Here we are with chapter two! This story is separated by two things: Parts and chapters. Parts will be several chapters long, and are pretty much the theme of the story. You'll get all that later, I promise.
Harry rested for a few hours, and around midnight, rose. He was hungry. He was getting to that point where hunger was all he would think about.
New York City, the city that never sleeps, was bustling with activity. In some recess of Harry's brain, where a human child still lived, he was amazed at the never ending traffic and commotion.
Harry wandered out of his alley and began to search out a butcher. He'd considered eating a fat rat in the alley, but had decided against it for the time being. Perhaps there was some pride left in him after all.
Harry had no luck finding a butcher, at first. He began asking random people, but they all ignored him. He started to get annoyed.
"Come on! Tell me where I can find a butcher, damn you!" he yelled at a woman. The woman walked by, barely even taking notice. Harry growled, and started after her. He was about to grab her when he stopped.
What...?
Harry shook his head. He had almost vamped out on her. He checked himself over. Okay. He was all set. He wasn't going to kill anyone. He was going to find a butcher, and he was going to get some dinner, and he wasn't going to kill anyone...
There were so many of them...surely no one would notice if just one went missing...
Harry threw himself into an alley. He wasn't prepared for this. Seeing so many people...it was getting to him. He needed to kill something. Suddenly, just like that, he needed a fight, badly. The vampire in him needed to be satiated.
Harry staggered down the alley. He came out the other side, saw headlights, and then saw no more.
Lawrence Fisher had never hit anyone or anything in his car. He'd had a perfect record until that night. Luckily, the street was relatively out of the way, and no one saw it happen. Lawrence got out, inspected the unconscious young man, and decided to bring him back to the veterinary clinic which he helped run. The young man would be out for another few hours. He was sure of that.
Harry awoke with a dull throb in his head and shoulder. He sat slowly, and opened his eyes slower.
His mind returned to him quickly after that. He remembered the sudden blood lust. He should have realized that so many humans would have set him off.
So many things he should have realized!
Harry didn't let himself get distracted by that familiar train of thought. It wouldn't pay to. For now, he had to discover his location, and find a way out. The lights were really bugging him.
Harry got off of what turned out to be an examination table. He looked around. Beside the table was an aisle, lined with cages. In the cages were animals.
Harry went up to one of them. A Black Labrador sat inside it, a bandage rapped around one of its paws. Harry could smell the medicine in the bandage. He moved on to another cage, finding a small sparrow inside, on wing in a similar bandage.
He realized where he was immediately. He had been taken to an animal clinic. Harry felt like laughing. There was some serious irony in that.
Harry didn't laugh, however. A middle-aged, balding man had just come into the room and had promptly dropped his clipboard in surprise. "What...?" he said, dumbstruck. "How are you awake?"
Harry stared at the man. He didn't say anything.
The man bent down and picked up his clipboard. "Of course, that's a stupid question," he said. "How are you awake? Right! How are you breathing?"
Harry was on the verge of mentioning that he wasn't breathing when he decided better of it.
"Are you hungry?" the man asked.
Harry's gaze shifted violently to the man's neck. "Yes," he whispered. He began to advance towards the man, who had looked down again at his clipboard.
The man pulled out a hypodermic needle from his lab coat. "I just have to give Betsy her meds, and then I'll be heading home for supper," he said, not looking at Harry. "I think that after what happened, I owe you that."
Harry stopped. The man looked up and smiled a him. Harry's expression didn't change, but he nodded at the man. "Sure," he said. "I'll come along."
The man went down to sparrow's cage and opened it. "Betsy needs some special medications," the man said, making conversation as he peeled away the bandage. "That's where I was heading when I hit you."
"You named the sparrow Betsy?" Harry asked, thinking that it was probably an American thing.
"My daughter," the man said. "She likes to come in and 'meet' all the new animals. You know, she's sweet that way."
"Right..." Harry said, already losing interest. He contemplated just leaving - going for dinner at this man's house would do him no good - but he felt compelled to stay. He couldn't understand the compulsion, not at first, but later he would realize that he was lonely.
The man closed the cage up and put down the bottle next to Betsy's cage. "Well, that's it!" he said. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah," Harry said.
They exited the building together, the man putting on a coat. "Aren't you cold?" he asked Harry, as they walked to the man's car.
"No," Harry said.
"Well, you'll catch pneumonia dressed like that," the man said, eyeing Harry's short sleeved shirt and trousers.
"Not likely," Harry said.
They entered the man's car. As he was about to start the car, the man slapped his forehead. "I'm such a dolt!" the man said. Harry observed him calmly, waiting for the reason behind the exclamation. "I haven't introduced myself! My name is Lawrence Fisher."
Harry regarded him in silent contemplation. It was his turn to offer a name - but what to say? Lawrence Fisher, a veterinarian, would probably have no ties to the magical world, and would therefore have no idea who Harry Potter was, but should he risk it?
"My name is Jonathan," Harry said, finally. "Jonathan...Weasley." It was out of his mouth before he'd realized what he'd said.
"Well, its nice to meet you, Jonathan Weasley," Fisher said. "Tell me...you're not from around here, are you?"
That accent that Harry was so used to was going to be the end of him. "No," he admitted, for there was no way out of this one. "I'm from Britain, originally."
"What were you doing in the middle of the road in New York City then, pray tell?" Fisher asked.
Harry sat in silence. He didn't have a good answer to that one, either, partially because he, himself, didn't know what he was doing here.
"That's okay," Fisher said, after a moment of silence. "We can talk at dinner."
Harry dissented by silence.
They arrived at the residence of Lawrence Fisher and family in a fairly brief amount of time. Fisher parked the car out on the street and got out.
"It's not much..." he said, and looked at Harry.
Harry was inclined to agree. Fisher lived in an apartment building on a long line of two-story apartment buildings. The building looked as though it should have been condemned sometime during the Renaissance.
"Very nice," Harry managed, though he could tell that the words were flat and held no emotion.
Fisher walked up the brief staircase and unlocked the door. He stepped across the threshold and held the door for Harry. Harry was about to step inside when he felt an unfamiliar tugging. He tried to put a foot across the threshold and found that he couldn't.
Harry pushed harder on the unseen barrier, wondering what was going on. Fisher turned back to him, a bit of confusion on his face. "What are you waiting for? Come on in, it's freezing out there."
At his words, Harry tumbled into the house, the barrier disappearing completely in a matter of seconds.
Fisher looked down at Harry with a quizzical expression. "What was that all about?" he asked.
Harry recalled something from his Defense Against the Dark Arts class then. Vampires couldn't enter a living human's home without an invitation. He found the fact to be distinctly depressing.
"The whole building here is ours, thankfully," Fisher told Harry, as he hung up his coat in the small entrance hall. "The Ricos' next door share with the Hulls. It's a real mess."
"I'm sure," Harry said.
Fisher pushed open the door and walked through it out of the entrance hall and into another, longer, hallway. Harry hesitantly put his foot through this door, but found that there was no resistance this time. Good. That made life a bit easier.
Fisher took an immediate right and entered the kitchen of this home. Inside, his wife was preparing a meal. He kissed her on the cheek. "Good evening, Dolores," he said. "What's cooking?"
"Beef stew," she said. Then she noticed Harry. "Who's that?" she asked.
"This is Jonathan Weasley," Fisher said.
"It's nice to meet you," Harry said.
"Likewise, dear," Mrs. Fisher replied. "Good thing I made too much of the stew..."
"You always make too much of the stew," Mr. Fisher said, not unkindly. "Diana! We have a guest, so set the table for four!"
"Gotcha!" came a young girl's voice from the next room.
Harry settled himself back into the darkest corner he could find and attempted to be unnoticeable. His mind was beginning to wander when Diana entered.
She couldn't have been older than fourteen. That was Harry's first impression. His second was one of slight shock; before him stood a female version of Draco Malfoy. There was something missing from that analogy, though, Harry decided, after a moment. The smug arrogance of Malfoy was nowhere to be found in this girl's innocent eyes.
"Who's the guest, dad?" she asked. "Another guy from the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Or..." she trailed off when she caught sight of Harry. She blushed a bit. "Oh..."
Luckily for her, neither of her parents noticed. "Is the table set, dear?" Mrs. Fisher asked.
"Yeah," Diana said, a bit distracted.
"Then why don't you, your father, and Jonathan go and sit down?" Mrs. Fisher asked.
"Right..." Diana said, still attempting to pry her gaze away from Harry. She backed up, hit the wall, then turned, blushing, and walked through the door the right way. Harry pretended not to have noticed. He remembered how embarrassing it had been for Ginny when she'd...
Harry nearly tripped. Thinking her name had sent a wave of fiery emotion through him. For the first time since meeting Mr. Fisher, Harry's face contorted in emotion.
"Are you all right, Jonathan?" Fisher asked, seeing the look on Harry's face.
"Yes," Harry said, breathing hard. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" Mrs. Fisher asked, coming over to feel his forehead. "You look winded all of a sudden."
"I'm okay," Harry said, pulling back before she could touch him and discover his coldness. "Really. Just remembering something."
To prove his health, Harry walked through the door. He was about to sit down when he remembered an old family tradition of claiming seats. To avoid taking someone's seat, Harry walked to the window and looked out of it.
"Some view, huh?" Diana asked. She seemed to have regained a bit of her composure.
"I've seen worse," Harry said, recalling how dismal the view from his room in Privet Drive had been when bars had distorted that view.
"Well, you won't see much better around here," Diana said. "Inner city, like this, all you see in smog and buildings. And people, of course."
Mr. and Mrs. Fisher entered carrying the beef stew and bottle of water between them. "Okay, let's get this show on the road," Mr. Fisher said, grinning.
Harry went to sit, but was immediately a uncomfortable, because of...
"Here, dear, let me take that for you," Mrs. Fisher said. She reached across the table for the dark black scabbard that held the Sword of Gryffindor.
Reluctantly, Harry unhooked the Sword from his shoulder, where it had blended so well with his dark clothing. He handed it across the table to Mrs. Fisher.
When she realized what it was, Mrs. Fisher, as well as the rest of her family, found herself at a loss for words. "It's a very...uh...lovely sword, dear," Mrs. Fisher finally managed.
Perhaps in an effort to move on from the awkward moment, Mrs. Fisher began dishing out the stew. Harry wasn't sure what he was going to do when it came time for him to eat it - he didn't know how well a vampire's digestive system, let alone his taste buds, would handle beef.
"So, Jonathan," Mr. Fisher said. "I'm very anxious to hear your story."
Harry had been expecting this moment, but he wasn't sure what to do, even given his time to consider it. He decided to stall. "I'm not sure where to begin," he said.
"Are your parents in the city as well, dear?" Mrs. Fisher asked.
"No," Harry said. "My parents are dead."
"I'm sorry," Mrs. Fisher said, and she genuinely looked it.
"Yeah," he said. "So am I."
This was followed by even more awkward silence. Mr. Fisher made an attempt to break it. "If your parents aren't...um...in the picture, than who takes care of you, Jonathan?"
"I take care of myself," Harry replied, truthfully.
"Oh," Mr. Fisher said. This threw him a bit. He'd never met one of those street kids who professed the belief that they 'took care of themselves', but he'd heard the stories.
"Where are you from, Jonathan?" Mrs. Fisher asked. "Not from around here, I bet."
"No," Jonathan said, trying to figure out just how much to reveal. "I'm from England."
"I see," Mr. Fisher said. "I have some friends in England. Which part? Liverpool? London?"
"London, for the first part of my life," Harry said, wondering how he was going to explain Hogwarts. "Then, a boarding school for the last few years."
"Oh, that's nice," Mrs. Fisher said, latching onto the only positive thing Harry had said so far. "Which school?"
Harry began to use Uncle Vernon's old cover story, but stopped. "Er..." he said. "St. Brutus'...um...School for the Gifted."
"How nice," Mrs. Fisher said.
Diana remained silent throughout most of this, sneaking occasional looks at Harry, and blushing shortly thereafter. Harry stared down at the food in his bowl. He picked up a fork, speared some meat, and decided that there was no harm in trying.
It turned out that he could eat the beef easily - there was no restriction on vampire digestion. It just didn't have the taste he'd remembered, like the taste was simply gone out of it.
"Good, dear?" Mrs. Fisher asked.
"Yes," Harry said, stretching the truth only a bit.
The rest of the meal passed with some inane banter exchanged between members of the family. Mr. Fisher told them about the newest animal - a squirrel that had been doused in chlorine by some mean-spirited person. Mrs. Fisher described what turned out to be a typical, boring day in the office. And Diana told her parents that she'd passed her Natural History test.
Harry couldn't help but be a little bored by the whole thing. Back in the old days, he'd have paid closer attention to the people who were helping him so much. Now, it didn't seem so much like help.
When dinner was finished, Mr. Fisher took away the plates, announcing that it was his turn to was the dishes. Harry vaguely asked him if he wanted help, but Mr. Fisher turned him down.
"Dolores will show you where you'll be sleeping," Mr. Fisher said, turning on the faucet at the kitchen sink and beginning what looked like a battle between himself and the dishes.
"This way, dear," Mrs. Fisher said, indicating the door at the end of the long hallway. On the other side was a staircase.
They ascended. Mrs. Fisher indicated the first door on their left as they left the stairwell. "That," she said, "is the bathroom. Here," she indicated the next door. "Is where you'll be sleeping. It's our guestroom - we keep it made up just in case Lawrence's parents come for a visit."
She pushed open the door. "Will that be okay, Jonathan?" she asked.
Harry looked inside. It was fairly average, as bedrooms go: fuzzy blue carpet, off-white wallpaper, a queen-sized bed, a nightstand, and a dresser.
"Yes, it'll do," Harry said. He walked in and closed the door without any further comment. Outside, Mrs. Fisher shook her head. She didn't know what to make of that boy.
Later that night, as Harry lay awake, looking at the ceiling and thinking about the past, he heard a noise. It was fairly faint, but with his heightened senses, Harry could detect it and classify it as the opening of a window.
He got up off the bed and traveled over to his own window in time to see Diana Fisher climbing out of her window. She pressure-walked her way down the narrow space between the buildings, landing lightly on the ground and walking off.
Before he realized what he was doing, Harry had opened the window and was climbing out of it. He didn't know why he felt compelled to follow Diana; protecting her, he supposed. Instead of duplicating Diana's pressure-walking stunt, Harry simply dropped to the ground. He made no noise.
Diana proved simple to track. All Harry had to do was stay twenty feet or so back and keep her scent, and he was all set. Though he could follow her perfectly, Harry had no idea where it was she was going.
After perhaps ten minutes, Diana turned off the road and into a small park. It wasn't so much a park as it was a random bunch of trees with a bench set back off the road; but Harry supposed that this was what passed for a park here in New York City.
Diana surprised Harry a bit by speaking. "I knew you were following me," she said.
"How could you tell?" Harry asked, dropping his pretense of hiding.
"Sometimes I just know things," Diana said. "Its like there's this little wave of knowledge that comes sweeping into my brain, telling me things that I couldn't possibly know. Weird, huh?"
"I don't think you know the half of what 'weird' is, Diana," Harry said.
"Try me," Diana said, sitting on the bench and gazing up at Harry expectantly.
"Excuse me?" Harry asked.
"Try me," Diana repeated. "Tell me what 'weird' is."
Harry saw the corner he was backing himself into and endeavored to avoid it. "You shouldn't be out here alone at night, you know," he said.
"Don't change the subject," Diana said. "And I've got you to protect me, don't I?"
Harry waited to see if she would say more, but instead she simply gazed expectantly at him. "I don't want to talk about it," Harry said, finally.
"Okay, then I will," Diana said. "You're not quite what you seem to be, are you?"
Harry gave her a hard stare. What the hell. He'd play her game. Worse case scenario was that he'd have to leave the Fishers'. "No, I'm not," he admitted.
Diana took a deep breath, as though she were preparing to be laughed at. "You're...you're not really human, are you?" she asked.
Harry's gaze hardened. "I'm not," he said.
Diana let out her breath in a long, slow hiss. "What are you?" she asked.
"I think its my turn to ask a question," he said. "How do you know that I'm not human?"
"It was a hunch," she said. "One of those brain waves told me. I came out here to test the hunch."
"You're psychic?" Harry asked.
"I guess I am," Diana said. "I don't know where it came from, or why I have it. But every once in a while, I just know something that I can't possibly know."
"Why are you sharing this with me?" Harry asked.
"Cause you're like me," Diana said. "You're different. I've never shared this with anyone, and it's eating a hole in me. I needed someone who would understand. Do you?"
Harry sighed. This girl needed help. He could provide that help. Probably. "I'm not human," Harry repeated. "My name isn't really Jonathan Weasley. My name is Harry Potter...and I'm a vampire."
Diana's mouth fell open. "A vampire...? No way!"
"Believe me, its not nearly as cool as people seem to think," Harry said.
"Why all the subterfuge?" Diana asked.
"Do expect me to tell everyone I meet that I would enjoy eating them for dinner?" Harry asked, rhetorically.
"Well, no," Diana admitted. "But the name..."
"Well, as to that," Harry said. "I've been trying to get away from a past life, and in that past life, I'm pretty famous..."
Once the floodgates were open, they weren't shutting until the whole story, of Craig, Ginny, Voldemort, and the fight, was out.
It was well past midnight by the time Harry and Diana ventured back into the Fisher apartment.
Chapter Two! Yay! This one doesn't seem to be coming as smoothly as SASY did, so expect delays in the coming of the next chapter. It'll come - eventually. Tell you what - leave a review and it'll come faster! Peace out.
Harry rested for a few hours, and around midnight, rose. He was hungry. He was getting to that point where hunger was all he would think about.
New York City, the city that never sleeps, was bustling with activity. In some recess of Harry's brain, where a human child still lived, he was amazed at the never ending traffic and commotion.
Harry wandered out of his alley and began to search out a butcher. He'd considered eating a fat rat in the alley, but had decided against it for the time being. Perhaps there was some pride left in him after all.
Harry had no luck finding a butcher, at first. He began asking random people, but they all ignored him. He started to get annoyed.
"Come on! Tell me where I can find a butcher, damn you!" he yelled at a woman. The woman walked by, barely even taking notice. Harry growled, and started after her. He was about to grab her when he stopped.
What...?
Harry shook his head. He had almost vamped out on her. He checked himself over. Okay. He was all set. He wasn't going to kill anyone. He was going to find a butcher, and he was going to get some dinner, and he wasn't going to kill anyone...
There were so many of them...surely no one would notice if just one went missing...
Harry threw himself into an alley. He wasn't prepared for this. Seeing so many people...it was getting to him. He needed to kill something. Suddenly, just like that, he needed a fight, badly. The vampire in him needed to be satiated.
Harry staggered down the alley. He came out the other side, saw headlights, and then saw no more.
Lawrence Fisher had never hit anyone or anything in his car. He'd had a perfect record until that night. Luckily, the street was relatively out of the way, and no one saw it happen. Lawrence got out, inspected the unconscious young man, and decided to bring him back to the veterinary clinic which he helped run. The young man would be out for another few hours. He was sure of that.
Harry awoke with a dull throb in his head and shoulder. He sat slowly, and opened his eyes slower.
His mind returned to him quickly after that. He remembered the sudden blood lust. He should have realized that so many humans would have set him off.
So many things he should have realized!
Harry didn't let himself get distracted by that familiar train of thought. It wouldn't pay to. For now, he had to discover his location, and find a way out. The lights were really bugging him.
Harry got off of what turned out to be an examination table. He looked around. Beside the table was an aisle, lined with cages. In the cages were animals.
Harry went up to one of them. A Black Labrador sat inside it, a bandage rapped around one of its paws. Harry could smell the medicine in the bandage. He moved on to another cage, finding a small sparrow inside, on wing in a similar bandage.
He realized where he was immediately. He had been taken to an animal clinic. Harry felt like laughing. There was some serious irony in that.
Harry didn't laugh, however. A middle-aged, balding man had just come into the room and had promptly dropped his clipboard in surprise. "What...?" he said, dumbstruck. "How are you awake?"
Harry stared at the man. He didn't say anything.
The man bent down and picked up his clipboard. "Of course, that's a stupid question," he said. "How are you awake? Right! How are you breathing?"
Harry was on the verge of mentioning that he wasn't breathing when he decided better of it.
"Are you hungry?" the man asked.
Harry's gaze shifted violently to the man's neck. "Yes," he whispered. He began to advance towards the man, who had looked down again at his clipboard.
The man pulled out a hypodermic needle from his lab coat. "I just have to give Betsy her meds, and then I'll be heading home for supper," he said, not looking at Harry. "I think that after what happened, I owe you that."
Harry stopped. The man looked up and smiled a him. Harry's expression didn't change, but he nodded at the man. "Sure," he said. "I'll come along."
The man went down to sparrow's cage and opened it. "Betsy needs some special medications," the man said, making conversation as he peeled away the bandage. "That's where I was heading when I hit you."
"You named the sparrow Betsy?" Harry asked, thinking that it was probably an American thing.
"My daughter," the man said. "She likes to come in and 'meet' all the new animals. You know, she's sweet that way."
"Right..." Harry said, already losing interest. He contemplated just leaving - going for dinner at this man's house would do him no good - but he felt compelled to stay. He couldn't understand the compulsion, not at first, but later he would realize that he was lonely.
The man closed the cage up and put down the bottle next to Betsy's cage. "Well, that's it!" he said. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah," Harry said.
They exited the building together, the man putting on a coat. "Aren't you cold?" he asked Harry, as they walked to the man's car.
"No," Harry said.
"Well, you'll catch pneumonia dressed like that," the man said, eyeing Harry's short sleeved shirt and trousers.
"Not likely," Harry said.
They entered the man's car. As he was about to start the car, the man slapped his forehead. "I'm such a dolt!" the man said. Harry observed him calmly, waiting for the reason behind the exclamation. "I haven't introduced myself! My name is Lawrence Fisher."
Harry regarded him in silent contemplation. It was his turn to offer a name - but what to say? Lawrence Fisher, a veterinarian, would probably have no ties to the magical world, and would therefore have no idea who Harry Potter was, but should he risk it?
"My name is Jonathan," Harry said, finally. "Jonathan...Weasley." It was out of his mouth before he'd realized what he'd said.
"Well, its nice to meet you, Jonathan Weasley," Fisher said. "Tell me...you're not from around here, are you?"
That accent that Harry was so used to was going to be the end of him. "No," he admitted, for there was no way out of this one. "I'm from Britain, originally."
"What were you doing in the middle of the road in New York City then, pray tell?" Fisher asked.
Harry sat in silence. He didn't have a good answer to that one, either, partially because he, himself, didn't know what he was doing here.
"That's okay," Fisher said, after a moment of silence. "We can talk at dinner."
Harry dissented by silence.
They arrived at the residence of Lawrence Fisher and family in a fairly brief amount of time. Fisher parked the car out on the street and got out.
"It's not much..." he said, and looked at Harry.
Harry was inclined to agree. Fisher lived in an apartment building on a long line of two-story apartment buildings. The building looked as though it should have been condemned sometime during the Renaissance.
"Very nice," Harry managed, though he could tell that the words were flat and held no emotion.
Fisher walked up the brief staircase and unlocked the door. He stepped across the threshold and held the door for Harry. Harry was about to step inside when he felt an unfamiliar tugging. He tried to put a foot across the threshold and found that he couldn't.
Harry pushed harder on the unseen barrier, wondering what was going on. Fisher turned back to him, a bit of confusion on his face. "What are you waiting for? Come on in, it's freezing out there."
At his words, Harry tumbled into the house, the barrier disappearing completely in a matter of seconds.
Fisher looked down at Harry with a quizzical expression. "What was that all about?" he asked.
Harry recalled something from his Defense Against the Dark Arts class then. Vampires couldn't enter a living human's home without an invitation. He found the fact to be distinctly depressing.
"The whole building here is ours, thankfully," Fisher told Harry, as he hung up his coat in the small entrance hall. "The Ricos' next door share with the Hulls. It's a real mess."
"I'm sure," Harry said.
Fisher pushed open the door and walked through it out of the entrance hall and into another, longer, hallway. Harry hesitantly put his foot through this door, but found that there was no resistance this time. Good. That made life a bit easier.
Fisher took an immediate right and entered the kitchen of this home. Inside, his wife was preparing a meal. He kissed her on the cheek. "Good evening, Dolores," he said. "What's cooking?"
"Beef stew," she said. Then she noticed Harry. "Who's that?" she asked.
"This is Jonathan Weasley," Fisher said.
"It's nice to meet you," Harry said.
"Likewise, dear," Mrs. Fisher replied. "Good thing I made too much of the stew..."
"You always make too much of the stew," Mr. Fisher said, not unkindly. "Diana! We have a guest, so set the table for four!"
"Gotcha!" came a young girl's voice from the next room.
Harry settled himself back into the darkest corner he could find and attempted to be unnoticeable. His mind was beginning to wander when Diana entered.
She couldn't have been older than fourteen. That was Harry's first impression. His second was one of slight shock; before him stood a female version of Draco Malfoy. There was something missing from that analogy, though, Harry decided, after a moment. The smug arrogance of Malfoy was nowhere to be found in this girl's innocent eyes.
"Who's the guest, dad?" she asked. "Another guy from the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Or..." she trailed off when she caught sight of Harry. She blushed a bit. "Oh..."
Luckily for her, neither of her parents noticed. "Is the table set, dear?" Mrs. Fisher asked.
"Yeah," Diana said, a bit distracted.
"Then why don't you, your father, and Jonathan go and sit down?" Mrs. Fisher asked.
"Right..." Diana said, still attempting to pry her gaze away from Harry. She backed up, hit the wall, then turned, blushing, and walked through the door the right way. Harry pretended not to have noticed. He remembered how embarrassing it had been for Ginny when she'd...
Harry nearly tripped. Thinking her name had sent a wave of fiery emotion through him. For the first time since meeting Mr. Fisher, Harry's face contorted in emotion.
"Are you all right, Jonathan?" Fisher asked, seeing the look on Harry's face.
"Yes," Harry said, breathing hard. "I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" Mrs. Fisher asked, coming over to feel his forehead. "You look winded all of a sudden."
"I'm okay," Harry said, pulling back before she could touch him and discover his coldness. "Really. Just remembering something."
To prove his health, Harry walked through the door. He was about to sit down when he remembered an old family tradition of claiming seats. To avoid taking someone's seat, Harry walked to the window and looked out of it.
"Some view, huh?" Diana asked. She seemed to have regained a bit of her composure.
"I've seen worse," Harry said, recalling how dismal the view from his room in Privet Drive had been when bars had distorted that view.
"Well, you won't see much better around here," Diana said. "Inner city, like this, all you see in smog and buildings. And people, of course."
Mr. and Mrs. Fisher entered carrying the beef stew and bottle of water between them. "Okay, let's get this show on the road," Mr. Fisher said, grinning.
Harry went to sit, but was immediately a uncomfortable, because of...
"Here, dear, let me take that for you," Mrs. Fisher said. She reached across the table for the dark black scabbard that held the Sword of Gryffindor.
Reluctantly, Harry unhooked the Sword from his shoulder, where it had blended so well with his dark clothing. He handed it across the table to Mrs. Fisher.
When she realized what it was, Mrs. Fisher, as well as the rest of her family, found herself at a loss for words. "It's a very...uh...lovely sword, dear," Mrs. Fisher finally managed.
Perhaps in an effort to move on from the awkward moment, Mrs. Fisher began dishing out the stew. Harry wasn't sure what he was going to do when it came time for him to eat it - he didn't know how well a vampire's digestive system, let alone his taste buds, would handle beef.
"So, Jonathan," Mr. Fisher said. "I'm very anxious to hear your story."
Harry had been expecting this moment, but he wasn't sure what to do, even given his time to consider it. He decided to stall. "I'm not sure where to begin," he said.
"Are your parents in the city as well, dear?" Mrs. Fisher asked.
"No," Harry said. "My parents are dead."
"I'm sorry," Mrs. Fisher said, and she genuinely looked it.
"Yeah," he said. "So am I."
This was followed by even more awkward silence. Mr. Fisher made an attempt to break it. "If your parents aren't...um...in the picture, than who takes care of you, Jonathan?"
"I take care of myself," Harry replied, truthfully.
"Oh," Mr. Fisher said. This threw him a bit. He'd never met one of those street kids who professed the belief that they 'took care of themselves', but he'd heard the stories.
"Where are you from, Jonathan?" Mrs. Fisher asked. "Not from around here, I bet."
"No," Jonathan said, trying to figure out just how much to reveal. "I'm from England."
"I see," Mr. Fisher said. "I have some friends in England. Which part? Liverpool? London?"
"London, for the first part of my life," Harry said, wondering how he was going to explain Hogwarts. "Then, a boarding school for the last few years."
"Oh, that's nice," Mrs. Fisher said, latching onto the only positive thing Harry had said so far. "Which school?"
Harry began to use Uncle Vernon's old cover story, but stopped. "Er..." he said. "St. Brutus'...um...School for the Gifted."
"How nice," Mrs. Fisher said.
Diana remained silent throughout most of this, sneaking occasional looks at Harry, and blushing shortly thereafter. Harry stared down at the food in his bowl. He picked up a fork, speared some meat, and decided that there was no harm in trying.
It turned out that he could eat the beef easily - there was no restriction on vampire digestion. It just didn't have the taste he'd remembered, like the taste was simply gone out of it.
"Good, dear?" Mrs. Fisher asked.
"Yes," Harry said, stretching the truth only a bit.
The rest of the meal passed with some inane banter exchanged between members of the family. Mr. Fisher told them about the newest animal - a squirrel that had been doused in chlorine by some mean-spirited person. Mrs. Fisher described what turned out to be a typical, boring day in the office. And Diana told her parents that she'd passed her Natural History test.
Harry couldn't help but be a little bored by the whole thing. Back in the old days, he'd have paid closer attention to the people who were helping him so much. Now, it didn't seem so much like help.
When dinner was finished, Mr. Fisher took away the plates, announcing that it was his turn to was the dishes. Harry vaguely asked him if he wanted help, but Mr. Fisher turned him down.
"Dolores will show you where you'll be sleeping," Mr. Fisher said, turning on the faucet at the kitchen sink and beginning what looked like a battle between himself and the dishes.
"This way, dear," Mrs. Fisher said, indicating the door at the end of the long hallway. On the other side was a staircase.
They ascended. Mrs. Fisher indicated the first door on their left as they left the stairwell. "That," she said, "is the bathroom. Here," she indicated the next door. "Is where you'll be sleeping. It's our guestroom - we keep it made up just in case Lawrence's parents come for a visit."
She pushed open the door. "Will that be okay, Jonathan?" she asked.
Harry looked inside. It was fairly average, as bedrooms go: fuzzy blue carpet, off-white wallpaper, a queen-sized bed, a nightstand, and a dresser.
"Yes, it'll do," Harry said. He walked in and closed the door without any further comment. Outside, Mrs. Fisher shook her head. She didn't know what to make of that boy.
Later that night, as Harry lay awake, looking at the ceiling and thinking about the past, he heard a noise. It was fairly faint, but with his heightened senses, Harry could detect it and classify it as the opening of a window.
He got up off the bed and traveled over to his own window in time to see Diana Fisher climbing out of her window. She pressure-walked her way down the narrow space between the buildings, landing lightly on the ground and walking off.
Before he realized what he was doing, Harry had opened the window and was climbing out of it. He didn't know why he felt compelled to follow Diana; protecting her, he supposed. Instead of duplicating Diana's pressure-walking stunt, Harry simply dropped to the ground. He made no noise.
Diana proved simple to track. All Harry had to do was stay twenty feet or so back and keep her scent, and he was all set. Though he could follow her perfectly, Harry had no idea where it was she was going.
After perhaps ten minutes, Diana turned off the road and into a small park. It wasn't so much a park as it was a random bunch of trees with a bench set back off the road; but Harry supposed that this was what passed for a park here in New York City.
Diana surprised Harry a bit by speaking. "I knew you were following me," she said.
"How could you tell?" Harry asked, dropping his pretense of hiding.
"Sometimes I just know things," Diana said. "Its like there's this little wave of knowledge that comes sweeping into my brain, telling me things that I couldn't possibly know. Weird, huh?"
"I don't think you know the half of what 'weird' is, Diana," Harry said.
"Try me," Diana said, sitting on the bench and gazing up at Harry expectantly.
"Excuse me?" Harry asked.
"Try me," Diana repeated. "Tell me what 'weird' is."
Harry saw the corner he was backing himself into and endeavored to avoid it. "You shouldn't be out here alone at night, you know," he said.
"Don't change the subject," Diana said. "And I've got you to protect me, don't I?"
Harry waited to see if she would say more, but instead she simply gazed expectantly at him. "I don't want to talk about it," Harry said, finally.
"Okay, then I will," Diana said. "You're not quite what you seem to be, are you?"
Harry gave her a hard stare. What the hell. He'd play her game. Worse case scenario was that he'd have to leave the Fishers'. "No, I'm not," he admitted.
Diana took a deep breath, as though she were preparing to be laughed at. "You're...you're not really human, are you?" she asked.
Harry's gaze hardened. "I'm not," he said.
Diana let out her breath in a long, slow hiss. "What are you?" she asked.
"I think its my turn to ask a question," he said. "How do you know that I'm not human?"
"It was a hunch," she said. "One of those brain waves told me. I came out here to test the hunch."
"You're psychic?" Harry asked.
"I guess I am," Diana said. "I don't know where it came from, or why I have it. But every once in a while, I just know something that I can't possibly know."
"Why are you sharing this with me?" Harry asked.
"Cause you're like me," Diana said. "You're different. I've never shared this with anyone, and it's eating a hole in me. I needed someone who would understand. Do you?"
Harry sighed. This girl needed help. He could provide that help. Probably. "I'm not human," Harry repeated. "My name isn't really Jonathan Weasley. My name is Harry Potter...and I'm a vampire."
Diana's mouth fell open. "A vampire...? No way!"
"Believe me, its not nearly as cool as people seem to think," Harry said.
"Why all the subterfuge?" Diana asked.
"Do expect me to tell everyone I meet that I would enjoy eating them for dinner?" Harry asked, rhetorically.
"Well, no," Diana admitted. "But the name..."
"Well, as to that," Harry said. "I've been trying to get away from a past life, and in that past life, I'm pretty famous..."
Once the floodgates were open, they weren't shutting until the whole story, of Craig, Ginny, Voldemort, and the fight, was out.
It was well past midnight by the time Harry and Diana ventured back into the Fisher apartment.
Chapter Two! Yay! This one doesn't seem to be coming as smoothly as SASY did, so expect delays in the coming of the next chapter. It'll come - eventually. Tell you what - leave a review and it'll come faster! Peace out.