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Chapter 11: Suspicions
The rest of Vlad's break had proven to be rather uneventful. Christmas had never been a family his family celebrated (for obvious reasons) and after the mirror incident, the young vampire had felt too drained to pursue the holiday like he normally did. Vlad hadn't missed the slightly curious glances he had received from the people inhabiting his household when not a word concerning the celebration passed his lips. In the past, he would have been constantly badgering his father about having some Christmas decorations complete with the tree and cheerful colors.
But nobody had verbally questioned his sudden change in attitude, so Christmas passed with little fanfare. The only thing to indicate that the day had been any different had been Draco's gift, an advanced book on Transfigurations, sent again by eagle owl.
When the day came for Vlad to return to school, his father saw him off alone again with his sister nowhere in sight. They flitted to the station and this time, his father gifted him with another pouch filled to the brim with Wizarding galleons. It made Vlad smile at the gesture; his father had never been one for eloquent displays of affection.
But the moment was brief and the whistle of the Hogwarts train pulled him away from the Count before could say any more parting words. Vlad departed with one last glance at his father's form before the train turned the corner.
Sighing a little, the young vampire pulled his magically lightened trunk behind him as he scoured the cabins for empty space. It wasn't a surprise to see that the majority of the compartments were full and it was only when he entered the last car of the train that he finally ran into some more familiar faces.
"Hello, Vlad," smiled Daphne as she pushed the last of her bags into the overhead storage. "Looking forward to another few months of Hogwarts?"
Vlad smiled back at her friendly question and readily replied, "I am. You?"
The Slytherin girl grimaced. "Mother and Father were not pleased with my progress in Charms."
"I think you're doing well in that class."
"That's sweet," Daphne said in a way that clearly meant she didn't believe him. "But my parents are going to hire extra tutors to teach me over the summer."
Vlad hesitated slightly before setting his resolve and suggesting, "I could help you if you want."
"Oh, that's very nice of you, Vlad, but –"
"Hey, Vlad." Draco's voice interrupted. The blonde seemed to have materialized out of thin air behind the vampire and Vlad jumped in surprise. "Sorry to interrupt, but Daphne was already asked to sit with a couple of the girls. Why don't you come with me?"
Daphne nodded her head in acquiesce. "It's true. Millicent asked me on the station."
Vlad had absolutely no idea who Millicent was except for the fact that she was probably one of the most threatening girls he had ever laid eyes on. She had the stature of a fairly well built girl and that normally indifferent expression on her face unnerved him. Even Draco's face twitched occasionally.
"Come on," Draco insisted, grabbing Vlad's arm and pulling him further down the aisle. When they came to the very last compartment in the entire train, the blonde stepped inside and motioned the vampire to follow.
Vlad obliged, putting away his luggage. When he finished, he turned back to the blonde with a slightly amused grin on his lips. "I never would have thought you'd be so eager to –"
The abrupt shutting of the compartment door cut off his words and his mouth snapped shut at the suddenly less-than-friendly expression on the Malfoy heir's face.
A terse silence hung between them before Draco began speaking with a deadly sort of calm in his tone. "You know, I never knew you took after Finnigan and his tendency for pyrotechnics."
Vlad literally felt the blood drain from his face. He hadn't wanted to talk about the mirror, hadn't wanted to even think about it. "What?"
"Don't act stupid. If you really hated my family so much, you might as well have told it to my face instead of setting my ancestor's painting on fire. And then going into one of our secret vaults."
Bats, he had to fix this and fix this now. He had completely forgotten that the painting could go and still reveal everything after what had happened. Vlad couldn't afford to make an enemy out of Draco again; they had just begun to settle on civil terms. "Look, Draco, I'm really sorry." At the blonde's skeptical expression, Vlad pressed, "No, I really mean it. Please, at least believe me in this. I know…I know what this looks like."
"It bloody looks like you decided to insult my family after we invited you to our home!"
"No, no it's not like that at all!" Vlad pleaded. "I know what I'm about to say sounds ridiculous, but you have to believe me!"
"Believe you after what you did?"
"Please, Draco, I just didn't know what I was doing. I didn't – no, I really mean it! I didn't want to do what I did. But something just pulled me. I couldn't help myself."
There was still an angry glint in the blonde's eyes, but something about that last statement had placated him a little. "You didn't mean to?"
"Yes! It…it was like some sort of spell was pulling me in…"
It was like somebody had flipped a switch. All at once, the terse offensives in Draco's body language dissipated into a large exhale of exasperation. They stood like that – Vlad too afraid to break the atmosphere and Draco just rubbing his eyes with his index finger and thumb – for a long time. Finally, just when Vlad was beginning to think that he would have fight his way out of the compartment, the Malfoy heir groaned and threw himself into of the seats. The movement threw Vlad off balance; not only had it been completely unexpected, but it had also been totally out of character for a normally composed Slytherin.
"Sit down, Dracula. I'm not going to bite."
Ironic, considering what Vlad was, that Draco had decided in that particular choice of words. But the young vampire obliged without another word, afraid that he would do something to spoil the blonde's suddenly charitable mood. By all rights, Draco still should have been furious.
"You saw the mirror, didn't you?" Draco sighed.
The mention of the mirror made the vampire hesitate, but he nodded with his lips pursed.
"Horrible, wasn't it? Father showed me the mirror when I was nine and I don't think I slept for weeks afterward."
Well, what was he supposed to say to that? I'm sorry your father is almost as bad as mine is? And considering Vlad's father was a six hundred year old vampire, that was pretty bad.
The blonde scowled at the look on Vlad's face. "I just wanted to make sure that you hadn't done it on purpose. I know what that mirror is like. It does pull you in and Father explained to me that it does it on purpose because it is always hungry for more fear and more desperation. You could say it's almost like a dementor of sorts."
Vlad only vaguely knew what a dementor was, but it didn't seem the right moment to ask further about it. "I really didn't do it on purpose, Draco."
"I know," the Malfoy heir sighed. "Which is why…why I didn't tell my parents when the painting told me first."
The silence that followed couldn't have portrayed Vlad's astonishment any more clearly.
"Don't get me wrong," Draco growled. "I didn't do it because we're friends or whatever. I was hoping that it would be enough to get me off of this life debt. But apparently it wasn't; I can still feel that slight tug on my magic telling me that I still owe you one." He ran a hand through his hair. "You're lucky that the painting told me first. I just happened to catch him sulking about and demanded he tell me what was making him wander; stupid thing never moves from the treasury if he can help it. I told it I would tell my parents and that I would have you punished for what you did."
Vlad couldn't help but grin a little at the annoyed tone coloring Draco's voice. "Well, I guess if we just don't wander down to your treasury again…"
The blonde punched him in the arm but the smallest of laughs escaped his lips. "You're such a pain. I swear…everything that can possibly go wrong around you goes wrong."
Something about the way Draco had said that, the way he had kept Vlad's little escapade a secret, made the vampire want to smile at the world and never stop smiling. Maybe they still weren't friends – Draco had just said a few moments ago that they weren't – but if the blonde was willing to keep something quiet from his parents, then that must mean something right?
~0~
It was almost as if winter break had never happened. Everything at Hogwarts slipped back into the old routine and soon, Vlad could easily file away the incident with the mirror. It sometimes cropped up in his dreams, but he would always wake up to Nox's shifting paws at just the right time. The voice he had heard in his head that night never whispered again and whatever worries he had hoarded before were filled with textbooks instead.
He was sitting in his usual haunt in the corner of the library one evening when a shuffling of robes and a clatter of books and excited whispers caught his attention. Normally he didn't allow such extraneous noises ruin his concentration, but he knew Harry's voice when he heard it. And if there was one thing he did know, it was that the Gryffindor never ventured in the library unless he had to.
Something urged him to put down his Potions essay and creep towards he direction of the voices. Nox watched him move away and the feline seemed to understand his master's intentions, remaining unerringly silent.
"I never thought to look in here!" Hermione's voice was whispering excitedly. "I got this out of the library weeks ago for a bit of light reading."
"You call that light reading?" Ron exclaimed incredulously.
Vlad leaned against the bookcase closest to the conversation and had to stifle a slight chuckle at Ron's comment. Looking slightly over the turn, he saw the trio settled into a rather conspicuous huddle, covering the majority of the tome they were reading from. Most would not have known it for what it was, but Vlad recognized the text immediately; he had been using it for research just a few nights before after all.
"You mean the Philosopher's Stone is here?" Ron's voice declared after a few moments of hushed whispering.
"Shh!" Hermione snapped.
They returned to their quiet conversation again but this time, Vlad was more than just slightly curious about what they were talking about. Now, he was interested enough to surreptitiously snap his fingers and invoke an eavesdropping charm – a relatively simple one he had conveniently found in a small book of pranks he had read just for the fun of it.
"…is why Dumbledore has a three-headed dog in the Third Floor?" came Harry's voice in Vlad's ears.
"It's obviously what the dog is guarding! Remember that trapdoor it was sitting on?" Hermione excitedly replied. "This is it! Nicholas Flamel had it in his vault when you were in Diagon Alley, Harry. You told us that just the other day! This has to be it!"
"The only things we don't know now are who wants it and why."
Whoa, whoa. Hold it. Why were they even wondering that? What made them think that somebody wanted to take the Philosopher's Stone? Perhaps having a gigantic dog guard it did mean something and having the floor banned from students was more than a little suspicious. But Vlad had never really put that much thought into it until now. There hadn't been really any reason to. He had been so caught up in his studies and everything else in between. Most students had been curious at first after the declaration Professor Dumbledore had announced the first night they were here, but even those few had forgotten about it when nothing eventful had happened.
What had made these three, specifically, keep such tight tabs on what was going on in the Third Floor?
And even if something had caught their attention, why were they still pursuing it? Wasn't a gigantic three-headed dog enough to keep them away?
Maybe it was a wizard thing. A vampire...well, that was a relatively unfair comparison. A vampire would just kick the dog out the way if they wanted whatever was being guarded enough – big or not.
"Maybe it's Snape," Ron hissed.
Vlad immediately tensed. What was Professor Snape doing in this conversation? Sure, the man had been inordinately unfair to the three Gryffindors, but that didn't mean the Slytherin Head of House wanted to take a priceless stone!
"You saw him at Halloween; he was limping. Like he had been bitten by a dog. What if he was the one to set the troll inside the castle as a distraction to get to the Stone?"
Vlad frowned and then grimaced. It was true; he had seen the Potions Master limping too but he had been too distraught to give much thought about it. But even if the man had been injured in the leg, that didn't automatically mean he was a thieving culprit. Professor Snape had helped Vlad and Draco that night and there had been sincere concern in the man's posture when he had seen them in the state they had been.
Vlad was dismayed when he heard Harry and Hermione agree that it might be a possibility and stood leaning slightly against the bookcase hiding him from view. They were wrong. Vlad knew they were. He had no particular love for Professor Snape, but the man was not who they thought he was.
He wasn't somebody who would sick a mountain troll in a castle of full of unprotected children.
But then came the real question: who was?
Holy cow. I have not updated in forever...and I probably won't again for at least another two weeks :( I'm really sorry but again, this is just the last stretch of school. Then it's SUMMER BREAK. Thank goodness! But I can't celebrate now...finals coming up.
Last chapter I forgot to address: Dobby and house elves in general DO snap their fingers like vampires to use their magic. But if you go back and read the chapter, I had Dobby never snap his fingers. I did that on purpose. Which is why Vlad didn't go and ask questions about it.
And just a heads up I'm sure you guys don't really need, but: assume that everything that happens in the Rowling book happens to the original characters (except for the characters I have interacting with Vlad a lot...which is just mainly Draco so far). The original events ARE happening to Harry and the gang. I just don't feel it necessary to articulate it again when this is a story focused on Vlad.
Haha...Draco and Vlad are so silly when it comes to relationships sometimes. But no, for you slash lovers out there...this is most definitely NOT slash. At all. Nor is it het. I just don't write romance at all because I suck at it and because I feel that it takes away from the storyline. At most, I'm going to just mention it passing. A sentence or paragraph at most.
Till next time!
