Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to J.K. Rowling. I own nothing, make no money from anything, and am writing this purely for personal enjoyment.

AU. The story starts at the beginning of Harry's seventh year, but ignores the events of HBP. No parings, Snape mentors Harry. OC's, but they will not be the focus of the story.

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Harry cast an array of disillusionment charms on himself, and allowed Stephan to lead him through the wards. With a gut-wrenching twist they arrived at a rather sedate three storey muggle house. Harry stood shivering in the night air as Stephan argued with his own wards.

"Ahh, there we go. Come in, come in."

Harry stepped into the entrance hall, and suppressed a nervous grin at the twin reflections on the highly polished floor. Another myth bites the dust.

"I'd offer to give you a tour, but we are rather pressed for time if we want to do this and get you back before your watchers notice."

"So, when are you going to bite me?"

"Bite you?" asked Stephan in clear amusement. "I'm afraid we don't come with retractable fangs, Harry."

Harry flushed. He had read the chapter that dealt with diet, and had remembered it referred to blood as the optimum - highly concentrated, inconspicuous, and renewable – but not sole possibility. But, damn it, he thought he could be excused for still thinking that vampires bit people, surely.

"Then how do you...umm..."

"Eat? We use a knife, Harry. You know, comes in various sizes, sharp on one end, usually with a handle..."

Harry pressed his lips together, and shoved his shaking hands out of sight. He was nervous enough as it was, he didn't think he deserved to be mocked as well.

"So where are you going to cut?"

"For this, the blood needs to flow strongly. Either your neck, or just below your groin would be best."

Or where? Harry froze and stared at him in disbelief.

"Your neck it is then. Enough, let's be on with it."

Before Harry could blink, his shoulders were grabbed in a strong grip. He felt a sharp sting and the world faded away.

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He opened his eyes into blackness. He took a deep shuddering breath and then coughed it out again. The taste of the air combined his lack of breathlessness confirmed what he already knew - he was no longer living. It wasn't reassuring, as such, but it was exactly what Stephan had promised.

This next bit was going to be somewhat unpleasant. He searched and found the handle, and pulled the lid across. It shifted with a little effort, and dirt started pouring into his coffin. Suddenly panicky, he tried to close it again, but the force of the dirt kept it open. I don't have to breathe, he reminded himself, and pushed the lid all the way clear. He covered his eyes and mouth with his hands until finally the soil came to a halt. He could feel the weight of it pressing against him, but it gave way slightly as he wriggled his leg experimentally. Swim up he repeated the advice mentally. Push yourself from the bottom of the coffin, 'swim' with your arms, and by the time you are standing your head will be clear.

He was relieved beyond words when his arms broke free into emptiness. Using muscles he hadn't even known existed, he pulled himself out and dropped the short distance to the floor. He lay there gasping, distantly amused that he had just been buried in a large fish tank full of soil.

Stephan crouched next to him, and started wiping the dirt from his face. Harry sat up and took the cloth from him.

"This is your birth-soil, Harry. It bears a magical imprint of who you were as a human. You will need to return to it frequently to prevent your body from liquefying for the first seven years."

"Liquifying?" He didn't recall that little piece of information from the book.

"Oh, don't worry. It hardly ever happens. We haven't had to pour someone..."

"Pour someone?" Harry's stomach roiled. He really thought this was information he could have used before he had decided to take this step.

"I'm joking, Harry. Your teacher will make sure nothing happens to you."

"Oh," breathed Harry. Stephan's humour was clearly going to take some getting used to. He replayed the sentence in his head, and figured out what had been bothering him about it.

"Wait, what do you mean by my 'teacher'? Won't that be you?"

"Your teacher will be appointed by the council. And as I may have assisted your rebirth without permission, I somehow doubt they'll find me a suitable teacher for you."

This kept on getting worse and worse. He had naively thought dying was the thing he had to concern himself with.

"Let me understand this. You're supposed to ask this council permission before ...um... 'assisting in a rebirth', and you didn't?"

"Pretty much, yes. They can be a little intransigent about the rebirth of wizards."

"So I'm some sort of forbidden vampire?"

"Only until they approve you later tonight."

"What will they do to me if the don't approve me?"

"Relax, Harry. They know the prophecy, too. They're unlikely to do anything permanent."

Strangely enough, that didn't much help Harry to relax. "This was not something you saw fit to tell me before you killed me?"

"You didn't ask."

"I didn't know to ask!" said Harry indignantly.

Stephan grinned ferally.

"Consider this your first lesson as a vampire, then. It's always what you don't know to worry about that ends up tripping you. But you'll be fine."

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Entirely too short a time later, Harry was kneeling as ordered in a pool of moonlight. Abstractly, he could appreciate the architecture that left him brightly lit and the rest of the room in darkness, but emotionally it served its purpose. The skin on his neck and back crawled as he heard the soft sounds of people moving behind him and around him.

"You are not welcome here, mageling."

It was barely a whisper, but it sounded unnaturally loud to his stretched out senses.

"We did not invite you."

Harry wondered if he was supposed to respond, but it hadn't been a direct question.

"Yet here he is - reborn. The deed is done. We can not undo it."

A much deeper voice. The words were promising, but the tone was not.

"Nor need we support it!"

"Set him free and we risk the compact."

"And kill him, and we risk death."

"The prophecy is unaltered. He must remain in the wizarding world," said the deeper voice with finality.

"Which really leaves us with only one option."

Harry grew tenser as the silence grew, with no further sounds of movement. He almost fell as a gong clanged and startled him about off his skin.

"You will complete your training with Severus Snape. Live until your presentation and we will accept you."

The door opened, and Harry could hear them moving.

"Wait, that's it? All I have to do is survive training?"

"Yes."

"We do not..."

"...expect you..."

"...to succeed."

Harry stayed on his knees long after the last sound had disappeared through the door, unsure and insecure. Severus Snape? There were rumours that he was a Vampire, of course, but nothing Harry had ever taken seriously. Why did everyone always want to throw the two of them together? His head fell forward as he realised just how irrevocable this all was. He was stuck like this. A vampire in a community he didn't understand, being trained by Severus Snape.

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Stephan assisted Harry home and gave him five vials of his blood to last him through the rest of the holidays. Then he was alone. Alone with his thoughts, alone with his books, and alone with his secretive experiments with his magic. Luckily, it took very little practice until he could cast without using any of his 'additional' talents. It kept the magic stable and would match what everyone else would expect from him.

Despite his loneliness, the end of the holiday caught him unprepared. Harry could barely face meeting up with his friends again as they found themselves a compartment on the train. He missed them terribly, but he would not be able to talk to them about what was really going on ever again and seeing them just brought that fact home to him. But he wouldn't think about that, he told himself firmly. For now, he would just enjoy their eternal bickering.

"Malfoy is head boy. Malfoy is head boy. Malfoy is head boy."

"Yes, Ron, I know! Honestly, you were made Quidditch captain, isn't that enough?"

"Hermione!" hissed Ron gesturing at Harry. She rolled her eyes, but looked embarrassed all the same.

"Look, Harry," started Ron awkwardly, "you know you're still an important member to the team, right? And..."

"Ron," interrupted Harry, "I'm not playing Quidditch this year."

Ron looked at him in disbelief.

"It isn't safe anymore, and with all I have to do, I can't really justify the time..."

"It was safe enough last year."

"No, it wasn't. I was taking unnecessary chances."

"He's right, Ron - think of how many times he's already been almost killed on the Quidditch field."

Ron started going red - a sure sign of anger in the teen. "And it just struck you now? It has nothing to do with the fact that they made me captain instead of you?"

"No, I told them I wasn't playing before..." Harry winced - he hadn't meant to say that.

"You mean they only made me captain because The Harry Potter wasn't going to be playing this year," said Ron bitterly.

"I don't know who they would have made..."

"Bullshit. You had to take this away from me too, didn't you? Ron Weasley was made a prefect because they didn't want to burden Harry Potter with more responsibility. Ron Weasely is going out with Hermione Granger because it didn't work out between her and Harry Potter. Ron Weasley was made Quidditch captain because Harry Potter had more important things to do."

Harry had nothing to say. That wasn't how it was, but there wasn't anything factual he could contradict.

"Well, I have to get to the prefects compartment. Enjoy your ride into Hogwarts, hero."

Harry sprung up and went to stand by the window. He could have so little of them, and even that was being denied him. He felt Hermione's hand on his shoulder, and reached up to grasp it in relief. No, he would be able to balance this. He would.

"I'm sorry about that, Harry. Look - I'll talk to him, alright?" she said.

"Yeah, I know how Ron gets. He'll come round. Look, you'd better be off to the prefects compartment too, Miss Head Girl."

Hermione blushed.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm sure."

"Thanks, Harry. I'll see you later."

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