will know if his pack members have died."
"Do not render them speechless either, Potter," added Snape in a soft, threatening voice, his intense black eyes glaring heatedly at the werewolf strung up like a marionette. "We may yet hear what Greyback plans to do to Hogsmeade, and it is much more effective for Greyback to hear his mutts scream in agonizing pain when negotiations begin. If they are important, of course."
"Just kill them, Harry," snarled Ron, his previous bout of anger at Harry fading into nothing in comparison to the almost painful hatred of the werewolf whom had attacked his brother.
The werewolf growled deeply in its chest at that, its crazed eyes burning in Ron's direction as it strained once more fruitlessly against the chains. Harry let out a soft hiss, and it was enough for the werewolf to gain its attention from Ron's enraged face. Amber clashed with emerald, and a hiss was echoed by a growl.
"You will not threaten me or mine, wolf," Harry growled dangerously, his wings arching high above his head as if to sweep down and claim another section of limb. The werewolf stilled under the action, its mind at once registering its very vulnerable position, and its eyes stared fearfully at the wings arched threateningly above Harry. "You have injured one of my own and drawn blood, and you shall repay me in your own," Harry sneered, hardly hearing the slamming of the thick steel door behind him.
The werewolf whined pitifully in its throat, its maimed body struggling against its binds as the very pissed off Valerian circled around it. One wing struck down at an incredible speed, and the sickening smack of a thick tail crashing against the far wall was heard in the darkened cell. As was the shrieking cries of a wolf in incomparable pain.
Harry circled around to face the werewolf, his face set in an impassive glare as the werewolf wriggled in the immovable chains. Blood poured to the floor in thick squirts, the stump where the base of the large grey tail had been, thrashing at the sudden loss of the rest of its length.
"Now," Harry said, sweeping his wings around the darkened room and unsettling the thick layers of dust coating the floor. "You will transform back into your human form, and I shall heal you of your injuries. Failure to do so, and you will be saying goodbye to much more than just your legs and tail. Perhaps what's between them will go next --"
The sounds of soft cracking and snapping of bones filled the air then, and Harry watched with near delight as the whimpering wolf shimmered and faded into a larger, less furred form. A man nearly fully covered in scars hung in the maimed wolf's place, his balding head held high as he continued whimpering in pain. Blood still poured from the man, Harry realized, though he didn't much care.
"Good choice," Harry said, neither smirking nor sneering at the glaring man. "I suppose we should skip the formalities and get right down to it. How did you all transform without the full moon?"
"Fuck you," the man spat hatefully.
Harry stared at him with unnerving glowing green eyes, unwilling to let himself go with the torrents of rage within. "I shan't ask you again," he said reasonably. "So you might as well tell me everything you know, or else you might just lose yourself all over the place."
"Fuck YOU!" The man roared, rattling the chains loudly as he thrashed in their tight hold.
Harry waited patiently until the maimed werewolf tired, and the silence was broken only by clinks of chain and heavy panting. "Tell me," he said.
"Go fuck a tree, you pathetic --" The man began to seethe. Until Harry held up a hand and Silenced him. The man's mouth still moved as if screaming, but nothing could be heard but the chains moving and the deliberate caressing of Harry's once again blood soaked wings against the floor. The man's eyes followed them, wary and fearful.
"Now you're just being rude," Harry muttered, not at all impressed by the man before him. "Yes, I've taken away your ability to walk and move things, but that was the least damaging thing I could have done in that situation. I could have removed your head from your shoulders, paralyzed you from the neck down, even. But I didn't. Though that doesn't mean that I won't now.
"You're on very thin ice," he continued, baring his teeth in an animalistic grin. "And if you think that we need you for information, like Snape said we did, then you should know that it doesn't matter a thing to anyone if you live or die. Personally, I couldn't care less if you happened to die, because I know that I'd be the one killing you. But, it would be nice if you lived, I don't want to have more blood on my hands just because I got a bit - carried away."
The blood in the man's face drained, and Harry watched expectantly as a newfound horror seeped onto his wrinkled face. Good, now he knows what's at stake, he thought.
"So, shall we try this again?" Harry asked the man rhetorically, removing the Silencing charm with a snap of his fingers. "How did you all transform without the full moon?"
"Kill me, I don't care," the man hissed angrily, his yellowing teeth bared in a feral grin. "But I'll never tell you how we did it. Fenrir will kill you Potter, and everyone you love, and I'll be there on the other side waiting for you --!"
Harry swung his left wing down with a sharp hiss, slicing through tendon and muscle and severing the top of the already stumped legs from the man's pelvis, and watched with a blank face as blood - a fountain of gushing thick blood fell down onto the cell floor in waves. His nose wrinkled at the disgusting aroma, but he stood still as the life in the werewolf's eyes slowly began to fade out, and a tortured howl rang out from between the man's chapped lips, surely echoing throughout the castle.
"Fenrir w -will kill you!" The dying man shrieked with every ounce of his being, his energy waning with the blood gushing from the shredded flesh at his hips. "He'll kill e -everyone you ever love -loved . . !"
"I welcome him to try," Harry said, watching without emotion as one of the threats to his family faded from existence in one of the most painful ways in the world. "But he will not get very far."
The man gave one last gulping breath, his eyes summoning one last spark of hatred, before he slumped in the hold of the chains and was finally still, his entrails hanging to the ground like a curtain of bloodied confetti.
The stench was awful.
Harry ignored the horrifying scene and strode to the door, knocking on it twice to get the attention of whomever guarded the cell outside. A shutter in the door opened, and a pair of black piercing eyes peered into his own. Fortunately for Snape, and the grim group behind him, the entire cell was too dark for them to see into. Harry knew that the grizzly sight would give them nightmares for weeks; even Snape, who knew all too well the innards of wizards and witches alike.
"He revealed nothing about the full moon," Harry stated blankly, staring indifferently into the tunnel-like gaze of his Potions professor. "He was of no use to us alive or dead, not like the others. He knew nothing."
"Did you kill him?" Asked Snape, whose nostrils flared at the stench of blood that wafted through the small opening. The answer was obvious by the lack of noise coming from the room, not a chain clinking.
"Yes," Harry replied.
Snape nodded once, a stiff jerk of his head, before the shutter slammed closed and the sound of locks clicking open were heard. The door opened with a creak, but before the people beyond it could peer in, Harry stepped across the threshold and blocked whatever view the light in the hallway would have revealed.
"Do not look in," Harry warned the others assembled before him, his wings looming purposefully in the doorway and hiding the scene from the others eyes. He turned fathomless green eyes onto intense black ones. "Where are the others?" He asked Snape quietly.
"You will kill them," Snape stated softly, rather than asked, his eyes recognizing the protective anger etched into Harry's face in an instant. "You've already decided," he said lowly.
Harry bowed his head, though he could hardly be called 'Harry' at that moment; he was all enraged Valerian, too angry and empowered to protect his family to care about the fact that he was about to end even more lives.
Harry stepped out of the doorway, minding his wings and the scene behind him as the door began to close. That was, until Ron caught sight of the mangled body of the werewolf through the sliver of light, and stopped everyone short.
"Bloody hell, Harry," the redhead breathed in horror, turning wide blue eyes on his blood-covered best friend. "You tore him to fucking pieces!" He exclaimed.
"He hurt Bill," Harry said quietly, watching as more than a few of the people assembled blanched and stepped back from him, looking at him as if he was about to attack them. "He was a threat to all of you. I had to stop him, I couldn't let him hurt you."
"But you shouldn't have had to kill him, surely --" Hedged Hermione uncertainly.
"He vowed to kill you all, don't you understand?" Harry snapped, his shoulders bunching up in rage at just the mere idea of the deceased werewolf getting his claws anywhere near his family. "I couldn't let another hurt you - Voldemort was one thing when he kept trying to kill me, but a werewolf of Fenrir Greyback trying to actively rip your hearts out? No. I won't allow it."
"At the cost of putting more blood on your hands?" Hermione asked quietly, gently. "It tears you up inside, Harry. We can see it by just looking at you; killing isn't in your nature. Killing Voldemort was what you needed to do, but even that almost destroyed you. Protecting is --"
"I'm protecting you," Harry cut her off roughly, walking a little ways from the silent group to find the other cells that contained the other werewolves. "I'm fine, as long as you're all safe and happy. What that werewolf did to Bill was inexcusable, I tortured him for the sole reason of drawing blood from one of my own. If he had managed to maim one of you . . . I wouldn't have killed him as quickly."
"You wouldn't have," Hermione stated, if a bit uncertainly.
Harry turned his back to them then, his blood spattered wings almost a barrier between them. "You're right, as always Hermione," he conceded. "I would have kept him alive a lot longer and tortured him until his heart gave out," he said gruffly, before stalking down the connecting hallways and locating the separate cells holding the werewolves, his family staring at the place he had disappeared.
-oOoOoOoOo-
It was dark and quiet in Harry's room, much like he liked, but the peace of the moment wasn't as present as it usually was. Instead the air was filled with the screams that the recently deceased werewolves had emitted from their torture, their pleas rolling around his head on a continuous loop for him to stop. He was a monster. He had tortured the werewolves and killed them.
Dumbledore and the other Heads of Houses had been quiet when he'd informed them of how and why Greyback's werewolves changed without the full moon, his form completely soaked through with the blood of the recently deceased. He hadn't known it then, as he had been so unfeeling after all the pain he had dolled out, but they had all looked at him with pity. Even Snape.
Why had he been so adamant about doing the interrogating himself? Why had he let his emotions get the better of him? Why had he tortured them? All of these things had been stuck in a never ending cycle of repetition, bearing more and more pain and weight on his chest than before.
As soon as Harry had entered the Creature's Nest, feeling dirty inside and out, the dam holding back his emotions had failed and emotions so brilliant and powerful had filled him with despair and pain. Tears had streamed thick and hot down his face, chipping away at the blood staining his cheeks, all but reminding him of the torture he had just been dolling out to the captured werewolves. Of the lives he had taken.
Fortunately -or not so fortunately-, no one had been in the common room to see him break, and he had dashed for the bathroom to scrub at his skin and wings until he was red raw all over, all the while letting out the sobs of despair and self-loathing that had threatened to overwhelm him. He was a mess, and not one that could be easily fixed. He had killed yet again.
He was in his darkened room in the dormitory, having retreated there after his thorough shower in case someone had tried to talk to him, though nothing was ever truly dark for him. Not since his inheritance. But he appreciated whatever darkness he could find for himself, even if he could still see everything in detail. He loved being in a dark room, the solace of knowing that if he opened his eyes and saw nothing, he was somewhere no one could hurt him. Somewhere where nothing but him existed.
That was until arms wrapped around his waist, and a body spooned up against his back. He thrashed and struggled against the grip, panic bubbling up his throat as he realized that he was trapped and --
"Harry, it's me," said a familiar soothing voice, velvety lips brushing the shell of his ear affectionately. "It's me, Draco."
"Oh, Draco," Harry choked out, emotion and panic still swelling his throat. He collapsed into the arms holding him almost immediately, losing all semblance of control as the wonderful feeling of being held by his mate bloomed within his constricted chest, battling against the despair and agony festering there. The tears began again, and seared at the back of his throat as he struggled to keep the lid on his emotions, a battle he lost quickly.
"I'm here, love," whispered Draco softly, pressing little kisses up and down his neck that invoked nothing but warmth and affection for the blonde holding him so tenderly. "And I'm not going away. Ever. No matter what you do, you're still Harry Potter."
Harry sniffled wetly at the heartfelt words and twisted around to bury himself into Draco's warm, muscled chest, his face pressed under Draco's firm chin. Draco brought him as close as possible, but without hurting one another with the pressure, and tugged the thick duvet over the both of them as he settled the smaller raven haired man and himself down for a long night.
He had a feeling Harry was going to need him close all night.