Harry Potter
&
The Children of the Night
-by Lady Nichola Valerius

Previously, on Harry Potter and the Children of the Night:

Hedwig the owl hooted once more, the sound more comforting than the previous one she made. She ruffled her feathers, making her chest puff up in the graceful way only owls can get away with, and looked at him with her piercing amber-gold eyes. Getting the message she was trying to convey, her master nodded at her thankfully, taking deep, shuddered breaths and chanted mentally: "Calm in, panic out…Calm in, panic out…" He repeated the cycle a few times… then-

Oh, bugger it all.

He tore through the envelope and carefully took out the folded parchment. Forcing himself to read it from the very beginning, he shut his eyes for a brief moment, then he opened them and began to read.

'Dear Harry…'

Chapter 2
Harry's Twin

'Dear Harry,

No need to worry, kid, although if you're anything like James, then I reckon that you've worried yourself sick. I'm in Italy, or more precisely, Milan. The Zabini's have been kind enough to give me shelter until September, where I will then escort their son, Blaise, to Hogwarts. Why am I with the Zabini's, you ask? Funny story that one… The Veil that I fell through was an invention of André Zabini, Dominic's father, who is Blaise's papa. The other end of the Veil is here in their mansion, hidden in a secret room near the kitchens. One of their house-elves, Peachy, found me (absolutely adores me that one). Ceilya, the eldest of the children, has taken a liking to me and has been nursing me back to health. She even made me give up that beard I was trying to grow… women…

Well, enough of my rantings. How's my favorite godson? Not that I have any other godsons, mind you, but still… Well, I hope you're doing fine, kid. I am. I actually gained some weight, what with Ceilya feeding me nonstop since I got out. Are the Dursleys feeding you? If not, tell me and I'll drop by and give them a piece of my mind.

By the way, how's Remus? Don't worry, I'll be sending him a letter too. And I hope you got my present in good condition. I'm going to leave a note on how to work in before I wrap the box. I hope you'll like them. It turns out that the Zabini's are related to you. Blaise is your third cousin, I think, from your father's side. The gift is from all of us here. It's a Potter family heirloom, and it's supposed to help the family heir through difficult times. Since Blaise is the Zabini heir, you get to have this. An advance birthday gift, if you will.

I have to go…it's already dinner time here, and if I'm not down soon, Ceilya's sure to tear the manor apart just looking for me. I'll see you soon kid. I promise.

Sirius'

Harry fell onto his bed, the letter floating down to the ground. Silence reigned loudly in Harry's room. For a long time, the Boy-Who-Lived just stared at the fallen letter, his thoughts blank. His gaze turned to the package, and he ripped the wrappings off, the almost violent sound bouncing off the walls. Opening the box, he found the promised note speared through a needle on top of a small sphere-like device that stood on clawed feet, gray mist swirling inside. He grabbed the note, greedy for more of Sirius' letters, if just to prove that he really was alive. He didn't notice that the needle had scraped his finger, droplets of red blood flowing down the slim piece of protruding metal into the sphere. He read the next letter, not noticing the sphere glow dimly as his blood mixed with the mist.

'Harry,

This is called a 'Helper'. It exists in most pureblood families, the old ones anyway. I have one, the Zabini's have one, even the Malfoy's have one. The Weasley's, for obvious reasons, do not have one. Anyway, the Helper, err… helps the chosen heir, most usually, the first patriarch who received it made the heir a male, with their lifetime difficulties. It depends on the heir's problems actually. All I know is that it will never harm the heir or anyone else unless it wants to cause the heir harm. So it's like… what do those Muggles call it? A sporsesuit? I think it was... anyway… it will protect you. All you have to do is prick your finger on the needle where you found this note speared through. Then it'll give you your solution. That's how my father described it to me before- Anyway; I hope you find it useful. Be safe.

Sirius'

This… This proved it. Harry jumped up, giving a large whoop of joy. "He's alive! He's alive!" he kept saying, a smile on his face, jumping around his room. When his Aunt Petunia opened the door to his room to see what the commotion was all about, Harry paused to look at her, before wrapping his arms around her waist and spinning her around the small room, saying, "He's alive!" over and over again. When he set Petunia down, she scampered out his room, frightened. Harry was oblivious to everything but his happiness. He never noticed the light in the sphere slowly glowing brighter and brighter each moment. He never noticed the surge of magic that escaped him and flew to his bed, a figure being traced almost immediately as it met with the power of the sphere. He didn't notice the beautiful eyes that opened to his shouts of glee. But he did notice when someone coughed. "Hem, hem."

Spinning around, he whipped his wand out, and pointed it in the direction of the sound. There, on the foot of his small bed, sat a young woman, probably 20 or 21, with long dark hair and an athletic build. She was as pale as he; her skin covered with red silk and silver accessories, along with knives, daggers and long slips of metal that Harry didn't recognize. But what he did recognize was that her eyes were a certain shade of green that he had only ever seen on two people. Him and his mum.

"How-What! Who are you! What do you want!" he asked, suspicious. She raised her hands in a gesture of peace.

"I mean you no harm, Harry," she replied, "You can trust me."

Harry looked at her curiously. Yes, he did trust her. Why? He didn't know but he did. "So who are you?" he asked, still cautious.

The girl looked at him, amused. "I am you." Harry paused, just staring at her. Then-

"Huh?"

The girl chuckled. "Doesn't make sense does it?" Harry shook his head no. "Alright then, think of it this way. There is good and bad, light and dark, yin and yang, peace and war, man and woman. If you are the good, the light, the yang, the peace, the man, then I am the bad, the dark, the yin, the war, the woman. You can't exist without me, and I can't exist without you. We are the opposite of each other. We balance each other. Does that make sense?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, but if that is true, then we should have been born at the same time. Why is it that you just came alive now?" he protested.

"We were. Well, not literally. I am older than you, obviously. I was given life during the ninth moon, the month of the fallen, on its first day. And at the very same day… I died."

"Y-you what?" he stuttered. "But if you died…"

"I was taken from my birth mother by Vampires. They turned me using an Ancient Vampiric blood ritual. It ensured my parents that my blood would be turned and that I would be their full-blooded child. I am a…royal one… so to say," she said.

"What's your name then?" Harry asked, remembering just then.

"I am called Era-Zana Emera Ciana Vitalia Valerius," she said proudly.

Harry's eyebrows rose. "Ok, Era-"

"No… Era-Zana is my title, Harry," she chastised with a smile, "You may call me either Emera or Ciana. Vitalia is my Mother's name. Valerius is our Clan."

"Clan?" Harry asked, his mind fervently racing to find his lessons on Vampires, before remembering that they hadn't taken up the subject in depth.

"Clan Valerius, Harry, is the most prominent clan in the Vampiric realm. We are descendants of the very first Vampire, Lilith. She was said to be the mortal Adam's first wife, before Adam claimed her too… vivacious for him. She walked away from him when she saw that the Creator had replaced her with Eve. The Evil One felt her resentment and used it to lure her to him. She traded her soul in exchange for power and to ensure her Immortality on Gaea."

"Hold on, I'm really confused here. First of all, Adam had a wife before Eve? The Creator is obviously God, and the Evil One is the Devil, but what is Gaea?" Harry asked, really frustrated. Emera smiled.

"And I see that we need our history lesson," she commented. "Don't worry. I now know what I'm here for. You need to learn our ways, and that includes our history. We'll tackle that in a bit, but first thing's first." She leaned over to him, her red dress falling forward, exposing her generous cleavage. Harry's eyes involuntarily drifted down for some reason, and Emera saw yet another fault in him. She smiled widely at him. "Like what you see?"

Harry blushed furiously. "S-sorry-"

"It's ok, I would have worried if you didn't look, Harry." She laughed. "So…" She rubbed her hands together as she leered playfully at him, before asking, rather innocently, "Is there any place we can eat?"