A/N: I've noticed an inconsistency that's been bothering me for a while now. I've said that Esmira can't sleep, but at the same time she can fall unconscious, which is similar enough that I feel like she should be able to either do both or neither. I'm going to go back and change my earlier chapters to say that vampires can sleep.

Chapter X

Harry Potter almost didn't want to go back to school after Christmas break. He couldn't believe he had such an amazing godfather, but it was clear to him that Sirius had also been through a lot and needed rest. His house was also rather spooky and Sirius said it would take a while to make it look nicer. Harry noticed that Sirius got tired rather quickly, so even though they'd gone out of the house a few times, they'd only ever gone to one place at a time and then returned to the house. Harry supposed this was why Sirius suggested that he should stay with his Aunt and Uncle for at least one more summer. Sirius took Harry to the train platform, and as he was saying goodbye he laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. Suddenly Sirius looked up and his hand tightened

"Ow." Harry said.

"Sorry." Sirius said, dropping his hand. Harry turned around to see who he was looking at. It was the Malfoys. Only Mrs. Malfoy seemed to have noticed Sirius, and she gave a hesitant smile, before ushering Draco and Esmira onto the train. Harry turned back to look at his godfather, only to find that he was striding away. He shrugged and got on the train, looking for Ron and Hermoine.

000

I studied diligently. I had always done well at school, through lots of hard work, and I wasn't about to change that now. Classes were just now starting to lose their "ohmygoshthisismagic" feel and were beginning to feel more normal. They were still more exciting than regular school, don't get me wrong, but I could imagine that by the time I graduated I'd be glad not to be going to classes anymore. Almost before I knew it we had finals and then we were heading home again for Summer break. I grinned, year one complete, only six more to go now. My reception at "home" was surprisingly warm, I had expected the Malfoys to be more indifferent, or worse, immediately lock me in my room again. About halfway through the Summer, they called for me and Draco to come see them. We ate (or rather they ate while I sat at) meals together but other than that they usually let us do whatever we wanted. Draco would usually go out and ride his broom and I stayed in the library, reading. I was surprised to see presents on the table.

Narcissa smiled, "Happy Birthday, Esmira!"

My surprise must have shown on my face, because she laughed. I hadn't known that "my" birthday was July 15th. I opened my presents with gusto. They had gotten me several nice books, a couple of nice new clothes, and an enchanted glass ballerina, who twirled when you pressed a button. I've always loved books, but the glass ballerina was definitely my favorite. As I was thanking them for all the presents, Mr. Malfoy left the room and then came back with one more wrapped box.

He said, "We've saved the best for last Esmira. Open it." I did, it was a nice leather bound book. I opened it expecting another novel, but the first few pages were empty. I flipped through the rest of the empty pages and looked up at him, confused.

"What is it?" I asked,

He said, "This is a very special diary, Esmira. Go on, write something in it. You'll see." He set a pen and ink on the table in front of me.

"Okay." I said, then I wrote Today is July 15th 1992. When what I had written disappeared and the words, Is it really? appeared I felt alarmed, recognizing now what it was but the feeling was quickly smothered by a new feeling of overwhelming happiness. I'd gained a new friend, something which I was in short supply of. How could I not respond back? It would just be plain rude. Yes, it is, it's also my birthday. I wrote back. Happy Birthday! The diary responded. I looked up at Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy and jumped up, snatching the journal off the table and hugging it.

"Thank you so much!" I said. Of course, there was a large part of my brain that was shouting at me "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" but I couldn't bring myself to care. I hadn't felt this happy in years. Not since my own childhood, when everything was magical and new. That's not to say that I hadn't been happy plenty of times since my childhood, but this was something else entirely, in fact, I decided, I was happier than I had ever been, which almost didn't seem possible. I decided to savor it, and only write in the journal once a week, at least until I got back to school.

Then it was time to go to Flourish and Bott's to get Lockhart's books. Even though I knew what he'd done, I was still interested in reading his books, since I knew the adventures in them were true, just not had by him. When we got there, the Weasley's and Harry Potter were just leaving. It was a bit disconcerting the way Harry, Ginny, and Ron glared at us all throughout the nasty exchange. Apparently, they'd given me up as a piece of bad work just for being a part of the Malfoy family now.

000

I suppose I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was to find out that not only was Draco now taller than me, but everyone in my class was.

Milicent said, "You're so short!"

Blaise Zabini elbowed her and hissed, "Of course she is, she doesn't age."

I ignored them in favor of looking out the train window. The sorting feast was relatively uneventful except for when Snape, McGonagell, and Dumbledore were all out of the room to deal with Ron and Harry. Everyone around me wondered what was going on. I didn't say a word. There was no point. The next morning, the sky of the Great Hall was overcast, and I was late. I arrived at the same time that the owls did. I'd been writing in the journal; Tom was surprisingly funny and didn't mind my run-on sentences or the way that I wrote exactly how I thought. Having to tear myself away in the middle of a conversation made me angry that I couldn't continue writing. I was annoyed at the world in general and when I saw Ron's owl land in his porridge with a red letter in his beak my anger grew to an irrational fury. I didn't want Mrs. Weasley's shrieking voice to be the first thing to greet me this morning.

"Accio Howler" I cried, pulling out my wand. Letter in hand, I intoned, "Incendio." As the ashes fell from my hand, I noticed how deathly quiet the Great Hall had gotten. I scowled and muttered "Scourgify." As even the ashes disappeared my frustration only grew, why was everyone looking at me like that?

"Hey! That was MY letter you just burnt up!" Ron marched up to me. My scowl deepened and I rolled my eyes.

"It wasn't like you wanted to be yelled at anyway Weasley. A thank you would suffice." I bit out.

He began spluttering, "Why you stuck-up…" I turned on my heel and left. I stormed down to my room, wanting to write about it to someone who would really understand me and make me feel happy again. Classes were an interruption from happiness, so I was nearly always snappish. Lockhart was especially fun to be rude to. He seemed to be flummoxed by having an actual vampire in his class. In the first class, when it came to the silly questions, he asked about himself, I wrote that his secret ambition was not to get on his vampire student's bad side and that his greatest achievement to date was having avoided meeting me (his possibly soon-to-be worst nightmare) thus far in his life. After that his grin became sort of frozen whenever he saw me. I just smirked back at him.

Then, after getting into my nightgown I was writing in the journal one night and things went really hazy. I felt like I was drifting on a cloud and I couldn't see beyond really fuzzy shapes. I had the feeling that I should try to wake myself up, but I couldn't seem to care at first. I finally snapped out of it to find my hands letting go of a dead rooster. My head swiveled around and then nodded once, probably in satisfaction, as Tom double-checked that everything was dead. My passive astonishment was broken when I pulled out a knife. I spasmed, trying to regain control. Tom laughed, and dragged a chicken over to a bucket where he slit its throat, letting the blood run. He kept on laughing as I made my arms flail again, my voice sounded wrong to my ears. He stopped laughing when I dropped the knife. He bent to pick it up, I jerked to the side, slipped, and landed on the floor. Stunned, I wondered then if he'd cast a silencing charm on the chicken coop to stop Hagrid from hearing the death of his roosters. Taking advantage of my distraction, Tom reached out, grabbed the knife, bringing it close, his hand making a fist around it, holding it upright, and began to get on all fours. I tried to gain control again, but apparently my efforts were too weak, weaker than what Tom thought they were going to be, and he overcompensated my commands to get away from the knife and let go of it by lunging towards it and tightening his grip. The knife sunk into my left ribcage. Everything went hazy again.

This time, even though I was internally flailing, I couldn't escape from the dreamy clouds. I also got the sense that I was out of it for longer than I had been earlier tonight. Eventually I felt myself being nudged back into awareness. I found myself standing in an unfamiliar room in the castle that looked to be some sort of supply closet. My head looked down and I could see that a small puddle of blood was forming by my feet, and that I was still bleeding.

Tom spoke, "I was originally going to return you to your bed you know, but you've been a naughty girl, causing me trouble earlier. I've left you a note in my journal for you to see when you make it back, if you make it back. After all, I can always find someone else. Do you know what happens to a vampire when they completely run out of blood? They turn to ash. I'll just let you dwell on what might happen to you if you turn on me again. It'll be much worse next time, I won't give you a chance to survive, like I'm giving you now." He lay on the floor next, which confused me, but then he turned my wand on me, I hadn't even noticed I was holding it, he must have switched it with the knife while I wasn't aware, and he cast Incarcerous at myself. Thin cords encircled my legs and arms. He was capable of casting wandless magic, so he let go of my wand behind my back and then levitated it far out of reach, and then he was gone.

I was left with the sound of my own breathing, though I only took two breaths before I stopped. I had kept on making the breathing motions out of habit but it hurt too much right now. All I could think about besides the pain was what Tom had said, that once a vampire loses all its blood it would turn to ash, just like I had turned the letter to ash. I kept on picturing it, and hearing the sound of myself being stabbed, over, and over, and over again. He'd won, I couldn't stop him, especially since I was, more likely than not, about to turn to ash. When the door creaked open, I wasn't prepared to face anyone yet.

000

Felicia and Darius knew all the best places to snog. They were Slytherins, so they had nothing to fear from last night's message. When they opened the door to their favorite supply closet and Felicia saw someone murdered lying in a puddle of blood she screamed. Darius didn't scream, but he slammed the door shut and went very pale.

After several minutes he said hoarsely, "Let's go get Snape."

Felicia had recovered enough that she said, "Not yet, we should at least tell him who it is." They looked at each other. They looked at the door. Then Darius took a big breath and opened the door. The girl was lying on her side, facing away from the door, with her hands bound behind her back and her ankles were tied together too. He approached her and put his hand on her shoulder, pulling her towards him and onto her back. She hissed. Startled, he pulled away his hand and noted her red eyes before seeing the knife. He swallowed.

"What happened?" He asked. She only blinked in response.

"What's your name?" He tried, though he very well knew what it was. There weren't any other vampire students. Esmira didn't answer him, she just kept on blinking. Darius pulled out his wand and cast Emancipare to free her and then Aguamenti to clean her wound.

"I'll leave the actual healing to Madam Pomfrey." He said. Suddenly Felicia darted past him and picked up a wand.

He smiled, "Nicely spotted."

Esmira trembled when he picked her up, but she still said nothing. He frowned. After he had deposited her in Madam Pomfrey's care, with Felicia trailing behind, he went to Professor Snape. Luckily, today was Sunday, so he wouldn't have to interrupt him from teaching.

000

Severus Snape was in his office going over the Mandrake restorative draught recipe. The sooner he could restore Mrs. Norris to full health the sooner Filch would stop being a menace to the students. Not, that Snape cared about what the students were going through all that much, but since Filch wasn't exactly a ray of sunshine on the best of days it would be better for everyone if he got his cat back. Severus only hoped that Filch managed to get the Potter boy in detention at least once in the interim though, the boy and his friends had clearly been lying through their teeth last night in Gilderoy's office. A knock sounded at the door. "Enter." He said, not bothering to look up. It was probably some whiny student hoping to get their grade changed on their in-class potions assignment. A throat cleared, only it sounded a bit strangled. Snape looked up, recognizing Darius and Felicia, they both looked like death warmed over.

"A student has been attacked, Sir." Darius said without preamble.

Severus stood up. "Which one?"

"It's Esmira. We couldn't get a word out of her." Felicia replied. Severus relaxed, if she was protecting someone, the damage couldn't have been too bad. Someone was probably retaliating against Slytherin House in general or against the Malfoys in particular after Draco's admittedly insensitive words last night. Though, now that he thought about it, he hadn't noticed Esmira in the crowd. Of course, he'd had more pressing things to focus on.

Felicia was still speaking though and Severus tensed up again at her words, "We took her to Madam Pomfrey. We found her lying on the floor all tied up. She was conscious but looked dazed. Here's her wand." Felicia handed the wand to Snape.

Severus pulled out his own wand and cast "Priori Incantatem." It showed that Esmira's wand had last cast Incarcerous. Snape frowned, either the girl had for some unfathomable reason cast it at herself or she'd been weak or irresponsible enough to let another wizard get ahold of her wand. Either option wasn't good. Then he thought of something else.

"Thank you, Felicia and Darius. I'll go see her now." He set off at a brisk pace.

He nearly ran into Madam Pomfrey in the doorway of the infirmary as she was leaving.

She said, "Good, you're here. I'm just going to fetch the Headmaster to see if he can get some answers out of her. She hasn't said a word. I didn't like the idea of leaving her alone, so at least you'll be able to keep her company." She hurried past him and he decided not to call her back to ask her about his student's wound in favor of going inside.

Esmira was propped up in one of the beds. Her face fell for some reason when she saw him. Severus took a chair while she looked down at her hands. He didn't speak, thinking that since Madam Pomfrey and the students hadn't gotten anywhere with asking questions, maybe all he needed to do was wait and she'd start talking. He was right, in a sense.

She did say something, but it was, "I don't want to talk to you," in an upset voice. "I'll talk to Professor Dumbledore but you don't need to hear anything I have to say."

Fortunately, at that moment the man in question opened the door.

"Ah, Esmira." He said softly as he approached the bed, Madam Pomfrey was right behind him.

"Would you tell us what happened to you?"

She looked at the three of them, "I don't want an audience."

"Very well." Dumbledore replied, "Madam Pomfrey, would you please leave us."

Esmira looked sullen after Pomfrey left, "Why didn't you tell Professor Snape to leave as well?" Severus couldn't figure out the change in Esmira, she had been rather rude to everyone of late, if Gilderoy Lockhart and the whispers of the students were to be believed.

Dumbledore smiled reassuringly at her, "Well, Professor Snape is here because he does have rather more experience when it comes to the dark arts than our current professor filling that position. You may not have heard but there was a nasty message written on the wall last night that is, how shall I put it, a very Slytherin message. I just want to make certain that we are perfectly clear in explaining to you that there is nothing to be ashamed of from being temporarily kidnapped or from being under the Imperious curse, or from anything else you may have experienced in the past hours, child."

Esmira looked horrified and said in nearly a whisper, "It wasn't the Imperious curse that made me kill those roosters and write that message."

Dumbledore looked nearly as shocked as Snape felt. Esmira had been the one to write the message? What roosters?

"What was that?" Dumbledore asked.

She spoke a little louder, "It wasn't the imperious curse. It wasn't really kidnapping either. I was…I was possessed…"

Snape and Dumbledore sat in stunned silence for a few moments before Snape asked, "How were you possessed?"

Esmira tried to speak, but she merely got more and more frustrated before she ground out. "I. don't. know."

Severus had the distinct impression that she was lying, but had no idea why she would.

"Don't lie to me." He snapped.

Her mouth formed a thin line as she kept it shut.

His derision was almost palpable.

Albus spoke up, "If you don't know, then perhaps you weren't possessed at all."

"I was!" Esmira cried out. "I had a knife, he made me strangle those roosters, and I fought with him for control. He made me cast Incarcerous at myself and I tried to take back control, which is how I got hurt. There was no intruder. It was me, only it wasn't."

"Very well." Albus said, looking troubled. "Professor Snape and I will discuss this further. We'll be certain to keep a close eye on you to intervene if it happens again."

They left Esmira, Severus pretended not to notice the despairing look on her face, and as they were walking the halls Albus said, "It's 1992, possession is unheard of. I have no doubt that Esmira believes she is telling the truth, but more likely she has the strength of will that she semi-fought off the effects of the imperious curse and merely mistook what she was feeling for possession."

Severus wasn't so certain, "There was Professor Quirrell…" he began.

Albus frowned, "Professor Quirrell had Voldemort's face on the back of his head, I think we would have noticed just now if the same thing happened to Esmira. Furthermore, Esmira doesn't speak parsletongue, and the intruder needed to have, in order to open the Chamber of Secrets. No, we'll keep an eye on her, and we'll look for this intruder. I don't like the idea of someone being able to come in here and in the process of kidnapping one of our students, give her such a fright that she's become an unreliable witness."

000

When I was finally released, I headed straight for the diary. As promised, Tom had written a message for me to read. I stared at the red letters in dismay. I, Esmira Thorncrow Malfoy, am writing in my own blood to seal the following oath. I will continue writing in this journal every day and I will tell no one about it. The words seeped into the journal and I knew I was in serious trouble if I couldn't convince someone I was possessed. I needed, I realized, to talk with Harry Potter. He wouldn't have preconceived notions about what was and wasn't possible in the wizarding world.