I feel awful for making you wait so long! Anyway, I'll really try to post more. I'll mostly post on week-ends because I don't really have the time during the week. (8:00am to 18:00pm...with around an hour of bus)

I really wanted to start with Drannor's body and all, but a scene came to my mind and it just kept getting bigger. I'm sorry if this chapter is kinda boring. I'll try to do better next time! :D

*~*~*The Blood Clan and the Marauders*~*~*

Chapter 6: Dysfunctional family

When James, Sirius, Peter, Lily and Lizzie were finished eating, they decided to go get their things so they could have some time to study before the class started. By the time they were leaving their common room, Lizzie had stopped thinking about the Marisa and her father. Remus had also stopped thinking about the preceding night, finally convinced that he didn't hurt anybody.

While on their way to the dungeons, they crossed Snape, Malfoy, Narcissa and some younger Slytherin students. As they passed near them Lily gave her boyfriend a warning look, but he and Sirius didn't even see their arch enemies. Snape saw them, though, and had no intention of letting them pass without saying or doing something.

"Rough night, Lupin?" he asked with a grin.

Remus look at him, and then down at the floor, still walking. James, Peter, Sirius and Lily glared at him while Lizzie wondered what he could mean or how he could know Remus' secret.

"Shut up, Snape!" James warned him dangerously.

"Yeah. You wouldn't want your friends to know what happened a certain full moon night." Sirius said, looking at James sideways.

The group of Gryffindor stopped, to Lily's despair, and turned towards the Slytherins.

"Talking about that," a 6th year Slytherin with pitch black hair said, "I've never congratulated you for what you did. Sure, I don't have the details, but I know enough, bro!"

Sirius looked at the boy in a very annoyed way. His mere presence seemed to make him angry.

"What are you saying, Regulus?" Sirius asked with a warning tone.

"I would never have done thought of something like using one of my best friends like that. Mother and father would be proud of you. You know, I think deep inside, you're the best Black still alive! The one with the coldest heart." the Slytherin answered with a huge mocking smile.

Sirius' glare became murderous and even Lizzie, who was used to live around evil creatures, thought he looked pretty scary. He looked like he was going to kill the boy.

"Their mother and father?" Lizzie thought, "They're related?"

"Shut your f*ck
ing mouth?" Sirius exclaimed, almost screaming.

"That's the best you can do, Sirius? No smart replies?" Narcissa asked the oldest of her two cousins.

"If you don't want to end up with a face as ugly as your boyfriend's, you better shut up!" Peter told her.

She looked at him with a superior look and almost laughed in his face. She decided he wasn't worth replying and looked at her cousins instead.

"I think that if you pull another trick like that one, you'd be a real Black. You're so close now!" Regulus said, not looking to scared of his older brother.

Without any warning, Sirius punched him right in the face and there was a cracking sound. Regulus let out a cry of pain and held his hands up to his face. Every student in the corridor was now looking at them.

Regulus took a stepped back and wiped some of the blood that was coming out of his nose. He look slightly uncertain and somewhat scared of Sirius. His fellow Slytherins, beside Narcissa Snape and Malfoy, didn't move an inch to help him. James, Peter and Remus gathered around Sirius.

"ENOUGH!" Lily yelled, stepping between the two gangs, which were getting ready to fight it out.

Lizzie admired Lily for it. She loved this pacific, yet firm and commanding attitude that Lily had. She, herself, easily turned to violence as an answer. She often blamed it on her vampire side, but she knew it was just a lame excuse not to improve herself. She stepped beside Lily for support, even though she'd like to see her friends kick some Slytherin asses.

"It'll just bring more trouble to everybody than anything else." Lily added.

"Shut your damn mouth and move, mudblood!" Malfoy told her.

"No. I won't."

"Then don't." Regulus exclaimed before he punched her in the face.

The teenage girl fell backwards and Sirius, who was the closest, caught her. This was the only thing that kept him from reacting. As for James, he moved towards her, but Snape stepped in his way. Lizzie, however, was just beside Regulus.

"LILY!" she yelled, looking at her friend, in Sirius' arms.

She turned around and glared evilly at Regulus in a manner that was as scary as Sirius had been moments ago.

"You'll pay for that." she told the Slytherin, in a very growl-like voice.

She punched him right in the stomach and he bent forward, out of breath. Not letting him any time to recuperate, she grabbed him by his robes and brought his face inches from her own.

"If you ever dare to hit an unsuspecting, unarmed girl when I'm around, you'll regret it for the rest of your pathetic little life! Is that clear, troll's shit?" she whispered to him.

"C-Crystal clear."

"Good. Don't forget it." she said, before pushing him away.

He fell backwards, on Narcissa. The girl shoved him aside, looking very annoyed by him.

"Let's go." Remus told his friends while giving Lizzie a weird look.

"No way!" Malfoy exclaimed. "You're not..."

He was interrupted by someone who put a hand on his mouth from behind him. The person removed the hand and stepped beside him. It was Miranda.

"You'll just get in trouble and beaten up. Let them go." she said to Malfoy.

She looked at the Gryffindors, while the students who had been watching started to go on with whatever they were doing before. She saw Lily, who was now standing between James and Sirius. It seemed she would likely have a black-eye. Miranda smiled at the thought. Then she turned her gaze to Regulus, who was trying to wipe some of the blood that came out if his nose off his face.

"You should learn to pick your fights better house-elf's brain." she told him, chuckling.

"Bitch!" he simply replied, his voice filled with hatred.

Regulus was hit for the third time in a very small amount of time. Miranda hit him with her palm right on his already hurt nose. The boy cried out in pain as blood began to flow from his nose once more.

"Insult me again and you'll wish your f*cking nose what the only bloody part of your body that hurt!" she warned him.

James, Peter, Remus, Lily and Lizzie began to walk away, but Sirius stopped and turned around.

"I was wondering, bro, do your friends know that you're scared to death by slugs? Because that would be so embarrassing." he asked in a friendly manner.

The Slytherins, besides Sirius' brother himself, began to laugh. Regulus' face was getting a bright shade of red. Sirius, proud of the effect he had, turned back and walked away with his friends, who were waiting for him, also laughing.

"Is he really scared of slugs?" Lily asked.

"Sirius told me that he put some in his dinner when they were little." Remus answered, smiling.

"Hey, Remus, about...you know, that night..."Sirius began to say very seriously and slightly uncomfortable.

"No need to say anything, Padfoot. It's a thing of the past." Remus cut him.

Sirius nodded, but he still seemed a little down. Lily touched her face where she had been punched and winced.

"Are you ok?" James asked her, concerned.

"Yes, but I think I'll have a black-eye or something." she replied.

"Put some ice on it. It works pretty well. I know by experience." Sirius offered.

"Thanks, but I don't have any." Lily told him.

"You're a witch, Lil'. Think like one." Sirius told her, taking his wand out of his robes.

"Glacios" he said, pointing his wand towards his free hand, which he held up in front of him.

A small piece of ice appeared in his hand.

"Now we just have to find something to put it in." he said, making a face from the cold sensation in his hand.

Remus took a small bag out and emptied it from the few galleons that were in it. He put them in one of his pockets and held the bag in front of Sirius, who let the ice fall in it. He closed it and then he gave it to Lily, who thanked him.

"You're a genius, Moony." Peter said.

*~ A little while later ~*

Lily held the ice on her eye while she walked hand in hand with James. The boy kept saying the Regulus would pay for what he did to her. Sirius was on the other side and did the same, but in a more imaged manner. Peter, Remus and Lizzie were following closely behind.

"I swear I'll beat him up to a bloody pulp!" James exclaimed, punching the air with his free hand as if Regulus was in front of him.

"There's no need, James." Lily told him, chuckling a little.

"Of course there is!" the teenager replied. "He hit you and you hadn't even provoqued him."

"I did." his girlfriend argued.

"Whatever." Sirius said, waving his hand as to dismiss her argument. "He deserves a good beating even if you did. He always does."

Lizzie, overhearing the conversation, quickened her pace and caught up with them.

"Lily's right, guys."

"Look who's talking." James replied with a grin.

"Well it's HIS brother, not mine...He is your brother, right? Isn't that a good reason not to beat him up?"

"Actually, being a member of his family is a very good reason to get beaten, in Sirius' opinion." James answered while Remus and Peter also caught up with them.

"Why?" Lizzie wondered.

Sirius stopped walking and his friends did the same a few seconds later. He suddenly looked very serious, quite an unusual behavior for him in Lizzie's opinion.

"They're muggle-hater purebloods. They hate anyone who isn't a pureblood. They have nothing that resembles a heart in any and they see themselves as royalty among wizards. You get the picture?" He explained.

"I think I do." she answered while comparing his family to the vampires she grew up with, finding many similarities.

"They even beat him up when he was staying there." Peter commented.

Sirius shot him a glare that made him regret his slip of tongue. James sighed, not really surprised while Lily shook her head in disbelief.

"That's not the kind of thing you say to anybody, Wormtail." Remus whispered to him, not very proud of his friend.

"I know...it just slip."

"Come on, mate. He didn't mean to say it." James told Sirius, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Lizzie decided not to say anything and Lily raised her eyebrows at her as to say: "Yup, that's Peter." Sirius pushed James' hand away and his friend seemed very hurt by that simple gesture. Lily kissed her boyfriend's cheek to.

Sirius was about to walk away when he felt somebody grab his arm. He turned around to look at whoever did it and tell him or her to bugger off. He found himself face to face with Lizzie and ended up not saying a word. The girl's eyes were sad and she was biting the bottom of her face. A bad habit she seemed to have. Sirius thought it was more of a cute habit, but now he was more absorbed by her eyes. He didn't want her pity or anything.

"Don't go, please!" she begged him.

She led her hand slid slowly down his arm and when it got to his hand, she took it in her own.

"Then don't pity me, Lizzie." he said coldly. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt you." he added in thought.

Lily let go of her boyfriend's hand and walked in front of Sirius, beside Lizzie. She was grinning slightly and this disconcerted all of the boys and Lizzie. What could she be smiling about.

"The way I remember it, it was pity that made me talk to you for the first time. I mean in a friendly manner...well, sort of." she said.

Sirius turned his head away as if he thought about it. When he turned it back towards the girls, a smile was playing on the corners of his mouth.

"I remember." he finally replied. "How could I forget. It was so touching the way you told me I was a complete idiot to mope around because my stupid friends were mad at me. If they were real friends they'd forgive me whatever I did."

Lizzie looked at the other girl with a mock disapproving look. Lily laughed out loud and scolded at Sirius.

"I say "kind of". Besides, I did ask you to come to my table after." she said, trying to keep a straight face.

"Huh uh." he did. "Look, instead of being al depressed alone, you could come and sit with me and some other girls. It can't be worse and I bet they'll all be happy that a popular guy will sit with them." he added, imitating Lily.

The girl slapped him playfully on the shoulder.

"I did not say that, Black!"

Sirius shrugged and Lizzie realized at the same moment that she was still holding his hand and that he held hers in return.. She felt herself blush. They all began to walk again and James turned to them.

"You guys do know you're holding each other's hand, right?" he asked mischievously, then turned around.

Sirius and Lizzie both rapidly let go of the other's hand. Lizzie blushed even more and Sirius' cheek took a pinky color.

"He blushed a lot less than me. I bet he did this kind of thing with many girls before." Lizzie thought.

"You're making a fool of yourself. It's just a girl. Just a girl? What am I saying? She's awesome. Okay. Calm down. It's just a girl. Breath." Sirius thought at the same moment.

*~*~*~*~*

Dumbledore was sitting at his desk, in his office, when the Headmistress, McGonagall, came in.

"There's an emergency, Headmaster." she told him, before trying to catch her breath.

She had obviously hurried to his office as much as she could without scaring the student.

"What is it Minerva?" the old wizard asked, worried.

"Drannaor. The caretaker found it and came to tell me. I sent somebody to make sure no students went in the dungeons - where it was found. I had to come and tell you personally for I haven't said what was in there." she explained rapidly.

Dumbledore got up and walked around his desk to where McGonagall stood.

"Let's go now, before a curious student or teacher goes to see what's going on." he said before they left the room together.

*~*~*~*~*

James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, Lily and Lizzie were now going down the very stairs Drannaor had fallen in hours ago. They had, of course, no idea that such a thing had happened. Sirius and Lizzie kept their distances from each other, to their friends' amusement. James had stopped teasing them after Remus had reminded him of his own hilarious flirts with Lily, who giggled at the memories.

As they came closer to the Potions classroom, Lizzie's vampire instincts kicked in. She began to smell blood. It wasn't fresh, though. Not in a vampire's point of view anyway. She told herself it was her imagination and that whatever she smelled it wasn't blood.

She was suddenly startled by a blood-freezing scream of terror. Her gaze went directly in the direction of the scream. Lily was the one who had screamed. She was standing in the class' door frame and had turned around, burying her face in James' chest. Lizzie couldn't see what was inside from where she was, but she could guess that she had indeed smelled blood.

James closed his eyes and whispered recomforting words to his girlfriend as he held her tightly in his arms. Sirius was beside him, staring at whatever was in front of them with a look of surprise and horror. His mouth was half opened and he seemed frozen on the spot. They all looked paler than normal, but none of them was as pale as Remus.

The teenager had backed away all the way to the wall opposite of the door in the hallway and he seemed in shock. He closed his eyes and let himself slide down the wall to the ground.

***Flash back(Remus)***

The best is chewing dead gray bird, it doesn't care what kind...as long as it's meat. Then, it smells human flesh, which smells like it'd be be a lot more tasty. It looks up and sees a wizard come in, the tip of his wand lighting his way.

"Come out! I know you're..." he stopped in mid-sentence, staring. "Oh my God!"

The werewolf dropped the bird, drooling at the thought of eating this "prey".

FLASH

The beast is running, but not as fast as it could. It's playing a game. The hallway's dark, but the wolf doesn't care, it's used to darkness and silence. It's looked up so often...always, actually.

Suddenly it jumps. It can feel one of its paw brush again something, then it lands on something rather soft. It's claws dig in it, but as it comes near the floor, it jumps off.

FLASH

The wolf is laying down on the floor of it's usual "cell". It felt very well and happy for some reason. It hadn't felt so satisfied in a very long time, if not ever. It put its head on its paws and closed its eyes. It relaxed and soon fell asleep.

***End of flashback***

Lizzie looked at Peter, who didn't see anything either. The teen looked to scared to go look. She didn't blame him. She didn't want to do it either, but Marisa would surely hear about it if it was something big and, in that case, she better have some information on it. She slowly made her way to the door, where Remus had stood, and look inside.

She understood Lily's scream as soon as she saw it. No. As soon as she saw HIM. It was a man...or had been. She had seen dead people before, but vampires made clean kills. This was the work of some beast. She was glad for the indifference to blood that came with being half-vampire, but even with that, it made her sick.

Drannaor's body laid in front of the opened door, a pool of crimson liquid. His own blood. A lot of it. It almost look like a small lake under his body. His face was intact enough for her to see his expression of horror and extreme pain. His empty eyes stared at the teenagers in a eerie way.

His body was slashed everywhere and his clothes torn to pieces. Bits of flesh had been thrown away by something big and sharp. Some still laid around the body and his missing hand was not so far. The arm from which it had been torn was a bloody mass and nothing more.

Lizzie's breakfast almost came back out, but she was able, with difficulty, to keep it inside her stomach. It wasn't Peter's case. He had followed her, but he hadn't been able to stand the sight. He turned away and his let it all out. Lily kept sobbing in James' shirt, no matter what he said.

Lizzie turned around and looked at her friends. He attention was caught by Remus.

"It can't be..."she said to herself, wondering if it could have been werewolf-Remus that had killed the teacher.

Remus had taken his head between his hands.

"Oh, my God!" he kept on repeating to himself.

Sirius turned around, also noticing his friend. He went to kneel beside him. James moved as if to also go, but Lily held on tight to him, oblivious to anything going on around her. Her boyfriend had to stay where he was. Peter stood behind Sirius, still looking rather sick.

"Hey, mate?" Are you ok?" Sirius asked Remus, who didn't even look at him or show any signs of hearing him.

"Moony?" Peter tried, not getting more results.

"Remus? Come on!" James pleaded his friend.

Lizzie stared at Remus. Something or someone had killed the man, but could it be Remus? She was sure he wasn't evil. What had happened if he didn't do it, though?

Sirius put an hand on Remus' shoulder as to shake him out of it. He stopped as a quivering girl's voice was heard.

"D-don't do it."

He turned his head around and saw that Lily was still in James' arms, but her head was turned towards him. Her eyes were red, but she had calmed down.

"I-I think he may be in shock or something...and we don't know what could make it worse." she said.

"What do we do, then?" Peter asked anxiously.

*~*~*~*~*

On the verge of the Forbidden Forest, five hooded figures stood silently.

"Are you sure it's here?" one of them asked.

"Yes. All we have to do is find it before the vampires do." another one answered.

"They're losing their time playing little games." a third one said with a slight touch of anger in his voice.

"They're young." the second one replied.

"Now they have to wait until the next full moon." the first one exclaimed with anger and annoyance filling his voice.

"Not necessarily. We could use the..." a fourth one started to say,

"No. It would be foolish. Dumbledore would become suspicious." the second one, who seemed to be the leader of the five, stated.

"But if we don't hurry, the vampires will put their undead hands on it before we can." the first to have talked argued.

The leader sighed and shook his head.

"You're right. We'll at least consider it."

"What about the other boy?" the fifth one asked with a feminine voice. "Maybe we could convince him to join us."

"You seem very interested in the boy that boy."

"I know his smell. You never forget the smell of a creature you've created."

"No. That's true. You can choose what to do with him unless told the contrary then."

"What about the half-vampire?" one of the men asked.

"There's no need to take our precious time to kill her. It would jeopardize the whole operation. All we have to do is let her friends in Hogwarts know about her - how could I say it - condition." the leader answered. "Her emotions will get the best of her."