Chapter One

Transfiguration

The three of us walked over to the Transfiguration classroom, and Parker and I sat down at a table, and Remus sat behind us with Peter Pettigrew. At the table next to them sat James Potter and Sirius Black. Professor McGonagall came striding into the classroom. She walked up to the blackboard at the front of the classroom and waved her wand, making fancy cursive writing appear and spell out Professor McGonagall on it.

"Hello class. As you all should know by now, my name is Professor McGonagall. I am the head of Gryffindor house, and Deputy Headmistress. I expect you all to cooperate and behave well. If so, then class will be more fun. If you misbehave, I will be forced to punish you. Is that clear?" she asked, watching us all like a hawk. I could see and feel everybody near me squirming under her fierce gray/green eyes.

The lesson continued on for an hour, then we were let go to go to Charms. Once again, I sat down next to Parker, and Remus sat down behind us. Then the Professor came in, and I could feel Parker shaking with silent laughter. Professor Flitwick was a man that was at most four feet tall. He had short dark brown hair and chocolate colored eyes. When he spoke, it came out as a high pitched squeak.

"Hello, students, and welcome to Charms!" he said, and I could feel myself start to wince. After that opening statement, he lapsed into a half hour long explanation about why Charms was the most important element of magic. After the first five minutes, I could feel myself try to tune out his high pitched voice. That is until he was about ten minutes in and I heard the words; pop quiz, write down, and notes. Then I snapped out of it, and grabbed a piece of parchment and an eagle feather quill, and my bottle of self correcting ink. I dipped the quill into the bottle of ink and started rapidly taking notes. I looked over and saw that Parker was staring dreamily out of the windows. I sighed and elbowed her sharply in the ribs.

"Huh?" she asked dreamily.

"There's going to be a pop quiz on this lecture. Take notes!" I whispered urgently. She nodded and pulled her stuff toward her. She snapped her finger quietly, and her poison green quill started taking notes for her, and she went back to staring out the window. I made an exasperated growling sound in the back of my throat, but it didn't affect her the same way it had earlier that morning, seeing as she continued to stare out the window.

"After it's discovery in 842 a.d., Charms had been a large part of the magical world-" I heard him say in his high pitched voice. I looked at my watch and sighed, twenty more minutes and then I would be free to listen to anything but the sound of this man's high pitched voice, it was giving me a headache. As a vampire, my senses are heightened, and every sound is sharper. His voice literally made my ears feel like they were being punctured by little pointy things. It was agonizing.

"Parker," I whispered nudging her with my elbow again.

"What?" she asked.

"Please take notes for me, I can't take his voice any more!" I whispered urgently. I could tell that my face was contorted in pain. I knew that I was cringing, and my fingers were crawling toward my ears, to cover them in the hopes that I wouldn't have to listen to his voice any more.

"Yeah, sure, no problem. I'll give you my notes, and you can copy them." she said, turning again. I raised my hand, and cringed again.

"Excuse me, Professor? May I please go to Madam Pomfrey, my head hurts?" I asked.

"Yes, you may go. Mr. Lupin, would you please go with Miss Russet to the Hospital Wing?" he asked. I wondered why I had to have an escort, but knew that I would have to accept it. We both stood, and went toward the door, our bags slung over our shoulders. Once we were out in the hall, Remus looked at me and asked,

"I thought that vampires couldn't get hurt or sick. Why do you have a headache?"

"Since I'm a vampire, my senses are heightened, so my hearing is sharper than anything else in the world. And his voice is really high, and it feels like sharp things are being thrust into my ears. It makes me feel like my brain is about to explode." I explained, trying to get as far away from that classroom as I could.

"If you can't sit there through class, then how are you going to pass Charms?" Remus asked.

"I don't know. I guess that I could ask him if it would be okay if I stuffed cotton ball in my ears. Then maybe it would muffle the noise enough." I said, sighing and shrugging.

"Do you think that would work?" he asked.

"I sure hope so, or else I'll have to talk to Professor Dumbledore about this." I said, sadly. By this time, I could see the large wooden doors that led to the Hospital Wing.

"Thanks, Rem." I said, pushing the doors open and stepping inside.

"Hey, it's no problem. Anytime you need help, just ask." he said, his lips quirking into a small smile.

"Madam Pomfrey!" I shouted. I saw her large bustling figure coming toward us.

"Yes dear?" she asked.

"I have a headache. Is there anything that you can do?" I asked, as nicely as I could, considering that I was lucky not to be in a crumpled mess on the floor.

"Oh, yes honey, I think that I have something special for you." she said, shooting a glance at Remus.

"It's okay, we already know about each other." I said.

"Really?" she asked in shock.

"Yeah," Remus said.

"Oh, okay then. Asana, just step over to a bed and sit down, and I'll get you some blood." she said quietly. Remus and I walked over to the nearest bed, and we both sat down.

"So why is she going to give you blood?" he asked me.

"Well, blood is sort of like an incredibly fast acting healing spell, but it also keeps me alive. If I never ate food again, for the rest of my just about immortal life, it wouldn't matter. But if I had to go without blood for over a month, then I would mummify, and would stay that way, in constant, excruciating pain, until I got blood." I explained. I could hear Remus swallow nervously, and I smirked.

"Yeah, it sucks." I said, smiling.

"And kind of disgusting. You have to drink blood? Human, or can you survive on animal blood?" he asked.

"I can live on animal blood, but I'd be stronger if I drink human blood. But to stay at Hogwarts, my brothers and I have to drink animal blood." I explained. I could see that this didn't do anything to make him any more comfortable.

"Sorry, I know that this sounds extremely disgusting, but I don't know a better way to explain this." I said, apologetically.

"No, it's okay, it's just a little hard to think about a girl having to go through all of this." Remus said, flashing me an embarrassed grin.

"Meh, you get used to it. I've never known any different, so I don't really notice it, you know?" I asked. He nodded, and I saw Madam Pomfrey coming toward us with a goblet of sticky red liquid.

"Here you go, honey. You can leave when you feel better," she said, handing me the cup, and walking away.

"Okay!" I shouted. I sighed, and brought the cup up to my lips. The second that the first drop of blood hit my lips, I could tell that my vampire side was coming out. I could feel my canine teeth elongating into fangs, and I could feel a tingling sensation around my eyes, telling me that inky black vanes were coming up to the surface. And I knew from past hunting trips with my brothers, that my eyes (whites and all) would be turning black within a few seconds. I hungrily drained the cup, and growled when it was empty. When I realized what was happening, I quickly tried to regain control. I heard Remus gasp, and knew that it probably wasn't all that nice to look at, my lips and fangs stained dark red with blood, my eyes turned as black as coal, and inky vanes circling them. I shook my head to clear it, and felt myself regaining control.

"Um... Sorry about that. Blood tends to do that to me, and I had hoped that nobody would ever have to see that." I said quietly, looking down at the now empty cup.

"You don't have to be embarrassed, we all have our crosses to bare." Remus said, giving me a small smile.

"Ready to go?" I asked, standing up. My headache was gone, and I felt as if I could carry Hogwarts to the ends of the Earth.

"Yeah, if you are," he said, standing up next to me. We pulled our bags onto our shoulders, and walked out together.

"What do we have next?" I asked, not wanting to have to dig through my bag, knowing that, with my luck, my schedule would probably be at the very bottom, crumpled and torn. He pulled a folded up piece of paper out of his pocket, and looked at it for a moment. By now it was 11:15.

"We have free time until 11:30, and then lunch break until 1:00. After that we have Herbology for an hour, then we have potions for two hours, and then Defense Against the Dark Arts for an hour and a half. And then dinner. After that we have free time until curfew. Did that answer your question?" he asked. I was trying to do the math in my head, but quickly found myself confused, so I went to my hands.

"So we have about an hour and fifteen minutes, give or take?" I asked.

"Yeah, somewhere around there." he said, folding up the paper and putting it in his pocket.

"So where do you think everybody is? Should we go to the common room, the Great Hall, or should we part ways here and go do our own thing?" I asked, utterly confused.

"Well, in the time that it would take for us to get to the common room, lunch would have started. But if we go straight there, we'll have to wait a few minutes." he said, walking toward the Great Hall.

"I don't know about you, but I would like to get to lunch early, to get a spot and study for a little bit. You okay with that?" he asked. I nodded, and we set off for the Great Hall.

We found the Great Hall completely empty, so we went over to a table covered in a scarlet and gold silk table cloth, and sat down near the doors.

"So how long do you think that it will take Parker to realize where we are?" I asked. He shrugged and pulled out his Charms textbook.

"I don't know. About a half hour or so." he said, beginning to read the first page. I pulled out my potions book and started to read the first page, knowing that I would probably need it...