Drusilla's Type
"Shouldn't have come down here, should you, dearie?"
Shouldn't have come down here alone.
Shouldn't have come down here at night.
Shouldn't have come down here at all.
The litany of 'shouldn't haves' ran through Severus' mind as he was pinned against the stone wall. Silk and lace brushed against him and hands snatched at his wand, giving him no chance to defend himself. A voice whispered in his ear, but no breath touched his skin. Mad black eyes glistened in the shadows, and black and red fingernails scraping down his cheek.
A vampire.
A beautiful, gloriously insane vampire, brushing her teeth against his throat, and here he was in Knockturn Alley, where no one would care.
"Little wizard," she crooned, "all alone ... are you waiting for Mummy, dearest? Is she looking for you?"
"Dru." A masculine voice accompanied an absurd figure: Muggle clothes, shocking blond hair. A beautiful, expensive leather jacket that smelled of death. He was messy and aggressive. And hungry.
"Dru," he said again. "Eat the bastard, will you? We need to meet Borgin in half an hour."
Dru ö ah, he knew her now, remembered her face from his Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook. Drusilla. The mad Seeress. She pouted, and turned back to Severus. "My Spike is rude," she said. "He doesn't understand. He thinks you're just a schoolboy."
"Isn't he, then?" asked Spike, sneering at Severus over Drusilla's shoulder.
"All finished, now. All done, gone away from the wizard king, and his werewolf and his nasty phoenix. Away, away, away." She was almost singing. "Gone to the Dark Lord, now. Cruel little evil in him." She snapped at his throat, and giggled as Severus flinched. "I can taste it." She rolled up his sleeve and showed the Mark to her companion. Severus shuddered as she ran a painted fingernail over it, half repulsed and half aroused. She kissed the Mark, allowing her teeth to break the skin.
"I want to keep him, Spike."
"Bloody hell, Dru! We don't have time for this. You can Turn poncy little boys in alleys some other time."
"But he won't be here some other time, Spike. He'll go away. He'll run away from Mummy, won't you, dearest?" He said nothing. She slashed her nails down his cheek, and licked at the suddenly flowing blood. "Won't you?"
"Yes," he admitted.
"That's not what I mean." She kissed him on the lips, and he tasted his own blood. "But it'll do."
"Dru," said Spike, and Severus suddenly recognised the vampire's jealousy. This vampire, this ridiculous, powerful, evil creature, thought he was a threat. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it.
"I Turned you in an alley, Spike. Remember? The blood, and the death, and the poetry ... this one's a poet, too. I can taste it." Long fingernails, dangerously close to his jugular (and a memory: the cramped tunnel, the wolf, the trick, death running towards him, leaping for his throat, and then being repelled: bloody Potter, playing the hero once more).
He licked his lips, and wished that his fear weren't so damn obvious.
"Frothing, bubbling poems, down in a dungeon, dealing out death," Dru crooned. "Cruel little poems, little barbs in the dark, and all the children, all the little children, you have to save them all."
Mad. Completely, utterly mad, and this was how he would die: drained in an alley like a common Muggle. Wouldn't they laugh, Potter and his lot. And Lucius would shake his head, and say, "I'd expected better from him, really, I did..."
"Run and catch ... run and catch ... the lamb is in the blackberry patch ... Will your mother sing to you in Azkaban? Angelus killed my mother, you know. What will he think of you, dearest? Him and his nasty soul, you can look for redemption together. And Grandmother, licking the Master's boots, she'll teach you ... we'll be a family, yes? And we'll run and play and kill, and it will all be delicious and bloody."
He couldn't speak. This terror consumed him, tightened his throat and left his mouth dry.
So weak.
So bloody stupid.
"Drusilla."
"Quiet, Spike. I want to keep him." She turned, and Severus thought that she might be smiling. "He's a Death Eater. Like us, really."
No. Not like you at all, pathetic bloodsuckers who can't even survive daylight ... nothing like you.
Footsteps came echoing through the Alley, accompanied by loud, officious voices.
"Bloody hell," said Spike. "The Ministry." He grabbed Drusilla's shoulders. "Come on, love, we have to get out of here."
"But -- but--" She began to keen, an oddly pitiful sound.
"Later, pet, we'll find you another juicy little Death Eater later." He gave Severus a disparaging look. "A pretty one, that doesn't look like he washes his hair in cooking oil."
Spike threw Severus' wand at him, and the vampires disappeared. He could hear the Ministry's Vampire Extermination Squad coming closer, and he was suddenly aware that his arm was exposed, and even without the Mark, getting caught in Knockturn Alley was never a good thing for a wizard.
He grabbed his wand and Disapparated, and tried to forget about red and black fingernails and mad, black eyes.