The International Wizarding School Competition

Title: Lovers of Twilight

School: Durmstrang

Theme: Write about the consequences of revealing your soul.

Mandatory Prompt: (First/Last Line) Love is a choice you consciously choose to make.

Additional Prompt: (Character) vampire

Year: 2

Word Count: 2681

Warnings: Vampire!AU, mentions the death of magical creatures, and a slight bit out of character due to the AU.

I would like to take this time to thank everyone who beta read this story for me. It truly means a lot that you would take the time out to help me like this. So thank you all very much. I hope you all enjoy Lovers of Twilight.

Love is a choice you consciously choose to make. A thing which Severus had never learned throughout his long years of existence until now. Until she came into his life. Hermione Granger. Even now he could picture the young girl as clear as if she was still standing right in front of him. It had been over twenty years since they'd last been in each other's presence, and he can still picture her as perfectly as though it was yesterday.

It all started when Severus had gotten the message from Albus Dumbledore stating that they needed a new Potions Master at Hogwarts. Severus was after all known as one of the best potioneers in his lifetime. Not just his lifetime but at least three or two lifetimes over.

It had taken a lot of wheedling and promises on Dumbledore's part until Severus finally agreed to join the staff of the school. But he had and would never have been ready for her. Not in a million years.

When he entered the Potions classroom down in the Dungeons, a place he chose due to his vampiric nature, he had expected no one to be there. He'd expected that he would be able to quietly unpack his belongings in the bedroom beyond the classroom and start his lesson plan before anyone came into the room. But as soon as he got close enough to the room, he could smell the slight scent of perfume. A sweet scent of fresh mandarin oranges, vanilla straight from the plant, warm caramel -; like he used to enjoy on his ice cream sundaes, - earthly cedar, and a slight hint of vetiver. But underneath it all was the fragrance that made him not want to enter the room. The scent of fresh pumping blood made his mouth water as his fangs began to press through the tender flesh of his gums.

He could hear the faint clacking of heels from in the room and impatient murmur as whoever was in there began to speak to themselves. Her voice sent alluring chills all the way through him even as the scent of her blood caused a burning hunger in him. He steadied himself and vowed that he would get through this encounter with the alluring human within the room.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, he opened the door of the potions lab, and there she was, mid-stride in the middle of the potions lab and mouth open as though about to say something. Her chocolate-colored hair flowed in ringlets around her face. Her skin was a perfect, unblemished tan which could be because of mixed heritage. Her eyes were a blazing hue of brown that was like looking into a molten bowl of chocolate. It was from her that the alluring scent was coming.

"Are you Severus Snape?" she asked, her voice a lilting tone of wonder as she took him in. "I'm Hermione Granger. I was sent here as a teacher's assistant by the Potion Master's Guild of Britain. I'm supposed to be learning everything I can from you." She held her hand out to him.

Severus looked at her outstretched hand and had to fight the urge to take hold of it and sink his fangs into the pulsing vein of her wrist. He could see the flow of her blood even through her flesh, and the more he was in contact with her, the more he found himself wanting to -

"Yes," he finally answered, taking her hand and shaking it as he fought the urge to dine upon her. "I am Severus Snape. I wasn't aware that I was going to be having a teaching assistant. I was told that I was going to be teaching alone."

"Professor Dumbledore must not have spoken to you about it yet then," she said, shaking her head as though she was quite aware of Dumbledore's proclivities and found them quite humorous. "He had said that he was going to discuss it with you first."

"No word of it had been brought to me," he said, sounding much colder than he'd intended to. "But seeing as you are here now, and it is much too late to send you back, we will have to go forth and deal with what we are dealt."

Hermione's smile faltered a bit, but she covered it up quickly. Nodding, she walked back over to the big desk at the front of the room and picked something up. Returning to him, she held out a thick black file folder that had the ledger of Potions lessons.

"I took the liberty of jotting down a few ideas for class experiments," she said, smiling a smile that didn't meet her eyes as it had before. "Just some fun things that I think would make learning much more fun for the students this year. You can take a look at them and use whatever you would like. I'm sure you have your own way of teaching, and it might not be the same as mine."

"Thank you, Miss Granger," he said, taking the folder from her hands and trying hard to avoid coming into contact with her skin. "If you will excuse me, I would like to unpack my belongings before dinner tonight."

"Of course," she said, backing towards the door. "It was nice to meet you, Severus."

"You as well, Miss Granger."

He waited until he could no longer hear the faint clacking of her heels upon the cold stone floor of the dungeons. Then Severus shook his head trying to get the feelings that the scent of her blood had sent through him under submission.

The feeling of longing remained though no matter how hard he tried to get it out of his mind. Her blood was intoxicating, and he found that even the very thought of it left him in a pang of great hunger. He turned towards the bedroom that had been set aside for him trying to ignore the scent of her on the folder he was carrying.

"Severus," a voice at the door stopped him short of entering his chambers.

He whirled on his heel and was pleased to see that it wasn't Hermione Granger come back to speak to him once more. It was Minerva McGonagall the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts.

"Minerva," he greeted her calmly, watching cautiously. Minerva had been the most vocal against his being hired to teach here.

"I've come to make sure that you remember your deal with Albus," she said, staring him straight in the eye with a look that told him she was just waiting for him to mess up.

"I do remember my deal with Albus, Minerva," he told her, his look intensifying a hundredfold. "But does he remember the deal?"

"He does. But you also must remember that he is the headmaster of this school and not yourself. He makes the appointments and not you."

He was about to reply when he realized that she had left. He should have known that Minerva would be one of his first visitors. She never had been a huge fan of his for some reason. One that he never got to ask about.

He sighed as he walked into the chambers that were his own. He put his suitcase upon the full-bodied duvet, his finger caressing the scarlet velvet of the over blanket. The scarlet curtain hanging around the bed was open and seemed to billow in a mysterious wind that he couldn't locate.

As he began to unpack his belongings and put them into the oak and cedar cabinet and chests that were in his room, Severus began to grow very hungry. If he was being honest, he had been hungry since he'd come into contact with his teacher's assistant. But the longing to sink his fangs into something warm-blooded increased the more he moved about.

It wasn't that Severus was a young vampire. He had been a vampire for so very long that he should have known that he would need to feed soon. Dumbledore had even foreseen his need for food and had given him free rein of the Forbidden Forest. Perhaps when he was finished here, he would go into the forest and get himself something to eat.

That first encounter with Hermione had led to Severus being more than careful around the girl. He knew that if he wasn't, she would end up like any number of the creatures he'd feasted upon in the forest over the past few weeks. But as the days drew by, Hermione Granger found reason after reason to keep within his orbit. A thing which Severus both enjoyed and cursed at the same time.

He enjoyed being around her because she was so alive. But at the same time, that was the main reason he also cursed her presence. She was alive. She was a living human being. A living human being that he could easily cause to be an unliving human being. He didn't want this life for her. Especially after getting to know the young woman more and more as the year went by. He wished she'd just leave him be. He wasn't the sort that needed to be surrounded by people. He quite preferred to be alone. If he was alone, no one stood the chance of getting hurt or worse by his worst impulses. But the more he tried to hide what he was, the more close calls Hermione seemed to have.

In a fit of hunger late one night, he'd almost lept upon the girl and drained her of her blood right then and there in the potions lab. But he'd contained himself enough to make a quick exit claiming that Dumbledore had wanted to speak to him about his lesson plans. Which was much the same thing that had happened tonight.

He cursed her need to be close to him as he raced through the castle to get outside and to his forest buffet. His throat ached with the want of the warm liquid that was pulsing through the veins of one Hermione Jean Granger. His fangs had pushed through his gums already and were glistening with the venom that would paralyze his next victim.

Had he not been in such a frenzied state to get out of the castle, he would have noticed the clacking of heels quick upon his own. He would have heard her calling and told her not to follow. But he didn't hear any of those warning signs. He was too distracted trying to reach his next meal before he made a meal of her.

Reaching the forest, he continued to race deeper not hearing the sounds of her following him. He had to feed. He needed to feed. He could feel the longing for blood coursing through him even as he ran. It was then that he heard the scream of pain from behind him which had followed the snarl of a wolf.

He could hear Hermione hurling every protection spell she could to keep herself safe. If only she knew that most of those spells wouldn't keep her safe from the sort of wolf that was coming for her. A werewolf. The only werewolf he knew for miles around here.

He stopped in his tracks smelling the scent of the werewolf in question masking the sweet scent that was Hermione's. He didn't know why he did what he did next. But after hearing Hermione's shrill scream of pain, he sprinted towards where he'd last heard her and her snarling attacker.

"Get away from her, you bitch!" he snarled, leaping in between Hermione and her attacker. His eyes glowed a faint yellow which caused Minerva to whimper and turn on her heels, racing away.

"Severus," Hermione gasped, trying to stand up but gasping in pain and falling back to the ground. "What were you thinking? You could have been hurt."

"I'd be much finer off than you would have been," he explained, turning to face her. Upon seeing the look on her face, he wished that he hadn't done so. She looked terrified, and he knew why as soon as he saw her face. His fangs were still out in a lurid expression of hunger. "I can explain. But first, I need to feed."

Strangely enough, she only nodded and said that she would wait for him to explain everything at the edge of the forest. It was obvious even to him that she didn't want to stay in the forest any longer than she needed to.

He nodded and watched as she walked away in order to make sure she was clear of the forest and safely out in the open where others could see and defend her before racing off to hunt.

When he finally made his way back to Hermione making sure to clean the blood off his face and hands, Severus was relieved to see that she was still there waiting for him. Pacing back and forth and looking disturbed but still there all the same.

"Hermione," he said tentatively as he walked towards her.

"Severus, what are you?" she asked, eyes looking into his own dark orbs in question.

"You must promise to not be afraid of me," he told her. "It was and never will be my intention to see you come to harm."

Hermione looked deep in thought for a couple of minutes before she nodded slowly. "I promise to hear you out and try not to be afraid of what you have to say," she told him. "But you have to understand if you are what I think you are, there hasn't been a sighting of any of your kind in a long time."

"What exactly do you think I am, Miss Granger?" he asked, watching her as the gears seemed to turn in her mind. "Say it."

"Vampire," she whispered quietly even though she more than likely knew that Severus could still hear her.

"I am a vampire," Severus told her, watching her stare at him in a mixture of awe and fascination. A thing which he wasn't exactly expecting from her. "The creatures that have been found dead in the forest have been my doing."

"So that you wouldn't hurt any of the staff or students, right?" she asked, looking much like a scholar studying a subject instead of a young woman coming face to face with a monster. "That's why you never leave the castle during the day."

Severus nodded.

"That's why you're always trying to keep me at arm's length," she whispered, sounding curious and a bit hurt. "But if you'd have been honest about this from the start we could have…."

"There is no we could have," he told her bluntly. "I am a vampire, and you are a human. The two don't mix well."

"But Severus…."

He cursed himself as he heard the tears in her voice. He almost wanted to cry himself. He had sadly enough grown close to the girl but not as close as she seemed to have grown to him. He needed to cut this off before they both became emotionally invested.

"There are no buts, Miss Granger," he told her sharply, hating himself for each and every word that he said and had yet to say. "You are nothing more than my teacher's assistant, and that is all that you will remain. Do I make myself clear?"

"Severus, I know you feel something more for me," she whispered, tears flowing down her face as she looked up at him. "I know you feel the same way for me as I do for you."

"No." He turned on his heel and fled back into the woods feeling the tears sting his own eyes. If things were different, they could have been more to each other. But this was how things were and how they would have to remain.

Love is a choice you consciously choose to make. But so was this and she would come to see that eventually. Or at least, he hoped she would.

I hope you all enjoyed Lovers of Twilight as much as I enjoyed writing it. Also, please let me know if you would like to see this made into a longer story.