The words had the anticipated reaction around the room.
Everyone started talking at once.
"No one told me there was a child involved." said Remus quietly. Harry gapped at Nikita and said slowly "So...you're in a way my savior?"
"What exactly are Azmake Vampires?" asked Tonks eagerly.
Sirius dropped his arms and whispered "James will never forgive me for this."
That was when Mrs. Weasley asked the all important question. "Whose child is it?"
Nikita looked up, her eyes flashing. "Do I strike you as a girl that sleeps around Mrs. Weasley?"
"They're my children, Mum." said Bill quietly. "Please bear in mind that you're talking about my future wife the next time you make a comment like that."
Fred and George beamed at their brother, proud that their perfect brother had made a mistake that he didn't regret even for a moment.
"Quiet..." said Dumbledore patiently. "Let her finish the story."
He looked over at Nikita and said "Please continue, my dear."
She nodded and began to talk. "In the summer, back in India, I remember being called by the Principal of my school for the Bordreals that we have to give. They're missions in which if we succeed, we pass on to the next level in wizard training. If we don't, well, we never come back. They kill the ones who couldn't finish their mission right there. I've lost most of my friends to the Bordreals."
Her eyes swam with resentment as she spoke. Remembrance, perhaps of her friends made her speech shake slightly.
"Anyway, my Bordreal was meant to be in Egypt, my favorite place. My mission was to travel through Egypt to each of the pyramids, go to the heart of each and retrieve something that belonged to my school. It was hard to recognize the items. The were basically gold jewels. Ancient, priceless items. If I didn't detect them clearly, the curse would destroy me for taking something that belonged to the Ancient Egyptian Culture."
She spoke as though the concept of death held no relevance to her at all.
"I succeeded. And the last place I had to go to was Cairo. I had about a month free as I had completed my Bordreal early..."
She rested her head on Bill's shoulder, remembering... remembering... remembering everything...
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"Hello, can I help you?" asked a friendly British voice from behind her.
She turned around to see an old gentleman at the Museum of Magical History. He must have been the curator.
"Oh, nothing, sir I was just looking around."
The kindly old gentleman's eyes twinkled. "Well, one of our part time Egyptologists might help you out here. A beautiful girl such as yourself shouldn't be walking alone. Young Weasley has just come back from his job at the Gringotts bank... Just one moment, please..."
He turned away and walked over to a young man who had his back turned.
Nikita frowned. A ponytail? How could anyone hire someone wearing a ponytail?
The young man stated walking towards her and she truly had to hide the look of desire from her face. He was tall, lean and incredibly good looking with red gold hair and sapphire eyes that gleamed as he saw her, his unabashedly sexual mouth had a real smile spread across his face.
"Hi. You're new?" he asked her.
"Yes."
"William Arthur Weasley. But everyone calls me Bill." He extended his hand.
"Nikita Tarini Gill. People just call me Nikita." She had anticipated a handshake. Instead, he brought it up to his lips and kissed it gently, the true British way. She smiled even as shivers went up the back of her spine.
"And what are you doing here?"
"Celebrating."
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Bill grinned as he remembered that one fine day when he had first laid eyes on her.
"She was truly amazing. This beautiful girl with long hair and a determined smile to get what she wanted... and what a personality! I was gone. Hook, line and sinker."
She looked up at him and grinned. "Yes, but I didn't tell you my real age then."
Bill looked at her and said, "You didn't tell me your real age until much much later."
"Well, I assumed you knew it."
"Listen, you look nineteen for Christ's sake!"
"Alright, alright, you can continue this later." said George with a sneer. "What happened next?"
Bill looked up and continued...
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The night was a cool one. But it was night that changed his life forever.
The moment she walked in through the door of the pub for their seventh date that month, tall, elegant, beautiful and fiercely Indian, he knew the inevitable was going to happen.
It did.
"Hey." he said pulling up a chair for her.
"Hi..." she whispered... the bar tender came up and instantly she ordered both his and her favorite drinks and his favorite food. "A firewhisky and a butterbeer please. Also a magic maid sandwich with extra cheese and oh yes, the side of beef should be well done."
And he fell completely in love with her.
He already knew she was going to be his wife.
That night was more than just love, it was a knowledge of soul meeting soul.
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"In love over an order of food and drink." smirked Fred. "So typically Bill."
Even in her pain Nikita could not help but grin... Bill looked a little sheepish and looked the other way for a moment. His hand never left hers even as she laughed.
Then she stopped and all the laughter on her face died...now came the hard part.
"My children are going to vampires. And there are four of them currently in my womb. This is because..."
She stopped...unsure whether she should continue. Mrs. Weasley urged her on "Go on, dear."
She looked at Dumbledore and he nodded, his expression thoughtful. "Do go on child."
"Because my mother was part vampire."
All the adults gapped and once again the questions flew in.
"Then how was she..."
"Jesus, they never tested her blood? No wonder Tarini survived basically everything!"
"That explains why she resisted the Avada Kedavra! She took at least fifteen to twenty minutes and managed to leave a message for us...It was how we came to know about..."
Knightsley stoped dead when he saw the expression on Nikita's face...she had turned Rigid and was shivering with the mention of her mother's death...
Harry shook his head at Knightsley and he asked Nikita "um...ignore him. Tell us, what happened?"
But Nikita didn't speak. Instead, Dumbledore did.
"'The seventeenth year of the destroyer's birth,
marks the dark lord's final meeting with the child of light.
The girl child of his father's blood shall give to her brother
Four immortal protectors, blood suckers, to destroy the darkness.
Children of the one whose eyes shine of sapphires and hair the color of the departing sun
But caution to those who're in haste, the dark lord shall have his protectors,
Powerful wizards of noble birth.
A mighty battle shall come, a clash of good and evil
The light shall live on or the darkness shall prevail, it is the will of the lord above.'"
The prophecy. Her prophecy. Bill's prophecy.
Harry was struck by a sudden thought.
"But how can they protect me when they will only be 2 years old? I will be seventeen in two years!"
She shook her head "You don't understand. Once my children are born, they can be called upon to take their future size whenever they are asked by a parent. It was a family charm cast on our first of kin. A blessing, and a curse."
Her eyes felt moist...these were her children...she wouldn't be able to bare it if something happened to them...and somehow she knew Bill felt the same way.
"The reason," she continued "I have been bleeding so much is because my children are vampires. Blood suckers. Since, I myself have given up the taste for blood, they cannot find it from anywhere else except within me...and anytime they thirst, they sink their teeth into...my flesh."
There was a collective groan of imagined pain from everyone around her. She chose to ignore it.
"Azmake Vampires are immortals, cannot be killed by stakes through the heart or sunlight or anything for that matter."
Lupin spoke.
He was as puzzled as the rest of them despite being a werewolf.
"Why? Why can't anything kill them?"
"Because they have souls. Unless they will their souls away from their bodies, they cannot die. You see, I will live and die a normal life, I am, like my mother, part vampire. But more wizard than vampire."
Dumbledore got up and Harry's eyes followed him. He was hoping the head master would have at least a few words with him, regarding his ignoring him for days and even during his trial.
Instead, Dumbledore looked straight through him and turned back to the young couple sitting on the bed.
"I shall be there on the 10th of January for the wedding, as will the rest of the order. After that Miss Gill, I expect you to be back at school as soon as possible."
Mrs. Weasley opened her mouth to protest even as Sirius said "Dumbledore, surely you jest! The girl is pregnant, not with a normal birth but with vampires! Surely she needs -"
"Safety and security shall be provided at the school and since the child is giving birth to vampires, she shall neither gain any weight, nor anything else. No one shall suspect she is pregnant." said Dumbledore, shocking everyone in the room.
That was when Bill got up and still holding her hand he whispered "Professor, you are asking me to send my heart into a chasm of enemies. Malfoy's, Crabbe's and Goyle's sons study in that school... death eaters for god's sakes! I'm not sending her back there. She'll be safer here with me and the Order..."
"And who shall take care of my brother?" came a soft voice from behind him. He turned and saw her beautiful hazel eyes look at him in defiance.
Bill sighed.
He knew that look.
Nothing could change her mind now.
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.
"Well, well...we all know who is going to be the master of that house."
Despite the circumstances everyone in the room laughed.
No one, not a single person notice a dark shadow in the passageway standing and listening carefully to the words.
No one noticed the shadow turn around and move out of the room.
No one realized that letting that door remain open was possibly the greatest mistake ever made.
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Born of Fire,
Bathed in Blood,
Bred in Vengeance,
Sleep forever more,
My love...my prince...
My destroyer.