Melanin

I really should update The Lambs, and I was going to, then I remember how badly I wanted to read a HP/Hellboy xover and how I couldn’t find one… I was planning to write this one AFTER I finished Soul Seeker, but since I only have 2 more chapters to go, here it is.

My spell check decided to stop working half way through this story, so excuse any mistakes. Thanks.

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“Melanin”

Disclaimer: Harry Potter, et all are property of JK Rowling, and Bloomsbury, and Warner Bros and all those other nifty people that make it so we can read and watch the Potterverse whenever we feel like it. I make no money from this, just so you know. Hellboy is also not mine; I make no money from the Hellboy comics or movies. Mostly this is from the films, as I never read the Hellboy comics.
Summary: [Nuada/HP] Vernon couldn’t abide a freak in his home, so he found more freaks to send Harry to. Before Prince Nuada stabs Hellboy, Harry returns to the BPRD, and saves Hellboy’s life. He also happens to be Nuada’s melanin; his soul mate. But will it be enough to stop Nuada from trying to destroy the world? Crossover. AU.
Warnings: Slash. Nuada/HP. Violence. Creature Fic. Language.
Rating: R for violence and language.

XXX

Prince Nuada: “let this remind you why you once feared the dark.”

Words: 10,001
Chapter 1/1
Melanin
1984

If there was anyone in the world who would claim that they were completely, one-hundred-percent normal it was Vernon Dursley. As a child, Vernon had hated fairy tales, and romantic films, and anything else he deemed to be abnormal. He was a realist. He didn’t believe in filth like that. His desire to be normal only intensified when he met Petunia Evans. Petunia also considered herself normal. Petunia’s parents were normal as well, so Vernon was happy enough to meet them. But her sister, Lily, on the other hand was a far cry from ordinary.

While Vernon and Petunia would be considered to be Muggles, there was a world, hidden from them, that existed. In this world lived Witches, and Wizards, and Vampires, and Werewolves, and all other types of fascinating creatures. Lily Evans was one such Witch. The day she turned eleven-years-old she received a letter inviting her to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was at this school that she met James Potter, a Wizard. As anyone could predict, Vernon despised James as much as he feared Lily. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that anybody related to his ‘dear, sweet Petunia’ could be as evil as James Potter, so, instead, he wondered if she was possessed.

Then the Potter boy was born.

The fact that Lily had the gall to invite them to his christening (imagine, christening a heathen witch) when the Potters hadn’t bothered going to Dudley’s was like rubbing salt in a wound for Vernon. It was from that day onwards that he decided he hated Lily as much as James. When they both got themselves blown up, he figured good riddance to bad rubbish. Until the morning he was woken by Petunia’s screaming. That same morning, he rushed down the stairs, and found Harry Potter sleeping on his doorstep.

Harry’s life wasn’t too bad in comparison to some other Muggleborns. He wasn’t beaten, or exorcised or anything of the sort. Though, from the moment he arrived the Dursleys didn’t think too highly of him.

“Well,” Petunia sniffed, nudging Harry into the house with her foot. “What am I supposed to do with the little freak?”

“Do you think they’re watching?” Vernon whispered, his moustache quivering.

“Oh I very well don’t care, Vernon. What are we to do? We can’t leave the little blighter near Dudders. What if he uses magic on him?”

“He can use magic? This young?” Vernon shuddered at the thought.

Petunia shrugged. She bent down, and picked Harry up. Holding him an arms length away from her body she walked to the cupboard under the stairs and deposited the child there. “I don’t know. That Dumbledee man said he was powerful, so maybe. I don’t want to take any chances, Vernon.”

“Right, right, Dudley is more important.” The two of them went back to bed, but first they woke Dudley and brought him into the room with them.

Harry slept in the cupboard under the stairs for the next three years. He was fed every morning, by Vernon who threw a bottle into the cupboard and locked the door after himself. He was given a slice of toast at lunchtime, folded up and crammed through the grate in the door, and at dinnertime he was given another bottle. He would drink the second bottle as Petunia gave him his only nappy change of the day on the hallway floor.

The morning Harry turned four he had a nightmare. It started off nicely enough. There were some trees and lots of green light, but it wasn’t too bad. He had opened his eyes, only to find he was standing among the trees and there were lots of other people there. They all wore black dresses, and carried white masks in their hands. Each of them stared right past Harry, as if he wasn’t even there. There were more flashes of green light, and then with a cackle and a bright red explosion, Harry woke up screaming.

Vernon pulled him out of the cupboard by his feet. “Shut up, shut up, you bloody boy!” The Muggle shouted.

“S-Sorry,” he murmured. He kept his eyes downcast. As Harry had been screaming, all of the windows in the bottom floor of the house had shattered.

Petunia was standing in the hallway wringing her hands and looking around herself with tears in her eyes. “I can’t do it anymore. We can’t, we can’t.” Vernon nodded at her, slowly, and shoved Harry back into the cupboard without another word.

“I’ll take care of it, pet.”

Petunia watched him leave the house for work, and spent the rest of the day ignoring Harry as he cried, begging for something to eat. “Bad children don’t get food,” she told him sternly.

When Vernon came home, he brought a stranger with him. “Sit down, sit down,” he said hurriedly. Petunia ran into the kitchen, and waited there as the kettle boiled. When she came back, she offered the stranger a cup with a forced smile. “Dear, this is Professor Trevor Bruttenholm. Sir, this is my wife Petunia.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the man said, holding out his hand. Petunia took it hesitantly, gave it one hard shake and then drew back as it he had burnt her. It was all she could do not to rub her hand against her shirt after. The professor was tall, and at least in his fifties, with hair that was thinning on top and going white around the edges. “Could I please meet this boy?”

“I’ll get him.” Petunia said. She left the room quickly, pulled Harry from the cupboard, and hissed, “tell him you were upstairs if he asks.”

“Ah there he is!” Vernon shouted, moving quickly to pull Harry into a hug. The four-year-old tensed, flinching back from his uncle in fear. He looked around in confussion as Vernon didn’t push him or shout at him, and instead just held him. The Professor watched them with narrowed eyes, seeing Harry’s discomfort for what it was. “Harry, this is Professor-”

“You can call me father if you’d like, but my name is Trevor.” The man stood up. He moved to crouch in front of Harry and held his hand out, slowly so as not to startle the boy. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

“Le suilon,”1 the boy whispered, a small smile on his lips.

The Professor drew his hand back, a bemused smile on his face. “Mae govannen,”2 he answered the child in Elvish.

Not many humans could speak the language of the Elves, but Trevor was a professor of the Occult, and as such he had learnt as much as he possibly could about all manner of different species and creatures. Those the world believed in and those they had forgotten about as well. The Elves were one of those species.

He had been fortunate enough to meet an Elf once. The beautiful Princess Nuala had found him alone one night, a very long time ago, when he had still be a young man. It was before the world against Hitler, and he had been lost and hungry and she had offered him some of her own food. Together they had sat and talked and she taught him to say a few phrases in her language before they went to sleep. When he woke, she was gone, but she had left him a book and he had devoured the words written inside of it. He had always hoped to meet her twin, Nuada, but with the abandonment of the Golden Army the Prince had gone into exile and so Trevor had pushed that notion aside. It was very unlikely that anyone would ever hear from the Prince again.

He had never seen or heard of a human child who could speak the Elven language as if it were its own before. The boy in front of him, a Wizard, and most certainly not an Elf spoke without a trace of an accent. He pronounced the words fluently, easily, and even Trevor who had years of practice found his pronunciation below par at times.

“Lle tyava quel?”3 Harry asked quietly. The professor had gone silent and had just been staring at him for a few minutes. Vernon’s grip on his shoulder had tightened, and it was starting to hurt now.

“Oh, oh,” the man said shaking his head, “yes I’m fine. I just got lost in thought.” He frowned slightly before he shook it away. “Come on then, Harry.” He held his hand out and Harry reached out for it. Vernon squeezed his shoulder again, before finally letting the child go. “I’ll take good care of him. He’ll be able to write to you, or phone you-”

“NO!” Petunia shouted. “No, we don’t want to hear from him.” She said shrilly. Harry winced as she turned and practically ran from the living room.

“Mr. Dursley.” Trevor nodded his head and the Muggle stepped out of the way. The Professor led Harry past the Muggle, and to the door. “Say goodbye, Harry.”

A part of him knew it would annoy the Dursleys very much, and another part of him was pleased by the fact that he could speak a language that actually existed. When Petunia first heard him answer in Elvish, he was slapped and told to speak English. He was told he was making the language up, but if the Professor spoke it too then it must be real. “Mára mesta,”4 He waited for a moment, till Vernon was out of sight. Then he added, “tevenyel.”5

“Oh Ainion,”6 the Professor said softly. He laid his hand on Harry’s head, his fingers running lightly through his silky black hair. “I’ll take much better care of you, I promise.”

“Why did you call me that? My name is Harry, not Angelo.”

“Well, you see, I already have an adopted son. He happens to be the son of a demon Prince of Sheol. He’s around forty now, and he’s as much of a little devil as he was when he first arrived. Since I already have a demon for a son, I figured I needed a little angel as well.” Trevor smiled, and lifted the child into his arms. “Ainion means Angel in Elvish. I rather thought it suits you.”

“If you are giving me an Elven name, it would have to be Marcaunon7. That is my name after all.”

“You, little one, are too astute for your age.” Trevor carried him over to a car that was parked across the road. He opened the door with a soft smile. “In you go.” He said, setting Harry down on the chair. “Ok, this is captain Ben Daimio.” The man in the drivers seat turned around and waved at Harry. “He’s going to bring us to the airport, and then we’ll fly to your new home.”

“Where is it?”

“We live in America, at a airbase in New Mexico most of the time. At the moment, we’re staying in a house of mine, in New York.”

“Why do you live in an air base?” Harry asked softly as the car engine turned over and they began to drive off down the street.

“I work for the government.” Harry tensed up, fully believing his uncle had sent him away to be experimented on. “For the Federal Bureau for Paranormal Research and Development. When you grow up, you can be an investigator like Hellboy.”

Harry relaxed slightly. “Who is Hellboy?” Harry asked innocently.

The car swerved. “What?” Ben asked in shock. “You’ve never heard of Hellboy?”

“He’s my son.” Trevor answered with a chuckle. They drove the rest of the way in silence.

XXX

1994

Harry’s life had been a good one since then. At first he had probably offended quite a few people because he had been unable to stop staring, but he soon got used to the different types of creatures that lived there. They had stayed in the Professor’s New York mansion for a few months, but when Hellboy had been called out on a mission the rest of them headed back to New Mexico. Since then, Harry had been taken to live in several other places across America, and he’d even gone back to London with them once to track down Edward Stokes, a canabalistic ghoul who Hellboy had finally found and destroyed in Hammersmith cemetary.

When Harry turned fourteen, a letter arrived in the post.

Mr. Marcaunon Ainion Bruttenholm,
BPRD
c/o United States Government
New Mexico
United States of America

Dear Mr. Bruttenhold,

It may seem peculiar that you are hearing from me now, when so long has gone by since I last saw you. You were so small when I was last near you, but I admit I thought of you often. I was assured that you were being cared for by someone trustworthy, and so I left you alone. But unfortunately, the time has come when you must, and I stress the word must, return to your true home.

Two years ago, you came back to England, to London in particular. I do not know why you were there, but I could feel your magic. Whoever has been training you has done a magnificant job, Harry, but you need better training.

Yes, I know you used to be Harry Potter. I used to know your parents. When they died, I thought you would be safe with your Muggle Aunt and her family, but apparently they didn’t feel the same way. No matter; as long as you are happy and safe now. There is great evil in the world, my boy. One such evil goes by the name of Lord Voldemort, and with the death of your parents you managed somehow to defeat him. But his banishment was only temporary and a month ago, he returned. I fear the war between Wizards, light and dark, is about to erupt, and it will be the bloodiest war the world had ever seen.

I beg of you to return. Let us train you. You, who is prohacised to defeat the Lord Voldemort, and when you are ready I will be beside you, fighting to protect our world.

If you agree, just say, ‘Portus’.

Sincerely, Albus Dumbledore. Headmaster of Hogwarts.

He read it over, and then re-read it. With a frown he passed it to his father. “Ainion,” the Professor said, “you do not have to go. You’re a child, you can’t be expected to go off on your own and fight evil. You’re powerful yes, but,” Harry opened his mouth to protest but the Professor kept talking. “but, you are still a child. And I won’t have a child of mine running around on their own on the other side of the world.”

“He won’t be alone.” A voice said softly. Everyone turned to stare at Liz Sherman. While completely human in appearance, Liz had the power to set and control fires with her mind. The Pyrokinetic also happened to be Hellboy’s girlfriend. “I’ll go with him. No, Red,” she said as the other son of the Professor opened his mouth. Hellboy was large, and red. One of his hands was made of stone, and he had two horns on his forehead which he filed down to look more normal. “Red, you’re needed here. Maybe someone there can give me some training too.”

She was ten years older than Harry, and while she was arguably as powerful, she had much less control over her magic than Harry did over his. Liz actually was looking forward to leaving. Being around Hellboy for too long was a straining experience, and while she loved him, she hated him in equal parts. But as they say, love and hate are two sides of the same coin. She supposed she couldn’t love all of him all of the time.

“Very well,” Trevor said with a sigh. He sat down in one of the chairs around the table and smiled as Harry sat in the chair closest to him. “Stay safe.”

“Do you think someone will come to get us?” Liz asked as she reached out to squeeze Harry’s shoulder.

He grinned at her. “Let’s see, shall we? Portus.” With a pop, and a feeling similar to being hooked in the stomach by a fishing line, both Liz and Harry dissapeared with the letter.

Harry met many different types of people, some he had encountered before, like Vampires and Werewolves, and some that he hadn’t. He was rather impressed by the Veela women he had noticed wondering around. Apparently, they had remained in the country after playing mascots for their national Quidditch team earlier that year. Harry didn’t know what Quidditch was and he didn’t particularly care. Especailly not after Dumbledore met them, and took them both shopping.

Apparently Harry’s parents had been quite rich, and with the money they had left him, he bought a wand. Then he bought some Wizarding clothing for Liz and himself, and he also bought a few small, pretty things for all of his family back in the States. Despite the fact that he was fourteen, they placed him into his first year at Hogwarts. He was three years older than his classmates, but he didn’t care too much because Liz stayed with him at all times, even when he slept.

“She’s my brother’s girlfriend, ew!” He had said, when his Head of House found him curled up beside her one night, and docked points for his indiscretion. Severus Snape was not a nice man, but he didn’t seem to hate Harry as much as Dumbledore had warned him Snape might. Harry wouldn’t have cared anyway. Living with Hellboy had taught Harry to let insults fly right over his head: after all, one of the brothers had to be level headed. It wouldn’t be very fair on the humans if both of them got angry at the same time.

Harry did all he could to help the war effort, in between studying and exams, and Quidditch practise, which Snape insisted he attend.

When the war finally came to a head, it was June of 2000, and Harry was just about finished with his sixth year. While Harry had been trained in every area of magic the Wizards could find a teacher for, but there weren’t that many Elementals left. There wasn’t much they could do to help Liz except for teaching her Occlumency, but even then she still found it hard to handle her emotions. The control she held over the fire depended on the control she had over her emotions. During the final battle, Harry managed to kill Voldemort. However, he was severly injured in the process, and as he lay, panting on the ground beside her, Liz lost what little control she had left.

The fire sprang up around her, licking at her face and her hands, and scorching the ground she sat upon. She cradled Harry against her chest, and anyone who came too close to him was burnt or killed by her magic. She couldn’t control it, she wasn’t strong enough to stop it, and her fear for Harry made her numb to the pain she was causing others. When she was subdued, by magic, she had already killed ten people, four of whom had fought on Harry’s side of the war.

Harry had chosen to stay and finish his last year of schooling. But Liz had run away. She went back to America. The moment she arrived in New York she checked herself in to a mental hospital, and listed Harry as her only next of kin. Harry would be the only person allowed to visit her.

XXX

2004

Harry sat stiffly.

Hellboy had saved the world from the threath of Rasputin and Kroenen, but his world was over. Harry had gone travelling around the world once he had graduated from Hogwarts. A boy he had made friends with had gone with him, and the two of them had enjoyed the sights, the food, and each other for three years. Of those three years, Liz remained in the hospital until Hellboy begged her to come back to them. Harry had come home, happy and excited, despite having left his friend, Draco, behind in Wiltshire; he expecting to be greeted back warmly by his father.

But his father wasn’t there.

Kroenen had murdered his father, and while Hellboy had gotten his own revenge Harry hadn’t been around to help. He didn’t have the closure his brother had gotten, nor had he the same amount of time to move past his grief. He sat now, surrounded on all sides by grievers and well wishers and nosy so-and-sos who just wanted what was ‘best’ for him. He was twenty-four bloody years old! He didn’t need some stranger coming into his life to take care of him. He was perfectly capable of taking care of himself.

He didn’t even need Hellboy.

Fuck Hellboy, he thought angrily. If Hellboy had been any good he would have told him their father was dead. Harry had arrived at the Mansion only ten minutes after the others had gotten back from Moscow. They had buried the Professor before they left for Russia, but they had never had a ceremony. So they were having one now. Harry wondered if he would have been invited. Maybe they just wouldn’t have bothered? After all he hadn’t come back to visit Liz while he was travelling, so why would they extend to him any courtesy?

But damn it, he cursed to himself, it was his father! The only adult he could ever remember loving him!

When the ceremony was over, Harry didn’t speak to anyone. Angry, and bitter, he walked away from the rest of the mourners. Hellboy watched him go. He narrowed his eyes as his brother walked away from them, but Abe grabbed hold of his arm.

“Let him grieve.” The amphibian said. He held his hand up, palm facing towards Harry’s retreating form and said, “Ainion is in pain. He needs some time alone.”

“How much time?” Was Hellboy’s gruff reply.

“I do not know.”

Harry didn’t come back for four years.

XXX

2008

Prince Nuada did not believe that human kind could be redeemed.

Many years ago he had begged his father, the one-armed Balor of Bethmoora, to allow the Goblins to create a mechanical army for them. They used the army to fight with the humans, and the humans were driven to near extinction. Seeing the destruction caused by his army the Woodland King forged a truce with the humans. The humans would keep the cities, and in return they would stay out of the forests. Nuada did not agree. He could not believe that the humans would up hold their end of the bargain, and so he left his home and his family and was not seen for more than one hundred years. With the passing of time the humans slowly forgot about the Elves and those other creatures that had sided with the Elves. As they forgot the creatures, they forgot the treaty.

Nuada sneered as he watched several bulldozers at work. Where they stood, used to stand several trees, all of which were older than the men who operated the machinery. The Prince narrowed his eyes as the humans felled another tree. He turned his back on them.

He crossed the road, and waited, looking up at the large doors in front of him. Mr. Wink would arrive soon, and then he could have his revenge.

“Ah, you’re here.” The creature before him gave a grunt. Mr. Wink could only be described as the offspring of a troll and a goblin. He was tall, and as strong as any troll, but he had the weight of a goblin, and the brains and the cruelty. “You have them?” Mr. Wink lifted his arms, showing off the two metal boxes he carried. The front of each box was emblazoned with the royal crest, turned upside down. “Let’s go inside, shall we?”

Nuada watched the humans. From where he stood, they couldn’t see him but he had a perfect view. The humans he was watching were not in the auction room with the others, but one of the men was the auctioneer. The auctioneer sighed, and Nuada had no trouble hearing what was said. Elves had far better senses than humans and even the words that were whispered were loud enough for Nuada to hear from the other room. He held his finger to his lips and turned so Mr. Wink could see him. The troll stopped moving.

“My Lord, Ainion, would like to inquire after one of your collection.” The second man said. He was tall, with waist length brown hair pulled back by a ribbon. He wore Wizarding robes a shade darker than his hair colour, and they fell to the floor in soft waves around his slim figure. For a human, Nuada decided he was attractive. But what caught his attention was the name of this man’s master.

Ainion.

An Elvin name.

The auctioneer sighed. “Which lot?”

“The number I do not know. What Lord Potter searches for is the crown of Bethmoora. The one that controls the Golden Army. There should be three pieces, you have one, and my Lord wants it.”

“God no!” The auctioneer laughed. “That’s are main lot, I can’t give that away!”

The Wizard smiled. His lips pulled back over his teeth, showing the elongated eyeteeth that pointed to some Vampire blood in his line. “Ainion is willing to make it worth your while.” He waved a velvet pouch in the man’s face, but the human only turned his nose up.

While he was tempted, he didn’t want to risk losing money by selling it to this strange man rather than auctioning it. “I’m afraid not.”

“My Lord will be most displeased.”

“Your lord will have to get over it.” The auctioneer sneered.

“He thought you might refuse. He has a message for you, in that case.” The auctioneer waved his hand in an ‘get on with it’ manner. The Wizard smirked, eyeteeth flashing again. “Llie n'vanima ar' lle atara lanneina.”8 The Wizard’s pronunciation wasn’t as good as Harry’s, but it was understandable.

In the shadows, Prince Nuada suppressed a chuckle. It had been a long time since he had heard anyone speak his language, and the sound of it was welcome, even from this man who did it no justice. Nuada wondered if he might ever get to meet this Ainion, whether he be elf or otherwise. He would be interesting.

“Oh, also, Dolle naa lost.”9

The auctioneer grimaced at the other man, before turning away. “Let’s get started,” he called and two more men entered the room. All three of them entered the adjacent room and closed the door behind them. The Wizard stared after them, a frown on his handsome face before he took a deep breath.

He whistled. Prince Nuada jumped back in shock as a pure white owl flew right passed his head, and landed gracefully on the arm of the stranger. “Marcaunon will be very displeased, Hedwig. I wonder if he wishes me to kill them, and take the crown piece?” The owl gave a displeased hoot. “No, you’re right. As angry as he is with the world, Ainion will not have me kill in his name.” The owl took flight again, and then the man disappeared with a ‘pop’.

Nuada stepped further into the room, looking around with narrowed eyes. Where had that man gone? He was not human, that much Nuada was certain of. But what else could he be? He looked, and smelt, human. The Elves did not have much contact with Wizardkind during the reign of the Golden Army, and understandably Nuada did not know of them still, as he had been in exile while humankind over populated.

“Mr. Wink.” The troll grunted. “Hurry up.”

Mr. Wink left the room silently; the two boxes remained on the ground. The lights went out, and the troll returned moments later. Screaming came from inside the auction room and with a smirk Nuada threw open the doors and walked inside.

“No, not extinct,” he drawled, in answer to the auctioneer’s last words. They continued to scream at one another. The auctioneer stood at the front of the room, the crown piece held in one hand and a gravel in the other.

“Who are you?” He asked, his voice tight. “What do you want?”

Mr. Wink followed him into the room. He placed one box on the ground by the door and passed the other one to the Prince. Nuada laid it beside his feet with a smile. He looked at the auctioneer. “Who was that man? The one who wanted to buy the crown from you?”

“I-I don’t know.” The man stuttered, holding the gold against his chest like a shield. “He’s from England, he said. He works for a collector, Lord Potter or someone. He had a strange name.”

“Strange to you, maybe.” He drawled, walking closer. “But you are a strange race, are you not? Hand over the crown. It’s time it was returned to its rightful owner.” Nuada held his hand out, but the human refused to hand it over.

“You can’t rob me!” He exclaimed. “I’ll call the authorit-” Nuada threw something at him, cutting him off. It was some manner of creature. The small creature attached itself to the auctioneer’s face and its tail went into the man’s mouth as it fed.

As the other human’s screamed, Prince Nuada opened the door of the box by his feet. He watched Mr. Wink do the same thing.

“Let this remind you why you once feared the dark.”

The tooth fairies, all very hungry, flew into the room. They ate the humans, stripping their flesh from the bones faster than even a piranha could, and Prince Nuada watched with a smirk.

In New York City, in a flat five blocks away from where Harry had lived with his father, two Wizards sat staring at the television. “He said no then.” One said, brows furrowed. They weren’t actually watching anything in particular, but the station was set to the news.

“And then I insulted him in Elvish as you instructed me to.” The half-Vampire said with a smirk. “Why was that anyway?”

Harry smiled back at his friend. “I’ve always been able to speak Elvish.” Harry told the other Wizard. The Wizard was called Dalton Aldridge and he had attended Hogwarts in the same year Harry had been placed. During the final battle a Vampire had bitten Dalton, but the healer in the school had managed to save him from turning completely. Harry had been the only person brave enough to be Dalton’s friend during their second year. Harry’s other good friend Draco had graduated while Harry was still in fifth year, and Liz had left after his sixth, so Harry didn’t really mind the fact that Dalton was a vampire as long as he was a friend. After graduation, Harry went travelling with Draco, and Dalton trained to be an accountant.

When Harry’s father died, he fled back to the Wizarding world. He legally changed his name to Marcaunon, but kept the name Potter because it was a Pureblood surname. While Dalton was fully trained, many people were hesitant to employ a vampire. Harry had sought Dalton out when he returned to London, and taken him on as the manager of his accounts and estate. Ever since then, whenever Harry wanted something, Dalton was more than happy to fetch it for him.

“I asked you to use Elvish because I knew he would be there.”

“Who, Ainion?”

“Prince Nuada Silverlance. Prince of the Woodland.” Dalton frowned, but kept silent. If Harry wanted to explain, he was welcome to. “I ran into Luna a month ago. She was the one to recommend I collect the crown pieces. She said I was gifted with the language of the Elves, because I am to be the mate of one.”

“The Prince?”

“That’s what she implied, but you know what Luna can be like.”

“And yet you take her at her word, my Lord.” Dalton was frowning again. He seemed to do that a lot.

“I trust her word, my friend, because she hasn’t been wrong yet.”

“Is Draco coming by?” Dalton asked, mouth turning down in distaste. While Draco had married, and produced his first and likely only heir, it didn’t stop him from falling into Harry’s bed once in a while. When they were together it was just like being back at school, sneaking around and hoping not to get caught. Harry doubted Draco’s wife would care, but the papers would have a field day. Dalton didn’t believe in being adulterous. He thought that because Draco had married, he should have immediately lost all interest in Harry.

“No. If I am to mate with an Elf, I won’t be able to see Draco like that anymore. It has been made clear to him.”

“He’s sulking, isn’t he?” Dalton chuckled.

“He’ll come around, with time.”

Time passed quickly as they spoke. They talked about Harry’s childhood in America, the things he had never told anyone but Draco. He shared those things with Dalton now, and the vampire listened silently and reached out to his friend when Harry needed the comfort. “Do you miss him?” The longhaired man asked.

“I’ll always miss my father.”

“Uh, Harry?” Harry turned his head, following Dalton’s gaze to the television. There was his brother, on the TV, falling out of the window of the auction house. With a crash, Hellboy landed on one of the police cruisers, before turning his head to grin at one of the cameras.

“What an idiot.”

“What the hell is that?” Dalton exclaimed. “Some kind of demon?”

“Almost,” Harry acquiesced. “My brother.” Dalton turned to him with wide eyes. Harry could only shrug in response.


TBC...