-TWO YEARS LATER-

"Gerard do that thing you can do with the niffler!" a teenager with white hair and gray eyes was sitting on the floor of the huge living room in Chillingham Castle. Gerard had now been living here with the Averys for two years, wich consisted of his godfather, Lucinda's older brother, Winona, and Lucy's fiance, a beautiful french excorsist named Esme Gandillon. Life had been going pretty well since his family's murder. Gerard had slowely grown used to all the parties, and his godfather's constant drinking. Now he just ignored Lucinda when he was wasted, and acted as if all the people and loud music were just another set of furniture in the castle. Gerard also hadn't returned to the Ministry of Magic, or had much further association with wizards, wich suited him just fine, and he intended to keep it that way. Even /if/ Lucy was determined there was something wrong with his magic...

"Alright, whatever, Simon," Gerard rolled his eyes. He was tired of doing this trick. It was so easy, why were his friends so astounded by it? "C'mere Mary-anne." He held a hand towards the niffler. It came to him, and Gerard looked at for a few seconds, imagining it jumping in the air and spinning. Suddenly his friends were all laughing. The niffler had done exactly what Gerard had imagined it doing. Simple.

"How do you do it?" asked a slightly younger boy with a strong romanian accent.

"I just think it," said Gerard, and then thinking that sounded stupid, he added, "Like, I imagine it doing something, and then it happens. It's easy."

The boy looked as if he was about to say something else, but was cut off by the entrance of Lucinda Avery. Lucinda was a tall, young vampire, only twenty-two years old, with elbow length black hair, extremely long, painted fingernails, and a very intimidating sense about him. Well, at the moment anyway.

"What did I tell you about messing with Mary-anne? If Esme gets attacked by her one more time, she says she'll chuck her out," Lucinda said, picking up the niffler as if it were a cat. "And Gerard, I need to talk to you. Send your friends home." With that, Lucinda turned and left. Gerard sighed.

"This is probably about the wizard school," he groaned

"Don't worry," said Simon, "There's no way he can send you. Parents would have a fit if a vampire attended Hogwarts." And all the others agreed, shouting goodbyes to Gerard as the filed out the door to leave the castle. Gerard turned and went up a flight of stairs to the dining hall, where he found his Godfather sitting at the huge wooden table.

"I've spoken to proffesor Dumby-Dwarf," Lucinda said as Gerard sat down.

"It's /Dumbledore/," Gerard corrected him, " And Lucy, I don't see the point. I don't even think I can do wizard magic. Maybe there's some other explanation."

"The things you can do aren't normal for vampires, Gerard, but they are normal for wizards," said Lucinda. "And besides, we're not making any decisions just yet. Doozle-Dorp says he wants to meet you first."

Gerard sighed. "Dumbledore. And WHY? I don't even know if I can work a wand. And it's illegal for me to even hold one, so what's the use?"

Lucinda smiled in a self-satisfied sort of way. "Well, I've also had a little chat with Cornelius Fudge, and he's grudgingly given us permission to test a wand on you, although he too seems to think it's a waste of time."

"That's because it is."

"Well, we'll see about that."

----------------------------------------------------

The sun was shining so brightly, that even holding the large black umbrella over his head, Gerard felt extremely uncomfortable. Why Lucy had chose /today/ of all days was beyond him. But even though he was annoyed by the circumstances and reason for going, he was also a bit excited. Gerard was about to go to Diagon Alley for the first time in his life. He'd heard a lot of stories when he was little about it, about all the shops and wizards, and the huge, ancient Wizard's Bank that people supposedly have died in. He was so distracted by his thoughts, that Gerard didn't even notice when they'd reached the old pub and Lucinda was holding the door open.

"Are you waiting for it to start raining or something? Hurry up!" Lucinda exclaimed. Gerard looked up and quickly made his way into the Three Leake Cauldren. Looking around, he noticed that almost everyone was staring at them. He supposed that two vampires walking into the pub in brood daylight was an odd thing. Lucinda walked over to the bar and addressed the man standing behind the counter.

"Excuse me, but would please open the barrier to Diagon Alley for us?" he asked politely. The man gave them a suspicious look and didn't move at all from the spot where he stood.

"What would your kind be needing to do in there?" he said.

"I have a letter from the Minister, giving us permission to enter Mr. Ollivander's wand shop," Lucy replied, showing the man a very official looking piece of parchment.

The man glanced at the parchment, muttered under his breath about something, and reluctantly lead them to a large brick wall, wich he tapped in a few places with his wand before nervously shuffling away from the two vampires and returning to his bar. Lucinda and Gerard entered Diagon Alley, wich was packed completely full of people at this time, seeing as it was such a nice day and now was the best time for Hogwarts students to be buying thier new school things.

Ollivander's shop was a little ways up the road, so Gerard took as much time as he could shooting glances into the wizard stores and observing the witches and wizards walking by. This place was so...colorful. Much more colorful than anything in the vampiric region of romania, wich is the only 100% magical place Gerard had ever been before now. He was almost dissapointed when they reached Ollivander's, and he had to stop his sightseeing and go in.

Mr. Ollivander was old and slightly creepy looking in Gerard's opinion, and he looked very nervous indeed when he looked up and saw him and Lucy enter his shop. In fact, he seemed to get progressively more nervous as they walked toward them, until Lucy handed him Fudge's letter, wich upon reading Ollivander smiled widely.

"So," he said, looking at Gerard with a grin."You think this one can work a wand, do you? How could that be possible?"

Lucy smiled too, he knew Ollivander thought this was a joke. "How about you hand him one, and he'll show you?" he said. At this, Ollivander turned and pulled out a long, thin box from a shelf. He handed it to Gerard with a small laugh. Gerard opened it, looked at the wand inside for a moment, thinking about how he was about to make a fool of himself simply because people thought he could SOMEHOW perform wizard magic....and picked it up....

Ollivander gasped. Nothing had happened, but that was exactly why he had gasped. Lucy had another self-satisfied smile on his face, as if to tell Gerard "I told you so". Gerard's eyes were wide and his mouth was open in surprise. He gave the wand a flick. Sparks came out. It didn't explode, it didn't send him flying backwords as any normal vampire would have done if the used a wand, but SPARKS CAME OUT.

"Bloody hell...," Gerard muttered.

"Like I said, we'll be meeting with Dumzy-Dorf tomorrow," Lucy said, "And box that up, won't you Ollivander?"

Gerard was too shocked to say "Dumbledore". He could really do wizard magic. As odd as it was, /he/ could do wizard magic. And that meant....