Dean walked a step behind Draco, both descending back to the holding cells far from where they detained the captured Death Eaters. Draco had told him the Phoenix had been holed up just a little further down this corridor since they had aparated back from the battle a day and a half ago. They had been busy taking care of each other since then, Draco choosing not to mention having pulled the Phoenix into the Manor's dungeons until other more important matters were seen to.
"He hasn't moved," Draco mumbled as the cell came into view, filled only by a pile of dirty red cloth... under which the Phoenix, the cause of all the suffering they now felt, lay.
"You sure he's alive?"
"He was, that night."
"Be careful, Draco," he insisted, the blond moving to go inside after pulling down several sets of wards... the Phoenix could be playing possum, after all.

Dean stayed near the bars, hearing the screech more so than seeing Draco open the stubborn door. The sound seemed to suddenly combine with the smell of mold and mildew, of ancient blood caked on the walls and the impossibly faint drip of water somewhere off in another cell. A chill ran up his spine, the atmosphere narrowing at him for the first time in what felt like eternity. Draco's steps were slow, cautious, and Dean slipped in behind him to offer any help he might need. They were both spooked; not by the Phoenix but the situation in general.

Dean had yet to sleep since the battle, all of them healing and trying to calm those who had been driven to the brink by the sudden losses and overpowering battle. So much death, so suddenly... so much carnage. The wounds were messy, the stench of blood- blood of Death Eaters, of the the Phoenix, of each other and their own- soaked into their clothes. But it was not just the blood. The stench of blood was faint and somewhat familiar. But the smell of burned flesh... Merlin, to that they were in no way used to. Hopefully, they never would be.

They had lost three Asps that night, two directly due to the very individual Draco and he were checking on. Blaise's death had hit them all very hard in particular, and Dean was quite sure the only reason Draco had yet to sequester himself and have a private breakdown was because others needed to rely on him too much. Dean would make sure Draco was given some time to mourn on his own... before thanking care of the Asps destroyed him from the inside. Dean would make sure, once they finished here, that Draco would remain undisturbed and free to grieve.

"He's alive," Draco told him, now cautiously leaning over the lump of cloth, " the magic's faint, but it's there."
"Do you plan to heal him or kill him?" Dean asked, not sure what mental state Draco was in at the moment, or if he should interfere with whatever decision Draco made. This was the one who killed Blaise, after all, the one who used Justin as a shield and used their own curses to kill him... the one who had wounded many others.
"I want to see the bastard's face, before anything."
With a nod, Dean pulled himself back towards the bars ready to fire a strong stunner, close enough to help and far enough not to intrude. He understood how Draco needed to do this alone, as the one who led them now, to face the one who had hurt so many of his Asps.

He watched Draco crouch between Dean and the prisoner, one hand poised to unleash a stunner of his own if needed while the other rolled the body over. He saw Draco's back tense and his dominant hand fall limp at his side.
"Merlin," Dean heard him gasp, before the blond suddenly pushed himself away from the Phoenix and right past Dean to run out of the cell. The body fell back as if Draco had never moved him, just as the sounds of the blond retching in the hall reached his ears. Dean stayed as he was, utterly unsure if he should go tend to Draco or check what had set him off so strongly. Draco had seen true cruelty growing up, his father not sparing the boy any horrendous sight in order to toughen him up for the day he would serve his master. The Phoenix was still alive as well, and Dean did not recall any of the curses or blows being of a disfiguring nature. What, then, had Draco so perturbed?

He stood there, abandoned by his Gryffindor bravery as the events continued to bombard him. The retching turned to heaving, which ebbed into tired coughs. When these turned to sobs, however, while the Phoenix had yet to show any spark of life, Dean stepped out to see to Draco. He raised some wards around the cell on his way out, just in case, before turning his full attention onto his friend. His leader latched onto him immediately, never before having cried openly in Dean's presence. Maybe Blaise's death had finally caught up to him? Maybe everything had?

"How could he?" Draco would mumble every so often between sobs, or ask "why?" or "how?". Dean kept holding him, once in a while glancing back to be sure the Phoenix's cell was secure... from inside and out. It took nearly half an hour more for Draco to say something more unexpected. It was not a gradual calming, but an instant shift from distraught and broken to composed and seething. "Dumbledore dies."
As soon as he said it, Draco stood up, calling himself an elf to ready an out of sight room in an unused part of the manor as if the last hour or so had not happened.
"Draco?" he asked cautiously,
"I don't know," his Beta answered, "I don't know anything anymore." And, in a strange way, Dean honestly felt that answered everything he might have asked.

"I need you to do something for me," Draco told him after another stretch of silent introspection, "I don't want to, but I see no other way."
"What do you need, Draco?"
"I'm sorry," Draco sighed, sounding as if he just sentenced Dean to death, "I... I can't face him, Dean. I need you to take him up without being seen."
"The Phoenix?" he asked, confused and not a little afraid as to Draco's mental stability at the moment.
"Your aunt studied necromancy, right?"
"She delved into it, yes," he nodded, knocked off balance by the topic change, "why?"
"Do you know anything about it? Did she teach you things?"
"Not really... she died before I turned twelve." Thankfully... she was scary as hell from what he remembered of his crazed aunt.
"Damn."
"Talk to me, Dragon, why do you need to know about necromancy?"
"Go. Go look what Dumbledore has done... tell me what the hell he did."
Dean looked over Draco another minute, trying to understand. Trying to assess if Draco really did lose his mind, too. His Beta looked utterly drained, dry and empty, as if all his emotions and strength had seep out with his tears onto Dean's shirt. He tried to mentally brace himself, knowing the effect the Phoenix had had on Draco. He walked slowly, forcing himself to prepare without scaring himself too badly. The Phoenix had yet to move, seeming dead as he just lay there unaffected by the events around him. He walked in and knelt, too worked up to even remember to reset the wards once he went inside. He turned the body in one swift move before he could lose his nerve. He pushed back the hood and gasped.
Harry...
The Harry he saw so long ago, before meeting Horris Snape.

The sight made him rear back as far as his kneeling position allowed, trying to wrap his mind around it all. Poor Draco. No wonder he had such a strong reaction. Hell, Dean could barely force himself not to reenact Draco's earlier actions. What was going on though? Horris' body looked like... well... Horris when he died, not Harry. Horris' body was dead, too. This one had a pulse.

Draco's questions about necromancy suddenly made a hell lot more sense, and Dean was left wishing he had actually listened to his crazed aunt's babble. Blaise would have known more, but... but Harry (or whatever this was that looked like Harry) had killed him. Their Alpha had turned on them, in some crazy far gone way. Now he was ready to retch.
Zack. Zack would know. His parents delved heavily in the art; far more that Dean's aunt, at any rate.

Draco had not told the other Asps about the Phoenix, though. Had not wanted any of them to know. Best be left that way, too, until they knew what the hell they were dealing with. He picked the body up, determined to do as Draco asked and save the blond any further emotional mayhem. To him, Harry had been a friend; Horris his leader. He cared for both deeply, but no where near as much as he knew Draco did. Horris was Draco's salvation; a true friend to save him from the evils he had resigned himself to. Dean could survive this, barely... Draco could not. He'd try to move the body quickly so that he could return and check on the blond.

As he walked, everything seemed to weigh him down. The more he saw the Phoenix's... the Harry-lookalike body... the more he realized how terrible the situation was; how his hatred of Dumbledore was growing exponentially with every step. Why did he have to make his weapon look like Harry? Was it to hurt them? Get them to hesitate fighting his Order? Enrage them... push them to alight with Voldemort even? Give them some perverted false hope perhaps?

The dead could not be brought back to life; even at ten, his aunt had drilled that into him often enough. Dean forced himself to acknowledge the stone-cold fact over and over as he walked. He had to ensure that he did not allow any stray thoughts of this actually being Horris he carried; or Harry. Horris was dead and his body missing. Harry... Harry was a mask that had melted away- a mask, nothing more. This, what he carried, was a killing machine. This was the reason Blaise and Justin were dead. This had simply taken up the mask of Harry. A figurehead, he realized quite suddenly, someone Dumbledore could point to as their savior; their Boy Who Lived. Everyone expected Harry Potter to save them... why not shape his weapon as the savior everyone already believed in? Was what he carried even human?

Thankfully, no one ran into him as he carried the cloak-wrapped charge, and he made short work of placing him on the bed in the room and warding the place tighter than the cell he'd previously occupied. He did not know the extent of damage going through the wards had done, but he had seen nothing outwardly wrong with the body. The breathing was steady and calm, the skin warm and pulse even and strong. He did not cast any medical scans, but this boy, whoever he really was, had been simply knocked unconscious as far as he could tell. Maybe his brain got fried? He'd have to look into it later... after he had checked on Draco.

He took a more direct route back, no longer worried about being seen. A couple Asps did pass him before he reached the dungeons, but he hasted on and they let him be. His only mistake was passing by the Vampire.
"I see you have found him, then?" the Vampire's voice echoed in the passageway, burrowing beneath Dean's skin.
"What?" he demanded stiffly,
"His blood is on your arm; the one the Old Man had me take."
Blood? There was a little blood on his arm near the shoulder, now that Dean was looking for it. Must have been from when he carried the Phoenix guy up... or when they fought him earlier.
"Horris' blood?"
"A Vampire always knows... even dried his blood smelt of power, though now it smells soaked in the Old Man's magic."
"This... this is Horris'?" he demanded again, staring at it as if seeing the red substance for the first time in his life.
"You sound surprised."
"I am," he bit back sharply, mind racing as the new information assaulted him like a kick in the gut.
"Odd, I assumed you were aware of what you had found... knowing how set you snakes were on the search."

"I gotta go." Dean could not lose himself to these thoughts now. He had to go. He had to push this aside and make sure Draco was alright. It felt so long since he had left him.
"I gotta go," he repeated, more for his own resolve than anything else, the itch to demand answers form the Vampire here and now growing to nearly unbearable levels. The Vampire and he had developed a relationship of mutual acceptance. Dean did not go out of his way to remind the Vampire that everyone here hated him, did not insult him or comment on the bestiality of his feedings. He was there, he needed food, and his infiltration was not for personal gain or reason. In turn, the Vampire did not snap at him, usually, did not act as other Asps had said he acted in their presence. He even told him things, sometimes.

Still, at this point, he could not believe the Vampire was being candid. That he had not noticed the blood and used it to unsettle them. Dean had yet to catch the creature on a lie though, no matter how small. Only hyperboles and omissions.
"I will ask someone to bring you down a meal," he told the Vampire, realizing no one had thought to feed him since before the attack.
"So long as it is not that rude one... Grime."
Grim. Blaise.
"Grim... Grim died. In battle."
"I'm sorry, Pup," the Vampire consoled honestly, making Dean feel calmed all of a sudden; more in control. "You two were close..."
Dean left without another word, feeling red eyes follow his movements. Draco was far closer to Blaise than Dean. Draco needed him more, needed to be alright so that they would all be alright. Merlin knew non of them could survive another tragedy.

To Dean's dismay, he found Draco exactly as he left him. He had alerted a house elf to convey Dean's request to Zack, hoping the Vampire knew well enough not to tell anyone about the blood he had smelt on Dean. Then again, the Vampire spoke so little to others that did not stem from insult that the others would probably not heed anything he did tell them. Dean did not want others spreading rumors before Draco and he had a chance to investigate the validity of the Vampire's claims... and Draco was not ready to take on the task. The nagging question of the Phoenix's identity would have to wait.

Or, Dean rationalized, he would have to investigate it himself... keeping it from Draco until he had more reason than a Vampire's nose to go on. The problem with which being the stress of trying to keep it a secret while investigating. Another problem being that the other Asps had a right to know. Tomorrow. He'd figure things out tomorrow. Right now he would just help Draco as much as possible.

He bit into the jugular of tonight's meal, the Asp who had delivered it at the edge of his vision. It was the darkest of his feeders... the one who always stayed to watch. The sweet liquid was filling him, which he knew made his eyes flash crimson. The boy was fascinated by his kind, by Vampires, he was sure. Normally, he was willing to entertain the youth's curiosity... but tonight he honestly wished to be left alone.

The Pup, the kindest of his feeders by far, had given him a wealth of things to think on... beyond the blood he had smelt on the youth. The time he had to wait for food had already allowed him to surmise that the Asps had gone to battle again. That was normal. That one died... that was new. He, the epitome of a perfect hunter, had been easy prey for the youths. That something more powerful than even they existed... the thought unhinged his reality to a severe extent. The way the Pup had acted, too, as silly as their 'names' were, pushed him from the norm.

Vampires, on the whole, were lone creatures. Their social structures, though rigid and quite complex, served mainly as a self-policing and protective form. A threat to their kind, they gathered around their sire. A threat to their sire, they gathered to protect him. Their sire called, they gathered. Otherwise, they pick a territory and stick to it. To them, humans are food, other Vampires competition... they do not get attached to either and they do not worry about anyone but themselves. He knew no Vampire would come for him, as the Asps' grudge lay with him directly. Had the Asps caught a random Vampire, a gathering and retribution would have been imminent.

But now, he had been held captive by the kids for at least two months now. Now, he had little to do but listen to what was going on with his feeders. He had gotten accustomed to them being around... snide comments and hesitant attitudes. For the first time, he knew people, knew them and they knew him... even if it was only on the surface. This intimacy, as thin and strained as it was, scared and confused him... but he couldn't help but acknowledge that it also left him immensely relieved. He almost felt like he belonged here, at times... even with all the hesitance and secrecy and distrust the Asps showed him.

It was odd, but he figured the others being Asps... monsters in their own right, was why he could feel this way. They weren't human, he wasn't even certain if he could drink from them, so he wasn't 'playing with food', as it were. They were not Vampires, either, so in no way were they competition or natural enemies like werewolves. Either way, the Grim boy's death impacted him in a way he certainly did not like. He was growing soft, damn it, Vampires should not care.