This story was originally written for a yahoo group Halloween challenge. Requirements were: mentioning Halloween, mentioning vampires and/or werewolves, writing a scary story.
I would like to thank ProfessorWannabe for prodding me into translating it. Her kind help, patient support and firm but gentle insistence helped the story to grow and blossom.
Nocturne will be posted in three parts. Reviews are always welcome.


Nocturne III

13 years later

He was in India, doing research on old, long forgotten curses for the Dark Lord. The sun was shining all day long, but his skin refused to tan. The air was full of the smells of thousands of spices. The people were proud and yet they displayed dignified humbleness for sorcery. This country caused a string of his most inner self to vibrate; a string he had never even been aware of. He liked it here.

On a day in February, a piece of news from England found him and made his thoughts jump completely out of track for the rest of the day. James Potter and Lily Potter, neè Evans, had announced they were going to be parents in summer. Snape retreated to his room to digest the news. A persistent feeling was pulling a string in his memory. A vague voice told him he could connect this circumstance to another piece of information. The more time he spent on finding the missing piece for the jigsaw puzzle, the blurrier the picture became. It felt like being lost in the woods desperately searching for trees. Very upset with himself, he went to bed early and read to focus on something else altogether.

This very night he dreamt about his grandmother. They were both sitting in a garden; the air was warm and pleasant. A gentle breeze rippled through the grass, carrying the scent of her perfume in his direction. She smiled benignly and said, "Severus, please listen to me. A boy will be born this year. He'll be forced to grow up without the protection and love of his parents. No one can change that, as it is destined to be. However, the time is near in which you are expected to take over responsibility to ensure misery, pain and destruction do not get out of hand. I would like to see you taking care of the weak. If you make the right decision, we'll be seeing each other very soon. I love you."

The scent of her perfume became so strong that he woke with a start. His confusion only held for a second, suddenly the missing pieces found their way to their designated places.

To this very moment, everything the dark man had predicted such a long time ago had indeed come true. Snape's intuition whispered that the destroyed house must be the Potter's home. He thought about it. He knew a part of Sybil Trelawney's prophecy, it had spread like wildfire in the Dark Lord's inner circle. Immediately, the Dark Lord had plotted and planned. His grandmother had just told him, the Potter child would live. What was he supposed to do with this knowledge? Snape remembered her words:

If you make the right decision, we'll be seeing each other very soon.

Did this mean he would die soon? What would be the use? He had the urgent need to wash his face with ice cold water, so he went into the bathroom, stepped to the sink with the tiny mirror. For the first time in months, he really saw his face. His cheeks were hollow. His face was pallid, framed by dark hair.
Shocked and bitter he grew aware that he had become one of them.
His hands gripped the edge of the sink, the knuckles were white with tension.

4 days later

Severus Snape left the Hog's Head where he had met with the Hogwarts headmaster. Carefully he looked about, but no one paid attention to the wizard in the long black cloak. He passed a dark alley. At this very moment, there was a movement of black in the shadow. Snape took two more strides before an inkling made him stop. He tensed and turned slowly.

A man stood leaning coolly at the wall – undoubtedly it was the terror of his childhood, not a day older than he had been some thirteen years ago. It must have been a little more than a decade since Snape had last seen him. Snape was struck by a short flash of a memory cast aside. The night before he was to go to Hogwarts, he had not been able to find sleep. A very familiar dark shape blurred in the shadow of a corner had chuckled maliciously.

Snape blinked to return to reality. Even tough there was no hint of a threat in the dark man's pose, Snape grabbed for his wand in reflex. The dark man shook his head slowly. Snape's muscles remained tense. The man moved, motioned the young man to follow and walked back into the alley.

Snape followed.

The dark man was staring intently at him. Snape had often tried to understand who this man really was. When he was younger, he used to think it was Mr. Death himself who had haunted him. Then there had been times when he thought, he had found a way to travel to the past to warn his younger self. A few years ago, he had concluded it may have been the Dark Lord. It all turned out to be false. The man existed. He smiled in a way that startled Snape.

"What do you want from me?" the young man hissed.

"Congratulate you on the choice you have made," the man replied vaguely and smiled.

Snape did not answer. His blank stare only caused the other man to chuckle quietly. Snape raised his wand again.

The man shook his head, "You'd better not."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Severus, no. Leave him alone," a gentle voice said -- one he thought he'd never hear again.

Snape's head whirled around. "No," he whimpered, taking a step back.

He was instantly pressed up against a wall, sharp teeth less than an inch from his cheek as cold, moist breath hit his face.

"Hear her out, silly boy," the man hissed.

"Due to your choice, you have become a very important man, who now lives in the rather high risk of being killed. According to how things look at the moment, we also know that you are very likely to be killed, however, we cannot always predict the way things turn out. Since your role in this is incredibly important, we are here to give you a gift," his grandmother explained.

Snape snorted derisively.

His grandmother stepped very close to him. Snape saw that she had not changed much in the past thirteen years. She raised her hand to his cheek to touch him, he pulled back as far as he could.

"Severus, my boy, I would have never left you alone, but he took me away from you. It took me a long time to realize it was all for the best. It is very difficult to understand how sometimes the threads of destiny intertwine to weave a net which can carry the weight of our future. Sometimes threads need to be cut and reattached to ensure the net holds. Oh Severus, I was there in all the nights you cried. I was not allowed to do more than to watch over you when you needed me most. Please forgive me."

He believed her, knew she was telling the truth. "How?" he whispered.

"Dimitri turned me into a vampire the night you were afraid to let me go. He was very careful not to leave marks which may have led to me being cremated. I felt you hugging me, felt you crying the next morning; but I could not do anything. The transformation is a long process in which the fledgling is paralyzed and helpless, a state which resembles death. This state can last between two to four days depending on several factors. I felt them lift me, saw the coffin lid being closed. I heard the sounds muffled through the casket, heard your father holding crude speeches in the presence of his boozing, gambling friends. I heard you cry yourself to sleep." she stopped for a few moments, obviously caught up in the painful memory. "They put my coffin in the vault, Dimitri came to get me as soon as the night set. He looked after me when I was still weak. He instructed and guided me when I was getting stronger. He is a good teacher."

Snape knew the last remarks were meant to appease him when in fact they did the opposite. His entire wrath was focused on the man who held him pressed to the wall like a bully.
"He took you away from me. He knew it. He always knew everything," Snape yelled in disgust, looking at the man.

"Wrong," the man murmured. He hesitated. "Well, not quite right … really."

"You claimed I was yours," Snape said angrily. "You are a liar. You took my grandmother and turned her into a … a creature of the night." He tried to break free from the man's tight grip.

"What was I supposed to do? It is necessary to keep a promise, if one wants to be taken seriously. Your grandmother was of no real importance in this – when it all started. It didn't matter whether she lived or died. All that mattered was that you needed to hate your father. Hate – you see. Not just fear. You grew with your grandmother's death. And yes, it's true. You are mine! Your father used you as stake in a game of cards against me. He lost. It was only through your hate that I could claim you, for only true hate can break the blood bond."

Snape looked at his grandmother with a questioning look of insecurity. She nodded solemnly. Deep inside, Snape knew the man was telling the truth. He felt his legs give way.

His own father had lost him in a game of cards.

The man held him pinned to the wall, but this time he did it so the young man would not collapse. "Now you're so much more. You are going to work against The Dark Lord."

"I … don't understand--," Snape mumbled weakly. He really did not understand. He would have never thought his own father would treat him like an object. He would have never thought his grandmother was still here. The whole world was shrouded in surreal mist.

"Let me explain this to him," his grandmother said quietly to the dark man.

The pressure against his shoulder disappeared; arms came around him, supporting him, holding him. He bent his heavy head to his grandmother's shoulder, while she gently rocked him. He could not hold back the tears, so his grandmother whispered soothing words.

"Would you please listen to me?" she asked after a while.

He nodded against her shoulder.

"The Dark Lord," Snape flinched in her arms, "always intended to pull the vampires to his side. It's very tempting, considering the possibilities which open up for vampires. However, vampires are loners. We never form groups larger than six vampires, all of whom are usually related. We also don't get along well with other leechers, Dementors in particular. Dimitri here, is a vampire grandmaster. He understood very early on that the creatures of the night will never be more than pawns in The Dark Lord's reign of terror. He didn't like this and he managed to convey the facts quite clearly to other vampires. Most vampires agreed. We are very interested in getting The Dark Lord out of the way."

"You're also on Dumbledore's side?" Snape asked dully.

His grandmother tensed.

"We're fighting for our kind," the vampire growled.

"Vampires are a bit like centaurs," Snape whispered absentmindedly, sounding very young even to his own ears.

His grandmother chuckled, "Yes, I suppose one could see it that way. And I'd like to give you a gift. Would you accept it?"

Snape thought he knew what this gift was. He paused and nodded, "Yes, grandma, I accept it."

"Promise me to keep this to yourself. Neither The Dark Lord, nor Dumbledore are to learn your secret. It's the only way to ensure your safety."

Again he nodded. "But how am I supposed to keep this a secret?"

"I received my blood from Dimitri. He is a grandmaster, he can walk in the sunlight, he can control his thirst. Through me, you will drink the slightly weaker blood. You will age and keep your reflection in the mirror. You can take daylight and you can control your thirst. You will not become completely immortal, but the powers of the night will protect you sufficiently against poisons and the Unforgivables. You won't lose your soul. You won't be able to reproduce, though. Don't be afraid, my boy. I will be there to look after you, to guide you."

She hugged him tighter and he returned the hug fiercely before she put her lips on his neck as though to kiss him gently. Snape smelled her perfume. Her bite was a lot less painful than he would have expected. He fell into it with the knowledge of turning away from the dark by becoming a child of the night. And this child would fight on the light's side -- with the goal to deliver itself.

-The End-