Chapter 14: The Assignment
Author's Note: I can not apologize enough for this taking so long. I'm trying to get back on track with getting these posted on a timely basis. It's my goal to be a few chapters ahead and end this story in somewhere around 25-30 chapters which means this is the half way point. I do have the next story planned and it will not take place in Hogwarts, which should be a fairly novel concept for a Harry Potter story.
Elanus looked carefully at what appeared to be a metallic hand and shook his head. Each steel finger touched the metal thumb one right after the other rapidly back and forth. Gene shook his head and tightened a small screw on the back of the hand and nodded to the boy who was wearing it. The fingers touched the thumb slower and more accurately as they moved.
"How does it feel, Jimmy?" Gene asked the boy.
"Almost like my real hand. It doesn't move exactly when I want though," the boy said.
"You'll just have to get used to that," Elanus said, "I'm surprised you can even sense the delay."
"It's very slight," Jimmy said, curling his new hand into a fist and uncurling it again, "Are you sure I can use this at home?"
"Yes sir," Gene replied, "Tell anyone who asks that it's a prototype and you have to check with the 'robotics company' who made it if they ask more questions."
"Oh it's time for class," Elanus said looking down at his wrist watch.
"What are you teaching today?" Gene asked.
"Just my most favorite subject in the whole world! Vampires!" Elanus said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"How ironic, a werewolf teaching about vampires," Gene chuckled.
"You know I said the same thing to Remus, he didn't get it," Elanus said, "I'm off."
Elanus walked into the Defense Against the Dark Arts room just a few minutes after Remus had started his lecture. He looked at Remus sheepishly and sat near the back of the classroom. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff sixth years were sharing the class this session and it seemed more relaxed then normal.
"Who can tell me why vampires are not able to enter a private residence?" Remus asked. Hermione's hand shot straight up as usual, and as usual no one else in the class even dared a guess. Elanus smirked as Hermione started waving her hand around in the air.
"Miss Granger?" Remus sighed.
"Yes, a vampire is can not pass over the threshold of a private home because of the ancient custom of placing a bundle of daisies outside of one's door. Also many old homes had thresh holds and door frames made out of mountain ash, or rowan wood which is bane to vampires," Hermione said with a matter of fact tone. Elanus raised and eyebrow and held back a chuckle at her response, and the superior posture Ron took in reply to her answer.
"That's one of the more innovative answers I've heard," Remus said, "Unfortunately it's also wrong." The entire classroom turned their heads to Hermione, who suddenly looked put upon. "Ron, it looks like you have something to add?" Remus asked.
"It's a trick question isn't it?" Ron asked, "Vampires can enter a home if they're invited, and not even they know why they can't enter if they aren't."
"Correct," Remus said, "It's unknown even to this day why vampires can't enter a home without being invited. This doesn't just apply to a house either. Any place a person calls 'home' can not be entered by a vampire. There was a case in America some years ago of a vampire who found a soggy cardboard box that a homeless man lived in quite impenetrable. On another occasion in our own country a vampire found himself unable to come within twenty feet of a campfire. Apparently a rather eccentric fellow called the great outdoors home and wherever he placed his campfire and bed roll became his home for the evening."
"That doesn't make sense," Hermione snapped, "How could someone's home move around every day?"
"Those are extremely rare cases, that doesn't happen often. It's really the concept of what home is," Remus said, "A home is what a person makes it. Whether a person's home is an actual house, or with some very rare individuals a bed roll and a campfire is entirely up to them. Now since this is Defense Against the Dark Arts we should be learning ways to defend against vampires, or at least what to do if you encounter one. It just so happens that my counterpart in the back there has dealt with vampires in the past, both hostile and friendly. Professor Green would you be so kind as to share your thoughts on the subject?"
Elanus nodded and slowly strode to the front of the class and Remus sat down and gave Elanus his full attention. "Well the first thing everyone should realize as Remus touched on is that not all vampires are by necessity evil. A few might actually be called 'good' and most are simply benign. Where you need to know to defend yourself is with those that aren't so benign. Hopefully none of you will ever have to face an evil vampire, but it has happened before.
What's interesting to take note of, and not too commonly discussed by wizards is that muggles have been dealing with vampires for much longer then we have. They have developed methods of killing them that are so efficient that vampires nearly ceased to exist in the middle of the nineteenth century. In fact most of our methods of defending ourselves against vampires has been taken directly from methods used by muggle vampire hunters."
"So what do we do to defend ourselves against a vampire?" a Hufflepuff girl asked.
"A very good question. The best tactic, as with most things in this class, is complete avoidance whenever possible. Traditional methods outlined in your books generally work well. Garlic for instance will keep a vampire at bay indefinitely or until the smell and potency fade. Amazingly one method that works spectacularly well and isn't mentioned in any of your literature is the use of daisies," Elanus replied.
"Daisies?" a Gryffindor boy asked. The rest of the Gryffindors smirked.
"Yes, daisies, specifically the common white daisies that you find growing wild in country fields. Vampires for whatever reason find them repellant, perhaps due to their association with the sun. Other related flowers have a less noticeable effect, with one surprising exception: The chicory flower," Elanus said.
"I read about that," Ron said, "Wasn't coffee made from chicory partially responsible for the New Orleans Covenant?"
"That hasn't exactly been proven, but yes that's the idea of it. 'Coffee' made entirely from or with chicory in it tends to make a person's blood taste very bad to a vampire. You won't find that in any of your school books or in most of our libraries because it hasn't been proven. From personal experience though, I'd say it is in fact true," Elanus replied, "Shall I give them an assignment, Professor Lupin?"
"Well you could go on with the lecture but I think we should continue it some other time," Remus replied, "Yes, give them an assignment."
"Have they had a practical lesson?" Elanus asked.
"Not yet this year, no," Remus replied, "We can't exactly take them vampire hunting though, for reasons that should be obvious."
"I wasn't thinking of that," Elanus said, "Alright class, your assignment will be a three scroll essay on the various techniques used to defend against vampires. An additional two scrolls with ideas on the practical implementation of those techniques and any new thoughts on the subject you might have. Additionally you will prepare a 'kit' with the necessary components to deal with a vampire. This kit will include things needed to deal with friendly vampires as well. You can present an actual literal kit, which shouldn't be too difficult for sixth years or a description of what you'd place in one and if possible a drawing. The kit should be portable, and should not contain anything that has a shelf life of less then a decade."
The class murmured quietly and seemed annoyed at having been assigned a five scroll essay and having to do a project all at once. "This will be due at the first of next month," Remus said, "That's two weeks, I suggest you get started as quickly as possible."
"Can we do it in teams?" asked one of the students.
Remus looked at Elanus questioningly and Elanus nodded. "Certainly," Elanus said, "but everyone still needs to turn in their own essays and kits or descriptions. You can copy off each other and make two identical kits, but everyone needs to have their own."
"Alright, class dismissed!" Remus said. The students gathered their things and began moving out of the classroom. Hermione was the last to leave, giving Elanus and Remus both hard looks as she did.
"What's her problem?" Elanus asked.
"She's not used to being wrong," Remus said, "She's definitely not used to Ron knowing more about something then her either."
"Most people aren't," Elanus chuckled, "I would have thought mentioning daisies and giving five page assignment would cheer her up a bit though."
"I'm curious, why a vampire kit?" Remus asked, "We haven't had any problems with vampires in a decade, besides most of that stuff isn't going to be too friendly to me either you know."
"I look at it this way. They build a kit here in school where everything is provided for them, they won't have to do it later. Most of the things a vampire hunter would keep around also work for other kinds of nuisances you'd find in daily wizard life. I put together a similar kit when I was fresh out of Hogwarts and I've added to it over the years. It's saved my life more times then I can count," Elanus replied, "Besides, it's a good lesson in resource acquisition."
"What are we grading on?" Remus asked.
"How complete it is, and whether it can be used to help a vampire as well as harm one if need be," Elanus replied, "and of course creativity.
Hermione shot a dirty look at James as he was coming out of a third year transfiguration class. He didn't particularly understand why, but the sympathetic glance he received from Ron told him enough. James really wanted to be in the classes with people his own age, but McGonagall told him that he wasn't ready. His wand technique was adequate, he grasped the concepts of the spells well, and despite being made fun of for his Texan accent, his pronunciation and inflexion were dead on. Gene didn't tolerate lazy speech, and had made sure both of his sons could speak well.
James would spend the next few weeks doing nothing but expanding his repertoire of spells and listening to the complaints of his fellow students about the vampire kit assignment his cousin had made. He was not looking forward to the latter.
