Author's notes: Most of the story's first few chapters ('cept the Prologue) pick up after "Half-Blood Prince", but it won't be all about year seven. This is a relatively dark fic, with vampires and other dark creatures. It starts out weird enough, anyway.
Opening Poem, Still if you leave me, written by Sheryl Bennet
Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own anything in the Potter-verse. But if I did, I would be-like, so down with it, dude.
Chapter rating: R
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Prologue: Now
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A life without you,
Cannot be lived.
Don't deprive me
Of the smile that you give.
If you want to leave,
Take me with you.
I demand to go with,
Don't bother to refuse.
We will be together,
Against all odds.
It's us who decides,
Not ill-fated gods.
I mean my words of love,
That i repeat all the time.
Believe in what i say,
And, this love of mine.
Do not leave me,
For I'll become lost.
You know what you mean to me,
You're all that I've got.
Still if you leave me,
Just to keep me safe.
I'll remind you once again that,
I'm secure in your embrace.
What i said,
Weren't hollow words.
Still if you leave me,
You've crushed my whole world.
~Still if you leave me, by Sheryl Bennett
~~
It was a night like this one long before when Hermione Granger became the center of his life. He didn't know back then that was what happened. All he knew was that she had appeared at the Dursley doorstep and quite possibly shifted his understanding of love.
The rain outside the glass window showed no sign of abating and it was cooler than any of them would have liked.
Grimmauld Place, though dependable against heat or cold, was no place for gaiety and good cheer. Even its name bespoke of itself: Grim Old Place. It was perfect for some things and totally inappropriate for others. One certainly would do better not to have a wedding in it. It would feel too much like dooming a marriage even before it started. It was, however, perfect for funerals and solemn Order of the Phoenix governing board meetings.
So its function right now was perfect. There were three black coffins in the basement and three vampires to match it.
Twenty-two year old Harry Potter didn't know why he wasn't more bothered. After all, vampires had that reputation of fancying fresh blood, preferably while it was still pumping alive through their victims' veins. But he wasn't afraid. Apart from being strong enough and experienced enough to withstand their more direct attacks, Harry had complete faith in the one vampire that reigned in the other two.
They listened to her like she was some mother to them, or big sister, if ever there was filial affection among the undead. They made it seem like she was stronger than them in many respects, which was the reason they "feared" her, but knowing Hermione Granger, she gave no reason to be feared unless she was provoked. Her vampire boys Lucien and Solomon probably weren't so much afraid of her as they were completely taken by her caring nature, however caring blood-suckers could get.
How funny that even in death, Hermione won the affection of two hapless boys. Well, maybe not hapless, and maybe not boys. Lucien was, as Harry understood it, at least a hundred and fifty years old. Solomon sounded to be Hermione's age in vampire years, but he had been turned at twenty-five. Still, the concept seemed the same. Solomon didn't know what to do when he was turned and Lucien had been lost in a sea of bad habits, like snorting vampire drugs and relying on the wrong sort of people. While it wasn't exactly like the wide-eyed Harry Potter entering the Wizarding World and the indistinct, ordinary-to-a-fault Ronald Weasley with dirt on his face, there was a kind of twisted parallel to it all.
There was a sound behind him, but he didn't turn to look. It was true when he said he was unafraid. If any one of them bit him, it was probably just as well.
"Cold night," she said, walking up beside him.
His awareness spread over the room and she became a presence. He wanted badly to touch her, but she had avoided it since she met up with them. It hurt him that she wouldn't even let him hold her hand.
He looked at her and he could see the subtle red tints in her bushy brown hair. Her pale skin almost glowed in the darkness and when she looked at him with her honey-gold eyes, they almost gleamed like turquoise. She looked like the perfection of death, and was beautiful for it.
He nodded, tucking his wand deeper into his robes.
"You should be asleep at this hour," she said softly, her own gaze drifting to the droplets on the window. "The boys and I will guard the house."
"I don't sleep at night anymore." It was the truth. He had somewhat reversed the clock of his body through the years and did sleep during the day, though never for long periods. A few hours, maybe. It worked for him, anyway. Most of the Death Eater attacks he had the pleasure of being part of had happened at night, so this reversal of body clock worked out better for him.
She smiled, that hint of fang taking a bit away from the old warmth in it. "Try a coffin. Makes sleeping in the day much better."
He stared at her, wondering if she was joking. She half was and she half wasn't, but he chuckled in spite of himself. "And I thought Lucien and Solomon had a twisted sense of humor."
"Oh, they're consistently better at it than I am, but you always brought out the best in me, Harry."
He faltered a bit, a dull ache and remembered longing surged inside him at her words. "Did I? Do I still?"
Her gaze was cold for a moment before it became filled with such unspeakable sadness. He wanted to reach for her; pull her into his arms and whisper in her ear that everything was going to be alright. He wanted to be that reassuring blanket for her again; have her cling to him for love, and support and warmth and ecstasy. He wanted her.
Nothing had changed, he thought painfully. He may have been a different man than what he was five years ago, and many life-altering situations had pushed him to go one way or another, but his feelings for her had remained constant, whether he realized it then or not. Now he knew, and once again he found himself awed at the impact of her presence. She had always made him see things; had always cleared murky waters of thoughts and emotions. She had been his obsession, after all.
She began to speak.
"There is raging violence inside me," she whispered in her strange, ethereal way. "I'm not afraid of blood. I'm not afraid of death. And sometimes… I'm not even afraid to kill. That changes a person forever, Harry. I'm Hermione on the outside. I might even be Hermione on the inside. But my core… my soul… it's not Hermione anymore. I'm a vampire; a monster. Some might say I'm condemned to hell."
He shook his head. "You're not a monster."
"Harry… right now, I can hear your heartbeat. I hear your blood coursing through your veins. And I want to taste it so badly…" She said it like a plea; a sigh of such desperate longing.
He sucked in a breath, his heart beating faster. Her own breath caught. He knew then she was telling the truth, but how can he be afraid? He was seeing her; speaking to her, as he'd wanted to for five years. He'd read books and texts about her kind; wishing and praying that there was some way he could get her back. Bring her back to them. And now she was back, but her return hadn't required a ritual, or a supernatural summoning. They simply had a shared cause, one they'd have to fight from different sides of reality.
By all appearances it was still her, but more mysterious; touched by a beautiful sort of darkness.
His motivated study of vampires had developed in him a fascination for her kind; a deep, obsessive interest that made him want to understand what drove their blood lust; what abysmal cultures were they entrenched in. What were they really like?
Now, looking at her and inhaling her scent. It was almost as if he wanted those fangs of hers to sink into him. Drink him. She was intoxicating and his desire spiked like it hadn't in five years.
He had known lust during her absence; had even given into it, but what she called in him had always been different; more intense; more natural and primal. Now it was pulsing through him again; that urge to take her and love her.
Her tiny smile showed a hint of fang. "It's just vampire pheromones, Harry. You don't want me. You just think you do. Lucien and Solomon can make you feel the same way if they wanted to, fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, they don't swing that way."
Harry looked her in the eyes. "You don't need to use pheromones on me."
She took his hand and he laced his fingers through hers, pulling her to him.
"Feel that?" she asked. "My skin is cold. It does that when I need to feed. I warm up when I've drank."
If she meant to scare him, it wasn't working.
"Hermione, I-"
Her fingers hovered lightly over his lips. "Don't say anything. Just don't."
And he remembered again, when she had said similar words to him, but back then it had offered promises. Now, it offered nothing.
She pulled her hand away from his grasp. "I'm sorry, Harry, but it can't ever be the way it used to be."
He thought maybe it was better if she had ripped his throat out and drank her fill of him.
She walked away, her footsteps mingling with the shattering of his soul.