Chapter Two
The letter had arrived on Sunday, and I had been reading it over and over again, wondering what I was going to do.
Dear Harry,
I shall be coming to collect you on Friday. Sadly we are unable to collect you before then. If you wish to join your friends for the rest of the Summer Holidays, please send your owl with a letter of acceptance no later than Wednesday.
Regards,
Albus Dumbledore
Declining would be suspicious, Dumbledore knew how much I hated my relatives, but at the same time, I didn't want to rip anyone's throats out, especially Ron's or Hermione's. Just to top it off, it was getting worse, the thirst, I could hear the beating of the hearts of the Dursley's through the thin walls of their house and I hadn't had any blood since the time on the train. So now, I was fucked. There was no way that I could go back to Hogwarts like this... Unless I could some how control my need for blood, or find some way to drink a supplement.
I had thought that perhaps blood bags could be the answer, but I didn't want to risk it, I had seen Interview with a Vampire and what happens to Lestat when he drunk blood which wasn't fresh. Merlin, I really had to stop basing all my vampire knowledge on Dean Thomas and his Muggle Studies classes. But my problem still was not solved.
Perhaps when I went to Diagon Alley I would be able to find something on how to deal with being a vampire. Or maybe that might mean a trip into the less reputable Knockturn Alley. I didn't quite know. It was not as if I had looked up vampires, I had never had any interest in them. And if Snape hadn't been so bloody obsessed with making the class see that Lupin was a werewolf in third year, perhaps I would have learnt more about them. And that wasn't one of the only things that Snape managed to do which would fuck up my life in my third year. Because somehow, trying to kill my godfather seemed to be up there on the 'things that show Snape hates me' list And then I remembered.
Sirius.
What would he have thought of me? Transformed into some strange creature, and not knowing what to do. I would have been able to tell him, he would have been nice, made some jokes and made me feel better. I had a feeling that fate was against me. Really, did she have to do that? After all that had happened, my parents, living with the Dursleys, and all the shit I have had to go through, and then killing my godfather.
And the prophecy. Violently I screwed up the letter I had in my hands and threw it in the direction of the bin. Nothing was going well at the moment, and while before the change I would have been glad to not be staying at the Dursley's any longer than I had to, now I wanted to hang around, because if I accidently killed one of them, I would be able to tell myself they deserved it.
Thud. Thud. Thud. I could hear Vernon's heavy heartbeat from the room next door and just quieter was my aunt's. Dudley's was slightly less loud because we had the bathroom between our two rooms, but it was still loud in my ears. This was going to drive me mad.
As quietly as I could I lifted myself to my feet and tried to avoid squeaking the floorboards as I walked towards my trunk. Quick as I could, I opened it and pulled out the invisibility cloak inside it, if I couldn't get to sleep because the Dursleys were distracting me, I just had to go and do something else, right?
The Dursley's usually slept like the dead, but it wasn't them I was worried about. The people I was worrying about were the Order of the Phoenix guards which might be outside the house. But even if they weren't there was still Mrs Figg, who would probably go running off to Dumbledore if she saw me sneaking out of the house at night. Hence the reason I had my invisibility cloak.
I moved away from the trunk and out of my room, I tried to close the door quietly, but managed to muck that up. In the room next door, Vernon snored a bit louder, but none of them woke up and I continued my mission. Luckily the window downstairs was wide open, otherwise I don't know what I would have done, just sat downstairs I suppose.
I guess the Dursley's have a slight security problem if they are leaving their windows open at night, but I suppose they didn't expect anyone to rob them. And if my suspicions were right and there were Order guards hanging around, then they weren't going to get robbed anyway. It was actually quite simple to get out of the house, I lifted myself onto the window and simply jumped out of the window. Although the cloak may have flapped up when I was jumping and shown some of my body, no one tried to stop me and so, for now, I was free.
One problem. Little Whinging is probably the most boring place on earth. Although there are a few shops-which consists of a Post Office, a dingy cafe, a super-market, and a charity shop-the only thing to do there in the middle of the night is go to the 24-Hour Tesco, which is about as exciting as it sounds. And since I didn't have any money I couldn't exactly buy anything. For blood. But I wasn't going to get any of that any time soon.
The small town was peaceful at night, and I walked pass the rows of identical houses, envying and pitying the people who lived in them. On one hand, they probably lived simple lives, and didn't have to worry about Dark Lords, prophecies, or vampires, but then again, their lives were so boring, I could imagine that their excitement came from getting a new type of flower to plant in their front yards, or them going to the near-by big town to go bowling.
To be honest, going outside for a walk sounded like a much better idea in my head. There was literally nothing to do, and so I decided to head towards the park. Hopefully there would be no one there and I might be able to sleep there for the night and I wouldn't have any distracting heartbeats keeping me up. As I was walking towards the park, I smelt some blood, it seemed to waft towards me and I had to dig my fingers into my hands to keep myself aware, otherwise I would have just wondered over to the source of the blood. This was getting crazy.
And so I ran, as quickly as I could -which was pretty quickly, another side affect of my new condition- back towards the house, I clambered through the window and ignored as best as I could the heartbeats sounding in my ears, and then up the stairs, hoping that the Dursley's would not wake up. As soon as I was in my room, I got all my things and put them in my trunk, not forgetting to take out some day clothes and change into them. I also grabbed a few galleons from the purse inside my trunk and shoved them into my pockets. I couldn't stay here any longer, otherwise there was going to be a bloodbath, I had to find out how I could stop this bloodlust which was taking over my life. Well, my unlife.
I tried to be as quiet as I could when I was getting my trunk down the stairs, but alas, that failed and I was almost at the bottom when Dudley came out of his room to go to the bathroom, but as he was going to the loo, he spotted me.
"What are you doing?" He asked in sleepy tones.
"Nothing. Going downstairs." Damn, I wish I had put on my invisibility cloak.
"Is that your trunk?"
"No. It's just a big, rectangular box I happen to be-" Okay fuck that. I fixed my eyes onto his, "just go back to bed. And forget about this."
"What are you trying to do? Mu-" I interrupted him before he could shout for his mother.
"Shut the fuck up." I whispered urgently. And then I placed the trunk on the bottom of the stairs and moved up them, towards him. Hastily I held his shoulders and pulled him towards me, "you are going to forget about this, and go back to bed." I hoped it worked this time, and I kept my eyes on him the whole time.
"Okay!" He said a little to brightly for me to think it had worked and as he pushed himself away from me I pulled him back, and he began to shake slightly under my grip, whether in anger or fear, I wasn't sure. I ran my tongue over my teeth and felt that my fangs had extended, oh, so that was why he was shaking, "wha- what the hell are you?" His voice was shaky and I couldn't even be bothered to answer the question.
"Forget about this and go back to bed." I hoped it worked this time, because I could feel his pulse underneath my palms and my mouth was salivating. And I think it did because his pulse slowed under my palms.
"Yes." He said in a monotone voice and slowly, as if in a daze he walked away from me. I listened to make sure he had got back into his bed, and to see whether the other Dursleys had woken from their slumber, but, by some miracle they hadn't and Vernon was still snoring and Petunia still had a slow heartbeat. I then focused as much as I could on getting my fangs to retract back into my gums, and after a little bit I felt them go back in.
So I made my way down the hall and removed the invisibility cloak from it and used it to cover my trunk, and hoped that no one would be waiting outside, since the cloak would not cover my whole body. I opened up the front door and dragged the trunk out, and when it hit the stone it began to make a loud scraping sound. I could here that there was someone near the house, watching me, and I looked around to see where they were. As I walked up the front path, the sound of their heartbeat became louder and faster, and I dropped the trunk and walked slowly further up the path, listening to see where they were.
I moved towards them, or where I though they were, and then paused for a moment as if to look around and then walked back to my trunk. I would wait for them to come out, and see if they would stop me. I picked up one end of it again, and made sure the cloak was around it, and began to drag it towards the curb of the pavement outside the Dursley's house. I deduced that guard was standing next to the lamppost, and was either disillusioned or under an invisibility cloak. I continued to walk toward them, and when I was by the lamppost, I sat down for a moment on the curb, they were just on the other side, and their breathing had become heavier. For a moment I was stunned that I could even hear that, but it was probably another side effect of becoming a vampire, a lot of the abilities I had gained were pretty cool, the problem was the side effect of lusting for blood.
Suddenly I stood up and shot my hand around the other side of the lamppost and felt for the material of their cloak, I grabbed a piece before they could run away and pulled. I felt it loosen and I was left holding an invisibility cloak in my hand, as the owner bolted down the street. I pulled the cloak over me and ran after them. Why they had not apparated yet, I wasn't sure. After a little running I managed to catch up with them, while I hadn't got the gift of being super speedy, I guess my muscle power had increased a bit. I grabbed their arm and stopped them from running anymore. I looked at their face, they had black hair and darkish eyes and I tried to place their name, they were in the Order.
"Jones isn't it?" I looked at her, and held her tightly as she tried to escape my grip.
"What are you doing Potter?" I smiled.
"Nothing." with my spare hand I pulled the cloak off me and focused my eyes on her. "Why didn't you just apparate away?"
"Dumbledore has placed anti apparation charms in the area."
"What about portkeys?" She shook her head.
"No. Those are blocked as well." I fell silent for a moment. So Dumbledore had been trying to protect me, just not well enough. I then let my eyes focus or hers and made sure she was looking at me when I began to speak.
"How does the guard system work?"
"A member of the Order is stationed outside your house to make sure that there are no attacks on you, the person changes every two hours, to make sure everything is ok the first guard speaks to the second." Jones replied in a toneless voice.
"And when was this put in place?"
"On Sunday."
"Why?"
"It emerged that you had been to London without us knowing. We decided that better protection needed to be put in place, lest something happened to you." I snorted, well it was too late for that.
"When is the next guard coming?"
"An hour or so." Good, that at least left me with a bit of time.
"And you haven't contacted Dumbledore?"
"No. We were supposed to send a patronus if something went wrong, but you would have seen me if I did." I loosened my grip on her, if she ran away she wouldn't have been truly hypnotised, or what ever my little power was, but she stayed there, and didn't break eye contact.
"I want you to tell the next guard that everything is fine."
"Yes."
"And I want you to forget all about this and go and stand in your original position. You will not remember anything that just happened and what will for the next five minutes. When you do begin to remember you will just think you have been daydreaming,"
"Yes." She began to move away from me in a robotic fashion, and then stopped when she reached the lamppost, which was a fair bit away, I walked after her once she had stopped and once I reached the lamppost again, I fastened the cloak around her but left the hood down, so I would be able to see her eyes.
"Remember, you won't be able to recall me sneaking out, and you won't think that anything is wrong." She nodded, and then began to stare blankly at the street behind me, I moved away from her, and pulled up her hood from behind. It had become easier to convince people, but it took a lot out of me, especially the running, I was going to have to drink blood at some point. But I didn't want to, I didn't want to kill, or to get to the point where I would have someone life in my hands. Sighing, I pulled my wand out from the waistband of my jeans, and held it out. Soon enough the Knight Bus came along the street and I pulled my cloak off my trunk and began clamber into the blue bus.
A little while later, I was dropped off outside the Leaky Caldron, and I managed to get a room in the small inn. I was given a curious look from the woman who led me to my room, but other than that, everything was fine. As I had sent Hedgwig out to deliver a letter a little while earlier, I didn't have the means to send Dumbledore a letter telling him I had escaped to Diagon Alley, and although he might find it odd that I was able to get out of the house without his guards knowing, I was sure he would not look to far into it. The room I was in was at the end of a long corridor, which meant that there weren't too many other people around me, which was a good thing, since it was becoming almost impossible for me to stop myself from tearing someone's throat out. To-morrow I was going to go and find out some things about vampires, and see if there was anything I could do which would stop me from wanting to kill anyone who was near me.
However, for now, I just had to clench my teeth and wait. The room itself was not anything special, it had an old bed in the centre of it, and a desk which was by a window, which looked out onto a dark alleyway. There was a fireplace as well, with some floo powder by it, and on the bedside table there was a glass which looked as if it had not been cleaned for a while. The bathrooms were down the hall, but not too far away, and all in all it was fine. It wasn't as if I was exactly looking for a luxury hotel anyway.
And so, I blew out the candle which was keeping the room alight and waited to fall asleep, safe in the knowledge I wasn't going to be at risk of killing my last remaining members of my family to-night.
Hello, sorry it has taken me such a long time to update, I just didn't really know what to write about, I have a lot of ideas for the story, but it's probably not going to get going properly for a few more chapters. I hope you liked this, and don't worry this isn't going to turn into a 'Harry goes to Knockturn Alley and buys an awesome trunk a trains for a year' story. In fact if he goes into Knockturn Alley at all, he'll probably be pretty disappointed that it isn't like some kind of Dark Arts Emporium. But anyway, the next update should be some time soon. I also want your opinion on what you would think would be cool for a Harry isn't the BWL story, because I am thinking of writing one, I am thinking that it is Neville who is going to be the BWL and Harry still lives at the Dursley's because his parents are dead/ in St Mungo's. Anyway, just leave a review saying what you think of the idea, or if you think it is too overdone. Also, please tell me whether you like this chapter or what ever :) Reviews make me happy. And feel free to point out any mistakes, I am pretty open to criticism.