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I own nothing, no infringment intended
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Post Hoc Ergo Proctor Hoc
Chapter 1
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Pain,
Pure unadulterated pain
Forget the Cruciatus, which felt like a mild itch compared to what his nerve endings were currently transmitting to his brain.
Blackness, blessed nothingness.
Vague noises, blurred, like his vision. Shouts, wailing, flashes of coloured light.
'See, I must see what is happening' he thought.
Slowly, he managed to crack open his eyelids to see himself surrounded. Purple robes, "Healers" his mind supplied, still the pain went on.
"HE'S AWAKE!" he heard someone shout. Immediately a face obscured his vision. It wasn't a face he knew, trying to reach up to push it away, he found his arm was not responding to his commands. Words, the face was talking, what was it saying? He stopped trying to move his arm and concentrated on the sounds the healer was making.
"Stay calm Mr. Potter, we are doing all we can."
'For what' he thought, 'What has happened to me?' he thought back, trying to pull memories out of the cotton wool that seemed to have replaced his mind. He remembered a face, a strange face, pale, hollowed. His memory of the face was dominated by the figures mouth. Or rather what it contained.
Two very sharp fangs.
'Shit' he thought, 'Vampire. Wasn't warned about him!'
Harry was 25. Ex Hogwarts student, recent graduate from Auror Academy, and number one on Voldemorts' People to Kill ASAP list.
'Hermione is going to kill me for this'.
Blackness.
The bustle around Harry's bed continued. Healers shouting orders, casting spells, injecting potions.
Nothing was working.
The status charms were all heading the same way – Down.
Ron Weasley was sat on the bed next to Harry having his own wounds tended too. Contemplating how he was going to explain the fact that two aurors, not long out of training, and who were ( as they said to their respective partners) not given the dangerous stuff, had happened to be involved in a raid on a known criminal, with a habit of his own method of auror corps downsizing.
"The girls are going to Kill me for this!" he thought to himself, watching in despair as more healers came hurtling into the room that he and Harry were occupying.
"More importantly," thought Ron, "If you die Harry, I am going to find a way to bring you back, so that I can kill you myself!". He hissed as a mediwitch applied salve on a particularly large burn that spread across his back.
"Hold still man, if you keep moving then I will keep missing. That will make it hurt all the more" scolded the disgruntled witch.
"Are you related to Poppy Pomfrey by any chance" he muttered. He was rewarded with what felt like a particularly savage muscle spasm as the mediwitch finished her tending, scowled at him and stalked over to the supply cupboard to replace the salve that she had used.
A cry of "HE'S SLIPPING" jerked his focus from the pain in his back, to the bustle around Harry's bed. What already looked like chaos, turned into what looked like pandemonium as monitor charm after monitor charm flashed red and released a steady, but urgent pinging noise.
Unbidden, Ron's mind drifted back to a DADA lesson that they had had in the seventh year of Hogwarts.
"Vampires, are a truly interesting species." The professor had began
"Common mythology holds them as harbingers of evil, stalking young women, and leaving death in their wake. Unable to tolerate the daylight, they are forced to retreat to cellars and crypts as the sun rises, and take refuge in coffins, often filled with soil from their homeland. Unable to cross onto consecrated ground. While immortal, they are supposedly easily killed by a stake through the heart, or by decapitation. Also, Blessed water has the ability to burn them.
Now, we will compare the mythology to the reality."
Ron jerked back to the present as one of the steady pings changed into a flat tone, and a healer shouted for everyone to step back.
"Pectus Pectoris Offensus" he shouted. A bright white light shot from his wand into Harry's chest. The flat tone changed back to a steady ping.
Ron slipped back to his recollection
"Whilst still considered evil by many, Vampires are in fact a complete species to themselves, and more similar to humans than many care to admit. They have a hierarchical social structure, as well as laws and codes that are strictly upheld. Yes, Vampires have been known to kill, however, the statistics show that on average, Humans kill humans more often than Vampires kill humans. Indeed, propaganda has been undertaken for centuries to show Vampi in a negative light. Yes, they do suffer from a sensitivity to light. As a Vampire, is to all intents dead, their body is ill suited to protect itself from the damage caused by the light of the sun. They sleep in coffins, as the structure focus' the magic in the surrounding air, and regenerates the body, thus preserving the Vampire's body at the age of turning, and allowing for near eternal existence. Note I say existence, because they are truly not alive. A inherent fastidiousness, similar to the muggle condition OCD precludes their coffin from containing soil.
The inability to cross consecrated ground is a theory that belongs exclusively to mythology however, as is the burning of Holy water. They are not, as muggle myth states them "Instruments of the Devil" therefore can follow a religion and enter a place of worship, however, their own codes and laws forbid feeding in these places. As for the stake through the heart, I would like to see ANYBODY manage to survive that!
As for decapitation, this is the only way to TRULY dispatch a vampire, as once the connection between brain and body is severed, there is no link for which magic to work through.
Our next lesson will continue with vampires, and how they differ from ourselves in physiology, and also why they need to feed on blood.
Class Dismissed"
Ron shook his head to clear his mind, as once again a flat tone reached his ears. However, despite repeated calls of "Pectus Pectoris Offensus" from multiple healers, the reassuring ping did not return.
Instead, as if eager to join the party, the other charms soon followed suit. All registering the flat monotonous tone, and bathing Harry in an eerie blood red light.
Harry Potter died