Love Under Siege

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Love Under Siege

Chapter I

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June 5, 1997

Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire

Draco Malfoy's Coming of Age was a grand affair.

His mother had organized a gala for the occasion, and that night Malfoy Manor was festooned in silver and green draperies. Live fairies dotted the banisters, illuminating the ballroom with their soft blue lights. Beneath floating candlesticks and the enchanted night-sky ceiling, the guests sipped champagne and dined amidst the soft clatter of silverware.

No less than 200 gold-inked invitations had been sent, to all the oldest and most prominent pureblood families, to Ministry officials and corporate partners who had dealings with the Malfoy family.

Draco entertained the guests and acted perfectly the part of the gracious host, exercising all the aristocratic graces and etiquette he had been raised with. He conversed politely with the well wishers, accepted presents with a graceful nod, and smiled charmingly as his father introduced him to business associates.

It was near midnight when the last guest left, and as the house elves scurried about cleaning up the aftermath of the festivity, Draco retired to his room.

He bathed and slipped on a clean robe and sank down in the soft warmth of his huge bed. The party, while enjoyable, had left him drained and he needed a bit of relaxation before sleep.

Draco rummaged through his covers and came up with a Quidditch magazine. With a tap of his wand, the illusion charm fell to reveal the item for what it really was.

Two handsome looking blokes grinned up at him from the glossy cover, wearing nothing but lascivious smirks and touching each other suggestively. Wizard Inches was emblazoned in big, blocky letters at the top.

Draco settled back comfortably, one hand smoothing back the cover of the magazine while the other slipped beneath his robes.

Crack!

"Master Malfoy is requesting Master Draco's presence in the study."

Draco yanked his hand out of his robes and shoved the magazine under a pillow with a startled gasp at the unexpected intrusion.

"Dobby--!" he snapped irritably, snatching up his wand.

The odd little creature's tennis-ball eyes widened fearfully and threw himself to the floor. "Dobby is sorry to be intruding so rudely, Master Draco sir!" His head bobbed in exaggerated bows, large ears flapping back and forth. "Dobby is not knowing Master Draco is busy looking at pictures of--"

Draco's enraged hiss cut off the house-elf's apologetic babbles. Having delivered his message and eager to escape Draco's wrath, the elf disappeared with another crack. Draco straightened his robes with a curse and set off to find his father.

He found his parents sitting leisurely in one of the large armchairs in the study. Lucius Malfoy looked up expectantly as Draco entered and gestured for him to take a seat. Narcissa pressed a kiss to his cheek, then rose to do the same to Draco before taking her leave.

Draco seated himself in a chair opposite his father. "You called?"

Lucius tipped down the last of his drink and regarded his son for a moment.

Draco had grown into himself during the past year or so, and the elder Malfoy had to admit he carried himself well. He was almost as tall as Lucius now, and although not quite as broad in the chest and shoulders as his father, had strong limbs and a well-defined physique while retaining the lean build of a Seeker. He moved with a confidence and grace befitting a Malfoy, and his silver eyes fairly glittered with restrained magical power.

He smiled; Draco would prove to be a worthy heir of the Malfoy line.

"For all legal and practical purposes, you're an adult wizard now, Draco. I assume you received the Ministry owl earlier today."

Draco nodded. The standard grey Ministry owl had swooped in his bedroom window that morning carrying written permission for him to cast magic outside Hogwarts. Although Draco and his parents had always been less than faithful to that particular regulation, it was nice all the same to be legal now.

"I expect you're well aware of what this means, Draco. When a wizard comes into his inheritance, he assumes all the duties and titles of his House. You, as future Head of the Malfoy line, will have a great many responsibilities. I know you will carry the burden well."

Lucius favored his son with a proud smile, and the younger Malfoy felt the familiar swell in his chest that always accompanied his father's acknowledgement.

"You conducted yourself admirably this evening before my business associates," Lucius continued. "You recall Mister Wimple?"

"Yes." Gerald Wimple was the pot-bellied, jovial Head of the Committee of Magical Inventions, a ministry division credited for putting out some of the most popular wizarding inventions of the century.

"He spoke to me privately after the dinner. It seems his Committee has spent the past year working on a most peculiar project."

Draco leaned forward in anticipation and waited for his father to go on. Anything this Committee was working on was likely to appear as the next hot item on the market.

"You must have touched upon the topic of artificial corporal units in your Magical Theory class."

"The sustenance of a physical body, real or manufactured, on magical energies alone," Draco recited, not quite sure how this might be relevant.

"An exciting topic, to be sure. Imagine, a body functioning sans food, air, or rest, and fueled purely by magic. It's an ability exhibited to some degree in vampires and Inferi."

Ah. Draco remembered this from his Magical Theory lectures. The flaw to this argument was that even vampires needed blood and occasional rest to survive, and Inferi inevitably crumbled to dust once too much magic had been channeled through the dead tissue.

"For a long time, it was only a theory." Was? "This was the phenomenon that Wimple's team had been trying to reproduce in their new product."

"And...were they successful?"

"So they believe."

For just a moment, Draco's pretense of haughty disdain slipped. He lifted one elegant pale eyebrow in incredulous disbelief. "Really."

"The breakthrough came three months ago. Wimple's team have kept this information confidential as they worked out the kinks in their project."

"It is surprising, then that Mr. Wimple would be willing to divulge this information, Father."

"Isn't it?" Lucius said, with the barest hint of smugness. "Wimple's Committee has close ties to Gambol and Japes, which manufactures most of the inventions the Committee patents. As a tribute to the long-held business and personal relations between the Malfoy family and the company, Wimple presented me with a prototype of the product his Committee has engineered with application of the theory." Lucius reached into his robe pocket and handed a thin leather-bound book to Draco.

The cover was plain black, and lacking any sort of writing or other identification. Draco turned it over in his hands. A fairly unremarkable looking thing, to be sure, but if Wimple's claims were true, he was holding the greatest magical breakthrough of the century.

"Furthermore, in recognition of the Coming of Age of the Malfoy heir, Wimple has offered you a chance to beta test this trial version before they formally introduce it to the market."

Draco looked up, startled.

"That book carries instructions on creating an artificial magical being. It can take any form you desire: a pet, a familiar, a personal house-elf..."

Draco's mind was already spinning with possibilities. Any type of magical creature he wanted. "You said this was a test trial, right?"

"Six months," Lucius affirmed. "It'll expire in December. Of course, Wimple's team would like monthly feedback letters from you. Nothing too complicated, just brief evaluations of their product."

"Not a problem," Draco nodded, fingers curling around the corner of the book's cover in eager anticipation.

Lucius smiled at the boy's open enthusiasm. "That is all. Happy Birthday, Draco."

Once he was settled comfortably on his bed again, Draco pulled up the little black book. Wizard Inches lay buried forgotten somewhere in the covers and at the moment Draco was too preoccupied to find it and hide it away properly.

The first section of the book, Draco found, dealt with a technical explanation of the artificial corporal unit theory. It seemed a fairly dry account of the research and experimentation that had gone into developing the product, so Draco duly skipped to the next chapter.

Part 2: Maintenance and Care

Caring for your artificial corporal unit (ACU) is an easy and painless task. As a body operating solely on magical energy, your ACU does not require food, rest, and sustains little damage from extremities of temperature, stress, and magical exertion.

Draco spent the better part of the next hour combing through the pages. He learned that while an ACU lacked a soul, it would have a faux personality by the same magic that enabled mirrors and portraits to talk. It would need to be in close proximity to Draco's person for the first few days to properly imprint on him, and could serve as a magical reserve should Draco choose.

Part 3: Choosing a Species

Finally, the part he'd been waiting for. Draco shifted into a more comfortable position before diving in.

Each page was headed with the species' name and picture, followed by a brief description of its physical and magical attributes.

The choices began with mundane non-magical creatures: rats, owls, cats, toads, and snakes. Draco leafed through these pages disinterestedly.

After a while, he was going slower, taking the time to read through the descriptions and combing through his choices carefully. Kneazle, hippogriff, bowtruckle, crup...Draco bookmarked the ashwinder and runespoor with his fingers, and admitted himself impressed at the sheer range of choices. He reached the end and flipped back to the ashwinder and runespoor.

At a tap of his wand, the animated photo of the sleek red and orange ashwinder reared up at him, hissing and swaying from side to side hypnotically.

A fascinating snake, but its colors reminded him rather forcibly of Gryffindor House, and it might not be a brilliant idea to keep a pet that could spontaneously combust, he mused.

The three-headed runespoor seemed more favorable--metallic silver with black stripes, and a traditional favorite of Dark wizards to boot because of its intimidating appearance. A perfectly Slytherin pet. With one hand curled around the page, Draco was ready to make his decision when he noticed something out of place.

The page felt strangely thick between his fingers, as if there were two sheets stuck together. Curious, Draco picked at a corner until they separated and carefully peeled apart the pages.

Human

Draco's breath caught. He blinked, faintly startled, but there it was. Although, why there would be a species option for human was beyond him.

The standard identification picture was of a nondescript male figure. The page was lacking the descriptive paragraph, but it was hardly necessary.

Could he--was it possible...? Draco's mind spun at the possibility.

A Slytherin through and through, Draco was not above exerting whatever power he had over others, whether directly or through insidious means. Ownership would be the ultimate expression of control and the mere thought of having that much power over another human being--even an artificial one--was intoxicating.

To own a human--not just as a servant, but as a possession, in every sense of the word-- the idea was strangely seductive.

Ethically dubious, perhaps, but Draco reminded himself that this wouldn't be a true human. It would be a magical item, like a broom or wand, charmed to move and behave alive.

The internal protests died instantly, and Draco knew his mind was made.

Check the box below to select this species.

Draco tapped his wand on the box once. The message dissolved, but now a second line appeared:

Are you sure?

His wand hovered over the page for only a second. He tapped again and watched with bated breath as the ink faded and new words replaced them.

You are now ready to customize your human. Do not abort this process.

This was it, then. Draco felt an odd sense of relief that the choice had been taken from him. He could only continue.

The process was far shorter than Draco had expected, and he was offered only the choice of his pet's gender and age. He shrugged mentally, supposing that the book would improvise the rest and promptly chose male and sixteen.

He gave the page a conclusive tap of his wand and sat back with bated breath.

The magic was almost imperceptible at first: a faint tingling in the air like static electricity that brushed Draco's bare skin with the subtlety of spiderweb silk. Draco watched in awe, reveling in the sensation of tangible magic as tendrils of white vapor swirled and coalesced.

It was a delicate, meticulous process, one that Draco could not tear his eyes from. Magic condensed to form limbs, hands grew fingers and feet grew toes, and something like hair sprouted from the scalp of the head--

Beneath the skin, Draco imagined internal organs forming, muscles knitting together and blood vessels branching into every inch of the body like root fibers.

He watched as skin took on a startling realism, as hair developed color and striking texture, as facial features took shape and details, as surely as if an invisible artist were sculpting them.

And then it was over. The magic in the air dissipated, glossing over the body it had created and Draco's own skin like a receding tide.

Draco was left to the feeling of his heart thudding in his chest, but no longer alone.

It worked. It really worked.

Had be been a little less excited, Draco would have been mortified to hear how his inner voice sounded very like a first year Hufflepuff at Christmas. But as it was, he couldn't stop the strangely giddy sensation fluttering in his stomach. He let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding and crept closer to his creation.

The boy was lying on his side, naked and curled in on himself like an infant. He was smaller than Draco had imagined, with a narrow frame and a finely boned face, slack in repose and framed by a long, thick mane of messy dark hair. His chest rose and fell gently in rhythm with his deep breathing.

Draco was struck by how utterly real this boy looked. His hand reached out of its own accord and he found himself stroking the back of his knuckles against a slender arm.

The skin felt smooth and warm beneath his fingers.

I created him. He's mine.

Pride ballooned in his chest.

Now came the question of what to do with him. Draco wondered briefly if he couldn't take the boy to one of the spare guestrooms for the night.

But hadn't the book stressed the importance that the ACU imprint on him first? That meant close proximity from the moment it woke up, lest it mistakenly fixate itself on something Draco would regret later.

It would have to stay with him tonight

He moved the little black book to his bedside table and bent down to bring the boy under the covers. Draco couldn't resist sweeping a long gaze over all that bare skin as he moved the lax body.

He arranged the boy so that he lay on his side, facing Draco. It was a strange feeling to have another body in the bed with him, so Draco left a good deal of space between them when he lay down.

For a long while after the lights had dimmed, Draco stared at the resting face thoughtfully. Very briefly, he wondered...had his decisions tonight been wise? What unforeseen consequences might await the creation of a human being--even an artificial one--born to be a possession?

But then the moment of uncertainty was gone, and Draco brushed away such heavy ponderings for another day.

If only Blaise could see him now, in bed with a naked brunet. Draco smirked in the darkness and closed his eyes.

He would wait to see what tomorrow would bring.