Like always, many thanks to Joycelyn Solo!

Chapter Four: Darkness of the soul

Connor was at Professor Snape's office, as per usual. Since the day Snape'd used Legilmenccy on him to find out the nature of his nightmares, the kid spent more and more time with the Potions Master. Most people (especially Snape's students) would have found it weird, but Snape was the person Connor felt most comfortable with, because he understood. The child felt, for the first time since he'd left Pylea, that there was somebody in this place who could understand him, somebody who didn't treat him as if he was some kind of alien. Somebody who treated him like an equal.

What would have truly shocked Snape's students, though, was that the Potions Master actually enjoyed the boy's company. He would never say it out loud, of course. In fact, he complained about having to babysit to everyone who wanted to hear him, but the truth was that he liked having Connor around. It was nice for a change to find someone who didn't loathe his company.

True that sometimes Snape wasn't in the mood to take care of a child, but Connor was very perceptive and knew when he had to be quiet and mind his own business, so he never bothered him. And, when Snape was in a good mood, he'd show the boy how to prepare potions, something Connor found fascinating (even though the teacher didn't let him to stand near the cauldron or to use a knife) or he'd teach him to read. So far, the kid was able to read a few simple words and he'd memorized most letters. Snape'd started to think, not without a hint of irony, that this child was way smarter than most of his fifth year students.

Today, however, Snape was trying to teach Connor something completely different. Professor Dumbledore had expressed his concerns at Connor's lack of interest in games. He'd stated that it was neither normal nor natural in a kid his age. Snape would have liked to point out that Connor was neither normal nor natural, but he realised that the Headmaster was probably right. Children needed to play games, even when they were the offspring of two vampires.

So here he was now, giving Connor his very first lesson of…chess. Not the most childish game in the world, but Snape didn't know many others and besides, Connor had already proved that he didn't like children games.

At first, he'd been shocked at the chessmen moving around the table board on their own, but when one of the bishops knocked a pawn and sent it flying outside the board, he was delighted. It was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. He giggled and clapped, and the chessmen stared at him, and Snape could have sworn they had puzzled looks on their expressionless faces. Obviously, they had never seen such displays of emotion before.

'Well, Connor, I'll teach you the chessmen names.'

The kid's eyes widened in awe.

'They have names? Who put them names?'

It took Snape a moment to understand that Connor believed the chessmen had proper names, and he proceed to explain him. The child nodded, his face shinning with understanding.

'It's like a war, and these are the soldiers. You are the one who commands them. Do you understand?'

Connor nodded.

'Daniel explained me everything about war.'

An uncomfortable silence fell upon them. They hadn't talked about Holtz since that day, or about anything related to Connor's previous life. Snape wondered if he should push the subject, to make the boy talk about it, but he really didn't want to after all he had seen in Connor's mind. Besides, it wasn't really his business, was it? Connor's father's friends were bound to pick him up anytime soon, and they'd have to deal with the kid's issues. He was just taking care of him temporarily.

Connor looked pensive, too. There was a tiny frown on his face when he whispered:

'They…They are not coming back for me, are they?'

Snape was taken aback for a moment. Then, he opened his mouth to say 'yes', when he realised that Connor wasn't talking about his father's friends.

'You mean Holtz – Daniel Holtz and the woman?'

The boy nodded, his eyes obscured. He already knew the answer, but he needed to hear it. And, for some reason Snape couldn't get, he needed to hear it from him.

'No, they won't come back. They…they can't. Holtz is…'

'Dead.' Connor's look was darker than ever. 'I know. Wesley told me, but I didn't believe him. But now…I mean, if he'd been alive, Daniel would have came for me already. He wouldn't have left me alone.'

'Connor, you aren't alone,' Snape replied promptly. The boy looked up, and he was shocked at what he saw: he was smiling. But it wasn't a real smile, but a sad, almost cynical one. More like a sneer than an actual smile…a expression that should never have been on a child's face.

Two things hit Snape then. First was how unnaturally old Connor seemed. He was only five years old, but he'd seen far more things than most of Snape's students. And many – too many – of the things he'd seen hadn't been pretty at all.

Secondly was how much Connor reminded him of…himself. It was painful to admit it, but it was true. Too many times when he was young (not as young as Connor, but not much older either) he'd seen the same expression on his own face. And it wasn't a happy memory.

Connor's voice pulled him out from his reverie.

'Professor, how were these little people called...?'

'Hey, Potty! Look what I've got for youuuu!'

Harry groaned when he heard Sissy Flagg's voice calling him. He hated Sissy, a petite girl with brown plaits and a pointed nose. Well, the truth was that everyone hated Sissy. At least, all the boys at the nursery did, and he was no exception.

However, he had been taught to be polite, so he turned around and asked what she wanted. The girl grinned almost evilly.

'Well, me and Patsy were playing at the yard,' It's Patsy and me, silly, Harry thought but said nothing, 'and I found this. I thought you might be interested.'

But she wasn't showing him what she'd found. Instead, she was hiding her hands behind her back. In spite of himself, Harry was curious. What could Sissy have that would interest him?

'Sissy, show me what it is,' he pleaded, but the girl merely shook her head, making the huge red ribbons on her plaits to collide.

'You have to say please.'

Harry was starting to get annoyed, but he was very curious now.

'Please, Sissy, show me.'

A twisted smirk spread over her pretty face.

'All right, I'll show you. But only because you asked me.' Suddenly, Harry was afraid. There was something in Sissy's satisfied voice that made him shiver, but it was too late to do nothing. The girl stretched out her arms, and Harry saw a greenish form in her hands. He leaned closer, and to his horror he found Stanley lying in her palm way too still.

Stanley was a small tortoise that Harry had found one day at the school's yard, and that he had taken care of since then, as his aunt didn't let him to have a pet. Stanley was Harry's best friend in the world, and now it was lying unnaturally still as if it were…

'Is it…is it…?'

'Dead? Yeah, sure. Don't you see how cold it is,' Sissy replied merrily. His eyes watered, and the girl snorted. 'Oh, come on, Potty, you aren't going to cry for an old tortoise, are you? I mean, you should be used to this. Aren't your parents dead?'

In that moment, Harry saw her. Truly saw her, like if it was the first time he laid his eyes on her.

She was still smiling, and her eyes were twinkling, as if there was nothing wrong. In fact, she looked like her birthday had came a month early.

Harry felt pure hatred towards her. He'd never felt like this before, not even when Dudley used him as a punching bag. He wanted to hurt her, he wanted to make her cry.

Sissy shrieked, making him jump. She began to scream and to shake her head madly, and he thought she'd gone nuts. Until he saw her hair. Instead of the huge awful ribbons, there were two small red... crabs?

He had no idea how these crabs had appeared there, but somehow Sissy seemed to think it was his fault, because she was pointing at him and calling him awful names. He wondered what Mrs. Flagg would have thought if she'd heard her little daughter talking like that.

Miss Honey, their teacher, arrived at once. She shrieked too when she saw the crabs, but she managed to pull them out from the girl's hair. Then she proceeded to calm down the hysterical girl, but Sissy didn't want to be calmed down.

'He did it! Potter did it!'

When Miss Honey turned to glare at him menacingly, Harry knew he was in deep trouble.

The transformation took longer than he'd expected. Lately, his transformations were becoming slower and more difficult. Maybe because I don't want to change back.

But he had to, in order to keep his sanity. Every now and then, he changed back to his human form and stretched out his muscles. Otherwise, they would contract and will no longer work when he finally needed them and the same would happen to his mind. The thing was that when he was in his animal form, he no longer used his human mind, at least not completely. He was guided mostly by instinct, and he wasn't capable to think in a rational way. So, in order to keep that capability working, he had to transform every now and then.

It was hard, of course. It was essential that there was nobody home, so he wouldn't be discovered. The problem was that house was never empty. There were always at least a couple of noisy children wandering around the house, and he was especially terrified of the twins, who used to sneak into Percy's room to play him tricks or just to bother him.

Today, however, the whole family had gone to some festival and Mrs. Weasley had forbidden his son to bring his rat along. Although he'd normally have welcomed the chance to get out of the house, he was glad of this, because he'd have the house for himself and he'd be able to transform. It had been a month since the last time, though it was hard to keep track of time when you had the intelligence of a rat.

He shut the curtains close, even though he knew no one would be able to see him. The Weasleys didn't have close neighbours, as they lived in a Muggle village. He preferred the darkness, anyway. It was easier when he wasn't able to see himself. Less painful.

He didn't remember when the last time he'd dared to look himself at the mirror had been, but he certainly remembered he hadn't liked what he'd seen. Most of his hair was gone, even when he was just in his twenties, and his skin was yellowish and dirty. But his eyes, oh, the worst thing were his eyes. So empty, so dead.

So remorseful.

Yeah, well, an annoying voice (awfully alike to his mother's) echoed in his head, if you're feeling so badly, why don't you turn yourself into? Why don't you stop hiding like the rat you are and you confess what you did?

'And go to Azkaban? Never.'

Talking to your head: first sign of madness. He shrugged. He couldn't care less. Actually, it'd be a good thing if he lost his mind. At least, that way the memories wouldn't haunt him…

James. Lily. Baby Harry. Sirius. Remus. Those Muggles… all victims, all victims of his cowardice, of his power-hunger. He had wanted so badly to be someone, someone remotely important. He had always been no one. He had always been ignored.

And look what you have now. The few people who gave a damn for you are now dead or in jail, and you have become an eight-year-old boy's rat pet. You couldn't be more pathetic.

Peter Pettigrew sighed and hid his head between his knees. If he could only take all he had done back…

You wouldn't, because you're a coward.

'Fine, I am a coward. So what? It's not like I can do something to help it, you know!'

For once, his mother's voice was speechless.

Villagers didn't speak her language, but it didn't matter. Centuries of travelling around the world had taught her many languages, and also to communicate when she didn't know what the other people were talking.

However, it wasn't easy for her to get what she wanted from these people, as they didn't want to have anything to do with her. At first, she had thought it was because she was foreign, as her looks indicated, but then she realised that the villagers feared her because they knew what she was. In fact, many persons who crossed her path murmured weird words under their breath and did odd gestures with their hands, as if they were trying to cast some spell to send her away.

A woman hissed to another something in a dialect she recognized. She couldn't hear it all, but she heard something that translated into English would be 'nightwalkers are among us'. The vampire ran to her, glad that finally she found someone who talked in a language she could understand. However, both women ran away and hid in a near hut.

Desperate, she shouted in their language:

'Please, listen to me! I've come to do you no harm. I just want to know where the wish-granter lives!'

No one answered to her pleas, and she had started to think she'd have to take stronger measures, when a boy no older than twelve approached her. He didn't spoke a word, but he made her a gesture so she would follow him. She did so, and soon they were out of the village, walking down a precarious road.

They walked for what it seemed hours, and it occurred to her that it could be a trick. No, Spike wouldn't trick her. There was a time when he might have felt tempted to do so, but not now. Her desperation was something that hit him too close to home.

At last, they reached a cave. The boy stopped and turned to look at her. He whispered in his language, and amazingly enough she understood every single word.

'This is the wish-granter home. However, I must warn you, nightwalker: there will be a price for any wish you ask, and this price might be more than you can afford. Wise people stay away from the wish-granter'

She wanted to ask him who he was, but he vanished. She blinked. What the…? She shrugged. She had no time for this.

Taking a long, unnecessary breath, she stepped into the welcoming darkness.

Cornelius Fudge hated to visit the magical prison of Azkaban and he tried to avoid it as much as he could, but this time he had had no other choice. Millicent Bagnold, the Minister of Magic herself, had asked him to take her place in the annual inspection at Azkaban, as a major problem with Gringott's goblins needed all her attention right now.

So here he was now, following a Dementor (despicable creatures, but sometimes you had to ally with those you didn't want in the search of the greater good) and checking if everything was according to the rules. Mrs. Bagnold gave it a lot of importance to these inspections, and she hadn't gone herself only because there was an emergency. She always checked and double-checked that all the security measures were strictly followed and that prisoners weren't treated too badly. Of course, the former was much more important to her, and also to Fudge. After all, the people in there had done terrible things, and it was much more urgent to keep the magical folk's security rather than ensure a bunch of evildoers' welfare.

Now they were reaching the worst part of Azkaban: this was the area where the most dangerous criminals spent their days and nights, constantly watched by Dementors. Fudge repressed a shiver. If it was so bad for him to stand Dementors for a few hours, how did these men and women stand the presence of these creatures day and night?

The answer was simple: they didn't. They started to lose their minds until they were completely insane, and if they were lucky with no memories of their past. But few were that lucky. Most prisoners kept remembering the worst moments of their lives until they stopped eating and let themselves die. Which wasn't a loss, at least in the Minister's eyes. Actually, she thought it was a great thing: this way, there were fewer and fewer prisoners to take care of so their task was easier to accomplish.

However, it never stopped to amaze Fudge that the worst criminals were the ones who seemed less affected by Dementors, possibly because they didn't have such a thing as a conscience to worry about.

Let's take Sirius Black's case, for instance. He had killed thirteen people with a single spell and betrayed his two best friends to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, so he had a lot to be ashamed of. However, he looked quite unaffected for any of these or for the Dementors's charm. As a matter of fact, he sounded so cool and calmed when he talked, as if he and Fudge were drinking firewhisky at the Leaky Cauldron instead of talking through his cell bars.

'Good morning, or has midday already passed? It's a little hard to tell from here, as this cell has no windows.' He grimaced. 'But I can't complain, can I? At least I've got company…even though they aren't very talkative.'

He pointed at the Dementors, who didn't react, of course. Fudge, on the other hand, was gaping, incredulity in every line of his face. Black didn't seem bothered by this at all.

'So how are you, Mr. Fudge? It was Fudge, right?'

The poor man shot a desperate glance at the closest Dementor, trying to decide whether he should answer to a convicted criminal or just ignore him. However, Black was right in one thing: Dementors weren't talkative, so Fudge had to face the prisoner again.

'Fine, Black,' he replied shortly. He hoped the disdain in his voice was evident enough to prevent Black from doing more inappropriate questions. Unfortunately, the young man didn't seem impressed at all.

'I was wondering, Mr. Fudge, if you had already finished reading the Prophet. You can't imagine how much I miss the crosswords…'

'Are you sure about this, vampire? Are you aware that what you are asking me could destroy you?'

Darla looked up. All she saw was a couple of enormous electrical blue eyes, as her sight was blurred with the blood that poured from the large cut on her forehead. She could barely keep herself standing up, but she had never been weak and she wasn't going to start now. She straightened her head and blinked so the blood wouldn't enter in her eyes.

Was she sure about what she wanted? Well, it was quite a dumb question to ask after all she had gone through to get it. There was only one possible answer.

'I have never been so sure about anything in four hundred years.'

There was a heavy silence, and she felt her knees failing her. In that moment, the guttural voice spoke again:

'As you wish, vampire. Your soul will be given back to you.'

And then an unbearable pain filled her body, and all she could see was whiteness.

Conangse: Sorry for not updating, but is conspiring against me or somwthing, 'cause it didn't let me update until now using God knows what lame excuse. Anyway, I'll stop the whinning. Thanks so much for rewieving! Please, tell me what you think about this chapter. Good luck!