Winter at Hogwarts
Disclaimer: As before I own neither the Night World nor Harry Potter.
1 OC (Night World based) - Winter Redfern.
Two days later found Winter in Thierry's Las Vegas mansion. The grounds were huge, with manicured lawns, fountains and tennis courts. She was sure there was more, but she hadn't gotten around to fully exploring the place yet. It had been two years since she had experienced such luxury and opulence, the only difference was at her mom's there hadn't been vampires and werewolves walking around with black suits and ties, sunglasses and earpieces like the CIA. She had been given instructions to treat the mansion like her own home and that he'd speak to her when he got back on Monday.
Currently it was two o'clock on Monday morning and Winter was curled up on a squishy leather sofa in the media room. With a blanket over her legs, a bowl of butter popcorn and a Family Guy DVD playing on the 50" flat screen television. She couldn't sleep, not that she needed much of it anyway.
'Ah, life doesn't get any better than this,' she thought to herself 'well except for the fact that I'm crashing in the mansion of the most wanted person in the Night World. Sharing meals with traitors and they'll probably want to convince me to join their merry resistance,' Winter heard herself giggle and even to her it sounded slightly hysterical.
'I do hope you're not losing it Winter, I'd hate to have to clean up the mess,' came a voice in her head.
Peering over the top of the sofa, she saw her cousin Ash leaning against the doorframe his blonde hair dishevelled and falling into his eyes. The ultimate playboy, or at least he had been, but then he'd found his soulmate and started a quest to redeem himself in order to be worthy of her love. It would've been funny if it wasn't so close to the bone.
"Come sit with me Ash?" she asked. Ash walked around the sofa and sat down with his feline grace when she moved her feet, only to find them resting on his lap. She looked into the only face with eyes like her own, a throwback to the first vampire. He looked tired and she told him so.
"Well the path for redemption is a long one." He replied.
"Is she worth it, Mary-Lynette I mean?"
"Well yeah, she's my soulmate and she should be by my side so if this is what I have to do to make it happen…" he said trailing off. "How come you're asking?" Winter looked away.
"Alright then, so what's with all this then?" he asked gesturing to the bowl of popcorn. Winter looked back at him and took a deep breath.
"This is gonna sound so stupid but… I'm trying to see what it's like to be human." Ash looked at her quizzically.
"Why on earth would you be doing that? We're lamia, we can't just become human. If we could, don't you think I would've done it by now?"
"Jez did it." Winter replied in a quiet voice.
"Jez is half human, she has that option we-." Winter closed her eyes as she cut him off.
"I do," he just raised his eyebrow as he considered her, waiting for her to continue; "mom lied to me. She wasn't murdered like we thought, she staked herself. My dad is a human wizard and before you ask no, I don't know who he is, I refused the genealogy spell. With my luck he'll turn out to be one of baddies or worse the main baddy!"
"Is that why you ran away two years ago?"
"Well that and Thierry knew. Mom had written him a letter before she killed herself and he turned up at her funeral asking me to come with him to Circle Daybreak. I totally freaked out, so I packed a bag and ran to the Wizarding world. Two years later and I'm running away from the Wizarding world, giving up my job I might add, and where do I run? To the fucking Daybreaker's!"
"Well why are you running? Winter Redfern is scared of nothing if I remember correctly." He replied with a grin.
"Because at twenty six, I thought that meant I was safe from that stupid Redfern curse we've got, turns out, it was just waiting for the worst time to bite me on the ass, that's why!" Winter watched as Ash's eyes went wide.
"So does that mean…"
"Yes, it means I found my soulmate, the most annoying, sarcastic, miserable, sexiest man alive, and we can't even have a civil conversation without world war three kicking off. His voice is like velvet, I swear, I just wanna curl up in it" Winter said laughing.
"The old powers have definitely hit you with it. Especially since you're thinking of going native for him, does he know?" Ash replied laughing.
"No and I'm not going to either, if he bothers to ask, the headmaster will tell him I'm addressing a family emergency."
"So you're not even on speaking terms, but you're gonna give up the only life you know for him?" Ash asked incredulously.
"Say's the man on the mission of redemption. He's my soulmate Ash and I'm almost 5,000 miles away from him because I'm trying to make things right between us again. Besides I disgust him as a vampire and to be honest, these last couple of months, I've been finding it hard to even look at me."
"Why, what did you do?"
"Who said I did anything?" Ash said nothing, he merely looked at her "Alright I may have had a complete breakdown, forgot to feed, went through bloodlust, knocked out some kiddies and staff in the school with a psychic blast and had to feed on him."
"Good to see you're still doing things the easy way." He replied with a chuckle as he shook his head.
"It's not my fault. I asked for an animal, but the next thing I know he's on the bed next to me, stripped down to his trousers and offering his jugular to me. I couldn't resist!"
"I'll bet!" Before they knew it the two of them were laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes. It wasn't that funny, but with the stress they both were under trying to be better people for their soulmates it felt good to laugh.
"I think you should talk to Jez, before you do anything rash. She had to go through it on her own but you don't have to. Promise me Winter?"
"Will it stop you from acting like a little girl if I say yes?" Winter replied smirking.
"Just be serious for once yeah? Apart from Jez, who I'm not close to, you are the only person who gets me; we've both walked the road of the wicked and bad. And now we're both trying to wipe the slate clean, walk the straight and narrow for our human soulmates. I lost you two years ago Winter… I couldn't lose you permanently, you know?" Winter looked into her cousin's eyes and knew what he said was the truth. Even though she was a good six years older, Ash had been her playmate for a long time.
"Alright, I'll talk to Jez first." With that he grinned at her and stood up quickly, her legs fell off his lap and by the time she righted herself he was out the door with a wave. Winter turned off the television and DVD player and leaving the blanket where it was she padded her way up the stairs to her room. Now that she'd got it off her chest she knew that sleep would come.