The vampires radiated a dangerous beauty. They were tall, and moved with sleek grace. They were the undead: and Harry, looking at them, had no doubt they were deadly.

Harry raised his wand in a reflex defence mechanism. Almost immediately one of the hounds bounded forward and grabbed for it with its teeth. It missed, but only because Harry dropped the wand. He shrank back, terrified, with the hot stinking breath of the beast in his face. It did not attack, however. It crouched at his feet and growled warningly.

Dropping the wand extinguished the light. Blinded by the sudden shift in light levels, Harry could make out little other than the red eyes of the hounds.

"Who are you?" he cried out to the three vampires, which he could no longer see but knew were there. "What do you want?"

One of them spoke. Its voice was smoother than water.

"We are the Vampyr, child. I should have thought that was obvious."

"What do you want with us?" Harry could feel Ginny next to him, coiled as though about to spring.

"We have been asked to collect you. It is a small token of our new alliance."

New alliance? Harry felt chilled.

"Do not resist us, and we will not hurt you. We are simply here to escort you to your new master."

New master? If he had felt chilled before, Harry could now feel his blood flowing icy in his veins.

At that moment a new voice cut in from away in the trees. It was a man's voice, speaking a language he did not understand. Impossibly, the timbre of the voice sounded rather like Snape's. He seemed to be arguing with the creatures. Harry was bewildered. But the vampires were distracted. If it weren't for those damned hounds they could have just quietly slipped away…but the attention of the dogs had not slipped. They continued to gaze at them raptly.

There was a flash of green light then, and the man who reminded Harry of Snape yelled something out. Two of the vampires shrieked in unison, and flung themselves in his direction. It looked as though battle was being joined.

The hounds shifted uncertainly, as though unsure whether to guard the prisoners or assist their masters. And one of the vampires had clearly decided that collecting their prey was the priority anyway, for Harry, in the flashes of wand light, could see him gliding towards himself and Ginny with astonishing speed.

Then there was another voice. Lupin? Harry thought in amazement. What was Lupin doing here?

"PATRONUS, HARRY! You can use patronus to defend yourself!"

But he couldn't, he couldn't, because he had dropped his wand. Harry groped about, panicking, as the vampire's carved white face loomed above him. He glanced up, and saw it open its mouth in a fang-toothed smile.

Then, to Harry's further astonishment, another voice rang out.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

Ginny? He supposed he shouldn't have been so surprised, since he had taught her that charm himself in the illegal Defence Association classes they had run the previous year. However, he couldn't remember Ginny producing a fully-fledged patronus: let alone a corporeal one.

She must have been practising. Harry watched with sagging jaw as an enormous silver wildcat leaped through the air. Its magical claws extended towards the vampire's face, which reeled backwards with a furious cry. The hounds were also retreating, yelping and howling as though in pain as the silver light of Ginny's patronus shimmied through the pack.

Harry was impressed. Now he thought about it, he did seem to remember Fred and George commenting with respect on the power of Ginny's magic. And that was some cool patronus...

"C'mon." Ginny clutched his arm, hard, and tried him to yank him to his feet. As he scrabbled to get up, Harry's hand fell with relief on his fallen wand. He grabbed it.

The hounds were still in disarray. Ginny began to drag him through the whimpering pack and in the direction from which they had heard Lupin's voice. Harry slung her arm around his shoulder to support her and strode forward; Ginny was limping badly.

Vampires, Harry recalled, were not wizards, and were resistant to most forms of magic. However, magic that did work against them seared them horribly; it seemed to be antagonistic to their very flesh. What vampires had in their favour was immense strength, and amazing resilience to attack. They were also hunters by nature, with unmatched powers to track and bring down their prey.

There was a magic battle going on here. Lights of many colours were streaming out of wands. Harry could make out Bill and Dumbledore. He knew Lupin was there somewhere. The night was punctuated by cracks, bangs and muttered oaths. There was also a hooded man; Harry guessed this was the one who sounded like Snape and had tried to speak to the vampires in their own language.

The vampires, with their unnatural speed, were dodging most of the hexes aimed at them. Even those that hit seemed to have very little effect. One of them shouted something out. It seemed to be a call to the hounds, for they began to slink towards Harry and Ginny again. In the circumstances, Harry lost confidence that all the dogs would do this time was try to hold them in place. They might decide that injured prey was easier to handle and transport….

Harry assessed the trees around them. "Let's climb," he said to Ginny.

She had a difficult time of it with her hurt leg, but with Harry's help she managed. They contrived to get some way into the branches, and felt at least a little more secure out of the way of the hounds' teeth.

The battle was still fiercely underway. Then the hooded man cried out something else. Harry had never seen anything like it. What magic was this? The air was rent with a lilac streak as if of lightning. Harry's skin shivered and prickled in the ambience of an alien magic. The vampires screamed, a high and eldritch sound which made Harry wince. Then, he saw thankfully, they seemed to be retreating. They whistled for the hounds, which slank after them, casting regretful looks behind them at Harry and Ginny stuck in their tree.

There was near silence for a moment, broken by pants of exertion as the fighting force recovered.

"Harry? Ginny?" Dumbledore's wand was streaming light as he peered around through the trees.

"We're here!" Harry called.

He tried to climb down out of the tree, but found that his limbs seemed to have turned to liquid at some point. He slipped clumsily from his branch, and found what would have been a crashing fall broken by a spell cast by Dumbledore. He blinked around. The hood had fallen back from the fourth wizards's face. Harry's eyes narrowed. It was, indeed, Snape.

"I can't climb down, Professor," Ginny said, with admirable calm. "I hurt my leg."

But Bill was already there.

"Ginny," he was muttering. "Oh Merlin, Ginny. I'm so glad you're safe, I was terrified.."

Bill helped Ginny down and held her in his arms. He undid the Disillusion Charm on both Harry and Ginny. They looked at each other. Their faces were streaked with soot, grime and blood. They were still soaked to the skin, and their hair hung in rats' tails. They both began to laugh.

"Hysterical," Harry heard Lupin muttering to Bill. "Give them some chocolate and let's get them home."

Harry ate the chocolate greedily. It did help. The after-effects of shock were already hitting him. He couldn't wait to go.

Oh. Yes. The Burrow was no more. He would be going to 12 Grimmauld Place. His heart plummeted.

"OK, Harry, you come with me; Ginny, you go with Bill."

"Er, Professor Lupin, how are we travelling?"

"Brooms. It will have to be. We brought ours with us so we could get you back."

Lupin pulled a miniaturized broom out of a pocket in his robes and cast an Engorgement Charm. "Off we go, Harry. We need to get you back quickly. You don't look well. And Ginny's leg obviously needs attention."

Bill had gathered Ginny onto his broom – his own broom, which he had collected from Headquarters, and was much swifter and more reliable than the cast-offs formerly kept in his childhood home's garden shed. He Disillusioned them again.

Dumbledore and Snape had also pulled out their own brooms. They pushed off, likewise Disillusioned, and rose into the night.

Harry had noticed that they all had their wands out as though expecting trouble. They flew high and fast. He recalled, with a flare of dismay, that certain kinds of vampire were able to fly. He hoped that whatever strange magic Snape had performed would convince them to stay away. He became exceedingly cold, and was grateful for Lupin's warm body behind him.

His mind tried to come to terms with all that happened this evening. He had a bad feeling about all this. Something was very wrong, he was sure.

Firstly, he had been removed from the Dursleys with no warning, and considerably earlier than planned. Dumbledore had always maintained that he was safe there. What had changed?

Secondly, the attack on the Burrow had taken place shortly after he had arrived. Harry felt grief rip through him again. He couldn't imagine how he was going to face the Weasleys after this. He recalled Mrs Weasley's unfailing kindness, and wondered how he would ever get over the guilt. And what on earth would Ron say?

Thirdly, the vampires and their creatures had tracked them down. On whose orders? Harry had always heard that the vampires stayed out of human affairs. What if the vampires were entering into partnership with Voldemort…an alliance between Voldemort and the the undead, who were resistant to most forms of magic and had uncanny powers of their own, would be just what the Order of the Phoenix needed.

Fourthly, there had been Snape. He had been speaking to the vampires, presumably in their own language: it certainly wasn't any speech that Harry had ever heard. The vampires had entered into conversation with him. And then he had known some kind of weird magic that was able to banish them. Most odd….he needed to talk to Hermione…

And finally, there was a traitor. Harry felt misery settle sludgily in the pit of his stomach. A traitor to the Order of the Phoenix.

That meant it could very well be someone he knew. Quite possibly someone he liked. Trusted.

Harry was still thinking about the traitor when Lupin went into his downward spiral. Harry was so frozen by this time that he could barely move. Lupin had to practically carry him into the house.

Mrs Weasley swooped down on him and Ginny immediately, in a whirl of hugs, warm blankets and hot drinks. Harry had no time to assimilate that he was here, in Sirius' old house, when Sirius was dead. Too many people were fussing over him. Ginny was whisked off to St Mungo's: her leg was too bad for any but a trained healer to deal with. Ron and Hermione were pelting him with questions.

They would have to wait.

Harry, warm, dry, and as far as he could tell safe, was sliding down and down into an exhausted slumber.

The last thing he recalled was muttering to Dumbledore:

"Needtoaskyousomequestions…"

And then he slept.