Harry Potter and the Slayerette
A/N
Read Darkling for information about dhampirs before you flame me. The issue is dealt with there.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Harry, Ron and Hermione entered their Defence Against the Dark Arts class together and chose seats at the front, curious about the new Professor who had set them such odd books. Even Hermione, who had actually read the books that they had been set hadn't been able to make much sense of them. Although she had gleaned one interesting fact from one of them… it looked as though Professor Rosenburg might have worked with a Slayer… whatever that was.
The classroom, always one to change radically with the different Professors, was in near darkness. All of the windows had been covered up and the back of it, behind the teacher's desk, was completely covered by curtains.
Professor Rosenburg was sitting for them behind her desk. She waited patiently for the class to enter and settle down and then moved from her seat behind the desk to perch on the corner, facing the class.
"Vampires." She said and then paused. "Who here can tell me anything about them?"
To no-one's surprise, Hermione's hand was the first and only hand in the air.
Professor Rosenburg nodded in her direction. "Yes, Miss…?"
"Granger." Hermione supplied helpfully, standing up. "A vampire is a re-animated corpse. It feeds on the blood of living beings. Sunlight, fire, garlic, holy water and a wooden stake through the heart kills them. They're allergic to silver. Piling stones on top of a vampire's grave prevents them from rising. They live in the coffins they were buried in, cannot cross running water and if you throw poppy seeds in from of them then they have an obsessive compulsive desire to count them. They can have children."
"Good." Professor Rosenburg commented. "Not great, but still good. Take a point for everything you got right. That's seven points in total."
Hermione nodded and sat down, slightly upset that she hadn't been one hundred percent right as usual. Ron patted her shoulder commiseratingly.
"A vampire is technically a re-animated corpse. However, it is also a demon in disguise. Whenever you look at a vampire you're not looking at a person, you're looking at the thing that killed it.
"Vampire's can be killed by sunlight, fire, garlic, holy water, decapitation and a wooden stake through the heart. They feed on the blood of humans. That includes muggles, witches and wizards.
"They don't, however, live in the coffins they were buried in, they can cross water and I have yet to meet a vampire that stopped chasing me to count seeds."
The door to the classroom opened and to everyone's surprise, Professor Regan entered.
"Sorry to interrupt, Willow." She apologised to Professor Rosenburg as she walked quickly through the classroom. "Just wanted to get to our office."
"That's okay, Darcy." Professor Rosenburg told her. "When's your next class?"
"After lunch." Professor Regan called back as she ducked behind the curtain. An inhuman snarl came from behind the curtain and the class shivered involuntarily. "Down boy!" Professor Regan told whatever was behind it.
The class heard a splash of water and the thing behind the curtain let out an unearthly moan of pain.
"As I was saying," Professor Rosenburg continued. She stopped as she realised that the students' attention was still focused on whatever was behind the curtain. She smiled. "It's alright. It can't get at you."
Reluctantly, the class returned their attention to Professor Rosenburg.
"Also, piling stones on top of a vampire's grave never did anything. Vampires aren't that stupid and they can dig around things.
"However, vampires can have children. Their offspring are known as dhampirs and we will be studying them after we have finished studying vampires." Professor Rosenburg moved to the curtain.
"This is a vampire." She told them before pulling the curtain aside.
The majority of the class screamed and everyone ducked to the floor, memories of Lockhart's reign still disturbingly fresh in their memories.
Professor Rosenburg laughed. "It's okay." She reassured them. "It can't hurt you. Look." She urged.
Tentatively, Harry poked his head up over his desk and looked around. Ron and Hermione smiled weakly at him and Seamus nodded at him. As one, the four of them turned their gaze to the back of the classroom.
What appeared like an ordinary man was chained in a cage. He was twisting and turning within his cage, pulling at the chains that bound him. He caught sight of the class peering at him from behind their desks and growled, flinging himself at the bars that prevented him from touching the class.
Harry, Ron, Hermione and Seamus stood up. Cautiously, the rest of the class followed suit.
"The bars of the cage and the chains that bind him have been magically reinforced." Professor Rosenburg told them. "Otherwise he'd find it all too easy to escape."
Harry saw Neville shudder and take a big step back.
"Now, here's a non-magical way that your wands can be used to defend yourself against a vampire." Professor Rosenburg continued, brandishing her wand.
Without warning, she turned to the vampire and plunged it into his heart, taking great care to pull it back out. The class gasped as the vampire crumbled to dust.
"A word of warning however." She told them. "If you neglect to pull your wand out in time, it will turn to dust along with the vampire."
The bell rang for the end of class, all too quickly Harry felt.
"Next lesson we'll be exploring more ways to kill a vampire and studying those who make it their life's work to hunt and kill them." Professor Rosenburg shouted out quickly.
The class left and Harry, Ron and Hermione turned to go to Charms, unable to put into words their feelings about what they had just witnessed.
They turned the corner and Professor McGonagall was waiting there for them, Fred, George and Ginny standing behind her.
"Come with me Mr Weasley." She told Ron gently. With a worried glance at Harry and Hermione, Ron turned and followed her.