Hot-Blooded

Chapter Two

Draco's job at the Portkey office is mind-numbingly boring and generally horrible, but he still mentally thanks Granger for it each morning on his way to work. He's trying to do more of that, be grateful for things. It doesn't come easy.

But, as awful as the job is, it keeps him from being forced out onto the streets. It allows him to have a life that almost feels normal, blood-drinking aside, even if it is a far cry from the life he'd once imagined for himself.

Draco walks down Diagon Alley to the London Portkey Office, located at the far end of the street beyond Gringotts, thinking about Granger, and, consequently, Potter. Always Potter.

It had been Potter who found him that night. Found him and did what Harry Potter does best—saved him. With the help of Granger and Weasley, of course.

His vampire sire had left him on the cobblestones of Knockturn Alley, freshly turned and terrified, to kill or be killed. Draco had sunk down against a stone wall and fought the hunger for as long as he could before a kind young witch had found him and tried to help. Long, horrible minutes later, he'd dragged himself away from her body and curled in on himself, sobbing pitifully into his knees.

"Malfoy? What the hell are you—" Potter's voice had sounded far away, familiar and devastating, and Draco was sure he was in a heap of trouble that he'd never have been able to crawl out of. "—Oh, shit. Expecto Patronum!"

To Draco's surprise, instead of being surrounded by Aurors to be arrested and locked up, the other two members of Potter's Golden Trio arrived.

"She's still alive, but only just," Potter said, and Draco had sobbed harder, grappling with relief so intense he'd thought he'd choke on it.

"I'll take her to Mungo's," Weasley replied, and a sharp crack split the air as he Apparated away.

Granger knelt beside him and took over, touching his shoulder with a gentleness he didn't deserve. "Malfoy?"

Draco had remembered, distantly, that she worked in the recently renamed Magical Creatures Department of the Ministry, and he'd lifted his head.

There, kneeling in front of him, was Potter. Verdant gaze locked on Draco's face, his mouth twisted into a concerned frown. "Malfoy, what happened?"

"I didn't mean to," was all Draco could manage to say. "I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to, I didn't mean t—"

"Malfoy!" Granger interrupted, shaking his shoulder and speaking sharply enough to distract him. "We need to get him somewhere safe and quiet."

They Side-Alonged him to the front porch of a cosy-looking cottage in the country that Draco is now intimately familiar with as Potter's house, and gave him hope.

Granger put him in contact with people who could help him—Dominic and Risa. She explained the blood donation system in place, set up by someone in her office: a discreet service that would allow him to have a bottled supply delivered to his door. She'd gone over everything about vampires he could possibly need to know, giving him a general idea of what to expect, while Harry watched silently from a nearby chair.

Draco went home to the Manor feeling hopeful that everything might actually be okay. Of course it wasn't, but—

"G'morning Draco!" Larisa—no Taylor now, Draco reminds himself—greets him cheerily when he walks in, blowing and then popping an enormous bubble of Drooble's Best. They're sporting an emerald-green mohawk that clashes horribly with their violet work robes.

"Morning, Taylor. Green today? I've always liked that colour. Very Slytherin."

"I was a Hufflepuff and you know it, you wanker," they call after him as he walks down the hallway to the broom closet the department calls his office. "It's in support of the Holyhead Harpies! They're going to win the Quidditch League Championship tonight!"