Chapter 36

Severus groaned, got up and followed the deatheater out of the room. They reached the dining room, of the size of a quidditch pitch, a few minutes later. The dark oak furniture sparkled in the candle light and the fire in the fireplace gave the room almost a friendly atmosphere.

However the 6 vampires at the table made him shiver, but he walked up, gave the vampire prince at the top a courteous nod and sat down at the very end of the table. The deatheater was a lot more comfortable with their gloomy hosts and sat down next to a dark-haired vampire, named Ivan.

"So did your master finally agree to our demands?" Prince Gregorius asked Malfoy with a sinister voice.

"My master has agreed that you and your friends make your pick among the students after you have delivered Harry Potter to him or one of us" the blond wizard answered, almost humble.

"And what about the rest? Will he take the ban off, the ministry has placed on us?" the vampire next to Malfoy spoke up.

"Our master has informed me that you will be allowed to walk around freely as soon as he has taken over the wizarding world. The ministry will not exist anymore and so all the degrees will be abrogated." Malfoy assured.

Severus hands were sweating slightly. If the Dark Lord succeeds, this will mean the end of the world they knew. He would set all the monsters free, which were under control of the ministry by now. Since the vampire ban went into effect, the attacks of these soulless creatures had been limited to a minimum. This all would have been in vain and nobody would be safe anymore.

"Our Master awaits you and your retinue middle of November. Everything will be prepared for your arrival and the Dark Lord will discuss the detailed plans with you then" Malfoy exclaimed courteously.

"Let's provide our guests with a delicious meal" the Prince said, sounding chuffed at the completion. He picked up a silver bell and rang it. The door opened and a young girl, Severus guessed maybe 17 years of age, with waist-long reddish blond hair entered. She was wearing a dark blue silk dress, which emphasized her curvy figure and her skin was so light and spotless that she looked like a Roman statue.

"Celeste, bring something to eat for our guests. Move it!" Prince Gregorius growled, baring his fangs at the young woman. Severus had never seen her before, normally the meals had already been served and the servants of these wretched vampires never showed their faces. The girl turned around without saying a word. The way she moved was very graceful and it seemed that her feet didn't even touch the ground when she walked past the table towards a door to the left. She stretched out one of her alabaster white hands and the door opened automatically. Severus glared at the beautiful woman in awe.

She performs wandless magic, he thought. He knew that he had to free this woman, who obviously wasn't a vampire, from her slave-drivers, although he had no idea how he'd do that. He couldn't disapparate nor could he get out of here without Malfoy finding out about it.

A few minutes later, the door opened again and Celeste came back with several trays of food floating behind her. With a wave of her hand, the door of a little drawer next to the table opened and plates, glasses, forks, knives and napkins settled neatly on the table in front of the two wizards. Then Celeste pointed at the table and the food trays placed themselves next to the huge candlestick, which was placed in the middle of the table. Severus just glared at the young witch, very impressed of what she could do without a wand. Last but not least, she snapped her fingers and the cork popped out of the wine bottle.

Without a word she turned around and left the room, while Lucius Malfoy laughed and clapped while she did so. "Very impressing my friend. Where did you get hold of this talented creature? And by the way is she a mute?" Malfoy sneered.

The Prince didn't answer, but Ivan turned towards Malfoy and said "Celeste is the daughter of one of the Prince' tenants. Her father is the innkeeper Maldinadow."

"I bet she's also useful in other regards" Malfoy grinned maliciously. Snape shuddered by the mere thought what these creatures could do to this girl and almost lost his appetite. Despite of the disgust he was feeling right now, he forced himself to eat. If he wanted to get out of this nightmare alive he needed all his strength.

"What are you looking for Kayla" Hermione asked, when they met in the library. The girls walked over to the strict librarian and handed over their permission. Although they had presented the same permission a couple of times before, Madam Pince kept scrutinizing it. Hermione rolled her eyes when she took the note back and put it in her bag.

"I'm thought about adding some protection on the tower" Kayla whispered as they made their way to the restricted section.

"I would have never thought this would be necessary one day" her friend sighed.

"It's really frightening that this woman could so easily get into our common room" Kayla replied.

"I'd like to know, why the Fat Lady left her portrait. The dark mark couldn't have been the reason. According to Fred and George, it wasn't there when they came to the portrait." Hermione stated. "You're right about that Mione. We should tell Professor Lupin about it, maybe he can ask her. But I really doubt anybody would get around Perseus that easy"

The girls walked from aisle through aisle, combing through the shelves. "Mione come here" Kayla called and after a threatening glance of the librarian she whispered "I think I found something" Hermione walked over to her friend and looked at the charm Kayla was pointing at. "Oh" was her only answer.

They took the book to a table and Kayla seized parchment, quill and ink and started to copy the instructions. Hermione read the paragraph about this spell over and over again and shook her head slightly. "How do you think we're going to find 5 virgins willing to perform a blood circle? This sounds straight like dark arts."

"I know but it isn't. I'm sure we can find 5 more girls.... Hogwarts is full of girls. Ginny will help us I'm sure and maybe she knows somebody we could ask" Kayla insisted.

Kelsey, Harry and Ron were sitting in the common room, working on their potions homework. "I hope Snape never comes back" Ron cheered "Professor Wells is so much cooler. Sometimes she seems a little confused, but she knows her cauldron"

Harry and Kelsey burst out laughing. "I doubt everybody thinks about Snape like that" Harry said. He remembered very well the hungry glances Kalliope, one of the Slytherin chasers, were giving Snape every time she saw him.

"By the way, where are the girls?" Kelsey asked his friends. Ron and Harry rolled their eyes. "You really need to ask? Before Kayla joined us I thought Hermione was the only one who's crazy enough to spend all her time in the library. Someone above must really hate us to send us just another bookworm" Ron sighed.

Ginny was totally excited about their friends' plan and was more than willing to join in the circle. She didn't know who else she could ask from the Gryffindors. In her class, the girls most likely would be too afraid of a ritual where blood was involved and most of them still didn't consider the threat so severe. So Kayla had suggested Zara; during their advanced potion classes, the girls had become friends and the pretty Gryffindor knew Zara was fully aware of the danger they all were in. Maybe Zara had an idea, who would be willing to help.

During advanced potions the mahogany-haired girl asked the Ravenclaw what she thought about their idea. "How much blood would we be going to need?" Zara whispered, her face turning slightly green by the mere thought of spilling blood.

"Not much Zara believe me. Don't you chicken out now! We are in this together, we are all in danger. If we could get a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin to join us we could protect all the houses." Kayla said all excitedly.

"You're not going to tell me you want to put a Slytherin in this, are you?" Zara hissed.

"I doubt a Slytherin would even talk to us. They hate me anyway after what happened to Malfoy in class." Kayla sighed. "But it would be so much better if we all could work on this together. Their HAS to be at least one decent girl in this whole crowd."

"And she has to be a virgin to top it." Zara giggled. "I would eat my firebolt down to the last twig to see you asking Pansy Parkinson if she's a virgin"

"Who said anything about Pansy Parkinson? I have somebody else in mind..." Kayla's voice trailed off when she was trying to come up with a good strategy.

Unfortunately it was harder to get a hold of that Slytherin than Kayla thought. She stayed in the Great Hall after dinner and tried to follow a group of Slytherin girls down to their common room in the dungeons. The one she was looking for had just knelt down to tie her shoe when Kayla came around a corner. "Yes... that's my chance" she said to herself and walked up to the 7th year.

"Kalliope, may I ask you something?" she said shyly and looked at the pretty Grecian.

"And what would that be?" Kalliope replied curiously. She looked pitifully at the younger Gryffindor, who seemed to not to be very comfortable.

"I'd rather discuss this somewhere else." The 7th year Slytherin didn't know what to think about it, but she decided to follow her out of mere curiosity. Unlike her other housemates, she didn't hate the Gryffindors as long as they left her alone and she didn't mind that Malfoy got what he deserved. As a matter of fact, he had been calling for it since he set a foot in this castle.

"Where are we going?" Kalliope asked impatiently when they passed the Great Hall and walked into the entrance hall.

"To the lake" Kayla explained. "We're going to meet some more students. We have a plan to increase the protection of the school." The Slytherin shook her head in disbelieve. In her point of view, the school was protected enough, but she thought it wouldn't hurt to listen what the Gryffindor had to say.

When they arrived at the lake Ginny and Hermione were already there together with, what Kayla assumed, was a girl from Hufflepuff. Her fellow Gryffindors glared at her, obviously amazed how Kayla had managed to get a hold of a Slytherin.

"Hello everybody, this is Kalliope" Kayla introduced the slender Grecian. Kalliope wondered about the reason of this secret meeting, but managed a smile.

At this moment Zara came running across the lawn, together with a blond girl. "Hey this is Amber, she also a 5th year Ravenclaw" Zara was panting, when the reached the little group.

"Ok what are we here for? Anybody care to explain?" Kalliope said, looking around at the other girls.

"Kayla and I decided that it wouldn't hurt to check on some other protection measures. So we went to the library and found a very...erm... let's say...unusual, but effective, ritual. First of all I'd like to ask who of you is interested in protecting their friends." Hermione asked. Jozlyn, the Hufflepuff girl, looked from Ginny to Hermione, her brown curls bouncing around her tanned face and said "Ginny asked me today if I wanted to help, so that what happened in Gryffindor tower won't happen again, and I already said I would do everything in my power"

"Amber wants to help us too" Zara exclaimed and the other Ravenclaw nodded forcefully.

"So what's about you? Are you going to help us to protect all four houses?" Kayla looked at Kalliope with a questioning look on her face.

"First I want to know what kind of ritual this is, before I give you an answer" the Slytherin said coolly.

"The blood circle requires 7 virgins, who have to give their blood to .."

"Hold on here... BLOOD? ... No way... I'm not giving a single drop... I can't see blood" Jozlyn gasped, turning a little grey.

"Don't be such a mollycoddle." Kalliope sneered. "How much blood are we taking about?"

"We need a drop for every element... fire, water, air and earth" Hermione explained. "Nobody is going to bleed to death."

"Oh ok... If I won't look, I guess I can manage it" the curly-head whispered anxiously.

"So can you tell me what else I might get myself into?" Kalliope asked coolly. "Yes I want to know too" Amber added quietly.

The Grecian beauty looked at Hermione, tapping her foot impatiently with her arms folded in front of her chest. Kayla cleared her throat and started to explain. "In order to protect them, we have to give our blood for our family, and in this case the house is our family. The sacrifice we're going to make will appease the elements and they will protect us."

"So you're saying we're going to invoke the protection of the elements and to seal the deal we're going to give our blood" Amber stated.

"Simplified but correct" Hermione confirmed.