Stars in the Moonlit Sky
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Excerpt from Danae Lukine's Vampiric Mysteries: (AN: this is a fake book on my part)
As the human daughter of two vampires, I, the author of this book, Vampiric Mysteries, declare that all information found within is true as according to my parents. However, certain details have been extracted from the tales so as to not give away the secrets of the vampires.
Vampires are rumored to not be able to walk in sunlight, drink blood from numerous sources thus killing them upon finishing their feed, and be killed by a wooden stake through their heart, holy water, and other such things. But in reality, vampires can walk under the noonday sun and can only die by such things as beheading at the hands of an innocent or of its loss of will to live. All vampires need only three to four hours of sleep and rest per day though. Although vampires do need to drink blood from an outside source, preferably human, they do not kill the ones they drink from. They are known to those who have been with them to always leave their victims with just enough blood to survive. But vampires only need to drink blood once every new moon.
Very rarely, however, does the vampire decide to turn the one of whom they drink. To become a vampire, one must have immense strength, will, and power. The ritual of turning is when a vampire drinks all the blood of a human and then willingly gives its own blood (collected from others) in return. The one being turned must be of considerable power and stamina to be able to survive the turning. A vampire usually sires only a single other in their life to become an heir. For when a vampire is turned, they receive all the knowledge of the one who turns them.
Some vampires are known to have extraordinary strength, speed, perception, telekinesis, invisibility and minor telepathic powers. The strength of the powers depends on the strength of the vampire that was turned and the one who has turned them.
Vampires are not habitually overly social people. They usually live by themselves or with a small group of usually around three. Although vampires do not often travel in large groups they do still have a 'family' which is usually called a clan (which is made of usually around ten to twenty vampires) with whom all official meetings and discussions take place. Clan members are known to interchange between different the clans because each of the clans are known for different things. For example, there may be a clan renown for its scholars and another for its warriors. Since vampires are immortal they tend to study a subject before moving onto another once they have lost interest or gained all knowledge available. There is a ruling clan of vampires, the Vyendell clan. This clan always has nine counselors and a leader of all the vampires, the Lord or Lady who are all elected by the vampires.
Vampires are immortal creatures but they are also monogamous. Though they may be with as many people as they wish, upon bonding with their mate they will stay with that person for life and can never be with another ever again. A vampire rarely maintains their sanity if their mate should die. They usually live only long enough to avenge their death (should it have occurred as a homicide) before losing their will to live. However, it is at an uncommon rate for a vampire to have found their mate.
But since the creatures are known to find their mate among the mortal humans of the Earth the mortals are granted limited immortality. Once the mortal exceeds their lifespan, should their mate die, they will as well. The extended life lasts only as long as their vampire mate lives. A vampire's mate also becomes somewhat of a blood donor (or consort, as the proper term goes).
Upon finding and bonding with their mate, a vampire may only take blood from that one source known as the blood consort. A vampire's mate and blood consort has another ability that is placed in them at their bonding. As a vampire will only drink from them after that ceremony, they have the ability to have their blood supply replenish itself after having their mate feed off of them or after any type of blood loss. Vampire mates cannot be turned. Mates have the benefits of the quick healing and having the limited ways of being killed as vampires do. (They are also gifted with whatever vampiric talent that their mate possesses to a certain degree.)
A vampire knows no sexual orientation. They chose their mates by the compatibility between the two and the pull between them. The two mates cannot fight the pull putting them together for long before they give in to the bond mutually. The bonding ritual is what binds the vampire to their human mate for the rest of their lives. The ritual in itself includes having sexual intercourse and the sharing of blood (mainly through simultaneous bites) during the intercourse; effectively making this different than the actual siring of a new vampire. However, there is less than a ten percent chance of a vampire being able to find their true mate.
It has been proven that vampires may have children, though they rarely do, more than likely due to the fact that all vampire children are born human and are immune to the bite and ritual that would turn any other human. Thus leaving the children to live their lives and die while their parents live on.
Possibly the most famous of vampires to outside knowledge is Dracula. However, Dracula, in the view of the vampires, is not as important as the vampire Lord Ezekiel and his mate, Zachariah. Ezekiel had been the Lord of the Vampires and loved by all of his fellows when he had found his mate, the mortal wizard Zachariah. The circumstances that surrounded the meeting of Lord Ezekiel and Zachariah are widely disputed by the vampires of today. All that is known for certain is that the two tried to deny their bond before finally giving in and consummating it. Their love of each other was like that of what Muggles call 'fairy tales' or highly romantic but utterly clichéd love stories. Their story, however, ends in tragedy. Lord Ezekiel had been called away from his mate for unknown reasons promising to return. However, the lord was never able to fulfill his promise as he and his entourage were captured and killed by a group of vampire-hunting wizards, who called themselves the Eradicators who have now become the Slayers.
Due to past and recent vampire slayings, very few vampires still live today, which is a tragedy being that they are such a fascinating race. A vampire may have been among humans for a century and still no one would learn of their secret. The only way to noticeably discern a vampire from a human being is their fangs which only show themselves when they are about to drink from their source and the somewhat glowing of their eyes at the same time. It is said that there are less than two-hundred of these captivating creatures left in the world with only about twenty having found mates. The wizarding world seldom hears word from the few remaining vampires; even though there is no doubt that there are some still living amongst us.
Draco had just reached his favorite secluded spot by the Hogwarts lake when he felt rather than saw a creature running past him at an impossible speed. Pulling out his wand by instinct, fighting down his fear of any Death Eaters that had eluded capture, and stealthily running he was surprised to see two silhouetted figures struggling against each other, muffled yells coming from the smaller of the two figures. But before Draco could get any closer an invisible barrier kept him from moving forward, even after he tried blasting it away with a hurriedly stated spell. He could no longer hear anything coming from behind the barrier being that it was soundproof.
It only took a second for Draco to come to a new decision. He turned to go running to the school to get help, but as he turned around and had only ran about three feet he was knocked backwards by the force field. It surrounded him on all sides. The blond Slytherin watched helplessly and gasped as he saw a gleam of long, white fangs appear in the mouth of the more aggressive of the two that he was watching. Draco tried yet again to break into the barrier. Before he could do anything else, darkness came over him.
His last vision was that of the victim of the vampire falling backwards towards the ground.
*
Harry had just about reached the point by the lake when he was grabbed around the waist by seemingly invisible and strong hands. They pulled off his invisibility cloak and tossed it onto the ground. The Gryffindor immediately started struggling in earnest as the creature held him, becoming visible and white pointed canine teeth showing. The creature had dark brown hair that was tied back by a leather string and was wearing seemingly a set of what looked like battle robes (think elves from Lord of the Rings). Glowing amber eyes were gleaming down at him.
"Do not worry, Harry Potter." The creature whispered. "I do not wish to harm you badly, or at all. You are to be my childe and apprentice and learn what all you can from me. A great sense of power I feel in you. One that I haven't felt since… You look like him, you know." Harry stopped struggling momentarily at those words, wondering what they meant for a split second.
And at the first tinge of the bite on his neck, slumber came over the seventeen year old.
*
When Draco came to he realized immediately that it was soon to be dawn from the myriad of colors coming from the east. As he sat up and shook his head he saw another figure lying on the ground next to him, only a foot away, and the memory of the previous night suddenly came flooding back into his mind. The vampire, the victim, the barrier, and then nothingness.
The Slytherin sat up and pulled the person next to him over and gasped when he recognized who it was. Harry Potter.
A small moan came from the teenager at Draco's side and bleary green eyes blinked as they looked up into seemingly a silver-blue sky. The Gryffindor blinked again before realizing that it wasn't the sky that was silver but eyes that were staring down at him. Green eyes closed once more and opened looking up those familiar eyes. He had seen them before, he was certain. And suddenly Harry was brought back to memories of pain. Memories of pain at the hands of Voldemort and the rescue that saved his life.
All he could hear were screams. All he could see was blood. Blood pouring down his face; pooling around his feet; covering his hands. And then it suddenly became hard to breathe. He was falling. Falling into a well of darkness that he couldn't escape.
"Severus! Severus! I've found him!" Then suddenly a warm hand was touching him not in pain but with kindness. "I don't think he's breathing!"
He finally managed the strength to open his eyes and see two pairs looking back at him. One was a dark onyx color. And the other was so rare that it became imprinted into his mind. It was a beautiful mosaic of silver and blue.
"Malfoy?" Harry asked as he tried to sit up only to cry out at the pain coming from his neck and head. The Slytherin pushed Harry back down into the grass in a surprisingly gentle manner.
"I don't think you should be trying to get up any time soon." Draco whispered softly. "Do you remember anything that happened to you?"
Flashes went through Harry's mind at that comment. It was as if seeing centuries pass by in front of his eyes. It felt as if images, emotions, history, wisdom, and knowledge were all being shoved in his mind. The Gryffindor screamed at the pain that went through his head at the passing of his sire's knowledge into his mind. Harry gripped his head in an effort to try to get rid of the images and emotions flooding and flashing before his closed eyes and whole body. Muggles burning villages searching for witchcraft. Anger as news returned of wizards hunting for vampires and killing them brutally. Pride as he watched a young man with emerald green eyes smiling as he was being trained just after being turned. Pain and horror at the sight of the charred and ash covered skeletons and the scream of pure grief from the one beside him. Thoughts of vengeance and retribution.
"Potter? Pott—Harry?" Draco started calling trying to pull the Gryffindor away from whatever he was seeing. "Harry, come on. We have to get inside soon."
Green eyes blinked rapidly before settling upon the person above him. "Malfoy? Draco? What's going on? Why? What are we doing outside?"
"Do you remember anything from last night?"
"I remember having a nightmare and deciding to go to the lake but everything else is a blur."
Draco leaned down to place a hand behind Harry's head to help support him as he stood up. "Let's go inside first. I'll explain everything as soon as we reach my head boy dorms."
And the sun rose that morning dawn to beckon a new day and the beginnings of a new life away from the path that had been set by the ideals of others and to the one that was theirs from even before their birth.
Excerpt from—Inferno by Dante Alighieri