Not my characters, but if JK made it this far I would be amazed.
I finished one of my stories, updated my other two so here we are!
On we go!
-YDHP-
Harry hadn't even begun to think up anything resembling a convincing lie, but Vlad jumped in to protect him again. "Harry had a bad dream, couldn't settle so he wanted to go for a walk. I wasn't about to let him go wandering alone, and when we saw the second floor was flooded we went to them the taps off. Then we found the boy, the message and brought him up here. That's it sir." The headmaster looked over at Harry, and he tried to keep his face just nervous about getting in trouble for breaking curfew. "Is that so Mr Potter?" Harry nodded eagerly, drinking from the glass of water by his bedside and stroking Lily's scales. "If you continue having these dreams, please come to a teacher rather than risk the halls at night in future. I think what you boys found was punishment enough, though I doubt I need to tell you to not breathe a word to anyone else?" They both nodded quickly, not speaking another word until the teachers moved to the dead boys room.
"Thanks Vlad. I was too panicked to come up with anything." Vlad smiled tightly, eyeing where the teachers had gone. "He's right, we need to be more careful. Whatever killed that boy could easily have been waiting for us. We should start practicing defensive stuff in the dorm, so the others are safe when they don't know what could be out there." Finishing his glass and stretching out on the hospital bed, Harry felt Lily lick below his ear slightly. "Are we not telling anyone then?" "Maybe Hermione. Nobody else. Shh, they are coming out." The boys fell silent, staying where they were and waiting for the teachers to tell them what to do. "Physically, you're both tired but fine, you can leave. I will be making the announcement about young Mr Reeves at dinner, please refrain from making it obvious you boys found him. Head to lunch with your classmates, then on to your lessons boys." Scrambling to comply, they were a little early but sat in the further end from the head table and waited for their friends.
"Harry! You're alive, we worried Vlad had chopped you up and fed you to Phantom." Vlad quirked an eyebrow at Seamus, but kept quiet. Harry reassured his friends he was fine, nothing Madam Pomfrey couldn't fix with her stern glares and vast array of potions. "Did she hate Vlad for bringing Lily?" "I don't know, I was asleep." Vlad said she was not thrilled but saw Harry was safe and left her to it. "So, what classes do we have after lunch?" The memory of last night was fresh in his mind, but they had to act normal until at least dinner so Harry kept the topics light, simple. "Uh, defense then free before dinner." They all groaned, defense was essentially a waste of time lately as Lockhart was a self serving idiot. "I got your reading and homework from Charms and Potions, Snape was not thrilled about you guys missing it." Harry shrugged innocently, he had been full of potions anyway.
Finishing their lunch, the boys and Hermione agreed to library after Defense for Vlad and Harry to catch up, then headed to class. Lockhart was shakier than usual, and Harry suspected he knew about the dead boy. They read about a few low level dark creatures, and listened to Lockhart go on about how many of them he had faced and defeated admirably and heroically. Harry worried for the students taking important exams this year, the teacher was about as useful as Seamus was serious. Vlad wasn't even pretending to listen, reading ahead in the textbook but somehow answering the random questions fired at him. Even Seamus and Dean were relieved to escape to the library, just to get away from the rambling teacher. Quietly studying their reading, Harry noticed a group of first year Hufflepuff students, now one short if he knew right.
Vlad nudged him to get on with homework, and Harry tried not to think about how he heard a voice calling him to that dead child. Even though the boy was only a year below them, Harry felt old beyond his years as worry pressed on his shoulders. "Come on, its almost dinner so just keep it up a few minutes longer." Vlad muttered to him under the cover of him putting his work in Vlad's bag, bolstering Harry to keep acting normal as they headed down to the great hall. Stomach starting to twist uncomfortably, Harry gave up on his food and drank a few goblets of juice as they waited testily for Dumbledore to make the announcement. The students in the great hall noticed the grave looks on the teachers faces, and the badgers table clearly realised they were one short quickly, nervous chatter humming through the usual excitable chatter of classes over for the day.
The room fell silent as the headmaster stood, every eye on him. "It is with a heavy heart I bring the news of a death in our school. Jake Reeves, a first year from the noble house of Hufflepuff was discovered early this morning, outside his dorm for reasons unknown and his death currently unexplained. I don't wish to alarm you students, but I urge you all to excercise caution, protect each other, look out for one another. If anyone has any information on why Mr Reeves was out of bed, or what happened, then please come forward." The chatter returned as the headmaster sat down, and Harry caught Vlad looking at Ingrid. He highly doubted the boy suspected his sister of anything, probably more concern for her in the pureblood house when she herself wasn't. Then again, neither was head of Slytherin - Snape had admitted he was a half blood like Harry... Sort of. His genetics still perplexed him.
When they retired to the common room, McGonogall appeared to reiterate the message they should look out for one another, and that includes the other school houses. "But Professor, what are we looking out for?" "Nothing, there is no indication of why Mr Reeves died. But this is a school, we live and learn together. Lets keep it that way." Hermione followed them up to their dorm, and Harry wasted no time in bringing up that they should start learning defensive magic. Vlad dug through his trunk, pulling out one of his advanced magic books he had "borrowed" from Ingrid. "Here, shield charms. Best test spell is a stunner, doesn't hurt much and simple to reverse." Everyone looked at each other, so Harry sighed and pulled Vlad up. "I'll stun, you shield. Everyone get into one spot." He knew Vlad wouldn't attack unless provoked, plus with his super charged magic it made more sense not to worry the others if Vlad ripped through a shaky shield.
"Stupefy!" Vlad held up his wand, calling out "protego!" in retaliation and Harry's red spell bounced off a shimmering shield, hitting the wall right behind him. "Damn Dracula, what aren't you good at?" "Many things. Who's next?" They piled cushions and pillows into a corner, in case whoever was practicing shields didn't succeed. Hermione went next, her shield slowed his spell enough that she wasn't knocked out but she fell into the pile. "Again." Harry didn't want to attack her, but it was pointless if nobody learned to shield effectively. After the third shaky shield, Vlad dragged her off for a break and Draco came up next. "Scared Potter?" "You wish. I'm attacking you remember?" His first attempt failed completely, the shield shattered and Draco dropped like a stone.
Vlad revived him, and Draco demanded to try again. This time he stayed conscious, and the third time he managed a shield that bounced Harry's spell off completely. Harry traded off then, Neville against Vlad - he may be the most powerful but he was also by far the most patient. "Come on Neville, when else do you have a friend asking you to chuck spells at him?" Harry knew Neville had no chance matching Vlad, but he would fare far better in confidence practicing shields if he had the attack spell down first. The boy stammered, dropped his wand and blushed. "Its ok Neville, practice makes perfect." Vlad wasn't even trying to shield, and Neville's stunner barely made him step back the first time. "Again. I know you can do this Neville." Another one made Vlad stumble, and the third knocked him into the cushions but not out. "See? Seamus, you're up for shields."
Handing Vlad an apple, Harry chuckled next to him as they watched Seamus somehow bring up a shield that exploded in a shimmer of bright light, effectively blinding the caster. "You ok Seamus?" The Irish boy had smoke over his face, but gave them a thumbs up. "Can you see?" "Sadly, you always been that ugly Draco?" The blond shot a stunner at Seamus, knocking him back into the pillows. "You always that slow?" Ducking further into the bed he, Vlad and Hermione were sat on, the others started tossing hexes around and Vlad winked as he cast the shield silently to protect them. "What are the humans doing?" Lily was woken by the sounds, hissing grumpily about being disturbed. "Learning to protect themselves from bad things out there." "I'm a bad thing out there, they aren't safe from me." Chuckling at the disgruntled familiar, Harry offered her a piece of chicken sandwich as a peace offering. "Fine, I won't eat your bunk mates tonight."
"What's Lily threatening us with now?" Vlad was watching the whole exchange, apparently determining Harry was bribing the snake. "Not you, them for waking her. Speaking of, where's Phantom?" "I think she's off eating spiders." "Spiders!" Hermione exclaimed, surprising them both quite a bit. "What about them?" "I forgot I was supposed to be looking for things that spiders don't like." "Being eaten is probably one of them." Hermione slapped his arm, waiting for the boys to tire themselves out. Seamus and Draco were both out cold before the fight wound down, and there were jelly legs, painful boils and mismatched colours all over when they finally ventured out. "Dean?" "He's been silenced, I don't know how to reverse it." Neville's jumper was neon green, smouldering slightly and his hair was long enough to tuck into his trousers, rather than its usual length of just past his ears.
"I stopped watching half way through, who went down first?" "Seamus, Neville managed the shield charm and he basically knocked himself out. Then we both tried to stun Draco at the same time after he hit us with color changes and mild flame charms. He managed to silence Dean first though." Vlad and Hermione started reversing the hexes on their room mates, laughing when Seamus tried and failed to stand up. "You need the potion for boils, there's a reason we don't use that jinx on each other." Dean and Draco scowled, checking the time before leaving for the hospital wing. "Stick together guys." Both boys nodded, stumbling away to get themselves cured. "I wonder what their excuse will be." "Something daft I expect." Neville kept spitting hair out of his face, it had stopped growing but was all over the place. "How do we reverse this?" Harry sat laughing, chewing on a cookie while Vlad and Hermione hunted out the exact jinx to reverse in their pile of books from Vlad's bag.
The boys returned from the hospital wing looking sheepish but walking normally, and over the next few weeks they kept practicing, all of them easily competent in stunning, disarming and shield charms - even Neville once he got over the nerves. Bertrand had translated Harry's book, but they were distracted by other things and some of their extra reading had taken a back seat. Which brought Vlad to the soggy book he had picked up in the haunted bathroom. Finding little Jake Reeves had made him forget, and Lily demanding he take her to Harry had completely distracted him until now, when he was making sure there was no stray pastries in his expanded bag (again... Seamus was messy). A few chocolate frog wrappers were the worst of it this time, but as he was putting his books back in he found the leather bound book.
A rare moment alone in the dorm - Harry was off with Hermione researching spiders and the others were out playing in the December snow - left Vlad staring at the book. "Tom Marvolo Riddle" nagged in his mind, he was sure that name had been somewhere. The date in the back was from some five decades ago, but the whole thing was totally blank otherwise. Bertrand would have his dust if Vlad started playing around with a strange, abandoned book without checking it, so he ran a few detection spells before carefully stretching out his extra senses. The book felt... dark, but old and tired. A few drops of revealer for invisible ink also showed nothing, so Vlad tried something more simple and wrote in it. He had heard of books that were two way, he was considering getting one for Ingrid for Christmas so they could talk without her risking getting caught surrounded by Gryffindor second years.
The ink absorbed into the paper, though he hadn't written anything intelligible. Waiting, nothing came back up. "This is a bad idea, I'm certain" Vlad mused to himself, but he wrote in the book again and watched the "hello?" disappear. An elegant hand, long looping letters, returned a "hello". "Who is this?" made Vlad feel like he was doing something in those supernatural shows his dad watched, where they were staging ghost hunts. Vlad had spoken to every ghost in the castle - they knew he was dead too - and not one acted anything like those shows. "Tom Riddle, who is this?" was the reply, and Vlad slammed the book shut and tossed it in his trunk. The book was 50 years old, and kind of speaking for itself. That was not something he should mess with. He would leave it alone until he had the time to look up the name. And until then it was staying in his trunk.
The others came back, they practiced their shield charms against flame and ice spells - they could all deflect stunners now - and then sat chatting about Christmas a few weeks away. "Who's staying?" Harry, Hermione and Draco raised their hands. "You're leaving Vlad?" "I'm not sure, I want to stay but dad isn't happy about me being gone all year - I only stayed last year because I was in the hospital wing, and he doesn't know we have Easter holidays for a reason." Hermione said her parents were going on a Christmas holiday for a month, which meant she couldn't go along but had told them to have fun. "And you Master Malfoy?" "Staying with Professor Snape keeping a close eye, my father has things to do and I can just as easily open my gifts here as I can there." Drumming his fingers against his leg where he was sat with Phantom in his lap, Vlad pondered. Ingrid only came back to see him, he had learnt that last Christmas when she said she was staying. And he wanted to be where Harry was, as well as spend time with his sister away from so many pressures for them to act a certain way to each other.
"You ok Vlad?" "Yeah, just don't want to leave Hogwarts. I like it here." Harry sat next to him, squeezing his shoulder and making the barely acknowledged bond inside him glow a little. "I feel your pain. What's the issue with your dad?" "He's just waiting for me to be of age, so I can be formally recognised as the 'family heir'. I told you, he's very traditional." Harry would hopefully know not to push further where they were with other people. "I can certainly sympathise there Vlad. Malfoy heir remember?" Nodding at his friend, Vlad forced up a tight smile. Draco may be heir to a cold, possibly evil father but Vlad was going to inherit the Dracula name, a reputation carrying every expectation of bloody murder, chaos and callous disregard for human life. Draco could probably fake his a lot easier. Disappearing into the shower for a few minutes alone, he came back out and lay on his bed with a furry familiar nuzzling his neck. The others went to bed themselves soon after, and his 'funk' had mostly passed the next day.
Dean knocked him down with a flame charm as he got out of bed, and Vlad barely refrained from accidentally showing off his powers, remembering to use his wand to put the bluebell flames out on his pyjamas. "Nice reflexes. Next time I'm ice-water jinxing you." "If it helps, Neville transfigured Seamus' jumper into a very pretty floral dress and we were all laughing too hard to change it back." Looking around, he realised he was the last one awake. "How did I sleep through that?" "No idea, even on weekend's you don't usually oversleep." Shrugging, Vlad headed to the bathroom to dress and caught Dean off guard with a tickling charm. "Pay attention Dean!" Vlad grinned, dashing down the steps to the common room and finding Harry and Hermione waiting for him. "I told him he would regret waking you up with a hex. What's the damage?" "If it wasn't bluebell flames, my pyjamas. Now it's just Dean's dignity when he stops laughing."
"So, breakfast? Then what are we doing with our weekend?" Vlad agreed to breakfast, walking down with his friends and pondering what they could do. "I was talking to Bertrand about the... You know, and he said apparently it was opened fifty years ago, but was never proved. So my thoughts were to look through stuff on special students fifty years ago. It'll be a good place to start." Harry and Hermione agreed eagerly, so after a hurried breakfast they headed down to stock up on study snacks in the kitchen, staying to chat to the elves for a few minutes then ensuring they were some of the earliest to the library. "Hogwarts: A History is still checked out. Damn." Vlad knew he had his copy, but the mention of the chamber in it was fleeting, insignifact by comparison and her energy was better spent elsewhere.
"Here. Some lists of notable Hogwarts students, every one who was on a winning quidditch team. This one is about unique powers, might be something. And this is about the academic history of Hogwarts." Harry jumped on the Quidditch list, Hermione took the academia so that left Vlad with the special powers of Hogwarts. It was a surprisingly long list, many of the powers old and lost to the new generations. "A wizard who could zone... That's impressive." "Zone?" Checking nobody was listening, Vlad whispered "lost for centuries, usually a vamp thing. Turns people into crystals, but they are still alive. The last known vampire who could died 400 years ago. Actually, around the same time this wizard was alive. I wonder."
"Lovely, but we want more recent Vlad." Hermione prompted, which won her a childish face from Vlad but he flicked through to the last century. "Couple of parselmouths in the last half a millenia, all Slytherins." Harry grimaced, and Vlad felt instantly guilty. "We had this talk Harry." Scanning through, the last parseltongue was a little over fifty years ago... Tom Riddle. "Hermione, can I borrow your list a minute?" They swapped, and Tom Riddle was on her list too, for a 'special award for services to the school'. "Got something?" "I'm not sure. Hey, look here." The two leaned over to look where he was pointing. "Posthumous award for school spirit?" Harry looked at him in confusion. "Look at the name!" They looked again. "Myrtle? You think?" "Maybe. I don't want to go traumatize a ghost though until I'm sure." He hadn't brought up Tom Riddle to them, his mind on that book upstairs in his trunk.
"Coming out in the snow Vlad?" "Nah, I don't feel too good actually. I'm gonna go lie down, I've got food if I miss lunch or dinner." They smiled and put away their books, waving Vlad off as they disappeared to outside. Barely stopping himself running, Vlad hustled up to their dorm. Pulling the book out, heart hammering in his chest, Vlad scrawled out "what did you win a school award for?", ignoring the warning voice in his mind. "I'll be happy to tell you, once you tell me your name." Weighing up how much he wanted this information, Vlad eventually wrote "Vladimir Dracula" and watched his name vanish into the paper. "Interesting. I caught the person and monster responsible for attacks, and a death, when I was at school." "Tell me about it?" His hands were shaking, his writing sloppy as he scribbled out the reply. "I can't. But I can show you?" This was wrong, he had no idea what this dark, old book could do to him. Shoving the book back into his trunk, Vlad noticed his hands splattered with ink from his anxious scrawling and hurried to wash them before anyone noticed.
A sound caught his ear as he shut off the taps, drying his hands and straining his hearing. Quickly silencing the squeak of his shoes, Vlad crept around the door. Even so, who ever it was was spooked and disappeared out of the room before he saw more than a flash of red and black. Whoever it was, they trashed the place. Books all over, drawers and trunks pulled open, bedding torn from the neat way he, Dean and Draco all made their beds. He was about to wave his hand over everything, return it to tidier if not perfect, when a few of his dorm mates returned. "What the hell Vlad?" "This wasn't me! I was in the bathroom, I heard a noise and when I came out it was like this." Seamus looked wary, but Draco nudged him. "Look, Vlad's almost as neat as me, he would never trash his stuff like this." They started tidying up, repairing books and clothes as they went and helping re-make each others beds.
"Did we miss a party, or a fight?" "More like a surprise raid, someone trashed the place." Vlad was digging through his trunk, unable to shake the feeling something was missing. "We repaired everything damaged, you might have to play guess who on the pile of books since only me and Draco write our names in them." The others sorted out their books, or at least made sure every one had one copy of everything. "So do we go report this to a teacher?" "And say what? Another Gryffindor trashed our dorm but we don't know who, while I was here alone? That is hardly going to fly." Draco grinned then, his fairly unique upbringing showing through. "My father places jinxes on things he doesn't want people to touch without his permission. I don't know if we can key it to our own magic, but we can do it when we leave and that will tell us someone had been here." "Sounds good. What's the spell?" Draco produced a book of them, and in spite of vengeful motivation they eventually agreed on one that dyed skin. "If we hurt them we will get in trouble. This will prove our accusation if someone starts turning purple?" Noting the reversal charm, Vlad jinxed his bed frame. Reaching a hand out, he didn't feel anything but his palm was purple where he touched it.
Trying to wipe it off, it only spread further. "Does it wash off?" "No, the more you try the faster it spreads. Luckily, the reversal is keyed to the caster so nobody else can take it off." Reversing it, his skin returned to it's normal pale hue and the others smiled. "So we do that to our trunks, drawers and bed when we leave?" "Yeah. Wait, is this going to turn our pets funny colours?" "That's the genius of it, no. Doesn't affect house elves either." "Is anyone missing anything?" They all checked, then shook their heads. "Not that I can see, no. You must have interrupted them fast enough." Vlad hmm-ed in agreement, and after dinner they simply jinxed the doorknob so they could sleep securely. Another search through his trunk, under the guise of looking for Phantoms toy, had Vlad certain - the diary was gone. He wasn't sure if he wished that he had asked what it was he could 'show him'.
This time, Harry woke him frantically. "I'll go alone if you aren't up for it, but you did the door so I need you to reverse the purple." "Go where? The voice again?" Rubbing his eyes sleepily, Vlad sipped at the pumpkin juice flask by his bed and pushed himself upright. "Yeah, come on!" Their whispered conversation caught Phantoms attention, and Vlad ended up letting her out just to quiet her mewling. Harry pulled his cloak on, and Vlad threw the invisibility charm over himself as they crept out to the grand staircase. "Where?" He couldn't see Harry, nor could Harry see him. "Down... It seems angrier than usual." That didn't sound good, and Vlad felt nerves start to peak as he and Harry ended up on the ground floor. "Careful... Prefect and teacher patrols." "Ok." Harry gripped his wrist when Vlad touched his arm, keeping them aware of each other as Harry followed whatever he could hear. "We're getting closer. I don't like this Vlad." "Me either." A mild chill filled the air as they hit the dungeons, the emptier, unsused part away from Slytherin and Potions rooms. "Vlad, stop." Harry pulled off his cloak, looking paler than any vampire as he looked ahead. "What? Why?" Harry still couldn't see him, so Vlad darted past and felt his blood run cold. Foot high letters, the scent of blood creeping over his senses as he read "Do not get in my way again." What stopped him almost dead, nausea and anger burning in his throat, was the body laying on the floor at the bottom.
Ingrid.
-YDHP-
Don't lynch me!
I hated writing it but its important!