Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any other fandom I manage to squeeze in this story.
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Lightning Dragon's Roar
A Harry Potter Fanfiction
By Zero Rewind
© 2015
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Chapter 44: More Plans
"I'm just saying." Erebus protested slightly. "Seems kind of rash, no?"
I practically palmed my face. "You have no flair for the dramatic, do you?"
"No."
"Yeah, okay." I grumbled, getting a round of laughs from everyone in the kitchen. "Help me out, Clark?"
"Oh, now you want my help?" Clark glared petulantly. "I thought I was just the mindless muscle. The lackey. The brainless thug. The—"
"All right, fine, fine." I raised my hands in surrender, and forced an extremely fake smile. "I'm sorry, Kent. Forgive me?"
He merely stared back, blankly.
"Please?" I tried again.
"No." He said in a monotone.
"Oh." I said glumly. "Oh. Okay. I see how it is." Then I grinned, with Clark mirroring it.
"Hey, where is Balthazar, anyway?" Sirius asked, and the smile fell off my face.
"I didn't tell you when I sent my Patronus?" I asked soberly, trying to think of the exact words I had said in the panicked delirious state I was in after my escape.
"You said that some muggle scientists did something to you." Sirius replied carefully, and everyone murmured amongst each other, not having known that.
"Yeah." I said, and tore my bandages off, revealing my black scaled right arm. "He is part of me now."
"You mean—" Sirius stopped for a moment, trying not to gape. "What you did in Temen Ni Gru was permanent?"
"No, it wasn't." I denied, shaking my head. "Or, at least, it wasn't supposed to be. Suffice to say that muggle scientists have learned a few tricks."
Balthazar hissed a quick §Hi§, the sound coming out of the hole in my right palm. It seemed to shake everyone up.
"I… See." Sirius said, uncertainly.
"Let's get back on track." I said, my smile forced. "So, you're saying the Red Court of vampires is in league with V?"
Sirius didn't look happy at the subject change, but respected my wishes regardless.
"No, they've been killing wizards indiscriminately." Moody grunted before Sirius could talk. "The Dark Lord has actually been fighting them, as of late."
I considered that for a moment.
"Makes sense. He wants to rule the Wizarding world, not eradicate it. If the vamps kill everything, then what's left for him to rule?" I reasoned his intentions out.
"That's what I deduced, as well." Moody agreed, an approving look on his face. "That's why I've declared the Red Court as the main target, for now. We have ceased all hostilities against the Dark Lord, at least until we deal with the vampires."
I nodded. "Better the devil we know."
"Exactly."
"I don't agree with it." Bill Weasley entered the room. "We should be undermining His power instead of cooperating with Him."
"The world isn't perfect, kid." Moody said, without malice. Likely, they had this conversation before. "Red Court will wipe us off the face of the Earth. There won't be anything left to save."
"Vampires?" I heard a low murmur from my right. It was Clark.
"Yeah." I gave him a nod.
"You mean like, scared of garlic, lives in a coffin, vampire?" Clark pressed on.
"Those are Black Court vamps." I shook my head, turning to a slightly shaking Hermione. "Hermione."
She almost jumped. "Yes?"
"Explain what Red Court vampires are like to Clark. I figure I can't do the lesson justice, not like you could." I smiled encouragingly.
She weakly smiled back, before adopting a thoughtful look.
After she collected her thoughts, she spoke.
"Red Court vampires are monstrous, bat-like creatures hidden behind attractive human costumes. They call the outer skin a 'flesh mask'."
Clark grimaced at the term.
"They are strong, fast, and can take a lot of damage. They are vulnerable to sunlight and having their bellies cut open. Another thing to worry about, is their saliva, which is a potent magical narcotic, giving its prey a euphoric feeling."
She stopped and took a breath.
"Well put, Hermione." I raised my hand to scratch the back of my head. She flinched so minutely that almost no one caught it.
But, I did.
"Thank you, Hermione." Clark said kindly, having likely seen her reaction as well.
I turned to Moody.
"So the priority is the Red Court?" I asked for confirmation. Moody nodded.
I cursed.
"Clark." I said, gaining his attention. "I'm sorry. I thought the situation was pretty cut and dry, but with the Red Court here, it complicates matters. If you want to go home, I—"
"Don't even think about finishing that sentence." Clark cut me off, looking a little annoyed. "I'll help you with these vampires, instead of the wizards. I probably wouldn't be of much use against the magic users… That fight outside was incredibly risky."
"Agreed." I nodded.
"Besides, what are guild mates for?" Clark smiled and extended his fist to me. I bumped it.
"Guild mates, eh?" Ron commented, gaining our attention.
"Heh." I scratched the back of my head. "Yeah. It's just me and Clark, so far. You want in?"
"You even have to ask, mate?" Ron replied with a grin. The room began to empty itself out, leaving Ron, Clark, Hermione, Sirius and I in the kitchen.
"And you two?" I turned to Hermione and Sirius.
"Sounds like fun." Sirius said.
Hermione said nothing, seemingly retreating in her own self.
I frowned, and opened my mouth to say something, but Ron shook his head, a sad look on his face. He nudged his head in the direction of my room.
I nodded.
"I'm going to check on my room, Sirius. I hope you didn't turn it into a warzone." I forced a smile on my face, and walked out, Ron following me.
"As if you hadn't already turned it into a warzone before leaving." Sirius' loud reply made me snort.
The trek to my room barely took any time. The place was almost exactly the same as I had left it, prior to my trip to Temen Ni Gru. It had obviously been cleaned up, a few times, and I could smell my Godfather's aroma in the air with my new, enhanced senses.
His scent mostly revolved around my computer; he probably was playing games consistently.
That's what it was, sure. Games.
I heard the door close from behind me, and turned to see Ron, looking a little apprehensive.
"What happened to Hermione?" I cut to the chase. "She's so…"
"Scared out of her mind?" Ron snorted mirthlessly. "Yeah. That she is."
"What could…" I repeated, trailing off. Whatever it was, it had to be really bad. It was like her spirit was broken. Hermione, one of the most willful people I had met in my entire life.
"Death Eaters happened. They found her and her parents, while everyone was searching for you in the aftermath of whatever happened at that tower." Ron said grimly, directing a bit of his anger onto me.
"Stopped the Devil Emperor from gaining a foothold in the human world." I said, not liking where this was going, but still feeling defensive over his implication.
Ron paused, taking in that information, before shaking his head.
"I guess I can't exactly blame you for that, huh…" Ron sighed, the maturity he was showing completely alien to me. "They were low ranking Death Eaters, they broke into their home, and killed Hermione's parents, before…"
He didn't say what happened afterward, but I could connect the dots.
"They had her for an hour before we managed to save her." Ron said sadly. "But the damage was done."
The strength left my knees, and I felt myself falling onto my bed.
They had Hermione for an hour. An hour would have been like eternity with scum like that. I cringed at the thoughts that went through my head.
The fear for my friend turned into righteous anger. I sat back up.
"Who are they?" I asked slowly, and calmly.
"They are already dead." Ron said, savagely. "I made sure of it, myself."
I stopped for a second, looking at Ron in a different light. My own anger was not wholly forgotten, but the shock of seeing Ron act like this was quite substantial.
It might have been months for him, but to me, it was a few weeks. I remembered Ron with Tracey Davis, the two enjoying each other's company (AKA snogging each other senseless).
"I made them bleed. I made them scream." Ron snarled, before visibly making an effort in composing himself. "For whatever good it did. I was too late."
And here I was, not five minutes ago, agreeing with Moody about ceasing hostilities with the Death Eaters for a while. Right in front of Hermione.
"I'm sorry." I said, cringing. "I'm— I can't— I didn't know."
Ron regarded me for a moment, his eyes blazing, before they lost that shine.
"It's all right." Ron waved it off, sighing. "Of course you didn't know… Where have you been, all this time?"
So I told him everything. From the Demons at Temen Ni Gru, to Erebus' tricks, using my mother against me. Lilith's plan to bring forth the Devil Army, Agni and Rudra, Dante and Vergil, and Mundus himself.
I told him how Dante, Vergil, Erebus, and Balthazar channeled all of their energies into my being, before I unleashed it, sending the Devil King right back where he came from.
I told him of how I drifted in the Realm of Darkness, before being dropped off at Metropolis, where I was immediately kidnapped and experimented on. How they injected the green meteor liquid into me, and how they—
"They have your—"
"Yeah. I don't know what they're going to do with it." I said, my eyes darkening. I had not found my semen at the 'abandoned' Luthorcorp complex.
I had tried with a few flicks of my wand, but it turned up no results. They might have already used it on a willing female who wished for a child. I just didn't know.
Then I told him of how I helped save the rest of the meteor infected, before I heard about the news in the UK and rushing here.
"Off helping others, as usual." Ron said in resignation, but there was no true malice in his tone. "And you brought a friend along, too."
"Yeah. Clark's really strong. Ridiculously strong, in fact, and willing to help."
"Can he be trusted?"
I hid a wince. "Yeah. I want you to know, that he's probably listening in to this conversation, as we speak."
Ron looked slightly alarmed, and confused as to how that was possible.
"Clark, your mom has nice tits." I started talking about how I wanted to do some questionable things with his adoptive mother. Ron tried not to smile, but eventually lost the battle and laughed out loud.
The moment of levity was short-lived, as my thoughts went back to Hermione, and what happened to her.
"The Red Court, huh." I said, moving to my old school trunk.
I pulled out my Cloak of Invisibility, and studied it for a moment. The fluid-like, silvery material gleamed in the light shining down on it. I stuffed it in my mokeskin pouch.
"Much as I hate to admit it." Ron said slowly, as if forcing himself to say the words. "They're a bigger threat than Him."
"Any idea why they're killing wizards?"
"Something about a 'white council' at war with them." Ron shrugged. "Moody and the adults looked really disturbed by that, but I have no idea what it means."
The White Council, a collection of True Mages from all around the world. Jonas, a shopkeeper in Metropolis' magical section had gave me a basic explanation of what they did.
I told Ron what I knew.
"True Mages. I heard dad talk about them at some point." Ron scrunched his eyes. "Their magic is way more volatile around muggle contraptions, more than ours ever could be."
I nodded, filing that information for later. Made sense, really; Jonas didn't seem to have any lights, or computers, or anything electric in his place..
"So our communities are basically the easy targets in the wake of the White Council's negligence of this area?" I tried to sum up the situation.
"That would be it, most likely." Ron agreed.
"A governing body of magic users completely powerless to stop the opposition." I mocked. "Where have I heard that before?"
I shook my head, and went for the door. "Come on."
We went back into the kitchen. Clark was chatting with Hermione, who seemed a bit livelier than she had been ten minutes ago. Ron actually smiled at the sight.
Clark took notice of me, and scowled. Likely, he had heard what I said about his mother.
That ought to teach him about listening in to private conversations.
Hermione's eyes met with mine. She saw the chagrined look in my eyes, and understood immediately. She glanced at Ron slightly, her eyes coming back to me.
I nodded to her unasked question, and sat next to her. I held out my hand next to hers.
She stared at it for a long time, making an effort to keep her composure. But I could still smell the distress she was currently in.
Damn it, I didn't know how to deal with this.
She took my hand. It was cold, clammy, and it was shaking.
I gave her hand a gentle squeeze, rubbing the inside of her palm with my thumb.
"I know how you feel." I murmured to her. She froze, probably in anger, fear and hurt.
"It was done to me, too." I smiled, a dark shadow of my regular, easy-going grin. "I was sedated, and tied up to a metal table. They violated me."
"I don't even know who did it." I continued quietly. "They might be out there, doing it to others."
I swallowed thickly, before pulling the bushy haired girl in a hug. She resisted for a second, before forcing herself to relax against me.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there." I said. "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault." She sniffled.
"I'm going to stop them. Even if I have to kill them all. Every single one of these Death Eaters is going to pay for harming my family." I declared.
Hermione pulled back, biting her lip, as if she was hesitating to say something.
"I—" She shivered, and shook her head. "I want to help you."
I was hit with a burst of sudden inspiration, and stuffed my hand inside of the mokeskin pouch, feeling for the item I needed. I pulled the aforementioned item out, and held it in front of Hermione.
"Then, I'll entrust you with this." I smiled. "At least, until this war is over."
"H-Harry." Hermione croaked, trying to push it away. "I can't accept this."
"You can, and you will." I denied. "The Cloak goes to whomever I choose. And I want you to have it."
I pushed the silky, silvery material in her hands, closing them on the fabric right after.
Perhaps it was not the smartest move, but I had done fairly well for myself without the extra added bonus of invisibility. Hermione probably needed it more than I, at any rate.
Besides, she was more suited for precise combat, and the Cloak of Invisibility would let her land some devastating blows, the invisibility allowing her to attack from almost any angle she wants.
Or, if she just wanted to go hide somewhere until the dust settled, she could do that, as well. That was fine, too.
The Red Court; I really didn't know much about them aside from the fact that they were blood sucking vampires that addict their prey to their narcotic saliva— magically narcotic, however weird that sounds.
"Where does the Red Court operate in Britain? Like, where exactly?" I asked, trying to think the situation through.
They were monsters of the night, who hated daytime with a passion— heh, that sounded a little like me during a gaming fest.
Anyway, since they go out during the night time, it had to be some place that was open at night instead of the day.
Then it hit me like a sledgehammer to the face.
Night clubs; a stupidly easy method to feed on unsuspecting prey.
Hell, it was perfect! Just bite someone and they become putty in your hands due to the narcotic effect of the saliva.
It wouldn't even alert anyone to the danger, since the act of biting is considered as sexual foreplay between two people, and not an actual threat.
People would be openly cheering at the couple that had the balls to engage in biting in public.
The whole thing was on a level I hadn't even thought of, before. What if biting was a publicly accepted act introduced by the Red Court vampires over the years?
Social engineering at its finest. The whole thing was insidious.
"We're not sure." Sirius replied, looking a little exasperated. "Our sources have placed them somewhere around the eastern section of London, with some smaller cells in Liverpool, Bristol and Manchester. We're not sure where the ones in Ireland, and Scotland are— that's what Remus is doing, scouting them out."
"The biggest threat," Sirius continued. "Is in London; but, with Dumbledore dead, everyone's been running around like headless chickens. No one wants to fight back. The general population think the Ministry, also known as V's puppets, is going to protect them, since the Red Court is attacking all wizards, but he won't bother with them."
"You expected any different? He'd let the sheep get slaughtered by the wolves and laugh about it as it happens." I answered back. "Give me a second, here."
East London. It wasn't a huge lead by any stretch of the imagination, but I could work with that.
"I'm going to do a little research." I declared, before standing up and motioning for Clark to follow me.
He obeyed, and followed me into my room without comment.
He looked around quizzically. "I was expecting your room to be devoid of any electric lights and such. Guess I was wrong."
"Noticed that, did you?" I replied, waving to all the electronics as he sat on my bed. "Yeah, the room is specially warded against magical energies. Magic and electronics don't really mix very well, you know?"
Clark nodded noncommittally.
I turned away, and took a seat in front of my computer, moving the mouse a bit to bring it out of sleep mode. It started with an unusually loud whirr— guess I needed to clean the fans or something when I had the time.
I waited patiently, making sure the computer wasn't going to freeze on me when I decided to use it, before opening the Mozilla Firefox browser.
"What exactly are you searching for, Harry?" Clark asked curiously, leaning forward as I began typing and clicking.
"Well," I began. "Sirius said that the Red Court vamps are operating somewhere around east London, right?"
Clark nodded in confirmation.
"Yeah, so?" He questioned, not quite knowing where I was going with this.
"Well, think about it for a second." I said. "Outside of the magical communities, no one believes in the existence of vampires. That means they can operate in public— with impunity."
I went through a few misdirected searches, and some dead end links, as well as a copious amount of penis enlargement ads as Clark absorbed the information.
"And since they're creatures of the night… what?" Clark started with an incredulous smile. "You're saying they're going to be operating out of night clubs, or something?"
The smile faded as he realized that it was exactly what I was implying.
Aha! There we go.
"Not just any nightclub." I said triumphantly. "Take a look at this shit."
I turned the screen to him.
"The Crimson River." Clark read the words. "Bar, inn, masseuses."
"It's a glorified brothel." I almost laughed if the situation wasn't so serious. "Even the name fits. River would be crimson if it was crimson with blood."
"Of course." Clark stifled a sigh. "What is it with bad guys and these easy to figure out names?"
"I know, right?" I smiled, before waving at the computer. "That took like, what, five minutes tops?"
It wasn't just the vampires' idiocy, though. This was yet another reason why the Order, and the Wizarding population in general was having so much trouble with the vampires.
Unlike those filthy blood suckers, the wizards didn't keep up with the times, because they believed themselves to be above muggles.
Technology was useless, right? Why bother learning how to use the internet, or muggle channels? Such things were for muggles, mudbloods and blood traitors, right?
Such arrogance would prove to be the wand-wizards' downfall, I was absolutely certain of that fact.
"Not even that, maybe two minutes." Clark said, getting off the bed and pacing around the room. "Harry, we have to approach this extremely carefully."
I nodded.
"Agreed." I said grimly. "The vampires will probably have plenty of their drugged up mind slaves with them. Most of them unwilling or unknowing victims, no doubt."
Clark grimaced at that particular bit of information.
"So, what's the game plan?" Clark asked. "How do we kill the vampires without harming the people?"
"You've got the speed and strength." I reasoned. "You grab any victims you can see and get them out of there. I'll take care of anything else that gets in our way. Hopefully vampires."
"Are you sure?" Clark frowned. "I could help out with the fighting. You sure you can take them on, by yourself?"
"Honestly?" I said. "I really don't know. I've got considerable strength, speed and quick reaction times thanks to my Lightning Dragonslayer Magic, and the… Experiments done on me."
"If I can beat the Demonic forces of Temen Ni Gru, as well as Mundus' assassins." I continued, ignoring the shudder at the thought of me being experimented on. "Then a bunch of Red Court vampires should be easy, right?"
"On the other hand." I kept going. "We're fighting these guys on their home turf, and they surely have similar physical enhancements. Maybe not quite at my level…"
"But if a few dozen of them rush you all at once…" Clark trailed off, nodding in understanding.
It was like having to dodge entire packs of Hell Lusts that are hopped up on steroids and caffeine. I hoped I wouldn't find myself in such a situation.
"Worse yet." I added. "They're not regular monsters. They won't be sluggish, and they won't be dumb, either. We should expect hostage situations, guerilla tactics, the works. Hell, they might have their mind slaves carry machine guns around, or something."
"I… Hadn't even thought of that possibility." Clark admitted, looking a little confused. "Why would their slaves follow them if they had weapons?"
"You don't get it, man." I explained patiently. "Those people don't want to be freed by us. They're junkies, addicted to the narcotic saliva that the Red Court vampires inject into them. You have to forcefully pull them away."
"I see." Clark said, scrunching his eyes shut for a few seconds, as if he was debating something within himself. He opened them again.
"How do we beat the vampires, themselves?" Clark asked. "I know your friend, Hermione, said something about them, but I forgot."
"Tear its stomach open, to let the blood out. Human blood acts as an energy source for it, if that makes sense." I explained.
Clark nodded. "Anything else?"
"I suppose crushing its skull with your insane strength would work." I reasoned with a dismissive wave. "You could likely burn them to a crisp with that heat vision of yours, too."
I got up off the chair, and turned towards Clark, who was giving me a determined look.
"So yeah, that's the plan." I said. "This will be the first official job for our guild: get to Crimson River, save people, kill vampires, and try not to die."
Clark palmed his face, grinning despite himself.
"This better pay good."
"Don't worry your pretty little ass, Kent. I'm good for it." I quipped.
"...Gay." Erebus clattered in his sheath.
"Shut up, Erebus!"