Chapter One: Midnight Cravings

The song The Times They Are A-Changin' is the sole property of Bob Dylan, as is the Harry Potter universe that of J.K. Rowling. All other content, however, is mine.

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The nighttime air of London in winter was not a pleasant thing at all, even for the most patriotic of its citizens, and Harry had been sure to get his fleece jacket from the closet before he left the flat he had gotten just last June after graduating from Hogwarts. The haze left over from that evening's rain storm had largely abated, and the night streets were almost entirely empty, with only an occasional car moving down past Harry as he walked. His intended destination was Bub's Pizza, a small hole in the wall joint about two blocks from his house, owned by a seventy-six year old Italian immigrant. Bub's probably seems an odd name for an Italian owned joint to you, but the man did immigrate to Britain in 1979 and bought it from it's former owner, who'd name his place after the nickname his father, a doctor, had been given by his friends.

As Harry walked he stared at the traffic lights ahead and the pizza place off in the distance, when a man stumbled out of the alleyway next to him. Judging from his torn up clothes and old shoes he was a homeless man, and he extended his hand a little too lifelessly and began to slowly walk towards Harry. "Listen man, I'm sorry, I haven't got any change, just a VISA, sorry," Harry said as he walked past, hearing but not registering the small, guttural moan that came from the man as he did. He continued to absentmindedly walk down the street, stopping when he arrived in front of the pizzeria.

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

There were two tables outside and four more inside, not enough to get rich, but as Lauro said "it pays the bills." The light was still on, and Harry could see the elderly man through the window, causing him to knock on the door. When the man turned and saw it was Harry he gave him a warm smile, walked over, and opened the door.

"'Ey Harry, what can I do for you?" He asked.

"Well, I noticed your lights were still on, and I was hoping I might be able to get a couple of slices," Harry said, a grin entering his face as well.

"You know I wouldn't do this for anyone but you, you know that?" Lauro asked him as he opened the door. Ever since his graduation from Hogwarts and subsequent moval into his new flat he'd gone at least once a day, and had become genuine friends with the Italian, off listening to the many different stories he would tell about his life.

"Yes, and I'm grateful Lauro," Harry said, pulling out his wallet as he walked in, Lauro closing and locking the door behind him. He and Lauro were friends, but Lauro was still a businessman, and Harry had no problem paying for the pizza when he showed up this late; he did get a 50 discount considering how old it was.

"So, what'll it be Harry?" Lauro asked as he walked back into the small storage room (with a refrigerator/freezer inside.)

"I'll just take two slices of pepperoni and a Dr. Pepper," Harry said as he removed a can of soda from the refrigerator in the front of the store. No matter what he felt when he walked in here, there was something about this place that managed to make him feel okay.

"Two slices of pepperoni coming right up," Lauro said, emerging from the storage room with two large slices of pepperoni pizza on a metal try. He quickly slid them into the massive gas oven along the wall behind the counter and turned it on. "So Harry, how's your life been going? Got a job yet?"

Lauro was, obviously enough, under the impression Harry was a muggle, and Harry had told him that he had dropped out of high school during the summer and was looking for a job as an auto mechanic. "Pretty shitty, but I've got enough money from my inheritance that I can wait for quite a while," Harry said, also having told him that his parents died in a car crash when he was young and had left him a very large amount of money.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

"If only I'd been as luck," the old Italian said with a laugh, Harry nodding in agreement as he opened his drink and took a sip. It was as he lowered the can that he noticed a large figure lurch in front of the windows, and a second passed before he recognized him as the homeless man from earlier.

"Oh Christ he followed me," Harry muttered, Lauro giving him a quizzical look. "As I was walking here he approached me, probably for spare change, and I told him I didn't have any and walked past. I hope he ain't pissed," Harry explained.

"Eh, I'll tell him to leave," Lauro said as he hoisted himself down from the stool behind the counter he was sitting on. What happened as the pizzeria owner walked to the front door was extremely strange, as the man did not approach the door to wait for him, but simply began banging on the windows with what appeared to be all the strength he could muster (which didn't seem to be that much), all the while uttering a very guttural moan.

"UUUUHHHHH!" Even though Harry had been through a lot over the course of his life, something about that particular sound still unnerved Harry quite a bit.

"What the bloody 'ell is with him?" Lauro asked.

"I do not have a clue," Harry answered, Lauro unlocking the door and sticking his head out.

"Hey, buddy, this place isn't open, the guy in here is a friend of mine, he paid with credit," Lauro said a bit angrily, the man slowly turning and learching towards him in response. "Hey, I said we're clAAAAAHHHH!" Lauro started, the scream beginning as the man leaned forward, grabbed his head, and took a large bite out of his neck.

The sound of tearing human flesh made Harry gag, and he dropped his Dr. Pepper onto the floor in shock. "What the bloody FUCK!" Harry shouted as he ran forward, yanking Lauro away from the man, who stood chewing on the piece of bloody flesh he had bitten off. "My God, Lauro…" Harry said, trailing off as he held the elderly man in his arms. The blood was gushing from the wound in his neck in massive spurts, and the man was taking in extremely raggedy breaths, with blood coming out his mouth as well.

"Ha…harr…y, g…go," the man gargled out, using the hand not covering the wound to attempt to shove his young friend away. Harry fell back into one of the chairs, and Lauro fell to the ground, where he began to writhe in pain. With a glare that could kill at the man who attacked his friend, Harry withdrew his wand at the same time that the homeless man swallowed his "food" and looked at the two people in the pizzeria. His arms hung dead at his side as he shoved the door all the way open and moved towards them, Harry leveling his wand at the man.

"Petrificus Totalus!" He shouted at the man, and the man's arms snapped to his side at the same time his legs snapped shut, the man then proceeding to fall on his face; Harry then proceeded to grab a nearby rag and wrap it around Lauro's neck, vainly trying to stop the blood flow. Harry had no idea what to do, as Lauro was already slowing down, and he knew the spell wouldn't last forever. "Emergency services," Harry said to himself as he ran to the phone, leaping over a table to get to it, and punched in 999. The phone rung for a few seconds before a woman who sounded quite tired answered.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

"This is the London Police Department, how may we assist you?" She asked him, Harry quickly giving his name and location.
"I was having a midnight snack at a pizzeria owned by a friend of mine when a homeless man who begged me for change a short time before came up and started banging on the window. My friend went and opened the door, and as he was telling him to go away the homeless man bit a big chunk of flesh from his neck. I need an ambulance and a police car here right away," Harry said, turning and looking down at Lauro. Even after all the death he'd seen over the years he felt a tear streak down his cheek when he saw the old Italian man's body begin to spasm, marking his passing from this world.

"I guess you could send someone from the morgue instead, he died."

"I'm sorry to hear that sir, and you're lucky we still have an ambulance available in that area that can pick him up, we've been getting flooded with reports of attacks like the one you just described for the last ten minutes, though the majority of them have, fortunately, not been fatal," she explained. Harry was about to continue speaking when the phone and his wand slipped out of his hand, the phone clanging against the counter and his wand hitting the floor and rolling under it. Lauro, who had been lying dead before his eyes, was beginning to stir, and not in the way a body did right after death. Slowly, surely, he stretched his arms out behind himself and began to push, attempting to hoist himself off the ground.

He slowly began to turn around, one arm stuck slight backwards, the other one slowly rising in the air till it was at about a 45 degree angle. It was he began to walk that Harry saw in his eyes the same thing he saw in the homeless man: the utter emptiness of the dead. This was not Lauro; but what was it then? As much as it weirded Harry out to say it, there was only one word he could think to call what was ambling towards him: zombie.

La… no, the zombie, began to stumble towards Harry, the young man finally snapping back and trying to grab his wand. It, unfortunately for him, had rolled all the way under the counter and out the other side, making getting it right now not exactly a safe option.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, what do I do?" Harry said to himself as the zombie began to move towards him, emitting the same guttural groan that had come from the zombified homeless man. It was then that he looked down and found himself starring at the stool, which he immediately picked up. He held the seated end outwards and moved out from behind the desk, the thing turning and beginning to move towards him. With a determined breath Harry ran forward, slamming it into the thing that had been Lauro and knocking it back far enough that it nearly tripped over the still ensorcelled hom…zombie on the ground.

At least, it seemed ensorcelled, because at that point it began to hoist itself up from the ground, and in seconds it and what was Lauro were advancing on him. At this point, there was nothing more that Harry could do but run, and so he dodged forward and grabbed his wand, overturning a nearby table to block their progress, and ran out the door. He immediately pulled it shut, pointed his wand at the lock, firmly said alohomora, and ran, the familiar clicking sound echoing in his mind as feet hit pavement. He could also hear the banging noise the two zombies made as they tried to pound their way out, but for now at least, they were trapped.

He stopped running, when he saw a woman in a very skimpy pink nightgown stumble out from the door of a flat building, and as she walked under the street light Harry recognized that she too was a zombie. Looking about, he did the only thing he could think of: he immediately apparated back to his flat, despite the possibility of muggles seeing. The female zombie stumbled on, drawn by the pounding of her two fellow zombies, not yet aware they were like her, and therefore, not tasty.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

………...

Well, what do you think? I was thinking about including a song in each chapter, though if that seems like too much I'm more than willing to change.