FicWad

/Demon Spawn/
by Draeconin


See chapter one for disclaimer and details.


Chapter Two

"I heard a strange rumour once, when I was still in Hogwarts," Tonks said slowly, "that when that happened, the son had been cursed by the girl's demon father."

"Really?" Harry said, cheering up a little. "Draco has a curse on him?" he asked, unwittingly using the blond's given name.

"Really, Miss Tonks!" Snape snorted disdainfully. "Back fence gossip, now?"

Dumbledore was looking at Harry thoughtfully.

"Do you know what the curse was?" Harry asked the Auror, ignoring the dour potions master.

"It was just a rumour, Harry," Tonks cautioned, with a sour look at Snape, "but it was said that since the demon didn't get its child, that no more children would be born to the Malfoys, and the son was fated to marry a demon spawn."

All at once, Harry felt cold. "H-how many demon spawn are there, now?" he asked with trepidation.

"Seven," Dumbledore replied.

Harry breathed a little easier. He mightn't be the one on the line, this time.

Harry's relief was short-lived, however, as Dumbledore reluctantly continued. "But the other six have already found their mates."

Harry blanched. "But it was just a rumour, right? Gossip?" But Harry had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Somehow or other, the fates had slipped yet another joker into the card deck of his life.

"Most likely," the old man replied, but he didn't look as though he believed Harry could be that lucky.

"You won't be able to stay here now, of course," Dumbledore said gently.

Harry looked at him, face pale, but, "You say that as though it were bad news!"

"Isn't it?" the old man questioned, looking wise.

Harry raised an eyebrow at him, angry disbelief quickly replacing his misgivings about Draco - for now. "Were you a Hufflepuff? A Gryffindor? Where has your mind been all these years while I've been telling you how bad it is, here?"

Dumbledore's face flushed with anger. "All young people think they have it bad at home; that their parents abuse them," he protested. "And may I remind you that you are a Gryffindor?"

"Look around you," Harry suggested, ignoring the man's last point. "Does this look as though I were exaggerating? If you'd been here yesterday I could have shown you my ribs. And you heard my 'loving' uncle, downstairs. Lovely, loving attitude there, wasn't it?"

The old man's face paled as he realised he 'may have' misjudged the situation. "Pack," was all he said.

Since Harry practically lived out of his trunk anyway, it didn't take him long to pack away the few things he'd left out. Turning, his reflection caught his eye once more. Now that the initial shock was over, he could look at himself with a little more objectivity. If Harry ignored his wings, he thought he could be taken to be no more than a remarkably handsome, almost pretty, wizard. But still quite masculine of course, he reminded himself.

o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o

At Malfoy Manor, Draco wasn't having an easy time of it, either. He had got so bored that he'd broken down and started talking to the portraits. No, he hadn't gone mad. They were magical portraits. The people in the paintings moved, talked and, of course, heard everything that went on around them. They had the memories of the people they portrayed up until the time the portrait was finished, and everything that happened to and around the portrait since.

So while Draco normally thought that talking to 'mere portraits' was beneath him, he'd finally run out of things to do to distract him from the monotony of Malfoy Manor during the summer and had decided that talking to paintings was preferable to slitting his wrists to get a different point of view on life. So far he'd talked to the ones in the halls, the ballroom, the family and formal dining rooms, the conservatory, and various sitting rooms. Fairly boring, so far. None of them seemed to have done much of interest while they were alive, or seen anything worth reporting afterward. Of course there were a few rooms where Draco absolutely knew interesting things had happened, such as his father's study, where the man would have had meetings with other Death Eaters before he'd been sent to Azkaban, but Draco didn't want to know the details of those.

His mother's bedroom, on the other hand... Well, he was an almost-sixteen-year-old, after all. And while females didn't hold a whole lot of interest for him, sex did. All right, so hearing about his mother's sexual exploits may be a little pervy (all right; a lot pervy), but there wasn't anyone else' exploits to hear about in the house except his father's, and considering his own area of sexual interest, he thought that might be worse. Not to mention that he'd overheard snippets of conversation at the infrequent balls and parties his parents hosted that hinted that his father had sexual predilections that he'd much rather remain disturbing rumours rather than horrifyingly confirmed facts. Fortunately his mother was on a shopping tour of all the best places in Europe, so he had plenty of time to sit and listen to the lurid gossip.

"... and then there was this time this gorgeous leftenant visited your grandmother! That was in 1939, I think; or was it 1941? Well, no matter. He had short black hair, and the most beautiful bedroom eyes you've ever seen. Well, this is a bedroom, isn't it? And his buttocks? Oh, my! Anyway... "

Eventually Draco asked about his mother and father's exploits in the room. The reaction shocked him as 'Aunt Dorcas' ("plus four 'greats', but don't you dare use them, my boy,") went off on a rant the likes of which he'd only heard from his father. But what shocked him was the story of how his mother had been pregnant, and his father had suddenly become very cold towards his wife, and killed the baby girl after she was born.

"So she was demon spawn! That doesn't mean she wasn't a Malfoy. How does your father think we became so powerful? It's just a good thing he's in Azkaban, I tell you. You notice he doesn't... "

Draco tuned her out, his shocked mind fixated on one thought. He'd had a little sister. And his father had killed her. He wandered out of the room, not really seeing where he was going - he just needed to get away. He wound up in the Rose garden. (No, it wasn't a garden filled with roses - it was actually a fairly good representation of a Japanese tranquility garden that had been ordered by Rosalita [Rose] Malfoy well over a hundred years previous. The house elves kept it up.) A sister. Infanticide. But family was supposed to be so important! His father had drilled it into him over and over again. But his father had killed his sister.

It was over an hour later, as Aunt Dorcas' words were running through his head for what might have been the hundredth time, that another phrase caught his attention: 'demon spawn'. Determinedly, he set off back to his mother's room, and Aunt Dorcas.

. . *

"Just what are they teaching you children these days? Have they forgotten everything? Does tradition mean noth-"

"Aunt Dorcas!" Draco exclaimed intensely, interrupting the painting's ranting and gaining her attention. "Concentrate, please. Demon spawn? You said my little sister was one. What are they?" It galled him to be polite to a /painting/, but he'd learned over the past few days that if you treated them as the objects they were, they had a tendency to become rude or uncommunicative.

"Well! There's no need to be rude!"

Draco blinked. He'd been rude? She was the one who had gone off on a rant instead of answering his question. And hadn't he said 'please'? That was something that rarely came out of his mouth. She should feel honoured! But... all right. In the interests of gaining the information he needed, he'd appologise. "I'm sorry, Aunt Dorcas. It won't happen again. But what are demon spawn?"

"Rude children, these days... Not taught respect for their elders... "

"Aunt Dorcas? I'd really like to know why my father felt he had to kill my sister," Draco said, trying again.

The painting sighed. "I suppose you have the right, and it's an ironbound fact Lucius wouldn't tell you, even if he were here. But he's where he should have been years ago."

"Aunt Dorcas," Draco began, since it seemed she was again about to go off on a tangent.

"I'm getting there, boy! Keep your knickers on!"

Draco paled, then blushed lightly. How had she known he was wearing knickers instead of pants1?

She then went on to explain exactly what demon spawn were. "But our line has had more than one demon spawn in it. And the children they sired or bore have made this family quite strong. But he had to get a jealous streak, and look what that brought on!"

"How did he know, anyway?" Draco asked.

"Oh, I think he found a spell, or invented a spell, or something, that was able to detect it in her magic core."

"She didn't look like a demon?"

"Oh Merlin, no, child," the portrait said, laughing. "Demon spawn look perfectly normal until they come into their inheritance."

"And that would be... ?"

"Oh, somewhere around their sixteenth birthday, give or take a few weeks. Depends on the child, really."

"Are they quite ugly, then?"

"My word, my boy. You really are ignorant, aren't you?" Aunt Dorcas said, tittering.

Draco grit his teeth. "As you say; my parents never talked of them, and if we're to be taught in lessons at Hogwarts, it hasn't happened yet."

"Yes, well, most demons are really rather fetching. Incubi and succubi notably, but also the demons of fire, air and water. Earth demons... Well, they're not to my taste, anyway; a bit on the solid side - heavy bones, thick slabs of muscle... Anyway, the more rare types are even more beautiful."

Something 'Aunt Dorcas' had said was preying on Draco's mind. "Um... "

"Oh, please! You're a Malfoy, boy! Don't dither!"

Draco reacted to that tone automatically, as he was quite used to hearing it from his parents; sitting up straight, slipping on 'the Malfoy mask', and he almost snapped out a 'No, ma'am' before he caught himself, and scowled. But instead of lashing out, which would have been counterproductive, he asked the question he was going to ask in the first place. "You intimated that there were consequences to my father killing the girl?"

"Oh, yes. Well, that's why you were the last child in the family, isn't it? Narcissa was quite capable and willing to have more, but the demon cursed the family. Its child was killed, so there were to be no more Malfoy children. But you... " She broke off, looking at Draco dubiously. "Well, you may not think it so lucky, but the fate was put upon you to marry a demon spawn."

Draco's spine went rigid, and his eyes wide. "What!" he exclaimed loudly.

"Well, you'll get the chance to have children, won't you?" She frowned. "If it's a she, that is."

"It had... !" Draco began indignantly, then stopped himself. He had almost let his secret slip. As loquacious as this portrait was, she'd tell his mother within a half-hour of her return to the manor. He started again. "It had best not be true," he almost hissed.

Aunt Dorcas gave him a rather jaundiced look. "I suggest you go to the library and read up on demon spawn, so if it happens that it is true, you'll know what you're dealing with.

"I will never marry," Draco declared in a low, threatening voice. Not a female, anyway.

"Even so," was the portrait's response.

Draco stalked off, his training the only thing keeping him from hexing everything within sight, or stomping out his anger with every step.

But as angry as Draco was, he knew he couldn't fight a curse without information. However, first things first. It had been a long time since breakfast. "Mograt!" he called.

The house elf popped to her master's side, her smile quickly lost as she saw the young man's mood. "Master called?" she inquired, eyes downcast.

"Lunch. Fruit. Asparagus salad. Salmon almandine. Raspberry sorbet. Peach champagne. Ten minutes," Draco barked out.

"Yes, master," the elf squeaked, bowing, and popped out.

After eating, Draco felt better able to handle the task. Hermione could have told him that low blood sugar makes anyone more prone to irritability and other negative emotions; and he had been more than a little irritable, prior to eating. But if Hermione would have had the temerity to tell him any such thing, Draco would have likely hexed her bald.

Draco retired to the library and proceeded to look up demons and demon spawn. Two hours later, he gave up. There wasn't a single book on the subject in the entire Malfoy library, which was unusual. Anything to do with magic or Dark creatures would be a staple in their library - even books that were forbidden to the public. So why, of all... He stopped his musings as realisation hit. He was being stupid. It was true. All of it. Aunt Dorcas hadn't been relaying malicious gossip, but historical truth. He'd more or less believed it at the time, but there had been a niggling doubt. Now, he no longer doubted. The books would still be in the house somewhere, of course. Nothing of possible future use would be destroyed or thrown away, even if it were distasteful; only put out of sight.

o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o

Harry sent Hedwig, his pure white Snow Owl, ahead to Hogwarts. She rarely got much use carrying mail or messages, so the exercise would do her good. Harry's trunk was shrunk, along with his broom and Hedwig's cage, and he stowed them in a pocket.

As they were preparing to leave Harry's room, Professor Dumbledore raised his wand to the polished silver wall.

Correctly inferring that the professor was about to transform it back to its original state, Harry asked a quick question. "If you left it, Professor, how long would it last?"

The old man raised an eyebrow at his charge, but replied, "About eighteen to twenty-four hours. I didn't put enough energy into it to make it permanent."

Harry grinned. It was as he'd hoped. "May I ask you to leave it, then?"

"Revenge, Harry?" the headmaster asked, inferring the young man's intention.

Snape raised an eyebrow, intrigued. Tonks grinned approvingly.

"If you'd like, we can tell him it won't last, but I'd rather simply tell him to stay out of the room for twenty-four hours. Should Uncle Vernons' greed get the better of him it would be his own fault, wouldn't it?" Harry said, grinning.

"That's very... Slytherin of you, Potter," Snape said, almost approvingly.

Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling madly, but, "And should he manage to sell some of it, first?"

Harry's shoulders sagged a bit, but his mind was working rapidly. "Could you add a 'finite' to the wards, so any active spell will end upon exiting the house?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore's mouth curved in a slight smile. "I think that might be arranged, yes; right after you've gone."

Harry grinned widely and turned to go out the door. As he did so, he caught sight of his wings. "Oh! I'm sorry; I interrupted before I could be told how to vanish my wings!" he remarked to the small group.

"If you'll excuse me?" Snape inserted, and made for the stairs.

Harry watched him go with a sense of relief. He may have made points with the man today, but that did not confer comfort in his presence.

"Ah, yes. About that... " Dumbledore dithered. "If I recall what I read of it correctly - it's been some years, you understand - you merely imagine them gone. But it may not be as easy as it might sound. You may wish to envision them folding away into your back, or another, similar action. When you want or need them, they will again 'unfold'. Instinct, you know."

"Are you intimating that I'm some sort of animal?" Harry asked tensely, ready to get angry, if that's what was called for.

"No more than are we all, Mister Potter," the headmaster replied cheerfully.

Harry eyed the man suspiciously, but let it rest. He didn't want to leave the house, or arrive anywhere else, with his wings still extended, so he needed to concentrate on that. After about twenty minutes he succeeded in 'putting away' his wings. It was actually more in the way of reabsorbing them. For the next twenty minutes after, he practised extruding his wings then reabsorbing them. Dumbledore had been right. It wasn't all that easy to make his wings go away; especially at first. Extruding them, on the other hand, was a breeze. He managed it twice in those twenty minutes, but there'd be more time to practice, later. He still needed more practise for true ease, but it would do for now.

Professor Dumbledore had wandered away downstairs early on, so when Harry finally decided he was ready to join everyone else downstairs, Tonks mentioned that he might wish to don another shirt. "That one's got great bleedin' holes in back, Harry."

Harry blushed. Of course it would have. He'd put his wings through it; the first time instinctively when he'd got so frustrated with the headmaster, and then repeatedly while practising. But while he went to get another shirt (from Dudley's closet, since his own [or rather, Dudley's cast-offs] were packed away in a shrunken trunk), he didn't put it on. He'd had yet another wicked idea.

"What are you up to, Harry?" Tonks asked when she saw him still wearing the ripped shirt, and carrying the other.

"I wanted to reassure my belovéd family that I suffered no ill effects, and show them my birthday gift," Harry said 'innocently'.

"Birthday... ? Harry, you rapscallion!" Tonks exclaimed, grinning, as she caught on. She didn't mind if these Muggles were given a bit of a scare, knowing the conditions Harry lived under with them.

Just before they got to the kitchen, the room where the Aurors were questioning the Dursleys, Harry extended his wings from his back, and walked in. Not the wisest thing he could have done. He'd meant, of course, to scare his 'dear' relatives out of their wits, but when he found half a dozen wands pointing at him, and at least two curses thrown (two more half-spoken before they were aborted), he was quite shocked. He was also shocked when his wings wrapped around him, and those same wings repelled the curses, causing a few people in the room to have to jump or duck to avoid them.

"Well, that was a fine display," Snape said sneeringly. But for once, he wasn't sneering at Harry. "Did none of you listen when I told you not to hex Mister Potter when he came down?"

"That's a demon spawn!" one man, unknown to Harry, replied.

"Very good, Prentis," Snape said sarcastically. "So why did you cast a vampyre-specific spell at him? Demon spawn are rarely dangerous."

"It was the wings, wasn't it?" the man said defensively.

Snape sneered. "Oh, yes. Black as night, aren't they?" he said, his voice dripping with disdain.

"You could have said, Severus," Molly Weasley said in reprimand from the floor, where she'd dived to avoid a rebounded spell. "I just barely recognised him myself!"

Heaving herself off the floor, she addressed Harry. "Are you all right, dear?"

"Y-yes, Mrs. Weasley," Harry replied, still a bit shaken.

"Harry... " Molly said warningly, even as she took in the changes in 'her boy'. "What did I tell you last?"

Harry grinned abashedly, despite his shock. "Yes, Mum," he said.

Almost everyone else was staring at the demon spawn, who just happened to be their own Harry Potter. Even the Dursleys were staring, albeit with terrified horror, rather than wonder.

"I believe, Mister Moody, that you still had a question or two for young Mister Dursley, here?" Professor Dumbledore said mildly of the fat blond boy sitting in a straight-backed kitchen chair. 'Most everyone pretended not to notice the yellow puddle now under the chair, but someone among them soon had the presence of mind to charm it away.

o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o

Draco finally found the books he'd been looking for in a secret (to everyone but family) stash under the floor of his father's study. Casting a revealing charm on them to make sure there weren't any nasty surprises attached to the books, he then cast a quick cleansing charm on them to rid them of dust and took them up to his room, floating them along behind him.

After he had gone through the books and learned all but the most insignificant details about demon spawn, he closed the cover on the last book, looked up, and just stared into space, letting it all settle in. He noted that there were quite a few candles lit; candles that he had not noticed being brought in. Looking around at his window, he was only mildly surprised to find that it was now evening.

"Would Master Draco like a meal?" came the squeaky voice of a house elf.

Draco looked around to the elf and just stared at it for a few moments as the words it had spoken made their way through the maelstrom of his thoughts, until they registered. "Yes," he decided. "Whatever you think I'd like."

The house elf's eyes widened. Master Draco had always had very specific directions for his meals. "Yes sir, Master Draco."

"Thank you, Lorly."

Lorly's mouth dropped open. Master Draco had thanked Lorly! "Is... Is Master Draco feeling unwell?" the elf ventured timidly.

Draco frowned, and focused on the elf. "No. Now go fix my supper! I'll dine here," he directed imperiously.

Lorly relaxed. That was more like Master Draco. "Yes, Master Draco," he replied, and popped out.

After a delicious meal of veal parmesan, egg noodles with butter sauce, green beans nicoise, a mixed leaf salad with red wine vinegar and olive oil, fresh baked French bread rolls with fresh dairy butter, coffee, and a small snifter of French brandy, Draco was ready to again tackle the problem of his father's infanticide of his sister. Insofar as he could gather, what made a child a demon spawn had mostly to do with the modification of that child's magic core. There was some modification of the genes, of course, as witness the demon spawn's ability to grow wings, but the only ability passed on to further generations was a stronger affinity, and ability, with magic.

So why had his father killed his baby sister? She would have borne magically stronger children to the family. Lucius didn't even have the excuse of Voldemort at the time, since for all anyone knew, the Dark Lord was dead and departed, courtesy of baby Potter. As... distasteful as it was to admit it, there were only two possible reasons for his father to have killed the child which he could think of; jealousy, thinking his wife was bearing a demon's get, or superstitious fear, for the same reason - and Lucius had months to look up the same information Draco had found in a single day. So neither reason left the man in anything like a good light. Draco felt the last dregs of respect for his father draining away; and with it, his last reason to follow the path Lucius had set out for him.

He still had a couple of problems, one of which was the problem of his having to marry a demon spawn. Unfortunately, nothing in the books he'd read that day had said much of anything about demon curses, except that no way had been found around them. Usually, however, those curses were to cause the death of the recipient. In a way, Draco could admire this demon's curse. It didn't involve the death of one person, but of a whole family line, and left those extant to live with the knowledge. Psychological torture of the finest kind to a family whose main interest was to pass down the family name, and prestige, through time.

But he wasn't interested in marrying. Although many people had caught his eye for a short while, none had interested him enough to give them the honour of bedding them, although he had, discreetly, indulged his curiosity otherwise. Only one had kept his interest; a fact he had only recently recognised. And that presented a pretty problem on its own, since that person had been on the wrong end of his tongue and spite for several years. Harry Potter, himself. So far he had been unable to come up with a way for him to get close enough to the boy to offer a truce, so he could begin trying to mend some of the burned bridges without getting himself hexed into the infirmary.

Part of the problem, of course, was that low-life Weasel, who had more temper than brains, and Granger, whom he'd likely alienated even worse than Potter. He didn't mind that, except that it made it more difficult to get to Potter. And he didn't really know why Potter could keep his interest, so.

Of course the other problem was a bit bigger and much more dangerous to him than the Golden Trio. He Who Must Not Be Named. But Potter had bested the Dark Lord on several occasions, so the one problem might be the solution to the other. Except for the demon spawn he was supposed to marry. That threw a spanner into the works, and made everything far more complicated. Not that they hadn't been complicated before, mind you.

Draco mentally threw up his hands in temporary defeat, and decided to go to bed.

o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o

Harry had finished settling into Grimmauld Place hours ago, and was himself preparing for bed. He had treated himself to a nice long, hot shower, and now he was rather looking forward to having enough bedding, and a mattress that wasn't lumpy.

Harry now had a few more weeks of free time than he'd normally have had. He planned to make good use of it.

o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o
1. Girl's underwear instead of boy's.
o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o