_____________________________________
Chapter 10
__________________________
The Platform 9 3/4 was crowded as expected for the return of the students. Harry walk beside his friends pushing his trolly, thinking on how this year might be filled with unasked for excitement. Four years without fail. It was the sort of thing that occurred in stories. And he was far form those. He just wanted a normal life. Something that had nothing no do with anything related to stories. He just wanted to read about the adventures of others.
"If anything," Ron was saying, "We haven't met Malfoy yet. Maybe we won't have have to deal with him for awhile."
"That's unusual for you, Ron," Hermione said from the other side of the Weasley. "I always thought you looked forward to your run ends with him." Harry looked up and saw confusion grace Ron's face. It wasn't a stranger to that visage, practically any attempt Hermione made at a joke resulted in confusion or anger. Mainly confusion. And Harry thought she was doing it on purpose. "So Harry, you've been awfully quiet today."
"Just thinking about the school year," he shrugged. * I really should have dropped Divinations. *
* And what is wrong with that class. * Harry started slightly. He hadn't expected Evan to respond. Of course it would take more than one day to get use to having a voice in your head.
* All Trelawney does is predict my death. And every year it comes very close, but not in any way she predicted. Besides it is a useless class. *
* Suit yourself. * Evan shifted position slightly on his shoulder. The spider had blatantly told him that he would not go into that cage on pain of pain.
"Come on, let's find ourselves a compartment," Ron said mounting the steps to the train.
"I don't think I have ever seen him this excited about school before," Harry commented. "Do you think he knows something we don't?"
"I doubt it. But who knows, he might have gained an interest in studying," Hermione said this in all seriousness and managed to keep the face for a good ten seconds before succumbing to the hilarity of the statement.
* Well at least she is not all books. * Evan mentioned.
* What? *
* I said she isn't all books. *
* I heard that, but what do you mean? *
* Have you no sense of being? Hermione may appear to be only book knowledge, and might be, but unlike others who know only books, she has a personality. *
* And how can you make such a judgment? *
* I have studied humans extensively. *
* How? *
* You didn't think Hagrid found me in the wild, did you? *
* Well no, but why? *
* They are the most constantly unpredictable species in existence. Why wouldn't I study them? *
* I don't know. I guess I just find it strange. *
* Of course you would. Humans don't consider the idea that they could be studied by another creature. But you studying other species is not considered unusual at all. *
* How long have you been doing this? *
* I'm not sure. *
"Hey Harry!" a voice interrupted his thoughts. Turning around he saw two identical redheads heading in his direction. "Where are you and Ron sitting?"
"Somewhere up ahead. I think Hermione went to make sure our luggage got on the car."
"Good. we wanted to ask you something before the others get here," Fred whispered.
"Particularly about the investment."
"I already told you I want to be anonymous."
"Oh no, not about that," George reassured him. "We wanted to ask you about some certain products."
"Actually we wanted to give you some samples. Here," Fred handed him an unmarked box. "Let us know what you think. We thought about giving them to you with the others but after some considering. . ."
"We figured you might want to keep something for Ron," George concluded.
"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Is there anything you've already used on Ron?"
"Nope."
"We're going to give you a second box with those."
"Which reminds us . . ."
"We still have Ron's before the term gift."
"Come on. You don't want to miss his face when he sees it."
"Shocked won't be the word for it."
And so they barged into the cabin that Ron had secured. The redheaded boy was sitting across form his sister reading a Qudditch magazine. He looked up at the noise his older brothers made. "What took you so long?"
"Ran in to these two," Harry responded, gesturing to the mirror images. He then noticed Hermione with her noise stuck in the Herman Tudunk book. "Find anything interesting, 'Mione?"
"Plenty, but not what I want," she answered closing the book. "So what are the twins up to?"
"That is for us to know--"
"And you to find out. Shall we?"
"Sure thing," George answered digging into a rucksack. "Let's see, this one's Hermione's." Fred took the parcel from his twin. "Ron's, Harry's, and Ginny's."
The four of them look blankly at their presents, all wondering what the prankster duo had in mind. "Aren't you gonna open them?" Fred pushed. "We promise they don't bit."
"That's not what I'm worried about," Ginny answered. "I'm worried about them sprouting legs and running amuck."
"Nonsense, they don't do that-- Wait," George paused unexpectedly. "No," he continued hurriedly, "they don't."
"Ok, now I'm worried about what they will do," Ron mumbled.
"Well, I'm more curious than anything else," Harry said pulling the paper off the box. Upon opening it, he found a note, "Courtesy of Weasley's Wizard's Wheezes, we present to you a collection of the first products ever to come off the line," he read aloud. "So I take it you want me to use them and inform everyone they're from you?"
"Naturally," they said in unison.
"Not a problem. Sounds like fun actually."
"A pot of ink? Really, I know the two of you can be more creative than that," Hermione had opened hers and was holding a small black inkwell in the palm of her hand.
"Not just any pot of ink," Fred began in a voice that reminded Harry of an announce on an infomercial. "Tell them George. It was you idea."
"Use it with Quick Quotes and you can make the Quotes outrageous or use it with a normal quill and the words you write morph into insults, false statements, and other useless phrases."
"Why would I want this?"
"We didn't think you would use it, but it was the most appropriate thing we had."
"Then can you tell me what these are?" Ginny asked holding up a metallic looking dragonfly and resting in her lap were similar creatures: a dragon, a frog, a ladybug, and a unicorn.
"Those we had to get some help with. Basically they were modeled after Muggle windup toys. There's a key in there as well. There are similar products out there, but not at all resembling Muggle toys."
"To work them," Fred continued, "You wind the key in the hole provided, which engages the little gears and makes the wings and such move. But there are spells involved that make them do tricks and stuff and make them look real."
"We thought it would be fun to have Muggle-like toys instead of those that work entirely on magic."
"So they are not pranks?"
"No, no, of course not."
"We realize there are some people who don't want to buy jokes, so we decided to add novelty items to our stock."
"Well Ron, are you going to open yours?"
"I'm still expecting something to jump out at me," he mumbled, but did begin to unwrap the gift. He pulled out bright, pumpkin orange cloth and said, "What is this?"
"That is your new dress robe." Ron's mouth dropped open as he looked thoroughly flabbergasted. "Try it on," George encouraged.
"It's orange."
"I believe Madam Malkin said it was the latest style."
"It's orange."
"It's made of velvet."
"It's orange."
"And your point?"
"It's orange."
"Try it on."
"It's-"
"Ron, we can see the color. At least try it on. It's not that difficult to change the color, unlike your experience with the cutting charms," Ginny said, trying to hide her giggles. Reluctantly Ron stood and put the brilliantly colored robe on over his school clothes, just to make everyone happy. The robe style itself was quite good looking, he decided, if only it wasn't orange. As her wore the robe the color changed drastically. Now it was a deep navy blue, appropriate for formal wear.
"That was unnecessarily cruel," he accused his brothers, who had left in fits of laughter as the robe changed.
* * * * * * * *
Irvan disappear shortly after arriving, having no desire to wait around for the end of the commencement feast. He decided on making the journey down to Severus's chambers and look at the new books that were mentioned earlier. He had not taken the time to read the titles last time he was there and thought it would be productive to do so now. It would also give him time to consider the new telepathic link that had been established with Harry.
In his experience only the vampire could create and maintain the link, though it was possible for the recipient to control his end. It was quite unusual for a vampire to have telepathy with humans and Irvan now had two.
He was already an outcast among his own kind since the incident with Grendelwald, and had never been considerable influential before that. In fact on the ladder of the social hierarchy he was placed nearer to be bottom. Vampire social structure was bases solely on one's physical power. Should he ever enter a combat situation with another vampire he would most likely lose before it really began. Though he was two millennium in age, physically, by their standards, he should only be just over eighteen hundred years.
And what had he been doing the entire time? Hanging around wizarding communities and developing a taste for research. He hadn't lied when he told Harry he studied humans. He found them more interesting than any other species. And he had a good amount of knowledge on those, both magical and non. His most amusing undertaking had been to classify magical specimens by the Muggle ranking of identification. To say the least, it had proven time consuming, but in the end paid off. Wizards now had a systematic way to look up various beasts.
What he was still working on was an explanation as to why wizards could only transform into non magical creatures and why vampires transformed into unknown varieties of the same types of animals. That in itself was a mystery. His assumption was that wizards did not have enough extra magical energy to form a magical creature. The best they could do was make their animangus form slightly more perfect than a normal beast. Which in part explained why vampires created unique patterns of identification. He didn't know why he had set the girl, Hermione, on the track to figuring that out, but it was started now.
The drawback to doing research was he didn't develop the physical skills to compete with older vampires. Not that there was much competition between them. They were quite capable of living alone or on a commune, but hunting was always done alone. They could survive alone, but they much preferred social living. And Irvan missed that.
He spent the better part of the twenty years since he met Severus hiding out and isolating himself from any level of civilization. Why? Because he felt wholly inadequate being the only survivor of unicorn blood. True he had been the only one who was given the opportunity for survival since the last one over three thousand years ago when the so called legend was born. All the others had been force feed the liquid and left to die. He wondered if they would have done the same if given the opportunity. Survival instincts were exceptionally strong among vampires.
There was one thing he was proud of that help alleviate some of the isolation. He had gain immense control over his mental and chemical faculties. More so than most of the vampiric race. At the mere age of a thousand he had figured out how to prevent accidental turnings. He suspected being born a vampire had helped. One of the few countable vampire form birth. Other advances he learned included drawing foreign bodies from others. For a vampire removing toxins it was instinct. Guarding dreams was another. Figuring out where the dreams centered and knowledge of how to control the mind activating chemicals made that possible.
He had done similar to Harry. He had simply occupied that area and pushed the other out, effectively blocking the stimulus. If only he could figure out how Voldemort was sending the images. He knew it had nothing to do with the way he was familiar with, which meant he had to study the phenomena in more detail. Next, though probably in conjunction with, he needed to know how Voldemort was killing Harry. He did not doubt who was behind it. He knew what was happening but not how. And being a student of research, the unsolved questions annoyed him.
* * * * * * * *
"What are you doing here?" Severus asked the shadowed figure poised before the fireplace.
"To make a complaint," Irvan said without moving a muscle. Suffice it to say that action rankled his nerves.
"It took you this long to do so," he sneered. This should be interesting.
"First of all," the vampire said slowly, informing Severus that he was in complete control of his emotions and actions. The voice however rose and fell in cadence with annoyance. "While I agreed to watch the boy, there was no mention of surviving against lunatic cats." Severus was hard press to suppress a mocking laugh. "I swear that thing knows an animangus on sight. It went bloody crazy trying to kill me. The second issue that was not part of the deal was those twins. Never before have I seen such reckless experimentations." Severus made a mental note to inquire as too the nature of the experiments, though he suspected the results to be produced as part of their lab work. "Furthermore, while I have no objections to listening to Harry's lamentations on unsolicited guilt, I find it tedious to have an undesired direct link to the workings of his mind. Unlike you, he does not know how to curb his thoughts."
"And here I was beginning to think you liked the boy."
"That has no relation to disliking having the boy in my head day in and day out."
"And what, pray tell, does he think about during the day?" He didn't know why he asked the question, but it did put an amusing expression on the vampire's face.
"Trust me, you don't want to know."
"So how did this link come into existence?"
"I honestly don't know. Though with thinking things over, I am certain it is a consequence of interfering with his connection to Voldemort. The same areas of the brain are affected when I block the stream of images as when he sends them. However I do not understand how we have formed this means of communication. I have only formed physic links intentionally."
"This proves to be an interesting set up. I suppose it has its uses."
"Uses," Irvan repeated disgusted. "Try telling me about uses when he gets stuck in your head."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, it is entirely plausible that should I loose control of the separation, you and Harry would be able to have a wonderful conversation about your mutual discontent, over a good distance."
Severus stood, shocked for the moment. That certainly had not been his first consideration, nor had it been of any consideration. The mere thought of the possibility of communicate more than he dictated was appalling. He focused his attention back on Irvan, who had a well developed smirk on his face. "You are bloody well enjoying this."
"Quite. It's not everyday I find an opportunity to probe your spot of fury." Damn vampire. "There is another thing I should bring to your attention," he continued seriously. "I am beginning to believe that Voldemort has figured out a way to knowingly use their connection to weaken Harry, and now I think he knows that something has interfered with that process. I don't, however, believe he is aware that Harry can view his actions when he does so. "
"And how do you know this?"
"Mainly I can feel him trying to draw energy and when he doesn't succeed he gets mad. It is an interesting cycle."
"Only you would find that interesting."
"Perhaps."
"Any close encounters?"
"If you mean with Voldemort, no. I have managed to intercept all of those encounters. If you mean with Harry, yes. Trying to keep my identity hidden is difficult enough without Harry popping in and catching me off guard."
"That must be a first."
"No it isn't. You manage to do so repeatedly," Irvan mentioned glumly as though he was disappointed in the revelation. "What I meant was I have let slip several statements that should have given me away if he suspected anything."
"Fortunately, Potter isn't the most observant of children."
"A little unnecessarily cruel, aren't you?"
"When it's a statement of fact, I don't consider it cruel." Irvan just shrugged his indifference. "So why did you come down here in the first place?"
"A chance at a intelligent conversation?"
"Is the great Harry Potter not a great conversationalist as well?"
"He is a child. And while he is more mature than a child of his age should be, he does not have the necessary knowledge to carry on a higher level conversation."
"Pity. At least it is known the boy can't do everything."
"I never realized you despised him," Irvan commented as he sat across from Severus on a stiff leather wing back.
"Despise is a bit strong. Dislike is more suiting. The boy is annoying and the mere fact that he is popularized by the public is enough to make me sick. If you think my treatment of him is unjustified, go join the rest of the staff in coddling the boy. If he's going to save the world as they predict, then he might as well get use to the fact that there is more out there then friends."
"And who would have thought you would be the one to point that out and protect him at the same time. A bit of a paradox."
"Oh, do shut up. I don't care what you see in it; it doesn't change the fact that the boy is a nuisance and a danger to himself and others. If he wants to get himself killed before hand, far be it from me to stop him. And if it weren't for Dumbledore, I would leave him be."
"Bold claim. you still haven't told me how you wound up under Dumbledore's supervision."
"And you still haven't told me what you were doing to get caught by Malfoy." Snape smirked as Irvan shifted uncomfortably under the accusation. If either was going to get information of that type then they would have to go first. Neither would do so and thus it became a stalemate.
Chapter 10
__________________________
The Platform 9 3/4 was crowded as expected for the return of the students. Harry walk beside his friends pushing his trolly, thinking on how this year might be filled with unasked for excitement. Four years without fail. It was the sort of thing that occurred in stories. And he was far form those. He just wanted a normal life. Something that had nothing no do with anything related to stories. He just wanted to read about the adventures of others.
"If anything," Ron was saying, "We haven't met Malfoy yet. Maybe we won't have have to deal with him for awhile."
"That's unusual for you, Ron," Hermione said from the other side of the Weasley. "I always thought you looked forward to your run ends with him." Harry looked up and saw confusion grace Ron's face. It wasn't a stranger to that visage, practically any attempt Hermione made at a joke resulted in confusion or anger. Mainly confusion. And Harry thought she was doing it on purpose. "So Harry, you've been awfully quiet today."
"Just thinking about the school year," he shrugged. * I really should have dropped Divinations. *
* And what is wrong with that class. * Harry started slightly. He hadn't expected Evan to respond. Of course it would take more than one day to get use to having a voice in your head.
* All Trelawney does is predict my death. And every year it comes very close, but not in any way she predicted. Besides it is a useless class. *
* Suit yourself. * Evan shifted position slightly on his shoulder. The spider had blatantly told him that he would not go into that cage on pain of pain.
"Come on, let's find ourselves a compartment," Ron said mounting the steps to the train.
"I don't think I have ever seen him this excited about school before," Harry commented. "Do you think he knows something we don't?"
"I doubt it. But who knows, he might have gained an interest in studying," Hermione said this in all seriousness and managed to keep the face for a good ten seconds before succumbing to the hilarity of the statement.
* Well at least she is not all books. * Evan mentioned.
* What? *
* I said she isn't all books. *
* I heard that, but what do you mean? *
* Have you no sense of being? Hermione may appear to be only book knowledge, and might be, but unlike others who know only books, she has a personality. *
* And how can you make such a judgment? *
* I have studied humans extensively. *
* How? *
* You didn't think Hagrid found me in the wild, did you? *
* Well no, but why? *
* They are the most constantly unpredictable species in existence. Why wouldn't I study them? *
* I don't know. I guess I just find it strange. *
* Of course you would. Humans don't consider the idea that they could be studied by another creature. But you studying other species is not considered unusual at all. *
* How long have you been doing this? *
* I'm not sure. *
"Hey Harry!" a voice interrupted his thoughts. Turning around he saw two identical redheads heading in his direction. "Where are you and Ron sitting?"
"Somewhere up ahead. I think Hermione went to make sure our luggage got on the car."
"Good. we wanted to ask you something before the others get here," Fred whispered.
"Particularly about the investment."
"I already told you I want to be anonymous."
"Oh no, not about that," George reassured him. "We wanted to ask you about some certain products."
"Actually we wanted to give you some samples. Here," Fred handed him an unmarked box. "Let us know what you think. We thought about giving them to you with the others but after some considering. . ."
"We figured you might want to keep something for Ron," George concluded.
"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Is there anything you've already used on Ron?"
"Nope."
"We're going to give you a second box with those."
"Which reminds us . . ."
"We still have Ron's before the term gift."
"Come on. You don't want to miss his face when he sees it."
"Shocked won't be the word for it."
And so they barged into the cabin that Ron had secured. The redheaded boy was sitting across form his sister reading a Qudditch magazine. He looked up at the noise his older brothers made. "What took you so long?"
"Ran in to these two," Harry responded, gesturing to the mirror images. He then noticed Hermione with her noise stuck in the Herman Tudunk book. "Find anything interesting, 'Mione?"
"Plenty, but not what I want," she answered closing the book. "So what are the twins up to?"
"That is for us to know--"
"And you to find out. Shall we?"
"Sure thing," George answered digging into a rucksack. "Let's see, this one's Hermione's." Fred took the parcel from his twin. "Ron's, Harry's, and Ginny's."
The four of them look blankly at their presents, all wondering what the prankster duo had in mind. "Aren't you gonna open them?" Fred pushed. "We promise they don't bit."
"That's not what I'm worried about," Ginny answered. "I'm worried about them sprouting legs and running amuck."
"Nonsense, they don't do that-- Wait," George paused unexpectedly. "No," he continued hurriedly, "they don't."
"Ok, now I'm worried about what they will do," Ron mumbled.
"Well, I'm more curious than anything else," Harry said pulling the paper off the box. Upon opening it, he found a note, "Courtesy of Weasley's Wizard's Wheezes, we present to you a collection of the first products ever to come off the line," he read aloud. "So I take it you want me to use them and inform everyone they're from you?"
"Naturally," they said in unison.
"Not a problem. Sounds like fun actually."
"A pot of ink? Really, I know the two of you can be more creative than that," Hermione had opened hers and was holding a small black inkwell in the palm of her hand.
"Not just any pot of ink," Fred began in a voice that reminded Harry of an announce on an infomercial. "Tell them George. It was you idea."
"Use it with Quick Quotes and you can make the Quotes outrageous or use it with a normal quill and the words you write morph into insults, false statements, and other useless phrases."
"Why would I want this?"
"We didn't think you would use it, but it was the most appropriate thing we had."
"Then can you tell me what these are?" Ginny asked holding up a metallic looking dragonfly and resting in her lap were similar creatures: a dragon, a frog, a ladybug, and a unicorn.
"Those we had to get some help with. Basically they were modeled after Muggle windup toys. There's a key in there as well. There are similar products out there, but not at all resembling Muggle toys."
"To work them," Fred continued, "You wind the key in the hole provided, which engages the little gears and makes the wings and such move. But there are spells involved that make them do tricks and stuff and make them look real."
"We thought it would be fun to have Muggle-like toys instead of those that work entirely on magic."
"So they are not pranks?"
"No, no, of course not."
"We realize there are some people who don't want to buy jokes, so we decided to add novelty items to our stock."
"Well Ron, are you going to open yours?"
"I'm still expecting something to jump out at me," he mumbled, but did begin to unwrap the gift. He pulled out bright, pumpkin orange cloth and said, "What is this?"
"That is your new dress robe." Ron's mouth dropped open as he looked thoroughly flabbergasted. "Try it on," George encouraged.
"It's orange."
"I believe Madam Malkin said it was the latest style."
"It's orange."
"It's made of velvet."
"It's orange."
"And your point?"
"It's orange."
"Try it on."
"It's-"
"Ron, we can see the color. At least try it on. It's not that difficult to change the color, unlike your experience with the cutting charms," Ginny said, trying to hide her giggles. Reluctantly Ron stood and put the brilliantly colored robe on over his school clothes, just to make everyone happy. The robe style itself was quite good looking, he decided, if only it wasn't orange. As her wore the robe the color changed drastically. Now it was a deep navy blue, appropriate for formal wear.
"That was unnecessarily cruel," he accused his brothers, who had left in fits of laughter as the robe changed.
* * * * * * * *
Irvan disappear shortly after arriving, having no desire to wait around for the end of the commencement feast. He decided on making the journey down to Severus's chambers and look at the new books that were mentioned earlier. He had not taken the time to read the titles last time he was there and thought it would be productive to do so now. It would also give him time to consider the new telepathic link that had been established with Harry.
In his experience only the vampire could create and maintain the link, though it was possible for the recipient to control his end. It was quite unusual for a vampire to have telepathy with humans and Irvan now had two.
He was already an outcast among his own kind since the incident with Grendelwald, and had never been considerable influential before that. In fact on the ladder of the social hierarchy he was placed nearer to be bottom. Vampire social structure was bases solely on one's physical power. Should he ever enter a combat situation with another vampire he would most likely lose before it really began. Though he was two millennium in age, physically, by their standards, he should only be just over eighteen hundred years.
And what had he been doing the entire time? Hanging around wizarding communities and developing a taste for research. He hadn't lied when he told Harry he studied humans. He found them more interesting than any other species. And he had a good amount of knowledge on those, both magical and non. His most amusing undertaking had been to classify magical specimens by the Muggle ranking of identification. To say the least, it had proven time consuming, but in the end paid off. Wizards now had a systematic way to look up various beasts.
What he was still working on was an explanation as to why wizards could only transform into non magical creatures and why vampires transformed into unknown varieties of the same types of animals. That in itself was a mystery. His assumption was that wizards did not have enough extra magical energy to form a magical creature. The best they could do was make their animangus form slightly more perfect than a normal beast. Which in part explained why vampires created unique patterns of identification. He didn't know why he had set the girl, Hermione, on the track to figuring that out, but it was started now.
The drawback to doing research was he didn't develop the physical skills to compete with older vampires. Not that there was much competition between them. They were quite capable of living alone or on a commune, but hunting was always done alone. They could survive alone, but they much preferred social living. And Irvan missed that.
He spent the better part of the twenty years since he met Severus hiding out and isolating himself from any level of civilization. Why? Because he felt wholly inadequate being the only survivor of unicorn blood. True he had been the only one who was given the opportunity for survival since the last one over three thousand years ago when the so called legend was born. All the others had been force feed the liquid and left to die. He wondered if they would have done the same if given the opportunity. Survival instincts were exceptionally strong among vampires.
There was one thing he was proud of that help alleviate some of the isolation. He had gain immense control over his mental and chemical faculties. More so than most of the vampiric race. At the mere age of a thousand he had figured out how to prevent accidental turnings. He suspected being born a vampire had helped. One of the few countable vampire form birth. Other advances he learned included drawing foreign bodies from others. For a vampire removing toxins it was instinct. Guarding dreams was another. Figuring out where the dreams centered and knowledge of how to control the mind activating chemicals made that possible.
He had done similar to Harry. He had simply occupied that area and pushed the other out, effectively blocking the stimulus. If only he could figure out how Voldemort was sending the images. He knew it had nothing to do with the way he was familiar with, which meant he had to study the phenomena in more detail. Next, though probably in conjunction with, he needed to know how Voldemort was killing Harry. He did not doubt who was behind it. He knew what was happening but not how. And being a student of research, the unsolved questions annoyed him.
* * * * * * * *
"What are you doing here?" Severus asked the shadowed figure poised before the fireplace.
"To make a complaint," Irvan said without moving a muscle. Suffice it to say that action rankled his nerves.
"It took you this long to do so," he sneered. This should be interesting.
"First of all," the vampire said slowly, informing Severus that he was in complete control of his emotions and actions. The voice however rose and fell in cadence with annoyance. "While I agreed to watch the boy, there was no mention of surviving against lunatic cats." Severus was hard press to suppress a mocking laugh. "I swear that thing knows an animangus on sight. It went bloody crazy trying to kill me. The second issue that was not part of the deal was those twins. Never before have I seen such reckless experimentations." Severus made a mental note to inquire as too the nature of the experiments, though he suspected the results to be produced as part of their lab work. "Furthermore, while I have no objections to listening to Harry's lamentations on unsolicited guilt, I find it tedious to have an undesired direct link to the workings of his mind. Unlike you, he does not know how to curb his thoughts."
"And here I was beginning to think you liked the boy."
"That has no relation to disliking having the boy in my head day in and day out."
"And what, pray tell, does he think about during the day?" He didn't know why he asked the question, but it did put an amusing expression on the vampire's face.
"Trust me, you don't want to know."
"So how did this link come into existence?"
"I honestly don't know. Though with thinking things over, I am certain it is a consequence of interfering with his connection to Voldemort. The same areas of the brain are affected when I block the stream of images as when he sends them. However I do not understand how we have formed this means of communication. I have only formed physic links intentionally."
"This proves to be an interesting set up. I suppose it has its uses."
"Uses," Irvan repeated disgusted. "Try telling me about uses when he gets stuck in your head."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, it is entirely plausible that should I loose control of the separation, you and Harry would be able to have a wonderful conversation about your mutual discontent, over a good distance."
Severus stood, shocked for the moment. That certainly had not been his first consideration, nor had it been of any consideration. The mere thought of the possibility of communicate more than he dictated was appalling. He focused his attention back on Irvan, who had a well developed smirk on his face. "You are bloody well enjoying this."
"Quite. It's not everyday I find an opportunity to probe your spot of fury." Damn vampire. "There is another thing I should bring to your attention," he continued seriously. "I am beginning to believe that Voldemort has figured out a way to knowingly use their connection to weaken Harry, and now I think he knows that something has interfered with that process. I don't, however, believe he is aware that Harry can view his actions when he does so. "
"And how do you know this?"
"Mainly I can feel him trying to draw energy and when he doesn't succeed he gets mad. It is an interesting cycle."
"Only you would find that interesting."
"Perhaps."
"Any close encounters?"
"If you mean with Voldemort, no. I have managed to intercept all of those encounters. If you mean with Harry, yes. Trying to keep my identity hidden is difficult enough without Harry popping in and catching me off guard."
"That must be a first."
"No it isn't. You manage to do so repeatedly," Irvan mentioned glumly as though he was disappointed in the revelation. "What I meant was I have let slip several statements that should have given me away if he suspected anything."
"Fortunately, Potter isn't the most observant of children."
"A little unnecessarily cruel, aren't you?"
"When it's a statement of fact, I don't consider it cruel." Irvan just shrugged his indifference. "So why did you come down here in the first place?"
"A chance at a intelligent conversation?"
"Is the great Harry Potter not a great conversationalist as well?"
"He is a child. And while he is more mature than a child of his age should be, he does not have the necessary knowledge to carry on a higher level conversation."
"Pity. At least it is known the boy can't do everything."
"I never realized you despised him," Irvan commented as he sat across from Severus on a stiff leather wing back.
"Despise is a bit strong. Dislike is more suiting. The boy is annoying and the mere fact that he is popularized by the public is enough to make me sick. If you think my treatment of him is unjustified, go join the rest of the staff in coddling the boy. If he's going to save the world as they predict, then he might as well get use to the fact that there is more out there then friends."
"And who would have thought you would be the one to point that out and protect him at the same time. A bit of a paradox."
"Oh, do shut up. I don't care what you see in it; it doesn't change the fact that the boy is a nuisance and a danger to himself and others. If he wants to get himself killed before hand, far be it from me to stop him. And if it weren't for Dumbledore, I would leave him be."
"Bold claim. you still haven't told me how you wound up under Dumbledore's supervision."
"And you still haven't told me what you were doing to get caught by Malfoy." Snape smirked as Irvan shifted uncomfortably under the accusation. If either was going to get information of that type then they would have to go first. Neither would do so and thus it became a stalemate.