Claimed

Authors Note: Many thanks to my beta Alexandra. Here's the chapter you have all been waiting for. The Draco chapter.

Chapter 5 Return of the Prodigal Son

Draco had been annoyed that no one met him on the platform at Kings Cross, and even more annoyed when neither his mother nor father waited for him at the entry gate. He sighed in resignation and found a nearby alley and apparated home to Malfoy Manor.

It looked much the same as when he had been there for Christmas holiday, but it felt different. Usually the place seemed cold when he arrived, only warming when he had been there for a few days and settled in, but now it seemed cozy right off the bat.

Perhaps his parents were entertaining, which would explain their absence in picking him up. Still, it rankled him that he was so easily dismissed.

Draco strode elegantly up the long white gravel drive to the front entrance of his home. The doors opened, as they should for Malfoy blood, and allowed him to enter. He left his bags by the door and went in search of his father.

It was really his mother he wished to see, but if he didn’t find Lucius first he would surely be told off.

He found his father in the study, pacing. It was an odd gesture for his father. He was never one to show emotion of any kind, much less worry.

“Father,” Draco said tentatively and the man turned around, eyes wide and eager.

“Draco, my son. How was your trip? I’m sorry we could not be there to meet you but there were… extenuating circumstances,” he said, a look of mild fear in his eyes.

“I’m fine, sir. I was just about to go and find mother, do you know where she is?” Draco asked.

Lucius nodded. “I need to introduce you to someone first, he’s in the parlor with your mother now.”

Draco followed him from the study and into the formal parlor. At least he had been right about his parents entertaining. It set him more at ease to know that he was not merely forgotten. He planned to remind his mother that a note could have been sent to him at the very least.

“Draco,” his father began as they approached the parlor entrance, “I would like you to meet your brother.”

His father bowed low as he walked into the room, and Draco was caught completely off guard by the man’s actions and words. “Brother, but how can that be…” he muttered before looking up at the boy standing before him.

He had to be no older than Draco himself, but somehow exuded an ancient wisdom. He was pale, as pale as any of the Malfoy’s, and his hair was black as ebony and fell in soft ringlets around his face.

He met the boy’s eyes and became instantly enamored. They were the brightest most pure green Draco had ever seen. The boy smiled at him and Draco faltered.

Fangs.

The boy had fangs. “Father… this boy… he’s a vampire.”

He heard the distinct twinkling of his mothers laugh and suddenly realized that she had been standing next to the vampire boy. Had she been there the whole time? He looked at her, her pale face filled with joy, and her hand clasped within the vampire’s.

“Get your hands off my mother,” Draco snarled.

The boy took a step back and released Narcissa’s hand gently. “I mean no one harm, least of all you and your family,” he said, and his voice nearly stole Draco’s breath. It sounded like sunshine and a warm summer day.

He quickly shook off the feeling. He had read that vampires could manipulate their voices, and often did in order to lure in prey. This vampire would not be feeding on Malfoy blood anytime soon.

A strong hand clasped his shoulder and he instinctively threw it off, trying to get away from his attacker. He looked back however to find his father hovering over him, an anxious look in his eyes. “Son, come with me back to the study and I will explain everything.”

Draco hesitated, to argue with his father was an impossible thing, but he feared for his mother being left alone with the vampire beast. “Mother,” he whispered.

It was not his father who answered though; it was the thing still standing beside his mother. “Please, go with Lucius,” he told her. “I’ll wait here. I can speak with my br- Draco after you explain things.”

His father bowed again, which was really getting on Draco’s nerves, and left the parlor, Draco and his mother trailing behind him.

--

Harry couldn’t manage to call Draco his brother. There was something wrong about the word. Draco was more than that. When he had entered the room, it was like no one else existed but him. His beauty was captivating, and his molten silver eyes made him melt.

He would do anything to touch him, to protect him, to possess him.

Suddenly Harry recalled the hazy dreams he had experienced during his human life. The form, which until now he thought to be Lucius, only because of the uncanny resemblance in the snippets of imagery he could remember.

He now realized with a clarity that it was Draco he dreamed of.

He had to have him.

--

Dinner was a tense event.

Draco didn’t speak a word, and Harry kept casting him furtive glances and trying to strike up a conversation, only to have Draco ignore him outright. Lucius was furious with his son’s behavior and attempted to tell him off several times, only to be stopped each time by Harry.

“He’ll come around on his own terms father, you cannot force this on him,” Harry said.

“Stop calling him that,” Draco spat. “He’s not your father!”

Harry looked at Draco calmly and nodded. “I understand your meaning, but in my current form he is as much my father as James Potter was to my human form. I cannot change that, loath as I am to admit it,” he added, casting a scathing look at Lucius, who in turn swallowed thickly and bowed his head.

Draco shot Harry a furious sneer and then went back to pushing vegetables around his plate. The only person he answered for the remainder of the evening was his mother. She would ask him harmless questions about school and his marks and what he expected for his NEWT scores.

Harry could see the tear in her heart as the love for her son battled with the love for him, the new stranger who had only spent a few weeks in her home, but had endeared himself to her thoroughly. He sensed that she also felt the pull of their blood, as Lucius did, and that she felt as though Harry was her true son, just as clearly as Draco was.

He couldn’t be certain in the way he could with Lucius however, because Harry had no power to read Narcissa’s thoughts. Either they were too well guarded, or there was something faulty with that particular power, for he could not read Draco’s either. Perhaps Lucius was the exception, being the blood donor for the mixture Harry drank in order to transform.

Either way, he could see the internal war she waged with herself because her son so completely loathed him. Harry wished to make him feel differently with all his heart, if a walking corpse could have a heart.

He knew his form was displeasing to Draco, but he wondered if it would have been any different if they had met while they both were human. Based on what he could so far glean, he doubted the boy would have acted much different toward Harry. At the moment his concern seemed to be his and his families safety, but there was an undertone of resentment that almost overshadowed that initial concern,

He was being replaced, or so he thought.

Harry had no wish for that, though. He only wanted to bond with Draco, not take his place amongst his beloved family.

--

Draco tossed and turned in his bed. The first night at home was always difficult. Sleeping in a new bed, no matter how familiar, was always hard for him after being away at Hogwarts for months, sleeping in his dorm.

The same thing always happened after summer break on his first night back in the Slytherin dorm rooms as well though.

He heard a faint noise and looked around his room, suddenly spotting a figure looming over his bed.

It was the vampire. Probably here to suck my blood and finish me off, he thought silently to himself. Obviously this thing was ready to take over his family completely and wanted to take Draco out of the equation.

“Did Father not instruct you that it’s improper to skulk around in people’s rooms at night?” Draco scoffed. He wasn’t going to let some bloodsucker intimidate him, no matter what his father said.

A low amused laugh rang out in Draco’s ears, sending a shiver down his spine. “I’m not skulking, I could hear your restlessness and decided to take this opportunity to speak with you.”

“Right,” Draco sneered. “I know what you want.”

The vampire was at the foot of Draco’s bed, one hand wrapped around his bedpost and the other trailing pale fingers along the ornate carvings of the footboard. He leaned in slightly, as if studying Draco. “Do you?” he asked, his voice filled with something that Draco couldn’t identify. “Do you really know what I want from you?”

Draco rolled his eyes, though he doubted the vampire could see him in the dark, so he decided to make his voice as scathing as possible. “I know what you want, but don’t think I won’t go without a fight.”

The vampire tilted his head to the side and a look of sadness passed over his delicate features. “I don’t want to fight with you,” he said simply.

A harsh bark of laughter escaped Draco’s lips. “No, I’m sure you would prefer it if I just laid still and let you kill me quickly and easily.”

The vampire laughed again, and again Draco quivered from the sound of it, his whole body reacting to the pleasurable sound. He was so close to just getting up and going over to the boy, letting him have his way, but he quickly schooled his emotions and stayed rigidly in bed.

“I don’t wish to kill you, Draco. In fact that is the furthest thing from my mind.”

His voice sounded genuine, but Draco was sure it was just more vampire trickery. He turned his head, looking out the moonlit window on the adjacent wall and ignored the vampire. He had nothing else to say to the boy.

“I dream about you,” he said softly, taking a step forward, a step closer to Draco.

Draco turned and looked at him. He really was stunningly beautiful, especially in the moonlight filtering into his room. He almost glowed with it, and Draco longed to hold him, to pull him close. He shook his head roughly to clear the thoughts away. “I thought vampire’s didn’t sleep.”

“We don’t, not in the same sense that you do, but before I changed, I had dreams about you. I hadn’t even met you, but still you occupied my thoughts,” he whispered, taking another slow step forward.

Draco assumed the pace was for his benefit, because he had seen how quickly the vampire moved earlier when he threw a letter opener at his father. The boy had been on the other side of room, but still managed to catch the sharp object before it grazed his father’s arm.

Draco had been so furious with his father, first for taking an innocent boy and making him into this—this creature, then for endangering him and his mother by binding it to the family. He was so angry he had grabbed the nearest object and hurled it at his father, but the vampire had saved him.

“You probably just saw my picture around the house and it worked itself into your dream,” Draco explained. There was no way he was linked to this creature.

A look of confusion passed momentarily across the vampires beautiful face but faded an instant later. “I’m almost certain that’s not true, but even so, how else can you explain this uncanny attraction?”

Draco scoffed. “Who says I’m attracted to you? And even if I were – which I’m not – then it would simply be because of your vampire mind tricks,” Draco replied. He let his voice show the disgust he had at the thought of being bound to him in any way.

The vampire’s face fell an Draco suddenly felt the need to take it all back, to confess his undying love for the man, but that was crazy and nonsensical and Draco would not give into it.

“I believe we are to be together,” he whispered, though he seemed less than sure.

“Then clearly you’re delusional,” Draco replied haughtily.

The vampire hissed and Draco closed his eyes, ready for the attack, but it never came. Instead, when he slowly opened his eyes, he found the vampire on the other side of the room, pressing his back into the wall as if he could melt into it.

“Do you find me hideous?” it asked him, quietly, almost broken.

Draco blinked several times. From this distance he could see the traces of what the vampire had once been, a small, timid and scared boy, a boy his own age, and a wizard who never had a real family. He wanted to go to him, lift him into his own bed and rock him gently to sleep.

But that thing wouldn’t sleep, and it wouldn’t be warm and soft beside him. It would be cold and hard like an ice sculpture, and it could kill him. It could murder him and his whole family before Draco even had time to scream.

“Clearly,” he spat at last, his eyes closed so as not to see the pain in the boy’s face.

When he did open his eyes again, the boy was gone, and Draco wouldn’t be sleeping that night, either.

Authors Note: Please send reviews and magical baked goods