Bound by Fang and Spell

The sharp, violent crack of Apparition tore through the unnatural silence of the forest clearing. Draco Malfoy appeared in a swirl of black wool and palpable disdain, his silver-blond hair perfectly coiffed despite the jarring magical travel. He straightened the lapels of his tailored coat, his grey eyes sweeping over the scene with a practiced sneer. Before him loomed a gargantuan stone mansion, a monstrosity of gothic spires and shadowed archways that seemed to have sprouted from the ancient earth itself. Ivy, thick as a man's arm and unnaturally dark, crawled over the walls, and the air hummed with a low, dissonant thrum of power. A summons. Not an invitation. The distinction was a barb under his skin.

"Fucking hell," he muttered, the words a plume of white vapour in the chilly air. This was Blackwood Manor, the so-called neutral ground. A sanctuary. The very concept was offensive—a glorified kennel for the wizarding world's misfits and mongrels, and he, a Malfoy, had been ordered here for his own "protection." As if he couldn't handle himself. The indignity of it was a physical weight, settling heavy in his gut.

He pushed open the massive oak doors, which swung inward without a sound, revealing a cavernous great hall. The air inside was even worse—a thick, cloying miasma of conflicting magics. It stank of damp fur, cloying floral notes from some preening Fae creature, and the metallic tang of old, spilt blood that never quite washed out of ancient stone. His lip curled. The place was teeming. A hulking brute of a werewolf, thankfully in his human-adjacent form, was scratching behind his ear by a grand fireplace, shedding coarse hair onto a priceless-looking Aubusson rug. A coven of goblins huddled in a corner, their long fingers greedily counting a pile of gold, their beady eyes flashing with suspicion at his arrival. This wasn't a sanctuary; it was a fucking menagerie.

Draco’s gaze slid over them all, dismissing them as the filth they were. He was a wizard, of pure and noble blood, forced to share air with these... creatures. The thought made his skin crawl. He needed a drink. A strong one. Or, failing that, solitude. Somewhere he wouldn’t have to look at the rabble. His eyes scanned the hall, past the grand staircase and the portraits of stern-faced ancestors who weren't his own, and landed on a set of dark mahogany doors. A small, elegant brass plaque read: The Library.

Perfect. A bastion of civilization and silence amidst the squalor. A place for the learned, not the feral. Straightening his spine and affecting an air of bored superiority that had served him so well for years, he strode across the stone floor, his dragon-hide boots clicking with sharp, aristocratic purpose. He would find a quiet corner, bury his nose in some forgotten arcane text, and ignore the existence of every other soul in this gods-forsaken house until he was permitted to leave.

The library doors were even heavier than the main ones, swinging open into a vast, two-story chamber of breathtaking quiet. The air was cool and dry, smelling of aged paper, leather bindings, and beeswax polish. Shelves stretched up into the shadowed heights, crammed with countless volumes. For a moment, a flicker of genuine appreciation eased the scowl on Draco’s face. This was a place of power and knowledge, a world away from the grunting beasts in the hall. He breathed in the scent of civility, feeling the tension in his shoulders begin to unclench.

His relief was short-lived. He wasn’t alone.

In a worn leather armchair near a cold, cavernous fireplace, a figure sat in perfect stillness. So still, in fact, that Draco had mistaken him for a statue at first glance. He was young, dressed in modern, simple clothes that seemed out of place against the ancient backdrop. His skin was unnervingly pale, like marble, and his hair was a messy bronze. As Draco’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, the figure looked up, and Draco found himself pinned by a gaze the colour of old gold. They were the eyes of a predator. A vampire.

“Looking for something to read?” the vampire asked, his voice a low, smooth melody that grated on Draco’s nerves. It was too polished, too calm. “Or just somewhere to hide from the ‘rabble’?”

Draco’s spine went rigid. The creature had heard his thoughts. A filthy, mind-reading leech. The air in the room, once peaceful, now felt charged, heavy with a pressure that pushed against Draco’s skin. His own magic bristled in response, a coiled serpent of power stirring in his core, instinctively reacting to the cold, dead aura of the thing in the chair.

“I don’t hide,” Draco sneered, his voice cutting through the silence like splintering ice. He took a slow step into the room, his hand hovering near the pocket where his wand rested. “And I certainly don’t converse with corpses that have delusions of grandeur. Do you have a name, or do you just answer to ‘parasite’?”

The vampire didn’t so much as flinch. A faint, infuriatingly amused smile touched his lips. “Edward Cullen. And your thoughts are so loud, wizard. A constant storm of arrogance and fear. It’s quite… tiresome.” He unfolded himself from the chair with a fluid grace that was utterly inhuman, rising to his full height. He was taller than Draco, lean but with an impression of immense, compressed strength. “You reek of privilege and daddy issues. It’s a common scent among your kind.”

“And you reek of grave dirt and stolen life,” Draco shot back, his grey eyes narrowing to slits. He could feel the vampire’s power now, a vast, ancient coldness that was the antithesis of his own volatile magic. It was a void, a chilling emptiness that longed to consume the heat and light of the living. Yet, beneath his revulsion, a sliver of something else took root—a perverse fascination. He had never been this close to one of them, not one this old, this powerful. He could see the faint, web-like scars on the vampire’s pale skin, the unsettling perfection of his features, the sheer, predatory confidence in his stance. Edward was assessing him just as intently, his golden eyes roaming over Draco, not just seeing him, but dissecting him, layer by layer, peeling back the pure-blood pretension to the raw, furious magic beneath. The air between them grew thick, crackling with their silent, mutual animosity and a grudging, unspoken acknowledgement of the power each of them held.

Draco broke eye contact first, a sneer twisting his lips as he turned his back on the vampire with deliberate, insulting finality. "I'm sure you find many things tiresome. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to find something to read that doesn't have its pages stuck together with dried blood."

He stalked toward a towering shelf dedicated to darker, more obscure arts. His eyes, sharp and practiced, scanned the leather spines. He was looking for something potent, something to remind himself of his own power in this house of freaks. His gaze snagged on a volume bound in dark green basilisk hide, its silver clasps shaped like coiled serpents. The Serpent's Codex. A legendary text on primal, sacrificial magic, rumoured to be lost for centuries. A surge of triumphant greed shot through him.

He reached out, his fingers brushing the cold, scaled leather. Before he could grasp it, a hand clamped down over his. It was impossibly fast, impossibly cold, and impossibly strong. Edward’s hand. The vampire was suddenly right behind him, his body a wall of frigid marble, his scent—a clean, sharp smell of rain and stone—overwhelming Draco’s senses. The chill of his skin seeped through Draco's sleeve, a dead cold that felt like a violation.

"I think not," Edward's voice was a low murmur right beside his ear, a silken threat that made the fine hairs on Draco's neck stand on end.

Pure, undiluted rage erupted in Draco's chest. "Get your fucking hands off me, you filthy corpse." He ripped his hand away and spun around, his wand already in his fist, leveled directly at Edward's heart. The tip glowed with a sickly green light. "I will not be manhandled by a leech."

Edward didn't back away. His golden eyes had darkened to pools of black, the hunger in them stark and undisguised. A low growl rumbled in his chest. "You wave that stick around as if it makes you a god. It only makes you a target."

"Try me," Draco hissed, and the spell shot from his wand without him even needing to speak the word. A flash of violent purple light, a curse designed to boil the blood in a man's veins, flew at the vampire.

Edward moved. He didn't dodge; he simply ceased to be where he was, reappearing a dozen feet away as the curse slammed into the bookshelf behind him, blasting a hole through priceless grimoires and ancient scrolls, which burst into acrid, magical flames. He crouched low, his body coiled like a spring, the predator unleashed. The civilized mask was gone, replaced by the raw, feral hunger of his true nature.

"My turn," he snarled.

He lunged, a pale blur of motion that the human eye couldn't track. Draco barely had time to think, his magic flaring instinctively. Protego!

But he never finished the incantation. Before Edward's attack could land, before Draco's shield could form, the very air in the room solidified. A wave of immense, crushing power washed over them, a force as old and absolute as the mansion itself. It felt like being plunged into the depths of an icy sea. A brilliant, golden light flared from the runes carved into the ceiling, and a deafening hum vibrated through the stone floor.

The invisible force slammed into them both, merciless and impartial. Draco was thrown backward, his body hitting a solid wall of books with a force that knocked the air from his lungs. Edward was hurled in the opposite direction, crashing against the stone mantelpiece with a sickening crack of marble.

The light and pressure vanished as quickly as they had appeared, leaving a profound, ringing silence. The only sounds were the soft crackle of the burning books and Draco's own ragged, desperate breaths. He was on his hands and knees, his whole body trembling with adrenaline and fury. Across the room, Edward pushed himself to his feet. There was a fine web of cracks in the marble fireplace behind him, but the vampire himself was unharmed, his infuriating stillness returning.

He looked at Draco, and the polite disdain was gone from his eyes. It was replaced by something far more dangerous. It was a look of pure, unadulterated hatred, mingled with a shocking, electric current of raw fascination. He had seen Draco’s power, felt the venom in his magic. And Draco, staring back, his heart hammering against his ribs, had seen the monster behind the pretty face. The animosity between them was no longer a simple rivalry; it was a promise of violence, a shared secret of the power they had unleashed, and the dark, unspoken curiosity about what would happen when they inevitably clashed again.