Chapter 9 – Seeking Severus

Harry trudged down the busy corridor, making his way through the migrating students just released from their final classes of the day and down to the dungeons. The stone hallways held a chill that reflected the growing of winter outside and as Harry descended the dungeon steps, the air grew noticeably colder.

Harry shivered, but the action had little to do with the cool dungeon air. This is where it had happened. The dungeons were where he had been caught unawares. He realised it had actually happened in an abandoned classroom, which could be found all over the castle, some as equally remote and unused, but in his mind he associated the dungeons with that night.

The dungeons were a maze of corridors and doorways. One could hide so well down here, around corners or simply fade into the shadows. They could be watching him right now and he would never know it. Harry trembled just thinking about it. He took no comfort in knowing that with his heightened senses, he would easily discover anyone hiding in the darkness. It was not a rational fear.

He shook his head as if to shake the paranoid thoughts from his head and out his ears. He knew it was ridiculous, but still…

He tried to turn his thoughts to less morose things. It was only his second day back to classes and things were going as well as he had expected; so, not well at all. With everyone looking at him and talking about him all the time, it was hard not to give into his troubled thoughts sometimes. He would, more often than he would like, find himself having to pull into himself and calm himself down from the panic he could feel building in his chest.

All of those eyes looking at him. There were eyes swimming in amusement at the spreading and increasingly perverse rumours. Some looked at him speculatively, curiously. Those looks he could handle. He was the Boy Who Lived after all. He was used to those kinds of looks. He could not help, however, to see hardness there, glimpses of eyes glinting with malice and hatred and manic insanity that he would see in an instant before it was gone.

The one relief in his day had been today's double period of Potions class. He should not have been so surprised. Of course Snape would not have allowed his students to waste time gossiping in his classroom, no matter who it was about. The man had burst into the classroom, as was his habit, and immediately all eyes were on him. Harry had instantly calmed, tension he had not realised he had been holding all day leaching from him.

That had not been the only reason Potions had been the decidedly bright spot of his day. Harry had found that his brewing had benefited tremendously from his hypersensitive senses. He had noticed immediately when he had begun organising his workspace, setting out the ingredients needed and the implements he would be using. He could see that some of the Wormroot tendrils were slightly fresher than others. He could smell that the Cough Calm Elixer Zacharias Smith was making beside him was improperly brewed halfway through and long before he saw the almost imperceptibly different (and wrong) coloured result.

Harry turned the corner and, only slightly more hurried than was strictly necessary, gave the password and bolted inside. He leaned heavily against the door once on the other side, feeling himself relax fully for the first time that day since he had left their quarters.

With his new sensitivity to the intricacies of potions ingredients and reactions, Harry had produced what was easily his best brew ever at the end of the class. He flushed lightly when he remembered the look on Severus' face when he handed it in. Though the man had not moved a muscle in his deeply scowling face, Harry had seen the distinct look of smugness in his eyes. Harry, who had never excelled at the subject found it exhilarating to explore his new abilities, and a small and deep part of him was proud that he would reflect well on his Sire.

He knew however, that he would never be as good as Severus and the man's accomplishment of being the "youngest person to achieve a Potions Mastery in a century" would continue intact. While Harry could chop with greater precision and hear the moment when simmering became boiling, he was still decidedly inept with the whys and the hows. He still could not tell why clover and scorpion tails tended to explode when combined, nor could he even begin to know how to invent or alter a potion any better than he did before.

Still, perhaps it could be something he could do with the Potions Master sometimes. He had found after the past week of reading together in front of the fire, that the ill-tempered man wasn't so bad when he was silent… and paying attention to something other than him.

Slinking away from the door, Harry had to admit that no matter how they got along, he would feel much better when the man returned from his office. Even his less than pleasant company was better than sitting alone and stewing in his own irrational fear.

Besides, he wanted to talk to him about Draco.

Harry moaned loud and long when the liquid ecstasy hit his tongue. Combined with the feel of Severus' long and graceful fingers rubbing over his peaked nipple through his shirt, Harry was in heaven. He would never get used to the sudden and all-encompassing thrill and flood of arousal that went through him at the first taste of Severus' lifeblood. Already, after only a little more than two weeks of doing it, Harry found he felt himself harden at just a glimpse of the man's naked wrists peeking from his buttoned black shirtsleeves.

He sighed as he began to suck at the delicate column of Severus' wrist. He breathed in the now familiar scent of the man, soft musk layered with the strong spice of a man and mixed with the biting odours of the day's potions. Silky strands of hair brushed his cheeks as he reclined against Severus' sturdy chest while he eagerly drank.

Releasing his hold on the tender flesh, he licked and sucked at the small wounds until they closed and leaned back. As always, Severus licked away the excess blood from his lips. Though Harry had become far less messy with practice, the man seemed to enjoy it and made sure his tongue reached every part of his mouth, sliding against his own, and sucking and nipping at his lips sensuously.

As had become their way, Severus moved from his mouth to trace a fiery path down his throat to his chest as he slid from behind Harry. Severus circled his beaded nipples with his tongue and left wet, open mouth kisses on his stomach. Finally, he reached his throbbing erection, which was sprung up impatiently from where his trousers and pants were bunched around his thighs.

Harry never got tired or less amazed at the sight of his hateful Potions Master enthusiastically sucking him off. The sight of those sneering lips wrapped around his cock and the feel of that enormous nose buried in his pubic hair made his eyes roll to the back in his head and he came with a low moan.

It was the best part of his day, just for that reason. Even though the man kept up a pretense of ignoring his existence whenever possible while simultaneously being aware of every move he made, Harry loved being close to the man like this. He often wondered what it would be like to return the gesture, but he never offered and Severus never asked.

Still, he wanted to give to the man. He knew instinctively that if his Sire wanted of him, he would take, so he waited. It seemed whenever the man was close to him, that new yet deeply ingrained part of him made him feel that way; wanted him to give, submit, make his Sire happy.

Harry knew he did not love the man. How could he? Only two weeks ago their relationship had been a complex mix of deep, grudging respect, and undying animosity. He had, day by day, come to grow comfortable with the idea that he was forever marked and claimed as Severus' Childe. That did not mean he understood than man any more than before.

It had only been a little more than two weeks since they had been thrust together. Though they were steadily growing more comfortable around each other, they had yet to attempt to get any closer emotionally. Harry knew nothing more about the man than what he had before. Yet, there was that pull towards him, a drive for him to touch his body and please him that sung in his blood.

Severus was also thinking about the pull that had him striving for more, though for very different reasons. Yes, the boy was decidedly beautiful; his body had transformed as if it had been made for sex. There was one advantage to becoming the Sire to an eighteen year old boy; an unstoppable libido and a never ending supply of life essence. Yet, he held himself back from fully enjoying the boy. His reasons were varied. The boy was his Childe, yes, but he was also still his student, and it still felt just a little… wrong. He was also certain the boy was a virgin. He was not certain Harry was ready for such an intense physical relationship and would not risk his Childe's contentment to find out.

Now, however, he was considering pushing his hesitation aside.

The boy was far more affected by his experiences than he had previously thought. The attack, combined with the subsequent escape from the real world to heal in his quarters and the changing of his life by his unexpected turning, became a recipe for fear in the boy. He was skittish even in their quarters. He had not missed the spike of panic in his eyes when he had walked in unannounced.

Perhaps it was time to fully claim him.

Severus knew that fully claiming the boy would fulfill a part of his instincts that was crying out to be completely possessed by his Sire. He would be claimed as belonging to Severus, protected and cared for by him in all ways. Severus would do those things anyway, but the nature of the vampire bond required those involved to be linked together in Sire/Childe bonds in order to be fulfilled.

Severus leaned back on his heels, swallowing the boy's essence down with a smack of his lust-swollen lips. Harry's chest heaved as he gasped for breath and sprawled boneless over the couch. Severus tucked the boy's now limp member back into his trousers and narrowed his eyes up at him.

"Why were you not at lunch this afternoon?" he demanded.

"Oh!" Harry, he gasped breathlessly, still recovering from his orgasm, as he remembered the conversation he had had with Draco earlier, "I was meeting up with a friend. We always used to meet up at lunch before… I just didn't know if he wanted to talk to me anymore after… you know."

"After it was announced you married your Greasy Git of a Potions professor?" Severus finished with a challenging raise of his eyebrow.

"NO! No!" Harry rushed to say, "That's not it. He's a Slytherin. I thought he might be upset that I'm with his Head of House or something. I don't know. It made sense at the time," Harry distinctly ignored Severus' mocking snort.

Severus was intrigued. Which of his snakes had been having a secret dalliance with the Golden Gryffindor?

"I take it he was not so distressed as you had imagined?" Severus inquired as he rose from the floor and took up his seat near the fire.

"No. That's the thing. He was alright with it. Very alright with it," Harry said quietly with remembered relief at the easy acceptance from his friend, "In fact, Draco was quite a bit more than alright with it."

Severus stilled at the admission that it was the young Malfoy that he had befriended. It came as quite the surprise that the two fiercest of rivals since the days of he and the Potter gang had seemingly patched things up and become friends. It did not surprise him that Malfoy would accept their relationship, however. Even if he had not been privy to the night of Harry's changing, he would never have pushed away the boy who was now his only ally, let alone one so influential as the Boy Who Lived.

When he had let the boy go with nothing more than the threat of swift retribution, he had done so with the assumption that he had no connections with Potter, or anyone else for that matter. As far as the Potion Master had seen, Malfoy was an island, with no friends and no protectors. He had no one to share the information with and nothing to gain from it. This, however, could cause problems, depending on what the boy chose to do with his leverage.

"Severus, he said that he knows about us! He said he was there in the hospital wing! Can you believe that? I nearly lost my lunch when he said it," Harry nattered on oblivious to Severus' change in mood.

"And just what did he say he was going to do with that information?" Severus said low and dangerous. Finally Harry seemed to have picked up that there was something bothering him.

"Um, well, I kind of wanted to talk to you about that," Harry stated slowly as if trying to approach a cornered animal, "You see, he said that he had actually went and researched vampirism. It was mostly wrong, though, and he thought that I would be suffering and hungry. He actually offered to let me drink from him!"

Severus' neutral mask never changed except to take on a more considering cast. He was startled by Malfoy's offer. He had certainly heard of the rare witch or wizard offering to donate their blood to loved ones who had been turned and abandoned by their Sires or vampire they had fallen in love with, but the Malfoy boy was none of those things.

Unless…

"So, do you think I could?"

The question seemed to come from nowhere and dragged Severus out of his contemplations.

"Could you what, Harry?"

"Could I take him up on his offer? Could I drink from him?" When Severus' eyebrows rose into his hairline, Harry continued, "I know I don't have the experience to do it on my own yet, and I didn't know if I could drink from someone else or if I had to only drink from you, so I thought I would ask you first, but, Merlin, when he gave me that vial with his blood in it, I nearly jumped him right then!"

Severus' eyebrows sank back to furrow at his brow at the mention of the unseen vial of blood.

"And where pray tell is this vial of blood? You were not foolish enough to have consumed blood given to you from an unknown source, bottled under unknown conditions, and of an unknown age, were you?" Severus derided with a hint of concern.

Harry ignored the jibe and retrieved the vial from the pocket of his robes. He caressed the glass, warmed by his own body heat in his pocket, before handing it over to his Sire. As before, even though sealed, it gave off a faint scent that had his mouth watering and his eyes glazing slightly.

Severus took the vial and sniffed it. Unlike Harry, Severus was prepared for the potent effects of the blood contained within. Draco Malfoy was a young, healthy, and very powerful wizard. His blood reflected that and thus was more desirable to those who would consume it.

Still, Severus retained his reservations. Who knew better than he how devious a Slytherin without options could be when presented an opportunity like that; to hold power over one of the most influential figures in the wizarding world would be a boon to anyone willing to take advantage of it.

There was no way he was going to allow his Childe to consume this vial with so many unknown variables surrounding it. That was not even considering that the bearer of said vial was one of his most efficient in potions making. He could have added any number of poisonous substances to it that would not have been detectable even to their far more advanced senses over the enticing smell of healthy blood.

That was not to say he would not consider the boy's offering. Severus would never allow himself to drink from the boy, even if he had offered Severus as well – which he noted Malfoy had not. Even though the boy was eighteen and over the age of consent to donate his blood, he was still Severus' student. As such Severus could not partake of him, given the very sexual situations feeding often resulted in. He would have to be a fool, however, to deny his Childe a fresh source of blood if it was freely presented.

His decision made, Severus turned back to Harry.

"I shall dispose of this vial," Severus informed him, ignoring the petulant groan and continuing, "I will, however, need to meet with Mr. Malfoy to ascertain his true intentions before there is any mention of you drinking from him."

Severus sneered at the ridiculous pout that the boy gave him.

"Ok, I'll tell him tomorrow," Harry announced, already imagining how he would taste.