Yeah, I know. Poor vision and blood from a fresh wound on my clothes, running down side roads in Knockturn? Anyone could see that I was about to become another data point, just a bit more weight to cautionary tales. I'd argue that I'd not been reckless, truly, but I'd certainly been one to throw myself against the odds and trust that I'd come out on top. Obviously, I didn't. I couldn't, not every time. But the Ruse was blown. I was scrabbling to recover, and in my hurry to fix that mess I'd made myself ignorant to the real dangers of Knockturn I'd always avoided.
Without my glasses the world wasn't just a blur suffocating me, but a new headache to add to my mana-burn and stress sickness. In the end, the most basic detail was what mattered. A ghoul stepped out of a crowd, and by the time I could put together that something was wrong he was close enough that even I could see the blood-drunk crimson tint in his eyes. A knife slid under my ribs, in broad daylight. But that was Knockturn, after all. Not every street was safe. I'd been lucky, and protected. And, as I hadn't yet become fully aware, the vampires were getting restless. It almost felt funny, in that moment, how pointless all my scheming had really been. I suppose it's still a bit funny, even now. I collapsed into his firm grip as darkness took me, wondering if I would wake up. Wondering if I would even want to.
I did wake up, and it was in a blur. Not the usual blur of being without my vision, but the nauseous world-spinning headache I'd come to associate with unconsciousness. I retched forward only to be stopped by firm steel chains that left my vomit running down my chin and onto my robes. No— they weren't my robes. Somebody had changed me while I was unconscious— and somebody with my best interests at heart certainly wouldn't leave me in chains. And yet my wounds were healed. My body felt better than it had in days, truly. It was only my mind, faint in comparison to the pressure of the ringing sensation of recovery. As my thoughts turned briefly inward (a coping mechanism I find myself rather disappointed to fall into with such familiar ease) I realized things were awry.
I was not in my mindscape, but rather the outer core. The sun burned dimly, but it did yet burn. There was a note on the door out, or rather a memory. As my fingers grazed the warm papyrus, I was plunged deeper into sensation. A wash of blood across my mind, both my mountain construct and Dom's deeper sands. It consumed everything, running raw and rampant towards my core. Dom had brought me to my core with such alacrity that even in memory I found myself disoriented. "Vampiric taint," he had called it. Warned me against opening my core, using magic. Any magic. I was not certain, as I lowered the note, whether I would find his puppet body hollowed and drained or simply consumed with the rest. For something I had been forced to bear, the sudden absence of the Dominion Jewel felt almost melancholy. I lay numbly against the door to my soul for an unknowable time, content to let time slip me by as my body writhed in misery.
I was brought to my senses by the sharp and familiar taste of a blood replenishing potion, not even a mouthful. But enough, just barely, to dull the pulsing grip against my thoughts to something bearable. My eyes opened again, and despite the darkness I was sure I saw a pair of deep red eyes casting light out onto gaunt sockets and forcing the sharp bones of a face into relief. I couldn't even speak before my eyes fell shut again, my body demanding rest from the mere effort of holding myself upright long enough to swallow the potion. I dreamt of fangs and blood and my home.
When I awoke again, it was to see the bars of a cage and my drying vomit in the dim light cast by a distant oil lamp. My chains were gone— no, only made fewer. There was a heavy collar still around my neck, and each of my legs was bound to a bar on a different side of the cage. There was almost enough slack to bring my legs together, but not near enough for a proper duelling stance or even to stand normally. Still, it was enough to bring myself to my knees. My body protested, but even a potioneer or medi-witch in training can only do so much to bear the stench of old bile without a bubble head charm. My wand, of course, was missing as were the rest of my positions. I'm lucky it was, for it was only the delay to my instinctive actions that caused me to remember: my core must remain sealed. It was shocking how quickly I'd forgotten the press of blood, like the tide washing against the door to my deepest soul. But it was there, insistent and demanding enough that I nearly fell again to the floor. But no sooner had I begun to regain my bearings that a man (just a man of soft brown eyes and flat, though well kept, teeth) opened the door. Something deep in my chest was disappointed not to see crimson, and it terrified me more than anything yet had. His wand arm flicked out, and in my fatigue I failed to resist the overcast sleeping charm.
-
Marc leaned against the side of the railing, drumming his fingers in boredom. "I come to these things once a decade, even if it's just for your own sense of pride, I wish you'd have the pre-show ready for me."
"W—well we had a last minute pickup, a big ticket!" The vampire stammered, wringing his spindly fingers. Marc did wonder how somebody in such a position had never learned to mask their emotions, but perhaps it all was a mask? 'No' Marc thought. Perhaps best not to ascribe too much competence to Preston Pettigrew.
"How long until the 'big ticket' makes their way here? I only have so much time, you understand, and I don't particularly care to see it wasted," Marc demanded, perhaps a touch too snappish. He'd grown rather sick of playing the demure young lady, but he mused that he might have gone too far in the other direction. Reinventing oneself was hard after a few hundred years. Still, leaning just a touch arrogant was well deserved when you were a vampire, especially given his own talents. "Do you at least have a name for me, before I return to my rooms?"
“Harriett Potter," Pettigrew seemed to take some pleasure in saying so, but his nerves were again brought back to the forefront when Marc whirled around instantly.
"I will be brought to h— to her immediately!" Marc demanded. "If you're not mistaken, I'll make you a very rich man, Pettigrew," he promised, tone awash with wonder. Perhaps Pettigrew was more canny than Marc expected, or perhaps it was just a very lucky coincidence. In the privacy of his own mind, Marc was dancing with a giddy delight. 'Rigel Black,' he savoured the name. Perhaps it was just because of a long-learned and unforgotten instinct, but he felt he was gliding as he returned to his rooms.
Rigel Black had been of interest to Marc long before the scandal that had swept "Magical" Britain. 'Well, perhaps it's arrogant to say so. I was only barely ahead of them,' Marc corrected himself. But the drama surrounding Arcturus Black and Harriett Potter was so magnificent that he'd found himself drawn to the pair. It was a whim at first, then a passion. Then, when he realized "Rigel" was like him, a young man trapped by society— well yes, a half-blood with expectations and rules binding him from birth, but something deeper: Rigel had felt trapped not just by the world but his very body. Marc knew the feeling. But unlike Marc, Rigel had fought his entire society to feel that freedom.
A pang did run through Marc at that. Rigel, the man he so admired must now be sitting in chains. In terror. But Marc would correct that mistake as soon as possible. The blood trade was a grim necessity, for draining mages satiated one far more than if one had slaughtered mortals by the dozen, a great danger in this age of well-connected Hunters. It was tragic that one so wondrous as Rigel could be caught in that mess. In her— ('His!' Marc corrected himself. It was harder, thinking back to the past) youth, and even hundreds of years from anything that could truly be called a childhood, finding food was simpler. Prey were content, not bound in chains, and nobody like Laura, like Rigel, would have to suffer unduly. Marc still regretted how things had gone with his former love. If that damned Hunter hadn't meddled, if his Mother hadn't interrupted a feeding, Laura could have lived her entire life blissfully content. Marc would do better with Rigel, he swore.
Marc looked down at the boy in the cage, wondering at it all. The fool Pettigrew certainly thought (indeed correctly) that the magically potent child of a head auror was a wonderful prize, both politically and nutritionally, but that nobody else had seen what Marc had— Well, then. People did tend to underthink these things. A girl is a girl, a boy is a boy. Such discrete lies. And when they limit their thinking, they let a treasure like this slip away. Pettigrew, the milling ghouls, the other "discerning" buyers, all idiots.
“I'm buying her," Marc announced, gesturing to where Rigel lay at the bottom of the cage. "Get the details from my retainer, I'll be returning home immediately. Nothing else here could be worth my time after this. And double your fee, Pettigrew," Marc smiled, practically beaming. "Forgive my earlier impatience. Somebody like this was far beyond worth the wait."
Marc lowered himself down to look closer at him, dismissing Pettigrews stammers with a wave of his hand as he did, going so far as to reach out and angle his face for a better look at his features. "Rigel," he whispered in awe. 'You won't have to hide anymore.' He dragged his own wrist against his fangs, and set it to Rigel's mouth. Marc watched in raptured fascination as the other boy drank, the way even unconscious he resisted when Marc withdrew his arm. The way his jaw worked, the softness of his lips, the feeble flexing of his throat. More like Laura than Marc had ever dreamed, though he loved them differently. He was content to watch the boy rest, for some time. But a boy like this deserved better than a cage, and Marc summoned his ghouls to rectify the mistake. 'You're almost home.'
-
When I awoke, it was to the gentle press of soft cushions and a bizarre lack of aches. Though my mind was still awash with pain and death, my body felt entirely relieved. I opened my eyes with a yawn, I felt so sated, but that yawn quickly turned to a yowl as I threw myself backwards away from a set of shockingly close eyes.
"Easy, Rigel," the boy bearing those eyes said to me, so casually that for a moment the shock to my core was utterly dismissed. It came crashing back, of course, as soon as I remembered the events of the last few days. I had been stabbed, held captive, and of course, was in the form of Harriett. Which means despite all our precautions, the ruse had been found out. It shouldn't have been my priority in the present moment, true, but as something that had been my world for so long... The loss of it gutted me, just for a second.
"Easy," the boy repeated, almost crooning. "It's alright, Rigel. You're safe here. My name is Marc, you're okay. I know you've had a rough few days, but you're among friends." He looked at her almost rapturously, those doe eyes peering at her with an unearned fondness that made her skin crawl even as it soothed her racing heart. He remained where he was, sitting at the edge of the bed, but I felt no more comfortable for having had distance between us. I was without even wandless magic now, thanks to the pressure at the edges of my mind, and the flash of sharp teeth as he spoke told me I would not have been safe in this room under any circumstance.
"Look, I know it's been a lot. Why don't I step out for a moment, alright? There are clothes in the dresser, you can take your pick of them. Come join me when you feel able, the ghoul outside will be able to lead you wherever you need to go."
I remained locked for many moments after he left, the sudden absence of his presence somehow cutting where it should have been relief. 'I must have been drugged,' the thought finally reached me, my mind still haggard and slow. I hopped off the bed, thankfully not nude but more troublingly still not in my own clothes. I opened the bedside cabinet in a rush looking for something, anything, and— a flurry of splinters sprayed out over the bed as my fingers effortlessly punched through the handle. 'Not a drug,' my mind, unhelpful as it seemed intent on being as of late, provided. With shaking (powerful) hands, I reached into my mouth. My teeth... Did feel sharp. As they should, ‘Harriett Potter hasn't worn her teeth down on anything since she was a child,’ I reminded myself. Even while forcing down more nausea, I traced my fingers over the contours of my mouth. Sharp, yes, but not inhumanly so. I let out a breath of relief at that, before burying the panic further back.
'Things to do,' I planned frantically. 'Later, look into vampires and ghouls (if what I am isn't any more obvious by then) and see if this is curable. In the short term... Find anything useful I can in this room.' A quick look around was enough to confirm a suspicion of mine. 'No windows. Makes sense, for vampires.' My mind continued working as I scoured the room, finding nothing of interest except that all my clothes seemed to be menswear. 'And he always called me Rigel...' I was puzzled. Perhaps the ruse was less blown than I had thought. Perhaps, despite everything, Archie would be safe. That thought was some small comfort to me.
I found no easy escape as I was escorted to what was apparently a dining hall. Despite the lack of windows, this was an estate, and a rather grand one at that. Or perhaps I was simply used to the Lower Alleys. Still, despite the obvious extravagance of the Pureblood manors I'd found myself in over the last few years, despite the spectacle of Hogwarts, I did find a respect for this place. It was an old place, and unlike Hogwarts it truly felt it.
When I entered the dining hall, I was surprised at the intimacy of it. The room itself was a grand thing, almost arrogant even in the architecture itself, but Marc was sitting simply at a small table with another chair across from him. He inclined his upper body somewhat loosely in a greeting, and damn me but I did find it endearing. Perhaps it reminded me of Leo— and that sparked my brain as well. Leo would certainly have heard something had happened to me in Knockturn, even if he... Couldn't stop it. He'd be on his way, I was sure of that. I wasn't content to sit and be rescued, but it felt like a lovely fallback plan.
"Please, take a seat, Rigel," Marc asked, looking straight at me again with that damned familiar fondness in his eyes. I swallowed my distaste and sat at the table, occluding to force my heart to settle. And... We talked. I can't recall what we discussed, truly. It is clear, in retrospect, that this was due to his vampiric charm. But I found myself laughing along at his jokes, blushing as he kissed my hand, and even sipping the most rapturously decadent wine I'd ever tasted. The only thing that truly broke the easy haze of the breakfast was—
"You're among friends," Marc insisted. "Rigel, do you truly feel so discomforted that you cannot admit the truth you spent years chasing? I envy your courage, indeed, if I had been so brave in my youth so many things would be different that to linger on them eats away at my very heart."
To that, I hesitated. I did feel comfortable, but I was used to holding my secrets back from far dearer friends than this vampire. "What truth is that, precisely, Marc?" I asked, though he clearly knew. I was unwilling to admit it, now, after so long fighting to deceive.
"That you're a man, of course," he said, matter-of-factly. To this, I was so taken aback that I could only laugh, and sputter objections when my breath allowed me. I explained to him that it was part of the ruse, only a tool of misdirection, and he paused. I saw him truly shaken for the first time then and it was a bizarre thing. He looked almost heartbroken, in that moment. He excused himself to think on things, and our breakfast ended on that suddenly somber note.
When I returned to my room, still thinking back to our conversation with melancholy fondness. It took several hours of contemplation before I realized that I had no reason to find a kidnapper so endearing, that what I had drunk certainly wasn't wine. I'd been under a spell. And, so willing in the moment, I'd sipped the blood of a vampire. I threw up, violent and shaking in my fear. Damn the cursed blood, but it tempted me so profoundly even among my breakfast and bile that I fled from the room in fear of what I might do.
When I fled, I fled to him. He was musing, in his study, and looked up to greet me with a smile that quickly faded as he saw my disheveled state. He rose to catch me in his arms as I threw myself at him, and as I struck out at him I only found myself in greater agony. His skin was like stone, even to my newfound strength, and I felt as though I'd broken my hand against his stomach. He did not strike me, did not scold me, even as I reached up to his neck and squeezed worthlessly until my fingers were limp with strain. I sobbed into his embrace. After my panic settled he was my only support as my body stopped responding. His fingers brushing lightly through my hair sent shivers down my body, damn him all the more for it, and I fell unconscious there, as helpless in his arms as I would have been in waking.
I did find occasion to run, for many of the first days to come. He provided me with a potions lab, though what I could brew was limited by the simple failing of not having access to my magical reserves. He left me alone in the weeks following our first encounter. I brewed desperately, adjusting and compensating and hoping to find anything of use for this. He even allowed me access to his library, but no amount of research in the first month led me to a cure, even in these early stages. I was a ghoul, now, and the call of blood would define me for the rest of my life.
In what I can only assume was a show of grand arrogance, he showed me to his garden one late evening. And, in what I'm sure he believed was respect, he left me unattended. I ran, of course. Looking out at an unfamiliar countryside did not dissuade me. What brought me back was the sheer fear that cut down to my core when I realized I could no longer smell him in the air, taste him ever so faintly on my tongue. I joined him for dinner in his study, shaking and sweating and on the verge of tears, and only the taste of that delicious blooded wine managed to soothe my agony. I didn't realize in the heat of the moment that the food must have been there purely for my benefit, that he must have known I had reached my breaking point. Or perhaps he always kept food in his study for when I might join him, some arrogant and grand display of wastefulness. When I made those connections, I was too far gone to object. It felt only a kindness, an accommodation to my mortal needs.
I shared his bed that night, and soon after that first invitation it became a necessity. Sleeping alone left me sweating and ill without his scent, and still deeply unfulfilled without. He was tender, holding me as I sobbed against him, insulting his name with one breath and drawing in his scent the next. That night he drank from my neck, leaving me in a pleasure that no discovery, no success, no friendship, had ever or will ever compare to. I was his, long before then, and lost in the haze of the blood it escaped me to even feel outraged as the chains wove themselves into my soul.
-
In the years that followed, I had grown past my initial hesitations. Marc's touch was as gentle to me as that of my own pillow, his scent more soothing than Amortentia, and his affections fit to still my own heart along with his. I was in love, terrifying a thought as it is. Gone were the nights of waking up to bile and fear, only coming to my senses in his firm and protective embrace. I no longer bruised my knuckles desperately trying to mar his features, no longer gouged my legs and feet running through wilderness.
Further happy news was that I had managed to safely awaken Dom, though his many arrogant and presumptive comments had led me to greatly limit the freedoms I allowed him. He was busy at work, filtering the blood rushing around my core into something safe, something usable. Not much, never much, but enough to brew if I take care. Blood magic made up the rest of the difference. Indeed, without blood magic rituals I never would have managed to dredge him from the deepest currents of my outer core where the blood had buried him.
Blood magic, and even blood alchemy, was a rare gift. I found myself shocked that Hogwarts had never taught such a thing, though as with Dumbledore's alchemy lessons I had to admit that the true depths would only be understood by such a scarce few it was perhaps best not brought to the general attention of schoolchildren. I do admit that Dumbledore likely would have frowned upon my new workings, but an elegant solution like the one he so often works did not see fit to make itself available to me. I was long past the point of 'elegance,' regardless.
All the potions that needed my attention had been attended, and so I left my basement lab. Potions had long been my greatest interest, but all my other time I would happily give to him. Indeed, what else is time for but the pursuit of one's passions? Well, that's something he said. I tend to agree, though I hadn't put it in such words before. I found him, tracking his deliciously spiced scent through the halls, and wrapped myself tenderly in his embrace. My heart fluttered as he drank long and deep from me, the strength I'd grown familiar with put to best use merely by holding onto him as my vision fades into a blissful haze. Of course, I spent plenty of time working on Blood Replenishers, these days. The anemic headaches were well worth the rush of sensation, and the satisfied look of utter contentment on his face as he held me was beyond all but one thing else. When he extended his wrist to me, I bit deep. That was true bliss.
It was not an unfamiliar routine. I would attend my potions, as he would attend his work managing his estate. The ghouls and rare few vampire retainers ensured everything was well stocked and spotless, though it had been some time before I'd found a ghoul I trusted enough to deliver me proper ingredients. They resented me, desirous of Marc's love. Envious. I pitied them, for I could imagine how I would suffer if his attention were to wander and even that fiction was enough to drive the breath from my lungs. Should he finish his work early, I would find him waiting outside the lab to push me to a wall, bite me and toy with me until I find myself a desperate mess. On the rare nights everything finds itself accounted for without delay, I would make my way to his study and do everything in my power to tempt him away from his work. I take no small pride in how often I succeeded.
Marc was busy more often in those days. The Ministry of Magic had done rather quick work, for once, and the blood trade was in shambles. Vampires were fighting the Ministry openly, and I found myself quite often worrying. Marc soothed me, when I worried. He hadn't reported a single death among those I had named for him, though he was unable to account for Kasten and Archie had gone worryingly missing. But Kasten was an isolated researcher, and Archie was likely abroad in the United States again. A safer place to be. I contented myself with those thoughts.
Stil, on that night things were still in the castle. Quiet, almost reverent. We'd discussed everything, from ceremony to simple desire, but it didn't feel real. Tonight, I was to become a vampire. Marc met me outside my lab, all my potions still and stable. I nodded to him, and he walked me to the banquet hall. For once, the entire table was filled. And the hall was empty. Everything I could ever want, ever imagine, was on that table. A last meal, so to speak, but not a grim one. It was splendid; though I wasn't a particularly heavy eater I stayed until my every last whim was filled. As the food settled, Marc and I sat together on the rooftop. We looked up at the sky, the full moon, every last star. He had to excuse himself, after many hours, but I stayed and watched every last smear of colour from the sunrise dissipate into the blue sky. When I felt ready, contented with my mortal life down to the deepest corners of my mind, I went to him with surety.
Marc cupped my chin gently in his hands, and I looked at him with a tender smile. He was being gentle, that most special of times, and my heart grew ever softer. Though my lips had long been his, as everything had, he reassured me by claiming them yet again. His kisses were soft and tender and entirely in his control, something I'd learned to revel in. He walked me forward, step by step, kiss by kiss, until my back was against the wall nearest our bed. His kisses grew rougher, deeper, until the fervour of the moment was so intense that every brush of him was like fire rushing through my body. And then he pulled away.
Marc settled himself, nude but for his simple nightgown, upon our bed. The invitation was clear to me, but my frozen muscles refused to oblige. I had grown too used to the pleasure of simple surrender, it felt as though I had to fight with my very mind to walk towards him. To crawl over the edge of the bed, shedding the finely made and yet robust clothing he had bought for me, and sit before him completely exposed.
"Are you ready?" Marc asked me. Simply. Confidently. The asking was only a formality, really, he knew the answer would be—
"Yes!" I gasped, the moment suddenly overwhelming me. It was the only answer I could imagine giving, to ask the question at all seemed a rare foolishness from Marc. He knew what I wanted, what I needed, so to delay by asking could be only some cruel torture. Before his entrancing eyes and intoxicating scent I could scarcely blink, was near hyperventilating, awash with a desperate lust so unlike anything I had felt before him that even now I felt ungrounded and lost in his presence, him like a beacon my only true center. And yet he waited, looking at me through softly lidded eyes. I realized belatedly that he meant for me to come forward and service him, though he would never be so crass as to demand so on a night like this. A trill of pride ran through me at how well I could understand my master even in his silence.
I crawled towards him on my hands and knees as I knew he enjoyed, head facing down but eyes tilted up to look at him. I enjoyed that too, the raw feeling almost like panic welling inside me as I submit. I had confused it with fear, once, but I had long ago learned that I was wrong. Now I could indulge in the comfort of it, that perfect sensation of being lesser. Even after I was turned I would be lesser, always, for that was the nature of our bond. I thought myself blessed, that this could last more than a simple lifetime.
“It’s time,” Marc told me, low and throaty. He was so kind, to hold back his clear want for my benefit. And he was right to remind me! After all, for this to work as it must... I opened the gate between my core and my outer mindscape willingly, eagerly, awash with the blood and revelling in it. But then I was beyond thought.
-
Marc watched the girl before him with no small pleasure as she writhed rapturously. The scent of her had always been delicious, and for she was his ghoul he would expect no less, but it was deeper now. Harriett’s scent was raw and desperate and, even more than her blown pupils and fixed gaze, it conveyed a ghoul’s desperate need to be claimed. It was wondrous, and he found it was a blessing even (especially) in an immortal lifetime to see such a thing as her. She was a prodigy in every field he had found her to pursue. Managing to delay the ghouls instinctive bloodbond as she had made her devotion a gift rather than a simple matter of course. He had been at first disappointed to find his assumptions of her so profoundly incorrect, but the way she continually surprised him was an intoxicating surprise he had long lacked in his dull unlife.
Marc reached out a gentle finger and pushed under Harriett’s chin. It was so easy, even now. She could likely have resisted him, physically at least, if any intention to do so ever crossed her mind. But she did not, simply lifting her head and exposing more of her neck as he watched the gentle motion. It was beautiful. All of it was: the motion itself, the gentle flex of tendon and muscle, the slow reveal of every bit of skin marked and yet to mark. But he didn’t bite her, not yet. Not now. He was content to wait, on this most special of nights, and watch her tremble with pleading eyes as he ran his nails under her jaw and across her neck.
The soft mattress dipped slightly under her weight as Harriett moved closer to him, beckoned by soft touches and her own near-feral instinct. Marc could see obedience warring with a desperate desire and the clear conflict in her eyes was a treat, to see in it one as strong as her was something beyond compare. He was tempted as well, and so gave in: he leaned forward with an easy balance and claimed her lips in yet another kiss, moving slowly and gently even as he felt her trembling for rougher handling. But as he was soft for her, he indulged. His hands found her shoulders and pushed her firmly onto her back as she silently begged, worrying lightly at her lip before breaking away to stare at her again, as she lay still just as wondrously compliant as always in the face of her desires. For her will she would fight the entire world, and yet she so readily submits to him. Was it truly so cruel, to savor such a rare thing?
One can only savor for so long before a taste loses its charm, however, and Marc moved on. He wrenches Harriett’s head to the side by the hair, smiling toothily at her easy compliance. His teeth meet skin, push, and— the taste of her blood, the last he’d ever taste of her as a mortal, rushed across his tongue. It was practically enough to drive him limp, but that would mean an end to the sensation and that certainly wouldn’t do. By her whimpers, he could tell she enjoyed this near as much as he did. The privilege of a ghoul, he supposed, though his curiosity was never such that he’d wish to be in their place. His grip on her shoulder faded, and Harriett had hardly the presence of mind to support herself even with his hands tangled in her hair. But she managed, and so he allowed his fingers to continue their wandering across her skin from torso to waist to the patch of hair between her legs. He smirked into the bite as she gasped, and set to work driving her truly insane.
-
I woke up rested, spare the pounding head, and finally with a blessedly still mind. I was still and sated and ever more content for the way Master is still entwined with me since he had been from the first moments that the haze of ecstasy began to clear. Unwilling to truly wake and leave the moment, I decided to do some self-assessment and fell into my mindscape— bounced right out to the surface. ‘Well then.’
I had known my core would change, that was to be expected. To be unable to access my inner self entirely made me worried, especially as I hadn’t heard a single thing from the Dominion Jewel. Despite my concern, I had more pressing concerns in the mortal world. Namely, making use of our preparations to ensure I wouldn’t go feral. I had felt fine when I woke, but even mere moments after I was beginning to feel that rush of blood again— but it wasn’t on the outside anymore, I couldn’t ignore it. So I disentangled myself (easily, I could free myself from his grip as though we were both simple humans, and I marvelled at that fact.) and despite the rush of disorientation that threatened to consume me my steps were entirely sure as I made my way to the cask we’d had stocked and enchanted in advance. It was cool, safe, sterile— and filled with enough of my own blood to sate even the desperate hunger of a newborn.
It was odd at first, the tang of my own blood missing much of that desperate richness I’d come to associate with Marc. But it sated me, filled me, and the rushing blood in my head soon calmed enough to realize I’d torn the cask apart in my urgency and spilled blood all down my front and onto the floor. Marc laughed lightly behind me, before stepping over to gently begin licking the blood from my body. He moved with haste, and yet for the first time I could see him as he did so, as a moving figure and not a blur akin to imprecise film. And the rasp of his tongue along my skin- it had been pleasurable before, yes, but the sensation was so impossibly deep now that I believe my mortal self might have collapsed. And yet I stood, balanced and calm and finally free of that mortal instinct to cower from my lover’s touch as if he were a predator and I merely prey. I twined my fingers into his hair and gasped out but somehow, despite the pleasure of it all, despite my heightened and deepened senses, it was far less rapturous than when I’d been paralyzed in fear. When he took me to the floor to ravish me, though, leaving me desperately trembling and helpless before him, it was a pleasant comfort to know that even as equals I was his lesser. And I always would be.
-
All good things come to an end. As with the Ruse, my new life was destined to come crashing down around me. It was worse this time, for I’d grown relaxed and accustomed to things. My blood alchemy was a new passion consuming me with all the more fervor for it’s difficulty. I had spent many pleasant months of my new unlife with Marc, and eternity had never seemed a more comfortable concept. Deep within myself though, I still believe that it was that complacency that got him killed.
He wouldn’t want me to think so, but what else am I to believe when I was pursuing something so unimportant as passion while my lover was broken and burned by Hunters on the floors above? By my dear cousin who was closer than a brother, the only person who could ever be as close to me as Marc. My first instinct on seeing Archie was relief, gratitude in fact. I had thought Marc must have finally found the means to bring him to me, that the struggle in Wizarding Britain had finally calmed. It took some more time, more precious seconds, for me to realize that bites, scrapes, bruises, gouges, meant something rather a bit different to a human than they had come to mean to me. Archie was not coming to me as a well-indulged guest, but as a broken warrior. The weariness on his face, to say nothing of how haggard his body appeared, quickly shifting to relief and then further despair, that truly shocked me. What shattered me was something none of my new strength could protect me from, none of my sharpened senses could have predicted.
“Harry!” Archie called out, voice pained but shining through with relief. “You’re safe now. He’s dead.”
-
Harry closed her journal, drumming her fingers on the surface as if in a dirge, though she’d not been much for musical theory outside of spellcraft. Kasten was to join her for the evening, to discuss their respective craft, and yet she was still lingering in Marc’s old study. She’d written dozens of these journals, a little different in every telling, trying to make sense of the past. Hoping to gather every spare moment of their time together. Eternity was far more daunting alone, after all. Despite the power sitting in her idle veins, her movements were languid as she made her way towards the library to meet with Kasten. He knew the way, and had long been made aware of the moodiness that consumed her. He would manage if she spent a few minutes more looking at the scorch marks that still mark the wall, moving soft rugs to look at the gouges and spell-made pockmarks. The floor was level now, but she’d been sure to have the repairs done in clear magically-reinforced glass. Perhaps it was macabre, but she couldn’t bear forgetting. She clung to every memento. Every scratch on the bannisters, every bloodstain on their bedsheets.
Harry was ever more certain with every retelling that he had abused her. Coerced her, raped her, poisoned her mind and will until she could think nothing against him. And yet even now, even after so many long years, she still panged for his absence. Things felt even duller than she had as a mortal, her superior nature be damned. She longed for his touch, but beyond that a longing for the simple touch of sunlight was becoming far more compelling. She had spent much of her life in basements and dungeons, away from light and never truly comprehending how valuable the day truly was. And in her unlife— well. An eternal night had felt far gentler with somebody to share it with. To see the sun, to see an end to this unbearable loneliness... It was a comfort. But one for later. For now, she would see Kasten. Call on Archie and Hermione, congratulate them for their successes and pray that some topic they broach will capture her interest. Anything but this hollow eternity. She might spend an evening with Draco, laughing together as if he didn’t flinch away every time his empathy touched the jagged edges of her broken heart. Perhaps Pansy. She, at least, remained interesting to speak to.
After much lingering, Harry entered her grand (cold, empty, stolen) library and raised a hand to Kasten. The cold black metal of the ring flickered in the gentle light as she lowered her hand, the embellishment of a feline seeming to commiserate with her for just a moment. She sat down across from the other vampire, settled her notes on the table, and together spent another night fruitlessly seeking distraction from the pain of eternity.