Author's Note: To those of you about to read this, I warn you that this is based off of "My Immortal Lily and the Art of Bringing Me to Life" and if you aren't familiar with that, the original "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus", and perhaps some of "My Immortal" you will be confused.
Frank liked to think that it had started both dramatically and suddenly if only because to him it'd seemed dramatic and sudden. However, he had the embarrassing suspicion that it'd been far more gradual and he'd just been indifferent. Although, to be fair, they'd all been indifferent, wrapped up in correspondence with the Albanians, running the business, Frank keeping an eye on the crumbling Yugoslavia with an idle thought for future ventures (because when the muggle state fractured the wizarding version was never all that far behind, look at the French Revolution, look at World War I, no, the wizards were never quite as independent as they liked to believe).
That, and, frankly, Frank had stopped paying attention to wizards years ago. Well, that wasn't quite true, wizarding Britain's revolution ten years prior had certainly caught his interest, but it was hard not to follow that. No, it was more that… He didn't pay attention to the subtle things they did, the change in the culture and the times, he had no interest in it, in them.
But, the others hadn't noticed either, even those who had more of a fondness for English wizard culture than Frank, so perhaps it had been as sudden as it seemed.
Either way, one night, after waking up and wandering out into Knockturn Alley, expecting the typical crowd of whores and hags, of dark wizards and all those who had lost out from Voldemort's demise in 1981, he found himself stopping, blinking, and staring because…
Where the run-down cobblestones of Knockturn had once been, the broken windows, the miasma gathering in the alleyways and shadows of doorways, it now looked oddly put together, only… painted black and a garish bright red. The hags had disappeared, the desperate prostitutes now sported dyed black hair, pale foundation on their face, and strange laced and ripped clothing that seemed almost reminiscent of when Frank had been young, almost a faux sexualized Victorian style.
And down the street, where the infamous Borgin and Burkes' had once been, there was now what appeared to be a clothing store, the name "Hot Topic" lit up in blood-red neon letters.
He blinked, stared at it, blinked again, and asked himself, "What the hell is a hot topic?"
For a moment, he just stared at it, wondering how he could have possibly missed it, or any of this, and if he shouldn't return to Riddle Inc. if only to make sure it was still standing, and to ask the others if it was just Frank who was losing his mind. Instead, looking at it, peering in the doorway, he hesitantly stepped forward and entered the store.
And indeed, it was a clothing store, filled to the brim with that strange clothing he'd seen already on the streets, except for the men instead of the trim suits of the Victorian age were dark, extremely loose pants accessorized by things like silver chains. More, as he looked around, he felt that disturbing itch which came with the presence of holy symbols, and realized that all around him were small, silver, crucifixes being sold as necklaces or else somehow incorporated into outfits. But somehow these were grotesque, often upside down, or with a demon tied to the cross instead of Jesus Christ, and accompanying these were many pentagrams as well as the muggle symbol of anarchy.
Overhead, throughout the store, generally unpleasant muggle American music was being played, only never the kind that Lily Riddle had ever played in the store, or anything that had been picked up by them. It was louder, more discordant, strained human voices chanting of death, decay, violence, and the pointlessness of existence.
And Frank, well, he found himself more disturbed than he had been in some time.
He turned from the entryway and walked in, searching for Borgin, only to find what he thought was the man, the one who must be the man, sitting behind the desk on a stool, reading "Paradise Lost". Which… Borgin had never been a man of intellectual taste, and even then, would never deign to read classic muggle literature. But more than this, the man had… Well…
He'd dyed his receding hair an inky black, one to match Lily Riddle's, he'd powdered himself with enough foundation to resemble a geisha, his eyes were ringed in kohl, he wore dark leather that one expected from muggle pornography, his lips were painted a dark black, and his eyes had been covered by red contacts (such that Frank wondered if he was trying to pass off as some kind clown vampire).
"Borgin?" Frank asked, and the man lifted his head, blinked dismissively at Frank, then raised his eyebrows.
"Ja, prep?"
Frank blinked, trying to understand, not even sure if the man had responded in English, "Borgin, what… what are you doing?"
"Yoo looking for clooothes, prep?" Borgin asked, then with a dismissive snort, "Yoo could use it."
Frank looked down at his suit, which, truly, wasn't one of his worst. Plus, Borgin had seen worse, more Borgin always usually showed him deference. It did not do to fail to show respect to Riddle after all.
"No, Borgin," Frank said with a strained smile, allowing his patience to thin, "I had simply walked down the street, and couldn't help but wonder why you'd choose now of all times to come clean and rid yourself of contraband for more… mundane wares. You realize, Borgin, that you still owe us a fair amount of money."
The man had never failed to pay them back before, for finding obscure and dark objects for his store to sell, but if he had somehow cleaned house to sell ridiculous clothing, well, Frank wondered exactly how he'd pay the bill.
And Frank wondered if he should have expected this, Borgin had been acting jumpy lately, what with the ministry finally cracking down on dark enchanted objects. Rumor had it that Malfoy had tried, in desperation, to sell many items off to Borgin and had been refused only just earlier that year.
Tensions were rising once again, the nobility was chafing, and Frank wondered when the next revolts would shake the country.
"I'm Satanist now, looser," Borgin scoffed, flipping through his book, "I sell goffick clothing to all da cool goffs and satinists."
"I'm sorry, you're a… Satanist?" Frank asked, unsure if he'd heard right.
"What are yoo, sume kind of Christian?"
Well, Frank had once been Catholic, but that had been when he was human and at this point considered himself an atheist, if anything (perhaps even a Lilyist, believing that deep down, the universe was as fickle, cruel, and inconstant as it was because Lily Riddle was secretly god). But what a question for a wizard to ask, they had once, a thousand years ago, been tied to the druids, and had been a part of the earlier stirrings of Christianity in Merlin's age, but after the witch trials, wizards and witches had been extremely divorced from any religion. Most these days, if Frank were to label them, were atheists or at least agnostic.
But for a wizard to dismissively assume that a vampire of all beings was a Christian, when a vampire could not even stand inside a house of god and could be propelled by a mere symbol of faith…
Frank wondered if he shouldn't be insulted, or if Borgin hadn't lost his mind.
"No, Borgin, I am not some kind of Christian," Frank bit out only for Borgin to look at him more closely, look him in the eye, and then blink.
"Well, why didn't you say you were a goth?" Borgin asked, "You have buutiful goffic read eyes."
Frank blinked, blinked again, almost wished that he was capable of looking at his reflection in a mirror so he could see what the devil the man was talking about, then said, "Oh, well, thank you, Borgin."
Then, realizing he might have just been propositioned by the middle aged Borgin of all people, he rushed to add, "And while I'm flattered I must tell you that I'm not… interested."
There really wasn't a polite way to put that, but Borgin seemed unconcerned.
"It's not Borgin," The man abruptly said, motioning to himself, "Most people these days call me Beezlebub."
"They call you Beelzebub?" Frank repeated dumbly, "After the demon, I presume?"
"Beezlebub," Borgin corrected, "Ma Satinist nam."
"Who calls you this?" Frank asked, because as far as he knew no one called Borgin anything other than Borgin, and for that matter who would Borgin even be talking with? The man was a pariah, even back when Burke had been alive neither had been on particularly friendly terms with one another.
"Goffs, duh," The man said, "Yoo want nu clothes? You look like a prep."
"No, Borgin, thank you, I am fine."
"Least it's black, and not some preppy color like pink." Borgin said dismissively, which, Frank somehow actually agreed with, he could just not picture himself in any sort of pastel color walking down the street.
Not only was it generally frowned upon for a vampire to wear anything other than dark, drab, dreary clothing (or else old-fashioned capes and cravats), but he had the distinct feeling that wearing that much pink would make him look like a homosexual, which would just give Borgin too many ideas.
"Right, well, I hope business goes well, lest I send Stefan to collect your debts, Burke," Frank said, and with that he walked outside, only to find that it remained unchanged, still as bizarre and surreal as the first time he'd stepped out.
Only Riddle Inc. seemed miraculously untouched by the plague of… whatever the hell this was. Honestly, it was surreal enough that he would have suspected that Lily Riddle was responsible, however this did not seem like something she would approve of. For all the darkness and terror she inspired, Lily Riddle had always been fonder of brighter and more nostalgic bits of muggle pop culture. There was very little dark in Riddle Incorporated for example, many greens, reds, yellows, and oranges, but not too much black.
So, perhaps Borgin and Knockturn alley had merely gone a little mad. Well, it wouldn't be the first time he supposed.
"Yo, Frank, have you checked out the Prophet?"
Frank looked up from the recent accounts, putting aside thoughts of Yugoslavia and the recent letter that had been addressed to him from the Serbian vampires there, and met eyes with Stefan who was waving an issue of The Daily Prophet in front of Frank's face.
"No," Frank said dully, setting his work to the side with a long sigh, "Did something important happen?"
Then Frank paused, crimson eyes narrowing at the text and trying to make out the headline even as Stefan was waving it about, "Don't tell me another revolution's broken out."
Although, perhaps more likely, was that Lily or Ellie Potter had caused some sort of a riot at Hogwarts and burned the place to the ground. That alone could be enough to spur a revolution into being though.
"Nah, just some really weird shit," Stefan said, crunching idly on a blood pop and tossing the paper to Frank.
"Weird shit," Frank repeated dully, which, as far as Frank was concerned wizards had been doing weird shit for as long as he'd known them. Lily Riddle had taken large advantage of this very quality.
However, on opening the paper, he paused, and had to concur. There, staring back at him, was the extremely pale face of a scowling dark haired girl girl, probably around seventeen or eighteen. She was strangely beautiful, her hair a rich thick black, her eyes a pale and sharp blue, and her features rather fine and aristocratic.
However, this was all offset by her jarring use of thick black eyeliner, dense eyeshadow, extreme use of foundation, as well as her wearing what looked like a combination of lace, satin, torn fishnets, and black leather.
The headline proclaimed, in large misspelled words, "ENOBY DARKNESS DIMENTIA RAVEN WAY TAKES HOGWAARTS BY STUOARM"
Beneath it the article revealed, again with many misspellings, that Ebony Way was a seventh year Hogwarts student in Slytherin, but that… Frank read on, and finally asked, "Does this article actually have a point?"
As far as he could tell it just seemed to be about the fact that this Ebony girl, whoever she was, was a vampire witch, attending Hogwarts, was the best in her class, was a Satanist goth (unlike all you loser preps), was dating Draco Malfoy, but everyone else loved her, but it just seemed to ramble like that.
"She canned that asshole the boss is always talking about, the potions guy," Stefan said with a shrug, "Oh, and that Lupin kid, Greyback's revenge recruit back from the 70's. And Hagrid."
"Lupin?" Frank asked before pausing, "And Hagrid? Why isn't that the headline?"
Lupin, Frank didn't know much of him, had never had dealings with him, but for the most part he'd seemed like an honest man if perhaps luckier than his peers. After all, had he been anyone else, if he hadn't had the protection of Sirius Black and James Potter, then he would never have been able to attend Hogwarts.
As such he'd always been Dumbledore's man, Hagrid too for that matter, and both were only labeled as creatures in the barest of senses. Lupin, Frank recalled, had once stepped through their doorway trying to recruit Lily Riddle to their side of the revolution.
He had been smart enough to never set foot through their doorway again.
Still though, for a werewolf and half giant to have been thrown out of Hogwarts, and Snape, an all but proven ex-Death Eater…
And skimming through the article, he found somewhere in the middle, a brief mention of Rubeus Hagrid (only oddly spelled Haagrid, and claiming he was a Hogwarts student), Severus Snape (labelled as Snap), and one Remus Lupin (Loopin) having been caught making child pornography of young Miss Way and having been shipped out to St. Mungos since, "You can't have pervs like that in a school with hawt gurls."
"They were arrested for pedophilia?" Frank asked, eyes bulging, "But Snape, oh, wasn't he always involved with one of Dumbledore's soldiers, what was her name…"
"Evans," Stefan cut in, "The ginger, Lily Evans."
"Right," Frank said, she'd always caught his eye, if only because of her uncanny similarity to Lily Riddle at times, and he looked at the article again, "Pedophilia, I never would have suspected it of any of them… And in a footnote, no less."
"Do you like that bullshit about her singing career?" Stefan asked, and indeed, there was quite a lot on Ebony's vocal talents and her position as lead singer in her band…
His eyes narrowed, "It says here that a… Vampire Potter is in her band."
And that was the real reason that Stefan had brought this in, not because of this Ebony Way, but the thought that Vampire Potter must be Ellie Potter, and that therefore Lily Riddle must somehow be behind all of this.
This not just being the paper, but all of magical London, whatever it was had spread like some kind of disease. Knockturn Alley now resembled a cheap strip mall of muggle night clubs, neon signs everywhere, people in strange dark clothing, and suddenly everyone swarming Riddle Inc. to be closer to, 'das goffic cool vampyres'.
Suddenly, being a vampire was very in, more than it had been in hundreds of years, and if Frank were a little less weirded out he'd probably eat better than he had in years. And it didn't help that whenever he, or any of them, set foot outside they were immediately mobbed by these bizarre cultists who all insisted on talking to him about preps, and Satan, and slitting their wrists.
Some of them did slit their wrists, it seemed like every other morning someone step out, and curst to find they'd tripped over some poor dead bastard whose wrists had bled out into the gutter.
Diagon Alley had taken the opposite turn, every building was now a bright fluorescent pink, everyone there wore pink, and there were crucifixes all over the damn place, Frank could hardly step near it and whenever he did he was hounded by jeers of "mediocre dunce" and "ludicrous fool" as well as the blaring music of American muggle pop.
Frank didn't think he'd ever seen anything quite this surreal, and that said a lot, but seeing the name Vampire Potter somehow caused him to relax. If this was Lily Riddle, if this was her, then there was explanation, and surely there was some inexplicable vision behind this madness.
"Well then, I do wish she'd told us before all of this," Frank said, "And that she'd been turned."
Stefan just glared at him though, like he was missing something important, "Frank, you whipped moron, look at the picture of the band."
Frank looked at the picture, the caption listing the members beneath, Ebony (spelled Enoby) Way as the lead singer and lead guitarist, Diabolo Weasley on drums, B'loody Mary Smith, Draco Malfoy (looking far different than Lucius Malfoy ever had), Haagrid, and Vampire Potter…
Only, it was not Eleanor Potter or Lily Riddle staring back at him, but instead a young man with dark hair and an extremely pale face.
And to the side, there staring at all of them dully, a look of distaste and unease written all over her face, was a somehow older Lily Riddle (looking closer to that age she had been back in 1945).
"Well," Frank said slowly, only found there was nothing for him to say, or think, and that only one word really sufficed, "Fuck."
He wrote her no less than three times but there was no response, more, the letters were returned, somehow failing even to reach her. And several weeks in Frank was starting to get worried. For whatever reason, likely being under Lily Riddle's protection, they were immune but no one else seemed to be.
Pink or black, those seemed to be the only choices, you wore either pink or black, worshipped Christ or Satan, were a prep or a goth. Any other distinction from one man to another, including that coveted blood status, creature heritage, even the goddamn Hogwarts house were completely lost.
And business had gone… downhill in England.
Or, well, there didn't seem to be much of a point to it anymore.
"Hey, Frank?" Friedrich asked, carrying yet another barrel filled with cash, "The Satanists donated again."
"…How wonderful," Frank muttered, lying upside down on the couch, watching reruns of 'Seinfeld' with the rest of them, feeling closer he had to 1937 than he had in a long time. Overhead, blowing out their own speakers, to combat the constant thrum of gothic music from the street, was Iron Butterfly's "In Agada Da Vida".
It wasn't helping much.
"Well, I think it's good, I mean, we've never had this much good business," Friedrich said, "Not even in the 70's."
"Hm," Frank said, trying to ignore the sound of Stefan slurping blood next to him from a soda can, and Claude chewing on a blood pop.
"Any word from the boss?"
"Nope," Frank said, but if the papers held any truth or coherency to them anymore, then Lily Riddle had quite the situation on her hands already. Draco Malfoy had been reported dead, then kidnapped, then forced into bondage play with both Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew (who had been shot violently to death by Ebony Way with a hand gun, that Christian son of a whore).
Ellie Potter, in an offhand comment, had been marked as being present, but the focus had once again been on Ebony Way and her relationship with Draco Malfoy as well as Vampire, Harry, Potter.
The Albanians at least, didn't seem to be having this problem, neither was Yugoslavia, but that said Aleksander had mentioned something about the wizards giving up their resistance out of the blue, having all converted to Satanism, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before they were as infested as England.
The poor bastards just didn't know it yet.
"What the fuck are we going to do, Frank?" Stefan asked, clawing at his face.
"There might be nothing to do," Frank muttered, "Wizards have always been an odd breed, and there is some poetic underwhelming justice, that this might be their final state of decline."
"Not very satisfying," Claude said, "And they'd probably just crown us some kind of dark gods anyway, seems like it's headed in that direction."
Frank just hummed his agreement. They'd thrown him out of every establishment, had forced him into the gutter, they'd taken everything from his people, and now they decided that vampires were the greatest things they'd ever seen and were killing themselves just to get a chance at licking their feet.
Sometimes literally.
Perhaps he should try infiltrating Hogwarts, finding Lily Riddle directly, but something stopped him. The thought that she already knew, and was somehow, inconceivably losing. This, perhaps, was their last sanctuary, the place where she herself might be forced to retreat to when Hogwarts itself was lost with those few she managed to drag out with her.
So in the meantime, he watched television upside down, all MTV music videos of some horrible man named Marilyn Manson, the song "In Agada Da Vida" forever on loop inside headquarters.
"In agada da vida, honey, don't you know that I love you? In agada da vida, baby, don't you know that I'll always be true?"
Oh, won't you come with me and take my hand? Oh, won't you come with me and walk this land?
Please, take my hand."
Author's Note: Written for the 200th good revieow (sorry, I couldn't resist) of "My Immortal Lily and the Art of Bringing Me to Life" by Relent1ess who asked for a story detailing what our friend Frank has been up to while all this goffik madness is going down. Also, Frank once again returns for a side story, why am I not surprised?
Thanks to readers and reviewers, I appreciate them good revieows.
And flammers, stop flammin.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or My Immortal