After Harry Potter

Severus shuffled his weight onto his other foot in order to ease the aches in his legs. He refused to sit down on the floor because it was damp and he refused to lean against the wall because it was slimy. Never had he thought he would see the inside of this place as a prisoner. Although he hoped prisoner was to strong a word for what he was right now. But with what Draco was going through at the moment he couldn’t be sure.

Hearing footsteps approaching, he straightened and looked toward the door. Did Harry know he was down here? Did he care?

The door was opened quietly and Draco appeared, conjuring two chairs as he did so. “Sit down Severus.”

Severus did so with an inward sigh of relief, taking a note of the other mans appearance as he did so. Draco was edgy and angry and Severus was surprised that it was so obvious. The aristocrat was becoming more effected as time wore on.

“Tell me what’s happening, tell me what we are.” Draco pinned him with an icy gaze and twirled his wand idly between his fingers.

Severus sighed, he’d been dreading this moment, dreaded giving Draco power over Harry but he couldn’t see any other way forward now. There was no point in not telling him, Harry was here now and off the potion which in a lot of ways was a good thing because it meant Harry wasn’t going to die.

“ The Malfoy family line has not always been pureblood, in fact right from almost the very beginning it hasn’t been that way. Have you heard of you’re great great great great Grandmother Aerianne Malfoy?”

Draco eyes burned and a few silver sparks fizzled from his wand. “How do you know about her?”

“Dumbledore informed me, I take it by your reaction you know who and what she was. A spoilt little girl, Aerianne grew up with all the amenities associated with the typical childhood of a Malfoy child. And as her Father often lamented she should have wanted for nothing. But around the time of her fifteenth birthday she was discovered in flagrante with the butler. In the following year she was caught with no less than six of the servants in the household, including the stable hand and the Gardiner, who was then fifty years old.

The family managed to hush up their daughters embarrassing behaviour but on her sixteenth birthday Aerianne ran away. It transpires that for the next two years she worked as a prostitute in a somewhat disreputable brothel and enjoyed herself to the full. However she had one rather violent…punter, who had taken a liking to her and who very quickly became obsessed with her. The situation became dangerous and one night the punter became so violent towards Aerianne that the establishments excuse for security eventually had to kill him. How he managed it is not certain, its surprising he did manage it considering that this man was…as it transpired…a Volterie.”

Draco made an involuntary movement with his hand, “And that is…?” he said impatiently.

“Volterie were a faction of wizards that wanted to go back to earth magic at the turn of the 17th century. They packed up their belonging and set up camp in the middle of Sherwood forest, whose natural magic’s were ideal for what they wanted to achieve. Now through experimentation and folly these people managed to alter their own magic so much that they actually became…well a sort of wizard hybrid. Dependant on the forest they formed their own communities and rules. But there relations with each other became primitive and the community was split off into dominant and submissive factions. These were called Voterie and Voltess.

So Aerianne when she came back to her parents alone and pregnant, was quickly forgiven and married off. Six months later she gave birth to a little Volterie. As the years have passed the volterie blood in your line has become diluted, almost useless and no serious problems have emerged for over two hundred years. However you have been exposed to a Voltess descendant…Harry…and he saved you.”

“Which means what?” Draco drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair impatiently.

“Voltess are submissive, their role is not to protect or save but to be protected. He has usurped your position and so the Volterie within you has become active. To all intents and purposes you have mated.”

“But I haven’t had sexual relations with him.”

“You don’t need to because it is no longer a question that you will, it is a question of when.”

“Does Potter know any of this?”

“He shut down at the word mated. He didn’t want to know anymore than that. In his mind his mate in life was Fred Weasley and he is dead. So Harry made what he thought was the only course of action, he took the potion that would keep him from seeking you out, that would stop you from being able to touch him and he chose die from lack of contact with you.”

“Would I have eventually died?”

“No, you are a Volterie, after Harry’s death you would have chosen another mate. I believe it is usual for Volterie to choose human women, should their be a lack of Voltess around. But it is a poor substitution.”

“I see.” Draco was silent for a few minutes.

“Is there anything else you can tell me? Any way of knowing what is to come?”

“I’m afraid not, there has been little research done of Volterie, even less on Voltess and mating habits. I’m afraid the wizarding world has chosen to view what happened at the turn of the 17th century as an embarrassing blight on our magical community. Easy done when you consider Volterie have almost past out of existence.

Draco set his jaw and then moved out of his chair. “I had intended to kill you. But under the circumstances that probably wouldn’t be wise. I want you to find out as much as you can about our race. You will of course be paid.” Approaching the door of the cellar he turned and said, “You are free to go, the fire in the entrance hall has a private flew connection, use that.”

And with that he was gone. Leaving Severus to stare bemusedly at the door.

***

That evening Draco sat outside the door of the room he’d put Potter in. It wasn’t usually his habit to sit on the floor but recently he’d been sweating at the thought of leaving the house. The thought of being away from Potter made him feel worried, nervous, almost angry. It had been a chore to eat his dinner in the Dining room this evening with his parents instead of dashing up to Potter’s room.

The reason he was outside and not inside was because the potions effects had nearly worn off completely. Potter wasn’t feeling too good and Draco knew that if he went in there he was going to have to touch Potter, to claim him, reassure him, although the pictures his brain were presenting him with wasn’t what you would normally call of the reassuring type.

But of course he couldn’t touch Potter, not whilst the potion was still in his blood stream, which was why it would probably be a good idea to leave before the potion wore off completely. The problem was he wasn’t sure he had that much control any more.