Still don't own it. J.K. Rowling still does own it. Props to Miranda Flairgold. Read and Review, greatly appreciated.
Reviews are greatly appreciated, even if it's just to say you enjoy or don't enjoy the story. I'd love to hear why though. This chapter is a bit longer than the others, I wish I could write more and post longer chapters of 7-10k words, but I will probably be slowing down on the updates soon, and am trying to churn out as many as possible. Hopefully hit 20k total story words tonight.
Markus Black, or Markus Drakul now is more apt of a name, woke in his bedroom in the basement level of Felix's estate located somewhere, he believed in the Western Hemisphere. Felix had been vague with his answer, and had really done little more than dodge the question when Markus had asked.
He had been a full vampire for a little less than three days, and as excited as he was to begin learning all sorts of useful and dangerous magic he knew that Felix was right, he had to learn to control himself first.
Right now he killed every single time he fed, and it was a messy and drawn out process. This made hunting for prey himself substantially harder, and it was agreed that Felix would provide muggles for him until he could learn to feed and hunt on his own. This was acceptable for the moment, and only was acceptable because it was being provided by his creator, his lord. Vampires are usually fiercely independent creatures, except they were rather submissive to those higher ranked than them in the hierarchy, and it went doubly so for your own lord or creator. The lord of your bloodline had huge control over your continued existence, and if the balance of power was disproportionate enough a lesser vampire could be killed with a single thought or wish from his lord.
Felix first taught Markus how to slip into a meditative trance in just a few quick minutes, while before it had taken Markus upwards of an hour to do so. This allowed him to spend more time in his mindscape, piecing everything together. It would have been quite a shock had his mind not taken to the vampirism as it had. He had been reviewing the knowledge that he had gained and stored as an infant when he had ingested the blood of Felix. Now that he was going through it he was able to tap into the latent knowledge and power in the blood of his creator.
Tapping into this knowledge showed him what it was like to have total control over his vampiric urges to feed, and using that as a template he was able to begin learning to control himself as he fed. It would still take another month or so until he was able to just partially feed to slake his thirst. At least now when he feed he was content for longer and longer as his vampirism was stabilizing and becoming comfortable in his body. The same amount of blood would keep him satisfied for longer when he finally became used to the vampirism and started to exert his own will and control over it.
As it stood he fed at least once a day, the large amounts of blood that he was ingesting was serving to jumpstart and repair any damage that could have been down to his innate abilities and skills while his vampirism was blocked behind the wall of bloodmagic and enchantments. Felix had done more poking around the remnants and residue of the bloodmagic and had gone through the memories several times. Felix was still very upset with himself for not noticing, and though he would never admit it to anyone it unnerved him slightly. He had been so sure of his power that he had missed the, admittedly subtle, magic blocking away his memories. He had just continued on with his project in England, never questioning anything about that night. He never had any reason to think about it because for all he knew it was a routine night, and he had made good progress on his project.
As the days went on slowly Markus did begin to gain more control of his feeding. It became less and less messy, and he had even started to be able to pull himself away before he killed the muggle. The muggle still died of shock or blood loss, but he was not draining them into empty husks as he once had, not unless he wanted to.
Usually the process of learning that kind of control over his feeding would vary from vampire to vampire. The younger the 'victim' was turned the more powerful they would be later in life. Typically the most powerful were the magical babies turned within just a few months of birth, then came magical vampires turned in their teens, and finally later in life. If they were turned early enough they would continue to age into their mid- twenties to early thirties, but if they were turned after hitting nineteen or twenty years old they would not age from their current age.
Also, not all vampires were magical. The most powerful ones certainly were, but given a few decades of dedicated bloodmagic squib vampires could begin to gain regular wand magic and access to the other branches and forms of magic.
It would take muggle vampires at least a decade to become able to use the most basic of bloodmagic, and at least a century past that before they could even hope to try the simplest wand magic spells. Most other branches and forms of magic were blocked off to muggle vampires completely, they required a deep connection and understanding with ones magic.
Muggles vampires were always turned later in life, they could not handle the transformation as an infant, or at least until their late teens. Occasionally magical vampires, or muggle vampires would turn groups of muggle mortals in an attempt to form a group that would be completely loyal to them, and serve them. Most of these were put down quickly and violently, after all the oldest of the vampires always needed new slaves, servants, guards, and subjects for experiments, not to mention a source of vampire blood.
The most powerful of these groups had long ago established power and divided up the world amongst themselves. The ruling groups were called Clans, and were led either by a single vampire, or a council of vampires. The Clans varied in size, power, and land controlled, but each had many resources at their disposal, and would often war with each other over many different things.
All of this was included in what Markus could glean from the bits of knowledge hidden in Felix's blood, and in what Felix taught him. Felix still focused mainly on control over his feeding, but recently they had started training Markus to be quieter as he moved, and to even begin to learn how to meld into shadows.
The quietness was an innate talent of vampires, it came with being undead. They simply weren't as loud as living creatures. They disturbed less air than a regular mortal, especially when standing still, because they did not breathe. They still gave off scents, especially death and blood, but their hearts did not beat. They were just quiet creatures in general. And Markus had taken to his training with much enthusiasm. In order to pose a formidable challenge they were also working on blending into shadows, but that was done mainly during the daytime. The sun agitated and irritated Markus's skin, and if he was directly exposed for longer than three or four hours without any breaks his skin would ache and itch. It was decidedly uncomfortable, and unusual for Markus, he had spent his entire life normally, and suddenly the sun itself repelled him. But it was no deterrent, he learned as best he could. Training during the daytime would make it easier in the nighttime, and also just easier in general.
Markus had yet to realize it, but once again he was under a Time Distortion Field of sorts, this one had been heavily modified by Felix and Alexander, and could be removed from the time stream for up to six months before it required a month or so to recharge the runic arrays and recharge the powerful enchantments. Felix had immediately taken Markus here, and firmly set the property and small estate around it outside the time stream for the maximum time. He had had it stocked with large amounts of muggle blood, and even just over a hundred muggles being supported in stasis charms. The sooner Markus could control himself the better, as the blood was in limited supply, and Felix did not want to have to redrop into the time stream just to stock up on muggles.
About a month after completing his vampiric transformation Markus had finally gained sufficient control over himself. He would still need to be careful when he fed off of magical beings, but that would not be a problem for another five or so months. And he should be well in control by that time, as long as he kept up the rigorous training schedule. The day that Felix had deemed him sufficiently in control had been the day they began working on the very first purely vampiric spell. He had learned magic and spells that were easier to cast or augmented by his vampirism, but this was the first vampire exclusive spell he would learn.
The spell was fairly simple, the incantation was Sanguinem Fulmen or Blood Bolt. The wand motion was simple, just a jab in the direction of the target. The spell would take excess power or magic from recently consumed blood and turn it into very basic destructive bloodmagic, detonating when it made contact with something or someone. In the beginning of Markus's training he had only been able to cast it when he had just fed, but now as he was becoming completely stable and his body was becoming more efficient with the blood it received he was able to cast it almost whenever he wanted, unless it had been more than ten or so hours since his last feeding.
Felix insisted that he master the spell and be able to cast one sufficiently powerful no matter when his last feeding had been. And so Markus worked hard during the next month and a half. Every night he would do control exercises, physical work outs to increase his endurance, stamina, muscle, speed, and magical reserves, magical routines specifically designed to exhaust him and leave him magically depleted, and practice his natural vampire abilities, such as silent movement, shadow manipulation, and even still perfecting a neat and clean feed.
During the daytime Markus would be allowed to rest and recuperate, and was also expected to meditate and work on his Occlumency shields and barriers. Daytime was also when Felix and Markus would sit outside for hours on end, and Felix would teach Markus about vampire culture, the different clans, the NAAA (which he was planning on enrolling for when they rejoined the time stream) and just general questions on magic and how it worked. Occasionally Felix would tell a story from his past, one of his adventures with Alexander perhaps, or with his kin before his bloodline had dwindled to so few.
When he would speak of the past, especially his old kin and family, Felix's pale, cold eyes, would seem to brighten slightly, even warm up on occasion. Markus had noticed the nostalgic and mournful tone the ancient vampire took on when describing his long since gone family members. Markus hoped that he would be able to be as useful to his lord as they had been, and hoped to become the proper Heir and Prince to the Drakul line, not that Felix had any intention of dying. Ever.