DISCLAIMER: I do not own or even claim to EVER own anything related to Harry Potter or its affiliates. It all belongs to Jo Rowling and the rights are still the sole property of WB and Scholastic and whatever other companies are in charge of distributing HP books, movies and whatnot. I am only a simple fangirl who had an idea and felt the need to write it down and share it with other fangirls who are of similarly-minded types.

Oh, and, in case that one didn't get the gist across: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING! Only the laptop on which this was written and a slight case of insomnia. XD

AN: Oh, my goodness everyone, I'm sorry for the wait!
But I moved! … again! XD
This time from one house to another.

Loooong story, summed up with my life has been hectic. Haha.

But, in honor of school starting today, I figured I owed you all an update, and since I had this next bit sort of sitting in my back pocket, I figured I would treat you all. :D

For those of you who started school, hope you have a good school year! For those of you who didn't: Lucky you. :[

Haha.

I hope this chapter is up to your standards.

I had a few moments where I wondered if I shouldn't just delete it all and start over, that is how insane the past, well, three months, have been for me. XD
Again, I hope you enjoy the chapter and I'll see you in the Author's note at the end! :D

Yours truly,

ForverJynxed

Chapter 6: Conversation With a Vampire

Snape was left with a mixture of disgust and an odd respect for Potter as he closed the door behind him.

Certainly, he had just essentially mauled a plastic square full of blood, but he had done it with such a reckless abandon that Snape was couldn't help but be impressed.

Still disgusted, but impressed nonetheless.

He had been sitting in his usual chair, correcting abysmal Fourth Year essays, when his peaceful silence was broken by the sound of what could only have been a fist hitting the other side of the door to his spare room. Incensed at the reckless disregard for the sanctity of his possessions that Potter was showing, he had finished the essay he was reading- after all, why stop the red scrawling when one is on a roll?- crossed the room, cursed his forethought in adding that blasted bolt to the door, knocked for appearances sake, and thrown said door open, prepared to lecture Potter as he usually would, but was instead threatened.

Potter had corrected it as being a warning, but Snape knew what it really was. The last time he had left that room, Harry Potter had been its only occupant. Now? The boy was sharing it with a fanged beast.

He could see Potter wanting nothing more than to have him for breakfast, but stopping himself. He had never known a vampire to be all that forgiving when it came to mealtime, so Potter was an intriguing study.

Then again, Potter always has been one of those self-sacrificing, martyr type, Snape thought. He would probably starve to death if we didn't feed him. The dunderhead would be too afraid to injure someone or, Merlin forbid, bite them. Sneering at his mocking thoughts, Snape went back to his chair and continued his earlier task.

It really was the most cruel twist of fate for Potter to have been dealt the Vampire themed deck he was, Snape thought. He grimaced, congratulating a student, yet again, for their successful attempt at murdering the English language.

After all, of any student in this school that would be the least likely to welcome being turned into a blood-thirsty non-wizard being, Potter was the top of the list. Snape couldn't help but think that Potter may well have been the entire list. He snarled at the next essay. How many times must he remark on how hellebore was not only being butchered in spelling multiple times in this insult of an essay, but was not in the potion they were supposed to be discussing to begin with?

Then there was the difference in Potter's appearance. Snape had noticed it as the light filled the room, but hadn't gotten a chance to broach the topic with Potter before he went feral.

In the place of his usual short, if unkempt and mop-like, black hair was long, still managing to be unkempt, black hair. It was how Snape had found Potter looking when he found him in the alleyway, laying in a puddle of his own blood.

Shaking off the memory, not wanting to go down that particular alleyway, in both thought as well as actuality, he tried to change the subject, but his thoughts had other ideas. Snape was curious to say the least as to why Potter's appearance had changed. More importantly, how?

Potter was without a wand. Snape knew that for certain, the 11-inch piece of wood being locked in the cabinet where he stores his rare potion ingredients, that Potter was without a wand. So, that begged the question, how the hell had Potter managed to perform magic without it? And why would he waste any managed use of magic on changing his hair of all things?

Snape was pulled from his thoughts, more questions than answers, by an alarm tinkling from the other room. It was time to check on his potion.

Trying not to show his giddiness in an outward fashion, still being Snape even in the privacy of his own rooms, never quite knowing exactly who or what could be looking in on him, he walked to his workroom door.

It was a very crucial stage in the potion he was brewing and Snape had to be quite punctual in his execution, so had set alarms to ensure his success.

Snape was trying a very mild form of the potion he was to brew for Potter on a regular basis. This, if brewed correctly, which Snape was assured it would be, would allow Potter to walk in the sunlight for as long as attending his classes would require.

It was a potion under the category of "Dark Arts," but was not the one Snape had originally petitioned to his fellow faculty members to produce. Mainly because that one took at least a month to brew, two if it was botched in any way, Snape had chosen this lesser, but still dark, version to brew as a sort of launching point from which to work with Potter. Vampires weren't meant to walk in the daylight, so Snape had no idea what the full potion would do to Potter, having never had the chance to test said potion.

Merlin forbid it turn Potter into some sort of blood-thirsty monster, Snape thought. An image of Potter attacking the blood bag entered Snape's mind, only instead of a plastic bag it was some third year Hufflepuff. He shuddered.

He really had to stop abusing his third year Hufflepuffs in his hypotheticals. They were creepy enough to him in real life without his imagining them being drained by Potter of all people.

Or, he smirked at thought, the potion could turn him into a vampire as docile as a third year Hufflepuff. That one would be rather hilarious in his personal opinion.

Thus a new hypothetical was born.

Also, this alternate potion was an extremely complicated, fickle potion, which Snape was enjoying brewing far too much for his own good.

He took his usual place behind the percolating cauldron and, with a glass rod, stirred the potion exactly thirty times, five clockwise, one counterclockwise, repeating for the rest of the counts. It was therapeutic for Snape, the art of potion making. Everything was so precise, so perfect, yet if one, small step was ignored or a stir missed, it would all fall to pieces. It seemed the perfect allegory to his life, but he tended to ignore the metaphorical implications to his love of potions. They only caused him to brood.

On the final stir, Snape stopped, waiting with bated, if certain of himself, breath. Sure enough, five seconds later, the potion went from its murky, swamp color to a perfect, opaque white. It looked like liquid pearls.

Or like something that Snape was far too much of an adult, mature male to even so much as finish the thought. He wasn't, after all, one of the dunderheads he taught.

He, at least, had standards.

That and a serious inability to get the broomstick out of his arse and laugh at a good joke. Or so his Slytherins tended to remind him at every possible turn.

Then receive the necessary detention.

He checked the potion book again, squinting through the age of the pages. Finding his spot in the brewing, right next to the picture of a person having their throat torn completely from their body by a vampire. Paying no mind to the illustration, having seen worse in real life, Snape read the next line of instructions-

And almost swallowed his own tongue with how sharply he inhaled. He had not realized that particular step was already called for, some time having passed without his knowledge or acceptance, it would seem. He gritted his teeth and steeled himself for his next potion ingredient to be collected:

The saliva of the vampire on which the potion was to be used.

With a sigh, he paused his brewing, the step he dreaded still having to be completed or everything he had done would be a waste of time. Snape cast a Stasis Charm over the potion, knowing it wouldn't react to the magic, and walked out of his workroom. The bubble of euphoria and happiness that finally being able to lose himself in brewing again had caused had popped. As if a certain teenage vampire had popped it with one of his fangs.

Damned Potter. Why does it always have to be him? Snape was annoyed.

Slowly, he slid the bolted lock on the door to the side, freeing it to open. Thinking only about how much he didn't want to have to do this, how difficult it was to harvest things to begin with, let alone them being the saliva of one of his students, and being thankful, once again, that he always carried empty potions vials, Snape knocked once purely out of propriety before opening the door (read: barging in) to the room.

Potter was lying on the bed, hair as long as he had seen it earlier, appearing to be sated from his liquid breakfast. The remnant of said breakfast lay on the small table beside the bed, looking meek and in dire need of a Reparo right about now.

Those emerald eyes, seeming a darker shade than usual in the small light that the open door afforded the room, moved to look at Snape. The teen then sighed, sitting up on the bed, practically bouncing. I am going to have to look into when these damned mood swings will end. If not for my own sanity, then for the sake of my not being sacked for staking a student, Snape thought, glowering at the peppy, well-fed, teen.

"Thought you were Pomfrey," Potter seemed to bounce again, looking unsure for a moment before rolling his eyes and tilting his head, motioning for Snape to come further into the room. "Come on in. Don't worry, I won't bite. I'm already full." After that pathetic attempt at humor, Potter just smirked, seemingly at his assumed wit. Snape, wanting nothing more than to snap back at him, unfortunately needed his cooperation, so held his tongue.

He walked into the room, into his own room in his quarters, by the invitation of a vampire.

As far as Snape was concerned, the world could go back to its usual level of insanity at any point.

Snape returned to the wooden chair he had conjured the day before. He stopped momentarily before sitting and brushed off what looked like small, purple scraps of paper from the chair. He turned to Potter and raised an eyebrow.

Potter just shrugged in response, averting his eyes from the mess he had obviously made. The Professor chose to drop the subject for now. Though if the teen thought he was going to get out of having to clean it up at some point, he had another think coming.

Slytherin's do not clean up after others.

Settling himself in the chair, Snape looked at Potter. He couldn't see him quite as clearly as he would have liked, the teen only being lit by the light of the door that Snape had left open. He was pale, obviously, but he didn't look like he was having any trouble seeing Snape from his spot in the darkness. Snape took in how odd seeing Potter without his trademark glasses was and decided he would have to remedy that before sending Potter back to his friends.

After all, what would tip everyone off that Potter had changed more than his coming back without that bit of wire and glass, armed with perfect vision?

Silence reigned in that small room as the two raven-haired men sat and stared at one another. Snape didn't quite know how to broach the subject, and Potter seemed like he just didn't want to talk.

Snape cleared his throat. "So, Potter, adjusting well?" Each syllable physically pained him to speak. It was such a plebian, clichéd thing to ask someone. Severus Snape was neither of those things.

That and it was rather obvious how the vampire's adjusting was going. The crack in his door he could just see beside him and the mood swings were clues enough into the current state of the teen's psyche.

That and he is now forced to live off of the blood of others and stay forever in the darkness. It is not as if he is holding in the urge to run laps of joy around the Quidditch Pitch, Snape thought with a rarely felt pang of pity for the teen sitting opposite him.

Potter looked like he had just been told he had a nargle on his head. Merlin help me, Lovegood has managed to get those invented creatures committed to my memory. Next thing you know I'll be hunting for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and holding campfire reveries with the Hufflepuffs. Snape's thoughts shuddered.

"Um, pretty good, I guess." Potter shifted uncomfortably on the bed.

"'Well,'" Snape corrected him.

"What?"

"'Well.' The word you are searching for is 'well,' not 'good.' That aside, you are lying, Potter, and you are doing your usual poor job at it." Snape had let out the insult before he could stop himself.

He got his ears babbled off by an irritated vampire.

"Lying? Oh, why would I be lying? I'm perfectly chipper. Everything is tops, what would make you think it's not? Adjusting to being dead has been a piece of fucking cake! I'm eighteen and my life has officially ended. I fought in a war, defeated a noseless asshole and the moment I get the chance to have a life devoid of death being around every corner, what happens? I get turned into a blood-sucking monster! Stuck in this small, stone cage of a room, being fed through goblets and blood bags! I was just thinking it couldn't get worse, then you have the nerve to barge in here and ask me how I'm adjusting? Let me tell you, Snape, it's going pretty fucking poorly.

"My friends will hate me when they find out what I am, I'll be shunned from the world and any chance I had of having a life is completely over. To sum up, it's hard as hell to talk with fangs in your mouth, I may be full but you're starting to look more appetizing as the time goes by, and I'm fucking dead!" Potter, fangs out and eyes flashing in the light from the doorway, had moved to a crouched position sometime during his rant. He was breathing hard, looking like he wanted nothing more than to attack Snape. "Does that answer your question, you slimy bastard?"

Snape stared at the teen, lit only by the few feet of light shining from the open door, still managing to look as if shrouded completely in darkness. His skin was a pale pallor, glowing slightly in the fabricated light of the dungeon. For once, he looked the part of the broken hero. If he hadn't known his true age, Snape would have thought him to be much older. His eyes alone spoke of a long and painful life lived.

Is this really the same proud, arrogant Potter I gave everything to see live through his school years? Snape thought, his thoughts not quite matching up with Potter's actions. It wasn't the first time this had occurred, in fact it was a regular argument his mind had with itself. Who is this boy? Really?

If he hadn't known any better, he would have thought Potter was going round the bend. He knew better, though.

Which is why Potter's outburst was anything but welcomed by the Potions Professor. After all he had done for him when he was a child, Potter had no room to talk when it came to his life being crap.

He should live Snape's life for a few minutes, see how he would prefer it. He would be begging for immortality in an instant.

Sighing, the older man deadpanned, "Are you done?" Snape was only willing to take so much of the teen's tirade.

All at once the steam seemed to just seep from Potter. He leaned his back on the wall, looking ashamed of his outburst. He sat there, picked up his pillow on the bed and put it in his lap, curling his arms around it and focusing only on the inanimate object. When he spoke next, Snape was glad to see the fangs had again retreated to his normal canines.

"Yeah, I'm done." He picked at the pillow for a moment before looking up, sheepishly, at Snape. "Sorry about that. Even as a… I kinda explode sometimes."

Snape nodded, having been told, as well as witnessed a few, of Potter's infamous tantrums. "Perfectly understandable. I'll tolerate it for now, but just know, there is always a point where I am morally, even as your teacher, allowed to hex you for swearing and ranting in my general direction. I am not one of your little friends, Potter. As such, I am under no obligation to allow you to take your anger out on me." He watched as Potter cringed, guilt flooding his face at the reminder. "You would do well to remember that."

The boy nodded, "I know, Snape. Believe me, I know."

"Professor." It was a reflex to correct the snotty Gryffindor on proper use of titles. He never did use them, disrespectful student that he was. Unless he was talking to Minerva, of course. Then it's all "Professor this" and "Headmistress that."

Potter began to laugh rather uncontrollably. Snape couldn't help but wonder if Pomfrey had neglected to perform that mental health examination that he had suggested the night previously.

"Anything you find amusing, Potter?" The chair he was sitting in was beginning to become rather uncomfortable. He may have hated them for their ostentatious appearance, but he would have killed for one of Albus' cushy chairs he used to conjure.

He cringed inwardly at his word usage.

Between fits of laughter, Potter managed to spit out some form of coherent response. "I just," inhale, "it's been so long since," gasped for breath a few times, "we've just fought like this." At this point he wiped away the red tears that had formed in his eyes from laughing. "Me snapping out angrily, you coming back with a dry response. It's just refreshing, I guess. It's almost like… like things are still normal."

Snape cringed inwardly again. Nothing for the being sitting in front of him, wiping away tears of blood with the sleeve of his nightshirt, would ever be normal again. At least not the definition of normalcy he had originally become used to.

"Harry Potter's life? Normal? Somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming." The deadpan delivery was spot on and had Potter in fits of laughter again. Snape couldn't remember a time when he had ever before made the teen laugh. Now he had not only managed it the once, but a second time. Somehow, instead of being horrified that Potter was doing anything other than cowering and glowering in his presence, Snape felt sort of… calmed. Laughter had been missing from his life for so long, it was refreshing for it to finally return to him.

However odd the package it was wrapped in happened to be.

Potter's laughter trailed off to chuckling. "Wow, Snape. Never thought you'd be funny. Angry and scowling, yes, but funny? Nope." Potter chuckled again, tossing the pillow back to its normal place on the bed and, there was no other suitable word for it, flopping down onto it, head on the pillow, his newly grown hair splayed around his head like a black halo, feet about reaching past the edge of the small mattress.

Will the mood swings never end? Potter's moods changed more rapidly and with less notice than the Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers at Hogwarts.

"Potter, I find myself needing to inquire, were your moods always this unpredictable before or is their increasing irregularity a more recent development?"

The vampire sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "Ya know what, Snape? It's a little bit of both, I think. At least since fifth year. After the whole 'witnessing the murder of a schoolmate' thing, there was no telling when, or at whom, my anger would blow. Ron and Hermione lovingly refer to it as the year of 'Harry angst.' I can't say I don't agree with them." Potter's face fell. "They're gonna hate me when they find out."

Snape didn't even pretend to not understand exactly what he meant by that. "Not that I presume to know or even want to understand the inner workings of the Golden Trio, but I highly doubt they will. What with all of that 'friends until the end' nonsense you three always spout. Besides, who says they have to find out?" As Snape had meant it to, that got Potter's attention. He turned and propped himself up on his right arm, head in his hand, elbow on his pillow.

"I do. Other than the fact that they made me swear after my waltzing into the forest to die during the war that I wouldn't keep anything from them ever again, Hermione is bound to figure it out eventually. Even Ron isn't oblivious enough to not at least notice something is different about me." Snape held in a snicker at the veiled insult to the youngest male Weasley. "Why do you say they don't have to find out, Sna- Professor?" Potter caught himself and switched the word, but Snape noticed the slip. More importantly, he noticed the correction.

"There are a few things that have happened while you've been sleeping. Namely, I began going through with plans the faculty agreed upon during the meeting that was held last night."

"The meeting that was as obviously about me as the fact that Hanley must be wearing dentures and a wig?"

Before he could stop it from happening, Snape let out a sudden bark of laughter at the blatant jab at Hanley. It seems they aren't as chummy as I thought they were.

Potter's eyes bulged. "So you can laugh! Ha! Ron owes me ten Galleons!"

Snape glared at the triumphant teen, smirking at his inner alliteration. "Speak of this to anyone and you will find yourself as a toad for the rest of your time at Hogwarts."

Potter just laughed, smiling slightly. "Yeah, whatever you say, Snape.

"Please, I insist, test me to see if I am lying." His hand twitched to his wand pocket, where he knew Potter knew it was currently located.

Potter continued to smile slightly as he most graciously returned the subject back to its originally intended track, pushing himself back into the sitting position he had earlier given up. "I would, but then I wouldn't find out what happened at the meeting about my fate that I was, yet again, left out of." Something flashed in his eyes, a tiny hint at the anger he was holding in. Snape merely hoped it would stay held in. He needed another one of Potter's mood swings like he needed a hole in the head.

"Yes, Potter, you were left out. Would you have preferred we brought you and allowed your Professors to gawk and awe at you when we informed them of what you were?" Potter's face, if possible, blanched slightly. "That is what I figured your response would be. At the meeting, however, the decision was made for you to continue to reside in the castle until the school year is concluded."

Potter's eyes widened. "You mean, I can stay? Here? I can stay hom- at the castle? Even though I'm a blood-sucking, possible danger to the school, could kill at any moment, monster? No one was okay with me staying here when they thought I was a nutcase, how do you think they'll react when they find out that nutcase is now a vampire and wandering around the school?" Potter's fears were not unfounded as it had turned out.

Snape was still uncertain as to his opinion on the conversation he had had on the way back to his office after lunch earlier that day with Filius, Pomona and Minerva. At some point in the day, each of the teachers had come up to him with their own concerns about Potter, usually something trivial, but these three had made their point in a way he couldn't seem to shake.

"I understand what you are saying, Severus, but you are the only one who can look after Mr. Potter," the small wizard squeaked at him, receiving a vigorous nod from Pomona in reply.

"Filius, I understand what you are saying, but I have to disagree," Snape had responded with a sigh and a glare, "Potter and I will wind up killing one another by the end of the week, I'm sure of it. We can not even stand being in the same room as one another for extended periods of time, let alone living in the same quarters for the next several months."

Minerva was shaking her head slowly, chewing her words before she spoke them, and when she did it was with an air of diplomacy and a measured look, "Now, Severus, what Filius is saying, and the rest of the faculty agrees, is that you are the only one on staff experienced enough to handle Potter and his… special needs."

"Exactly! Which is why we feel confident in your keeping Potter in the dungeons where you can keep a close eye on him at all times," Pomona replied, happily.

"After all, he wouldn't dare attack you, Severus. As we all know, he owes you his life, doesn't he?" Filius was speaking out of fear, not for himself but for his Ravenclaws. That knowledge was the only thing that kept Snape from hexing the man then and there.

Pomona agreed with the man, adding in that Potter would be happier in the dungeons, where he couldn't wander the halls at night like he so loved to do before "the incident" as the staff had been referring to Potter's being bitten. "Potter and everyone else will be much safer with him under your watchful eye."

She smiled a giant, fake, smile then she and Flitwick excused themselves, having reached Snape's office, each inventing some task they needed to do.

Snape knew for a fact that Filius didn't need to set up for his next class, being the Charms professor and able to do it in moments, and he was most certainly positive that Pomona had not allowed one of her Venomous Tentacula to ingest any portion of a student, let alone needed to head down after lunch in order to remove said student from the vicious plant.

Minerva looked as if she had just swallowed a lemon as she watched the Professors run away. Her voice was measured when she spoke, holding back from the angry tirade Snape could feel bubbling beneath the surface. "The faculty of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is apparently concerned with how Potter may react with them and the students. More specifically, they are terrified to be in the same room with him now that he is… what he is."

Snape had been shocked to say the least. "So, all it took for the Golden Boy to fall to leper status in their eyes was a pair of fangs?"

Minerva turned to him, her age showing in her face, the lines seeming exaggerated and resembling Albus more at that moment than she ever had before.

"It would seem so, Severus. As much as I know you hate to hear it, it doesn't make it any less true: you're all Harry has. Please, look after him. If not for him, then… for Lily."

It was with Minerva's request in mind, it echoing what Snape had been thinking to himself over the past seven years, that he sat there and spoke with Potter.

After all, saving Harry Potter's life and taking care of him without his knowledge was apparently what Severus Snape did best.

No matter how happy he had once been to be rid of the job, it seemed as if he were destined to be following the prat around for the rest of his life, picking up after him.

He was beginning to feel like a House Elf, only without the job satisfaction.

"Now, the faculty as a whole decided that you are, in fact, to remain a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"Really? Letting me stay here is one thing, but letting me in classes? With other students? They really trust me that much still?"

Snape thought back to every teacher on staff at Hogwarts, aside from the Hanley bastard, never outright saying it but implying that they had everything but trust in Potter. Before that talk with Minerva, he would have informed Potter of this. Now? The damned cat's voice ran through his head, "You're all Harry has." Well, if I am all he has then Potter is royally screwed.

Ever the masterful liar, Snape set his face in a mask of indifference and lied his arse off. "Of course, Potter. You are Harry Potter, Chosen One and Savior of the Wizarding World, after all. Simply becoming a vampire overnight is not enough to sway the faculty as being anything but in awe of you. At least not while Flitwick is still the President of the Hogwarts chapter of the Harry Potter Fan Club."

Snape sneered at the cowardice of the other professors. Potter was his normal self, at least as far as Snape knew. Nothing had changed but his pulse.

Potter chuckled at the thought of Flitwick heading meetings. "And here I thought McGonagall would hold that position."

Snape shook his head, playing along for once. "No, sadly Minerva was out voted by Trelawney. Something to do with her aura not seeming pink enough for the job or some other rubbish." Potter was holding in laughter, Snape could tell. He smirked at the Gryffindor, "The identity of your Fan Club officers aside, as of Monday you are to return to your normal class schedule."

Potter was dubious to say the least. "Not that it doesn't sound appealing, but how exactly am I supposed to do that? Last time I checked, Hogwarts didn't offer night classes. Just Astronomy, and I had more than enough of that when I took my OWL for it." Potter pushed his hair out of his face. Snape really needed to get this conversation over with so he could get what he came for, then ask his eternal annoyance why and how that makeover came about.

"You will be going to your classes as scheduled, as well as any detentions that you are bound to wind up with. Essentially, you are to go about your day as a regular human being, and shall remain doing so until the faculty deems it necessary for the student populous to know what you are, and believe me, Potter, until we tell them, they will not know."

Potter scoffed. "Yeah, well it'll be pretty obvious once I walk into the Great Hall for breakfast and burst into flames, won't it?"

Snape was doing rather a lot of sighing in the past few days. "It won't. Because that will not be happening." Potter looked at him, a look of mingled shock and disbelief, with a tiny dash of what could only be called hope, on his face. "The faculty voted, and they agreed to allow me to… solve the issue of daylight for you. I am in the process of brewing a potion that will allow you to be in the sunlight for a certain amount of time during the day, just enough for you to be in your classes and not, as you put it, burst into flames."

Potter's eyes glistened. He looked skeptical, and was slowly but surely digesting the information he was being given. "Hold on, this makes no sense. First, why would you wanna help me? Second, how can you help me? I may not be as informed as I should be in the ways and world of vampires, but I thought there wasn't a way to-" comprehension dawned on Potter's face and he glared at Snape. "It's a Dark potion, isn't it?"

Despite his previous opinions, Snape was impressed. "Well, Potter, you caught on far faster than your Professors did. It is a potion out of a book from the Malfoy family library, yes, but only because it allows a vampire to go out into the sun. Hypothetically creating more hours in the day in which to feast. Other than that, it has no inherently evil properties to it. Neither does the other, stronger version I shall be brewing after this one is completed."

Potter shook his head slightly. "I don't know about this, Snape. Drinking blood and seeing in the dark is one thing, but this? I've only been a vampire for two days and I'm already expected to be condoning the use of dark magic. Things sure change pretty quickly, don't they?"

"In the blink of an eye." Honestly, he couldn't understand the teen's trepidation with the whole affair. He was being given back the sun, the one thing vampires would quite literally kill for, so why would he even for a second deny it?

Potter seemed to honestly think about it all for a moment. He picked his pillow back up, possibly just to give his hands something to do, and began sort of absentmindedly kneading it. He was eyeing the now empty- as well as shredded- plastic package that had held his breakfast. Snape couldn't begin to imagine what was going through Potter's head at that point.

Though, mostly he just assumed he was either weighing the pros and cons of being around others again, namely the consuming blood in front of them, or he was merely hungry again.

It had better be the former, for that glutton of a vampire isn't getting any more any time soon, Snape thought, wondering whether or not it would be worth trying to repair said blood bag for later use.

Finally, Potter nodded resolutely, having made up his mind. "Alright, Snape. I'll go along with it."

Snape inclined his head slightly, "Good. Now, we can get down to business. Namely why I came in here to begin with."

Potter groaned, slamming the pillow into the mattress, his right hand gripped a tad too tightly to it, his nails ripping the pillowcase slightly. "I knew it! There's always something else. What is it this time? More feigned remedial potions classes? Not being allowed around knives in Potions? Having to be shadowed during classes to make sure I don't eat any of my classmates? Merlin, you're not going to keep my wand away from me still, are you?" Snape rolled his eyes at the many woes of Harry Potter, though had to admit that reinstating the "Remedial Potions" lessons may be the best way to go about covering this all up…

"No, Potter, you will be given your wand back. Since it is rather obvious you still have the ability to perform magic, your new hairstyle enough evidence of that, I am certain it is safe for it to be returned to you. No, I came in here to collect an ingredient necessary for the potion you will be taking, if I stay on schedule, tomorrow morning."

Potter looked confused. Confusion was one emotion that Snape was never tired of seeing on that stubborn, prideful mug of Potter's. "'Collect an ingredient'? What, do you need some of my hair or something?"

Snape pursed his lips, already growing tired of the vampire, Minerva or no Minerva. "Or something. The potion calls for a sample of the saliva of the vampire on which it is to be used." He reached into his cloak and pulled out an empty vial, oblivious to Potter's reaction. "So, if you could simply salivate into this, I can be on my way and we can each get back to what it was we were doing before this interlude."

He held out the empty glass vial and Potter just stared at it like it was a muggle bomb. "You want… my saliva?" Potter gulped, and it was Snape's turn for confusion.

"Yes, Potter. As you should know by now, Vampire Saliva has magical properties beyond merely keeping vampires from experiencing dry mouth." Snape stopped a moment to fully appreciate the confused look on Potter's face. The teen had no idea what the bloody hell he was. He sighed, "I would suggest the first thing you do upon taking this potion be visiting the library, Potter. Now, Vampire Saliva is used much like Phoenix Tears, only there is far more of an abundance of Vampire Saliva and it cannot heal as many things as wholly as Phoenix Tears can. For the purposes of now, just know it has healing properties that lend itself to aiding the Vampire when feeding upon a human."

Potter took this information in, still looking stunned and a dash more terrified by the vial now. "So… you want my magical healing saliva?"

Snape sighed. Yet again. "I do believe I stated that before, did I not? Now, just do it so I can get this blasted potion finished quickly." Snape was feeling testy. The idiot didn't even understand the small words anymore, it seemed.

"No."

Snape blinked. "Excuse me? What was that, Potter?" His trademarked glare had returned, pointed at Potter once more.

"No. I said 'no,' I'm not giving you anything. No way in hell am I risking that, sun or no sun." Snape had no idea what Potter was talking about.

"Risking what? I assure you, it will only be used in the potion, nothing more-"

"Yeah, but if anyone finds out, you'll only get three months in Azkaban. I'm the one with the death sentence, Snape, and I'm not risking it!" Potter was overreacting rather extremely. It was only a little bit of spit, for Merlin's sake, it wasn't like he was asking him to go bite and drain someone of their blood first!

"Potter, you are making even less sense than usual. What makes you think salivating in this potions vial will end in my incarceration and your eventual demise?"

Potter gawked at him, and instead of answering, hopped up from the bed, reaching Snape's chair in only a single step in the small room. Snape prepared for some sort of attack but instead Potter's gaze locked with his own as he moved closer to Snape, keeping eye contact with the Professor, and knelt down in front of him. Thousands of reasons for Potter's doing this flitted through his head, most of which were unwanted and most definitely never to be admitted to. To anyone. Ever.

Potter, to Snape's confusion, broke the eye contact, got fully on his hands and knees, and began scooping up all of the shredded purple bits that were scattered about that part of the room. Well, it seems I'll be getting an answer as to what those are sometime soon, Snape thought, intrigued despite himself.

Potter handed Snape the pile of them. "I think I got all of the pieces." Snape looked at the pile of paper, then looked up at Potter and raised an eyebrow. Potter sighed in frustration, "You need to put it back together. I can't. No wand, remember?" With that he huffed, stood, and sat at the foot of his bed, his profile to Snape, face toward the open doorway.

Snape took out his wand, pointed it at the small, purple pile, and silently cast a Reparo. The pieces all arranged themselves and stitched back together to form a Ministry Pamphlet. Casting a quick lumos so he could actually read it, wondering for a moment how Potter had managed the feat in the darkness before him, Snape read the title and snorted. Only the Ministry…

He searched through the pamphlet, becoming more and more befuddled.

Befuddled was something Severus Snape never wanted to be able to describe him.

Damned Ministry, still doing everything in its power to make my life difficult, it would seem, Snape's thoughts growled.

His anger must have shown, for Potter, still staring at the doorway, let out a snort. "See what I mean? Stupid bastards." Snape let the curse slide, however, for it was exactly what he was thinking at that moment.

Potter's hands became very interesting to him, it would seem, for he did not seem to be able to take his eyes off of them. Snape could not blame him for once. It reminded him far too much of what the Ministry had attempted to do to him after the war, mainly their having refused to accept his reasons for his actions until Potter stepped in.

"This makes no sense, even by the Ministry's abysmal standards. The imbeciles they had working there… Who in their right mind would pass these sorry excuses for laws?" Snape flipped the pamphlet to the back and searched, knowing his question would be answered and soon. Finally finding what he was looking for, at the bottom, written in minute, cursive, lettering, were the words he was searching for. He read them, stopped, backtracked and read them again, just to assure himself he hadn't read it incorrectly.

Well, he thought with a grimace, that would explain it.

"What'd you find?" Potter was becoming impatient, still staring at his hands.

Grimace still in place, Snape looked up and read aloud the words on the back of the pamphlet, "All laws and subsequent sentencing brought to light by the Ministry Official, Dolores. Jane. Umbridge." Each of the last three words were spoken as their own sentence.

Snape had to admit that his loathing of Umbridge was most likely only rivaled by the being in front of him. No, the "magical creature" in front of him, according to the Ministry. He felt an odd anger welling up inside of him at this, at the pink monstrosity having single-handedly demoted an entire species to nothing more than animals.

Potter's head snapped toward him at the name, fire burning behind the emeralds. "That- that BITCH is responsible for this?" Again, Snape had to agree.

"Watch your language, Potter," Snape snapped, still a Hogwarts Professor and not able to let that one pass him by.

Potter began flexing his right hand, running his left over the back of it. Snape had seen the scars there, having been made aware after the fact as to their origin. Umbridge's level of sadism was rivaled only by those bearing the last names of Lestrange, Greyback and Riddle.

Though, only she and Riddle had ever managed to permanently scar The Boy Who Lived. Hence why Snape loathed her so much.

Anyone that overjoyed with torturing a fifteen-year-old was rated as less than dirt in Snape's eyes.

About on par with his father.

"It would seem so, Potter. I was under the impression that you had convinced the Ministry to reverse any and all laws she had put into place upon sacking her. Is that not correct?"

Potter's jaw flexed, Snape able to hear his teeth grinding together from his spot a few feet away. The jarring sound echoed on the walls, sounding as if he was crunching the very stone itself between his teeth.

"I did. It seems the Ministry allowed a few to seep through the cracks." He growled in synch with Snape's thoughts.

"Typical." It was a small, everyday word, but what made it supremely odd was that it was spoken in unison between the Potions Master and the Vampire.

Snape recovered from the shock of their having had a shared thought more quickly than Potter. After all, keeping Potter alive and in one piece was always the first and foremost to his thoughts, it being pure reflex by now.

"Well, Umbridge and her idiotic laws seem to have caused a snag in our plans." I should probably call a meeting and get Minerva's permission before risking Potter's life. Snape thought. Then again… the laws clearly state that Hogwarts is allowed to govern itself in matters pertaining to its students. Until Hogwarts deems it necessary to register him as becoming a vampire, he is entirely under the laws and regulations of the school. Not the Ministry.

"Potter." Snape glared the vampire down, who looked like he may have read his Professor's mind. "I never thought I would see the day when I would ask this, and of a Potter no less, but how about we decide to… ignore this particular law? As a final send off for Umbridge's rules governing this school? Minerva will never hear of it, no one can prove it happened unless one of us speaks of it, and it shall be a… secret." That word was oddly difficult for Snape to choke out at Potter. "Just between us."

What alternate universe have I stumbled into? Snape was certain he had gone insane. This was not something Severus Snape, feared Potions Master and reformed Death Eater, would say.

And yet… he said it. It was out there. Never to be returned.

Smirking in a fashion that Snape thought no Gryffindor should ever be allowed to do, Slytherins having cornered that particular market long ago, Potter nodded. "Deal. After all, when have I ever been one to listen to the law, right, Snape? 'Determined rule-breaker,' isn't that what you would always call me?"

Snape snorted derisively, knowing full well Potter was correct. Also slightly excited at the prospect of defying the law once more. He refused to admit it to himself but he did quite have a thing for breaking rules. Just not in the sense that Potter did.

He preferred for his rule breaking to result in those who had wronged him being punished, humiliated, or dead.

He never claimed to be a kind man.

With a nod, Snape leaned and picked the potions vial up from where it had dropped, unnoticed, earlier on the floor. He then handed it to Potter, raising an eyebrow at the teen. "Take it."

A surreal, déjà vu, moment occurred then. The last time he said those words to Potter he was lying, dying, on the dirty floor of the Shrieking Shack.

Hesitating only slightly, seeming to remember the same thing he was, Potter took the vial. He raised it as if toasting, "To defying Umbridge, the Toad, and playing at being normal yet again," then spit into the vial, stoppered it, then handed it back to Snape.

"To defying the Toad," Snape echoed quietly, shaking his head slightly at the Gryffindor's act of rebellion that only he was there to witness. He then stood to leave, his stony, Professor mask back in place, hand on the doorknob, pulling the door shut behind him, the potions vial clutched in his open hand.

"Hey, Snape?"

Snape turned. The door was shut just enough so that Potter was hidden in the darkness of the room. "Yes, Potter?"

He heard him hesitate for a moment before answering. "Um… thank you. For talking with me and everything."

Snape was stunned, frozen to the spot. He snarled, "Potter, I merely came in to acquire something, not to socialize or-"

"Oh, I know that," Potter quickly cut him off, "I just, ya know, I've been stuck in this room, by myself, for two days, alone. Then you came in and you talked with me and you listened. Even my ranting. You didn't mean to, I know, but still… thanks for just talking."

Snape hesitated as well, not quite certain what to answer. In all honesty, talking with Potter wasn't the little slice of Hell he had imagined it would be. At least they hadn't dissolved into just screaming at one another as they usually would have. Who knows, maybe the new, vampire Potter will prove to be more manageable, Snape thought.

"Yes, well, it was not completely terrible, conversing with you, Potter. If you are in dire need of assistance, say you awake to suddenly find you are missing a limb or something similar, then I shall be in my quarters. Someone had better be dying, though, if you wake me in the middle of the night, Potter. Be warned."

With that, he closed the door, ignoring the bolt lock, and walked back into his workroom, three steps away from finishing the potion.

Back in that small, cramped, dark room, Potter was smiling.

It was hidden in a threat and cast aside, but Snape just said he'd be there if I needed him, Harry thought, grinning in the darkness.

Maybe being a vampire was just the change in my life I needed.

Back in his Potions workroom, Snape was having a similar thought. Only, it was more along the lines of how nothing in his life ever seemed to change.

Or at least, never truly change.

It always came back to a Potter. Though now… it was in a way that Snape wasn't quite certain how to handle.

He poured Harry "The Vampire" Potter's saliva into the cauldron. He stirred it seven times clockwise, seven counter. The potion turned a deep, crimson red.

Scoffing, Snape left it to simmer for three hours, the only step left.

Snape accepted a fact that night.

Nothing ever changes.

His life was an unfortunate cycle that began when he was 21.

For everything came back to Potter.

Even Snape's dreams that night.

AN: Aaaaand we're back! :D

So, how did everyone like this one?
I know, Snape seems OOC, but bare with me here. Haha. There's reasons, some of which I've stated and explored and will continue to work with to explain why he's written the way he is.

Mainly, if you liked the chapter, please leave me a review. :D

I do appreciate them ever so much and they're why chapters occur! :D
Nothing like leaving me reviews to guilt me into writing another chapter sooner. Guilt works, my friends!

I do hope you all enjoyed this. Be sure to let me know what you like, what you don't, what you love, what you don't lo- ya know what, I may not want to know that one… haha.

I hope you are all doing well, my wonderful readers.

With all the love a fanfic author can give,

ForeverJynxed