I need everybody who skipped right to this chapter to go back and read chapter 6! I posted the version that I like better so you all need to read it so you know what's going on!
Chapter 7
After the nearly painful question and answer session, they returned home to work on their contribution to that night's dinner. Originally, they were only making gingerbread houses as center pieces, but Harry wanted to do more than that. They would still be making the gingerbread houses, but as a family. Harry on the other hand, was making a spiral ham with cinnamon-honey glaze, and covered in pineapples.
He had been marinating it since yesterday, so that it could go into the oven, leaving just enough time to take it out of the oven and go. He put the meat in the oven and turned around, so that he could begin setting up the walls of the small houses for construction.
It was a bit odd, though. He felt like a part of himself that had been missing for a great while was finally getting closer. He had felt it to a lesser degree all night, but it was getting stronger. A lot stronger. To the point where he really just wanted to go investigate.
He had been fighting it for a long while when it reached a peak. He turned around and was met with a startling sight.
/
Gabriel hurried into the kitchen when he felt Harrys' overwhelming panic along with the presence of another male.
Harry was pressed as far into the corner next to the refrigerator as he could get and staring wide-eyed at a male that Gabriel had not seen in nearly a thousand years.
/
Harry stared in complete shock at the man in the kitchen doorway. The man was tall and had long dirty blond hair and penetrating brown eyes that held curious gold flecks. He had tight, toned muscles.
But what he couldn't comprehend was the pull he felt from the man. It couldn't be... Could it? This pull he felt...
"Markus! How unexpected... What brings you here?" The man, apparently named Markus, looked at Gabriel a moment before blinking.
/
It was a great surprise to see Markus so unexpectedly after so long, standing in his kitchen. His old friend looked exactly the same as he had all those long years ago, before he had begun chasing Lucien, but that really wasn't any big surprise.
No. What he found slightly disturbing and/or surprising was the way Markus was watching Harry.
/
Harry slowly unglued himself from the wall and inched his way towards his father. Gabriel was staring intently at the strange man, as if he was trying to examine the others soul.
'Dad?' Harry really only used mind-speak when he was upset, but that seemed to be all the time now.
/
He started and looked away from the blonde. He knew that Harry rarely talked like that, only when he was truly confused or scared.
'Yes Harry?'
'Who is he?'
'An old friend of mine. His name is Markus Valeres.'
'I-I feel a connection to him.' The boy paused. 'I think… that he is my Lifemate.' Gabriels shock showed on his face.
'Why don't you go to your room while I talk to him?' Harry nodded his acceptance and was gone with a small pop.
/
Harry sighed in relief as soon as he was out of the man's range of sight. Seriously, his stare was so intense. It felt as though it could see strait to his soul.
/
Gabriel stared intently into the eyes of his old friend for several minutes, trying to see something that would give him a clue.
"What happened Gabriel?"
"You scared him."
"I apologize for that then." The words came out in a strangely detached manner.
"It is fine. He has been getting better." There was a short pause.
"How are you doing Markus?" It was several questions in one.
"It has been difficult these last few years." Gabriel sighed. Markus was nearly as old as he and Lucien were.
"And you have yet to find your Lifemate."
"Yes. Though I have been feeling a strong pull for the about a year now. It is possible that if I follow it, I will find my mate."
"A pull?"
"From my soul." Gabriel stared with a blank expression for several minutes.
"That is… most unusual."
"I am aware of that. But it has distracted me from the Darkness."
"Distracted?" He had never heard of anyone being distracted from it before.
"I am not complaining Gabriel." The man said slowly, as if unsure of himself.
/
Harry emerged from his room a short while after Markus left. The man terrified him. Well, that wasn't exactly true. He was terrified by the idea of the man. The idea of a Lifemate. And Harry didn't want a Lifemate. Well he did. But he didn't want to have to deal with it so soon. He also knew that if he was right, that he wouldn't be able to avoid meeting and talking to the man.
Harry frowned slightly to himself as he looked out the kitchen window. Why was Sky out there alone? Where was she going?
Immediately, he stood from the stool he was sitting on and exited the house through the kitchen door. His frown deepened when he saw her enter the woods. With all the Vampire activity recently, they weren't supposed to go into the forest by themselves. So, he did the most logical thing he could think of… he followed her. At least he knew he could protect her.
The path that she had followed was nearly nonexistent, and he could only follow it because of the path she had left in the snow. That path made it overly easy to track her. He sighed in exasperation. Why did his sister always forget to think? Honestly. Sometimes he thought her brain had melted from the past trauma (AN: I feel really bad for saying that…).
Soon enough he emerged into a small clearing. He could clearly make out his sister slowly approaching a wolf that had become caught in a hunters trap.
The fact that she was going closer to the injured animal was not worrying… well it was. But the more concerning fact was the pure evil that he felt radiating from it.
"Sky. Get away from there. It is Undead." He spoke the order softly but firmly, making the older girl freeze in place. She remained motionless for a few long seconds before turning and running to Harry.
"Are you sure?" He was glad that she had waited to question him until she was at his side.
"Yes. I feel his evil." He spoke calmly, never taking his eyes off of the threat.
As he watched, the Vampire began shifting, regaining its true form. Yellow/grey skin stretched taught over a bullet shaped skull, pointed rotting teeth showed through the angry snarl. Sky screamed.
"Do you really think screaming will do any good?" He asked her in exasperation. A sidelong glance showed that the girl was blushing.
"Sorry. I didn't mean too."
"It's alright. Now go hide somewhere until I kill it." Again she obeyed without question.
As if responding to an unseen signal, the Undead lunged forward, screaming in anger at being ignored.
With a sigh, Harry snapped his fingers and the creature froze in place.
"Now really, you shouldn't be so impulsive. It's bad for your health." He snapped his fingers again and the smell of burnt meat filled the air, although there was no visual reason for it. One last wave of his hand and the vampire was on fire.
Immediately he turned his back and walked over to where Skylar was hiding behind a tree. When she saw him, she hugged him tightly. "Thank you Harry, you just saved my life." He responded by hugging back.
Moments later though, he let go and spun around, automatically dropping into a defensive crouch. Standing there in the clearing where he had just incinerated the Vampire were two Carpathian males. Sky's mate Dimitri and Harrys' potential mate Markus. That was just great.
They had forgone the protective instincts so well known in the Carpathian race and were just staring at the short boy incredulously. Harry didn't stand out of his crouch though. He didn't trust people based on sight alone… except his parents. But he was around them so much that he could recognize them by aura alone.
"Harry it's alright. It really is Dimitri. I don't recognize the other one though." Cautiously he returned to a standing position and watched them warily. He would take no chances. Not with his life and not with Skylars.
A moment later, Markus spoke.
"How did you destroy the Undead?" Dimitri said nothing.
"That is none of your concern." And with that he spun around, grabbed his sister and apparated into his bedroom back at the borrowed house. Upon arrival, they were accosted by a very worried Gabriel and Francesca.
"Where have you two been?" Gabriel demanded as Harry flopped gracelessly onto his bed.
"I followed her." Harry pointed at the other teen who started blushing. "I have no idea where she thought she was going but I had to kill an Undead." Francesca paled and Gabriel growled in his displeasure.
Harry had no visible reaction to the anger of his father, but internally he cringed. It didn't matter that he knew the anger wasn't directed at him, but at the situation. Skylar, on the other hand, paled with her shame. She was the one primarily at fault. She had left the protection of the house, without a Carpathian male at her side.
"What do you mean you had to kill an Undead?"
"It would have attacked Sky. I really had no choice in the matter. It had disguised itself as a wolf caught in a trap, and she was not expecting it."
Gabriel turned to the ashamed figure of his daughter and leveled a firm stare at her.
"Skylar? Would you like to explain why you left the house?"
"I can feel Dimitris' pain. It called for me to help him. Then I heard a wolf, and assumed it was him. I was wrong."
It was at that moment that they felt several men approach the house. Gabriel did a quick scan of the area and identified the prince, Markus, Dimitri, and Gregory.
"Well, considering who is here, it would seem that you left something out." With that he turned and left the room, heading for the kitchen. Harry had known that they would follow. There wasn't ever any doubt about that.
"I guess they will want to know what I did to it. I am not Carpathian, so they will want to know how I killed it." He followed his father out the door. The girls followed them.
"I need to speak to Harry." They heard as they approached the kitchen door. With a silent sigh, Harry opened the door and stepped inside.
"I figured that would be the case. What do you want to know?" He sounded resigned.
"How did you kill the Vampire?"
"I set the heart on fire. I can't touch the blood, for its acid qualities, so I don't remove the heart."
"But how is such a thing possible?"
"What? To incinerate it from the inside out?" The Prince nodded in confirmation. Harry silently summoned an apple from the counter. He levitated it in front of himself, and then snapped his fingers, just like he had done with the Undead. He did nothing for a long moment, but then waved his hand. The apple broke in half, showing that the inside was cooked, while the outside had been left untouched. "That is what I did to the Vampire. And then I set the body itself on fire."
They all stared at him cluelessly. Even he had to admit that it sounded a bit absurd, and he was the one who had done it.
/
He had finally managed to escape to his room, and he didn't even know how he had done it. He had begun to lose his patience with the endless questions, and had felt his anger spike, along with his magic. Maybe that was it? Maybe blowing all of the windows up had gotten the point across when nothing else had? All he knew was that he had turned and stalked out of the room without a word and nobody had said anything.
Now he was lying on his bed, directing a fireball to flit lazily around the room. His eyes flicked after it, not really paying attention. His day had been nothing short of chaos, and it wasn't even over yet. Now he really didn't want to go to the Christmas party. It was sure to build on his already frayed nerves.
He was so not looking forward to this. And people were going to want to be introduced to him. Because of who his parents were. He didn't want anything to do with it. He had had enough of that in the wizarding world. People wanting to know him because he was Harry Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived. He was done with everything. And he was especially done with being stared at. The staring was inevitable. He was a commodity here. A puzzle. Something to figure out. He had told nobody that he was a wizard. They all just thought that he was a human with overly strong psychic abilities.
He lay there stewing for the time he had remaining, and in reality it made him quite mad. He shouldn't have to do what these unknown people said. He should be able to be himself. To make his own choices.
He was drawn out of his internal rant when he heard a knock on the door. Slowly he sat up and then used his wand to open the door. It was Francesca.
"It is time to go."
"Do I have to?" he asked, hoping the answer would be no.
"Yes. What would the point in coming here, have been, if you don't go to the main event?" he really hated how her logic made so much sense. It just wasn't bloody fair. He wanted to say that he hadn't been looking forward to it, but she would see right through that lie.
"Fine. But be aware that I am not happy about it."
"Yes, that has been duly noted. Now move it mister." Harry sent a mild glare in her direction, but did as she said.
With more than a little reluctance, Harry removed himself from the bed and slumped out of the room, all the while being followed closely by his mother.
…..
End of chapter!
Yes I know it's short. And yes I know it's late. I apologize. Life happens and usually gets in the way of writing.
