Alluring Lullaby

Authors Note: Many thanks to my beta Shannon for her work on this fic

Chapter 10

Autumn gave way to winter, which brought heaping piles of powdery white snow into the Nix’s glade. Normally he would carve lifelike woodland creatures into its icy depth, but he only watching from his frozen pool with mild interest, as the snow would fall, melt and fade away into the frigid ground once more.

When the last of the snow melted and his pool was a rippling liquid once more, the Nix watched as the plants grew high and flourished in the spring hair, growing hundreds of glittering flowers in every color imaginable. But instead of adorning his head with crowns of herbs and roses, he plucked away each one that he saw and crushed it with the weight of his hand or his foot until his rock was covered in a pallet of colorful smears.

Summer was bearable only because he spent most of his time beneath the surface of his pool, hiding deep so that the vibrant green light streaming through the treetops wouldn’t reach his eyes.

As autumn came again he was reminded of his first meeting with Draco; saving him from the brook horse, and their passionate first kiss. A spell had been cast that night, unintentional, but cast just the same and he hated the fact that though he was superior to his human counterpart, he was not immune to the destruction caused by that spell.

Worse then any season though, was the night. Every night, no matter what the climate, brought him a sense of grief so strong he could almost wrap his fingers around it like a tangible thing. It clutched at his heart, daring him to look at the moon, the pale gray and shimmering orb that always reminded him of Draco’s eyes.

The water smoothed rocks felt jagged and rough beneath Harry’s body as he lounged lazily in the center of his faerie pool. The sunlight was too harsh on his eyes, which were swollen and blotchy from sobbing, so he kept them shut and tried to ignore the random autumn leaf that would fall from the boughs of the tree and land carelessly on his chest or legs.

The fluffy top of a nearby pussy willow kept bending in the breeze and tickling Harry’s bare abdomen, and he would swat it away each time. A school of shiny golden fish swam by him, nibbling at his foot, which was draped haphazardly in the cool spring water, until he pulled it out and away from their attention.

When a tawny hawk swooped in from its perch above him, nudging his violin with his sharp pointed beak, the Nix had finally had enough. “I don’t feel like playing,” he shouted, opening his eyes for the first time in hours and shooing the mighty bird away.

He turned to face the wood; plants, trees and animals alike, and he growled, “I just want to be left alone.”

The entire forest bristled around him, the branches screaming words through the breeze that no human would hear or understand. The Nix did, however, and he stood on top of his rock cluster and raised his arms against the onslaught. “I grieve!” he yelled. “My heart is broken and I cannot find the strength to mend it.”

The plants shuddered at his words, green and crimson leaves falling to the ground all around his glade, but he didn’t back down. “I know what you think of me, that I’m foolish and weak, and you’re right,” he spat. “I fell for a human, there is very little I could do more foolish than that.”

A thin black snake emerged from behind him and wove around his ankle, up his calf and kept climbing Harry’s body until he scooped the small serpent up and held him up to his face. A shallow hiss escaped its scaly mouth, punctuated by a vibrant red forked tongue and glistening ivory fangs.

“The Malfoy boy broke your heart,” it hissed, and Harry nodded solemnly. “He’s been in our forest every night for the past six years,” the snake told him.

“What?” the Nix asked, not sure he liked knowing it had been so long since he left Draco’s side. He also hated the realization that Draco couldn’t find his way to him. His eyes flicked briefly to the massive thicket of spiny thorn bushes that surrounded his glade. They had grown over thirty feet tall in the years since he had isolated himself inside their deadly walls.

Perhaps it was time he took them down and let Draco find him.

The snake shook its sleek black head in response. “He’s learned nothing. Every night we test him to see if he has become worthy of you, and every night he fails. If he passed even one of our tests, he would find his way to you. We hate to see you so forlorn, but you must give up on this boy.”

Harry sighed and put the snake back onto the rock, where he slithered away, camouflaged by the slick black stone, to his home in the center of it.

He knew better than anyone the folly that it was to continue to hold onto hope. Hope that Draco would come for him, hope that he would have grown and matured. Hope that he would be capable of feeling a love for him that was even a fraction of what he felt.

But Draco was trying. Every night he sought him, every night he allowed himself to be tested by the wood, every night Draco thought about him enough to venture from his warm bed and into the brisk night air and dark foreboding forest.

That had to mean something, right?

Six years. He could hardly believe it had been so long and his mind began to wander, thinking of what Draco must look like, what he must feel like after so much time. There were no differences in himself, his body and appearance remained the same eternally, but Humans aged quickly, wizards less so, but still the change would be obvious. He wondered if he still fit against the boy as he did before, if there was still a niche carved out of Draco’s flesh where he could be held and find peace.

“Enough!” the Nix shouted into the air, falling to his knees with a heavy crack. “It must end! Take me; please just take me into your earthen embrace at last. I need peace, I need silence, I need a world without Draco Malfoy in it!” he begged.

The rocks beneath him shook in answer, and he waited, waited to be swallowed up by the forest, waited to go to his final place of rest, waited to finally be rid of the mortal world and his too human thoughts for good. But nothing happened.

“You’re not ready,” the forest answered at last, making Harry sob once more into his hands and he fell into the water, letting the cool spring mask his tears and trying not to hear the world continue moving around him in its taunting dance.

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Draco prodded at his own reflection in the large gilded mirror his room afforded him.

His skin had somehow gotten paler. He hadn’t thought it was possible to have a more porcelain hue than he had before, but six years of isolating yourself inside would apparently do that. His hair remained untrimmed, and now rested in a sleek ribbon tied at the nape of his neck and flowed down his back to pool slightly when he sat.

His once sparkling silver eyes had dulled, and there were permanent black rings under them at all times, as he slept very little. He ate even less, and his body was proof of it. He was always thin, but he was unhealthy looking and looked nearly as hollow as he felt.

Narcissa ensured that he stayed well groomed, but she had been away visiting her sister for over a week and thick blonde stubble graced Draco’s chin in her absence. It made him look scruffy and if not the expensive fabrics he wore, a person might think him homeless.

Though to be honest, his clothes were ill fitting, as he refused to leave the Manor grounds for even a moment to go into town, fearing that Harry would choose that same moment to finally visit him once more. He relied on his mother to buy things for him, or for his tailor to visit him at the Manor, which was infrequently.

He had been made into a cautionary tale. Parents used the story of the beautiful and wealthy child who was set up to have everything, but disobeyed and ventured into the dark forest only to be enchanted by a monster, who stole his soul away and left him an empty shell.

Sometimes he wondered if it was the truth, if his mind had played tricks on him as it had his father and if Harry really was just a monster and if he should have just stayed out of the forest that day. He would be married by now; he’d most likely have at the very least one child to call his own and he’d be happy.

He couldn’t even remember what happy felt like.

The feel of Harry’s lips, the smell of his hair, the bell-like quality of his voice were all things that made him happy, and all those things were slowly fading from his memory with each day that passed.

Draco could barely recall the gemstone gleam of his emerald eyes, or how his thick hair would fall around them both like an obsidian blanket when they made love, or how captivating it was to watch him flow from one form into another like liquid being poured from glass to glass.

He should have captured the fickle sprite, held him close and never let him go. He was a fool, and he reaped a fool’s reward.

Every night he ventured into the forest and each time the enchanted wood gave him a choice. Sometimes it was paths, just like the first night, sometimes he had to pick between three mushrooms to eat, or which animal to follow. The next mornings he would wake up on the forest floor with twigs and leaves in his hair and dew on his skin, but no Harry.

That night was no different and as he ventured into the wood, he tripped and stumbled to the spot where the forest tended to communicate with him. As he sat on a rotting log and waited for his test, a thin black snake made its way over to him. He peeked down at the serpent unwaveringly. It was common for the forest to send an animal to him, so he paid little heed to its sleek black body as it got closer and closer. He only first began to panic when the tiny snake bared its fangs and lunged for his leg, but by then it was too late and Draco fell from the log as his muscles began to atrophy and his breathing started to slow.

Blackness enfolded him as he laid flat on his back looking up at the stars through the forest canopy, and he rasped Harry’s name into the night sky before the dark took over his vision.

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“We told him you’d been coming here and he asked for us to kill him,” came a tiny hissing voice beside his ear.

Draco opened his eyes and turned his head to see the same black snake that had bitten him fill his sight. “You bit me,” he groaned, rubbing the swollen place on his ankle where the fangs had penetrated his flesh.

“You deserve worse,” the snake hissed with half lidded eyes.

“How am I even hearing you?” Draco asked rather petulantly as he strove to sit up.

“You’re hallucinating,” the snake informed him.

“Am I dying?” he asked, poking at his flesh and looking more closely at the wound on his leg.

“You will if you don’t listen to me,” it hissed in a tone that Draco gathered to be unfriendly.

“But you said you’re a hallucination, which means I would really be listening to me,” he replied, feeling more confused than normal. He didn’t know if it was the venom, or the snake talking to him from a few paces away that brought on the confusion, but he didn’t like it.

The snake bared its fangs and Draco put up his hands in surrender. “Our Nix is dying,” he told Draco. “And if he dies our wood will die.”

His eyes widened and his breath sped up. “He can’t. Harry can’t die, he’s immortal!”

“He’s been wounded too severely by his heartache and he’s begging to be taken underground, buried in silent and permanent death,” it hissed in reply.

“Just don’t listen to him!” Draco shouted.

“We must, we can only delay his passing for so long while he ruins our forest. The closer you get to his glade the bleaker things become. The trees are dying, the plants no longer flower, the surrounding waters have all but dried up,” the snake informed him as it bobbed back and forth.

“But you said that if he dies, you’ll die too,” Draco reasoned.

“If he dies of this grief, we will all perish, but if we take him into our womb, we can thrive again on the magic he’ll provide us,” the snake replied.

“So what, you’re telling me that there is no hope, I’m going to lose Harry forever!” Draco exclaimed, his gritting teeth holding back the sob that wished to be wrenched from his throat.

“You are his only hope. You need to listen to your heart, let it lead you to the Nix,” it hissed.

“I’ve been trying,” Draco whined, pulling his knees up to his chest. “I’ve tried every night over the last six years and still you deny me.”

“You choose what is easy, you chose what is pretty and soft and sweet,” it hissed, as if lecturing him.

“Of course I do, those are the things I think of when I think of my Harry,” Draco rebuked. “He doesn’t live in an ominous wood with thorns and underbrush, he lives in a glade, beautiful and pure with sparking light and blooming flowers.”

“That was before you banished him from your life. Now he lives among a tower of thorns and his forest is dying all around him and he knows nothing of it. He’s oblivious to the pain of the wood because of the pain in his own heart.”

“So I choose the dark path, the one that will rip my clothes and scratch my flesh and cloak me in darkness?” Draco asked, somewhat disbelieving.

“You choose the path that is most difficult, because the road to true love is never easy, and you, choosing to love an immortal being of nature is so much harder than most,” it hissed in reply and Draco understood.

He sighed and nodded, wondering what would come next when the wood separated, as it had hundreds of times before and gave him three options.

Taking a deep breath he stepped onto the path that was darkest and filled with underbrush. He winced against the ambush of scratching branches and sinking mud beneath his feet. It felt like miles as the trudged along, imagining Harry’s face as a beacon ahead of him, guiding him along.

When he started to see the edge he closed his eyes, hoping that he wouldn’t see the Manor at the end of the path as he had so many times before. What he did see surprised him though, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

In front of him, blocking him from moving any further was a towering hedge, its branches were coated in thorns and it appeared to be at least a meter thick. He had no idea how to get through it, and saw no way around it.

“Harry!” he called, trying to project his voice through the wall. “Harry, please let me in!”

The wall rumbled and shook before him and after a moment parts of the branches began to fall away, creating an arched opening.

As Draco stepped through it was like entering a new world. The faerie glade still shined brighter than the wood behind him, though the luster was not as he had remembered from years before. The grassy meadow shimmered in the moonlight and led up to the bubbling crystal spring, and in the middle of it all was Harry.

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Authors Note: so, as I'm sure you've been noticing, I'm falling slightly behind on the updates because with the holidays I have had much less time to write, but I'm on it, and I promise to update as quickly as possible. Harry and Draco snowglobes for everyone!