Harry Potter and the Fifth House
Christine Morgan
christine@sabledrake.com / http://www.christine-morgan.org


Author's Note: the characters of the Harry Potter novels are the property of their creator, J.K. Rowling, and are used here without her knowledge or permission. All other characters property of the author. 53,000 words. January, 2002. Adult situations, mild sexual content and violence.
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Chapter Fifteen – The Black Court.

Harry stood in the chilly crypt, thinking to himself that this was the sort of thing better done at midnight. Not, as a peek at his watch confirmed, still an hour shy of lunch.
He must have been missed by now, and by teachers less oblivious than Professor Binns. But there was a tendency where Harry was concerned for the instructors at Hogwarts to turn something of a blind or benign eye to his doings. He got away with more than every other student in the school combined, a fact that sometimes caused him a good deal of distress and embarrassment. He'd never asked to be famous, certainly hadn't set out to become a hero.
And sometimes, it really did have its drawbacks. Such as now. Here he was, in a good deal of trouble, and nobody knew where he was. Worse, in all likelihood nobody was even worried enough about him to wonder. He couldn't rely on the sort of last-minute rescue – or deus ex machina, even – that had gotten him out of his previous perils.
"You can't do this," he tried one last, desperate time. "They've done nothing to you."
"And I have nothing against them," Ophidia Winterwind assured him. "They are serving a greater purpose, that's all."
The topic of their discussion, the Muggle pair still lying bound and gagged on the hard stone floor, regarded them with blank and uncomprehending stares. The terror that had filled the woman's eyes was drowned in a sea of bewilderment. The man drifted in some state between shock and catatonia, as if the events had finally ripped his mind free of sanity.
Above them, the Soulstone glowed and shifted with cool fire. The candles at the points of the pentagram had been lit, adding their own flickering red flames to the tableau. Fyren Grimme, who had plaintively asked Ophidia for the permanent cure to his affliction and been sweetly told that he'd have to wait until the ritual was complete, was off to one side with his scaled face snarling.
"That belongs to Battenby House," Harry said. "The life force is meant for them. You told me so yourself."
"I did, and it is … but there is not enough in the Soulstone to restore the shades. There is, however, enough for my purpose. The Upwood boy had great vitality. We could hardly have chosen a better to open this way for us."
"It's theirs!" cried Harry. "If you use it for this, they'll never be able to come back!"
"Harry, Harry," she said, shaking her head. She reached to comb her fingers through his unruly black hair, but he jerked his head away. She pouted briefly. "Life force is a marvelous thing, Harry. It dwells within each of us, and it continually regenerates. Parents give a portion of their own into their unborn children, and regain what was lost. So, you see, what I take from the Soulstone today will eventually … to use a Muggle term … recharge."
Ophidia had taken his wand. When Harry made a halfhearted move, knowing that even if he got it he'd never be able to fight them both despite having been healed of the poison by her awful, wonderful bite, she chided him and put it into the pouch at her belt. The pouch was far shallower than the wand was long, but the eleven inches of holly with its core of phoenix feather did not poke through the bottom. It vanished as if the pouch were deep as a well and he knew it would be useless to try and summon it.
She was wielding her own wand at the moment, which was supple ebony. It traced mystic sigils in the air. They hung there in red strokes of flame. Ophidia walked around the pentagram, and each mark she made in the air was a mimic of one inscribed in chalk on the floor. When she had completed the circle, the hanging symbols both brightened and diffused, and settled down to sink into the stone. The chalk marks came alight, outlining the pentagram in fire.
"The jars," Ophidia said, gesturing to the sealed black urns that rested by the heads of the captive Muggles. "Can you guess what they contain, Harry?"
He couldn't, nor did he particularly want to. She told him anyway.
"Four hundred years ago, the wizards of England were led by one man. Count Douglas Tyrrell, alternately called Douglas the Terrible, and Black Douglas. Does that name ring any bells?"
"The Black Court," Harry said. "But he didn't lead the wizards. They cast him out. Killed him. He was a Dark wizard."
"The history that they teach you in school is often rather biased," she said. "I could tell you the whole story, but why don't we let him speak for himself?"
She raised her wand above her head in both hands, and invoked the words of a lengthy and complicated spell. Harry shouted, hoping to distract her concentration, but to no avail.
The Soulstone wavered and began to dim, its light lowered by an unseen rheostat.
A spectral glow formed around the urn nearest the Muggle man's head. The waxen seal of it cracked and fell apart in brittle slivers. The lid wobbled, shook, and began to twirl. It was like watching a spun coin revolve down onto a table, except in reverse. The lid tipped up and up until it was spinning on edge, then flipped into the air like a tiddlywink and hit the floor, where it broke.
Corpse-grey mist exhaled from the open top of the urn. It spread out searching grey pseudopods, making Harry think of the giant squid.
This sight brought the Muggle man back from whatever far place in which he'd taken refuge. He recoiled from the ectoplasmic mass floating above him, and his chest heaved with panicked breath. Air whistled in and out of his nose.
The mass separated, branched, and dove into the Muggle's wide-open eyes, gasping nostrils, and ears. In a matter of seconds the entire insubstantial substance of it had vanished into the man's head.
His back arched. His throat swelled with what had to be a horrible, larynx-splitting scream. He was touching the floor with just the back of his head and his heels, his body a bow.
"No!" Harry yelled. "You're killing him!" He ran toward Ophidia, but she brought him to a halt with a single commanding look.
The man shuddered and went limp, eyes rolled back, lids jittering spasmodically. Then they popped open, dark and full of awareness. He yanked at the chains that held him and the chains snapped as if they'd been made of paper. The man arose and drew the gag away.
He showed no signs of his former fear. His mouth was a cruel slash, one eyebrow sardonically slanted.
"My Lord Count," Ophidia said, inclining her head to him. "Welcome."
Harry hadn't thought he could go any colder. "Black Douglas?"
"If you'll but spare me a moment, my lord," added Ophidia, "I'll restore your lady to you."
"Please do." It was a rollingly rich voice, a confident voice. And, Harry was certain, absolutely not the natural voice of the body standing before them.
Ophidia repeated her spell. The other urn began to undergo the same effect.
The Muggle woman, having seen what befell her companion, thrashed in her chains and tried to get away, but when she touched the glowing lines of the pentagram she jerked away as if burned. Another grey mass rose from the urn and flowed into her through her eyes, nose, and ears. She, too, screamed soundlessly and went first rigid, then slack, and finally stood unencumbered beside the man.
"My Elsbeth," Douglas Tyrrell said, extending his hand. "We live again."
"Is this the best we could get?" said the woman huskily, looking down on the bare Muggle body with a wrinkle of distaste.
Harry reeled. Ophidia had told him that shades could temporarily inhabit living bodies, but somehow nothing about this brought shades to mind. Jeremy and the other students of Battenby House that he'd seen hadn't struck him at all similar to these two.
What, then, did that leave?
He knew as he looked at Ophidia Winterwind. "Vampires."
"Very good, Harry! If we were in class right now I'd award Gryffindor ten points for the correct deducement."
"You raised vampires!" He rubbed his neck in memory of that Knockturn Alley bite, the one he'd mistaken – because she'd fogged his mind into it – for a shaving nick.
"Fyren," Ophidia said. "The pentagram."
He slid forth in eager obedience and snuffed out the candles. The lines of power faded back into chalk, which Fyren then scuffed with the muscular weight of his coils. Douglas and Elsbeth Tyrrell stepped out of the broken spell, moving tentatively in their new bodies. Above them, the Soulstone was dark and empty, a glass ball containing nothing but shadows.
The situation had gone from bad to markedly worse. Harry backed up, but there was nowhere to run. Grimme was between him and the exit, and a single glance from Ophidia would be enough to ensure her charm spell held him in check.
"The Black Court," said Ophidia in satisfaction. "Four hundred years ago, Harry, they ruled the Dark wizards with a firm hand. No one could perform Dark magic without the express permission of the Black Count and his Countess. He controlled it all. He regulated it all. If someone displeased him, that someone ran the risk of losing all power. Don't you see now what I intend? The beauty of it?"
"Sure, I see it," Harry said. "You've brought them back thinking they'll snatch control of all Dark magic away from Voldemort and his Death-Eaters."
"Precisely!"
"And instead, we get them!" He pointed at the two, who glared hotly at him. "Their reign was one of absolute terror and control. You think, you honestly think, that they'll be better than Voldemort?"
"Harry, my dear Harry, this is hardly a case of better-the-devil-you-know! Count Douglas was a wise and just ruler."
"And a vampire."
He had seen the subtle changes taking place in the possessed Muggle bodies. Douglas Tyrrell was two inches taller already, his chest and shoulders broadening. His skin had paled, nowhere near Ophidia's alabaster hue but getting there. His hair had deepened toward auburn. Elsbeth, though, had gone dusky, an olive complexion with an ashen undertone. She was shorter, wider, a fleshy Rubenesque nude with a mane of curly dark hair. In both of them, the eyes had gained a reddish cast and the lips had pushed out as the teeth beneath reconfigured themselves.
"A real vampire," Harry amended. He was understanding it all now. "And that's what's in it for you, isn't it, Ophidia? You've always wanted to be one. That's what you're all about. The look, the Animagus power, the blood lollipops, the fangs. How'd you do it? Biting me, enthralling people, how'd that work?"
"Very, very good, Harry," she said softly. "That would have earned fifty points. The fangs are Transfigured, hollow. The left contains a Healing Potion, the right a mixture of Hypnosis and Pheromone elixirs. Don't tell Severus; he thinks I'm no good with Potions. It was true when we were in school together, but I've improved greatly since then."
The Count and Countess had completed their changes. All they needed were the blood-red robes and black capes with the high fan-shaped collars, and they'd be exactly as Harry remembered from illustrations in textbooks and histories. They were examining themselves and each other, not paying particular attention to the others, but by the posture of Black Douglas' head, Harry knew he was listening.
"So what now?" Harry asked. He felt more naked than ever without his wand, not that it would have done him much good even if he could have gotten it back from its resting place down the front of Ophidia's gown. "Seize power?"
"I think first a bit of catching-up might be in order," Ophidia said. "They were killed in the traditional method four hundred years ago. A stake through the heart, decapitated, and then burned. Only the swift actions of one of their most loyal followers – a Winterwind, if I do say so myself – prevented their ashes from being scattered into running water. That would have been the end of them. Their ashes were preserved instead, sealed into those jars and hidden here. I'll need to bring them up to date on all that's happened since. By then, it should be night."
Here, Elsbeth scowled. "You raised us by day, you foolish wretch?"
"You need not fear sunlight here," Ophidia said, sounding nettled. "We are deep below the castle."
"Be that as it may," said Douglas with a placating gesture to his wife, "there is still the matter of our Hunger. We cannot hunt by day, and we cannot last until night without sustenance."
Ophidia's expression was one of sheerest rapture. "Which is why, my lord, I offer myself. I have always craved the un-life of the vampire. I have drunk of blood --" here Harry rubbed at his neck, and his arm, and felt his stomach slide greasily around. "—and I have brought you back for twofold reasons. Firstly, that you'll take your rightful place and put an end to a plague of verminous Dark wizards. And secondly, that you'll accept me into your Court."
"You ask much for one small service," said Black Douglas, but by the way he was looking at Ophidia, it was clear he wouldn't have minded at all taking a nice deep bite of her ivory-smooth throat.
Elsbeth didn't miss it either, and her scowl turned thunderous. "It does seem that there is much more we need to know before we agree to anything, husband. And there's still the matter of my appetite to consider."
At this, she sent speculative glances over Harry and Fyren Grimme, and returned to Harry. Grimme was fidgeting, obviously wanting to remind Ophidia of her promise and get the cure that would restore him to his human form, but realizing this was hardly the time for such interruptions. Harry himself would have been downright glad of an interruption … anything to get that avaricious, frightening gaze to shift elsewhere.
"You wish one of the boys?" inquired Douglas of his wife.
"The reptile looks far too … cold-blooded," Elsbeth said. "You know I don't care for gazpacho, darling husband mine. I'll have the brunette. He's got an aura about him that promises a most enticing feast."
Ophidia started. "My lord, my lady, no … he's not a part of the bargain. He is to be among your opposite number. Can you not see that the power of the White Court is all around him?"
"Which is but another reason to deal with him now," Elsbeth said, taking a step toward Harry. "Before he attains it. Paladins are best when they're unripe."
"I brought you back!" cried Ophidia. "Is this the thanks I get?"
"What did you expect?" Harry shot at her. "You raise the leaders of the Black Court, and think they'll play fair? They're as Dark, as evil, as Voldemort or any of the others!"
Douglas chuckled with a warmly mocking tone. He had somehow gotten next to Ophidia without seeming to move, and he placed the tips of his fingers under her chin to lift her face toward his. He tilted her head, which exposed the long line of her neck to him. "Don't fret, pretty one. Half your bargain is made."
His lips – which were not vermilion but a rusty black – peeled away from his fangs. The fangs themselves were nothing like Ophidia's. These were snaggled hooks, streaked with yellow, and the top pair were met by a bottom pair that rose from the lower jaw.
Elsbeth Tyrrell was right in front of Harry. She was a short woman, the top of her head coming level with his nose, but this meant that she was looking straight ahead at the pulse throbbing under his jaw. Harry had run out of room for backing up.
"Ah … no, wait," Ophidia said, interposing her hand between herself and Douglas' nightmare grin. "There's perhaps some things left to explain …" She was doing her best to back away from the vampire, circling around toward Harry.
"We must be fed," Douglas said to her. "You raised us. Are you not responsible for us?"
Second thoughts showed in the taut, anxious frown that knit her ebon brows. But her questing eyes locked into Douglas' burning ones, and the tension began to seep slowly from her. Harry saw her fall into that piercing stare the way one might fall into sleep, unprotesting.
Except, with a quaver to her voice, she said, "Fyren … stop them."
"Give me what's mine and I will," he hissed.
She fished into her pouch, her arm sinking nearly to the elbow in a bag that looked no more than four inches deep. "I … yes …"
"No," Douglas said calmly.
He pulled her hand back out. Something snagged on the interior of the pouch and turned it inside-out as her hand emerged. An amazing amount of items spilled/bounced/clattered to the floor. Quills, vials, blood-flavored lollipops, Harry's wand, scraps of parchment, lipstick, jewelry, an old-fashioned pocket watch, a hairbrush, a jar containing something mottled and swamp-looking.
Then everything happened at once.

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page copyright 2002 by Christine Morgan / christine@sabledrake.com