FFOmega

Part II: Crimson Rain

Chapter 2

The Paranormal Studies Special Ops Unit was revered among those that knew of its existence as one of the most feared Divisions under the military control of the Scotland Yard. They were the best at what they did.

Get in.

Get it done.

And Get the fuck on before anyone knew they were there.

They were the reason that the mass populace rarely had any proof outside of folklore of such things as vampires, werewolves, merpeople, and other such creatures.

They were used to paranormal creatures, taking them out and getting out before anything was left to chance, and before anyone was able to see. But that was very few in number.

Not over 2 hundred vampires.

But by all accounts, there shouldn't have been that many vampires in the near area. They couldn't have simply come from nowhere. Unless their numbers had swollen suddenly and without anyone realizing it at all.

Rose Brown stood in the center of the town square, looking out into the forest. She had gotten rid of her business suit in exchange for some better clothing for the night ahead, and her men had all prepped. The man known as Baretta was doing something incredibly interesting, in raiding the back of the transit unit that the unit used, throwing weapons out into the middle of the square, seeming to make 2 piles of some kind.

The woman with the long hair, Lulu, was sitting in a meditative position, her scythes in front of her, and a bullwhip wrapped in a circle around her. Her eyes were closed, and she looked very edgy as a dark magic of some kind danced around her.

She locked eyes with Harry from across the cobblestone street. His eyes were haunted, and his hands jammed into his pockets in an almost defiant gesture. Blaise was checking on the small boy sitting there on the ground rocking himself back and forth as if in some kind of trauma. Harry, on the other hand, looked very little like the doting boyfriend or the concerned savior at the time, but looked much closer to someone lost in their own thoughts. And his thoughts, by the look on his face, was one place she wanted to be even less than a small village surrounded by hundreds of vampires as dusk began to approach.

She would never know exactly how little she would want to be him by the end of the night.

-----

The sun was retreating, and as it did, the cloud cover was causing it to be much darker than it should have been. The dusk light was stretching shadows out to make even the smallest of roaming cats look like lions wandering the streets in the dark of the night. The street lights were the first to go, and Harry was the first to notice.

He was standing to the side of a building, fiddling with one of the knives that Blaise had given him, his forearm blades as he called them, when there was movement, and the first light at the end of the street went out. He looked down the street, before he looked down at his hand and continued to mess with his nails, picking at the underside of them. When the second light went out, he made even less of a move to do anything. Two of the Paranormal Ops soldiers were stationed in a house across from him, their rifles trained. They were watching him, and were given strict orders to not do anything until he did. However, one of the men began to grown antsy as the lights steadily went out. They couldn't see what was going on 5 feet down the road, the only light left was right next to Harry.

As the last light went out, and all was silent for a moment, the Operative was growing edgy and was reaching for his light. Finally, he flicked it on, and the flashlight clicked on and the white light shone brightly. Pinned to the wall was a vampire, a knife through its neck, and Harry stood, in the middle of picking at his nails again with another knife when the light came on.

He stared blankly at the source of the light before a look of complete and utter shock slid across his face. Shock at the complete idiocy of the person who was illuminating him. The light turned, and down the street, they could make out a huge mass of vampires making their way up the street, screaming and shouting in rage, rushing toward the light. Harry's eyes narrowed and suddenly, with a flick of his wrist, the knife shattered the flashlight atop the automatic weapon.

"Idiot!" Harry literally growled out, before there was the sound of metal scratching along something hard, and then there was a flash of reflected light, as whatever the metal object was drew a flash of moonlight, and then there was nothing but the sound of screaming figures and bodies hitting the ground.

It was within 3 minutes of complete nightfall, that the first gunshots rang out. They were rapid, loud, powerful, and much too close to make anyone feel comfortably safe.

And from there, over the next many hours the town was steadily buried under dead bodies, dust, drawn blood, and bullet shells.

-----

Blaise had been watching the small boy that they had captured earlier in the day for a long time. His eyes were a hazel color, but something about the night light was making them look much closer to an amber, but she was sure it was simply a trick of the light.

She was positioned with Lulu to watch the residents of the town, and had grown tired of Lulu's complaints about it being sexist. She knew it was because Blaise herself wasn't trained to kill mass numbers, and Lulu's skills were, however they took much too long to cast to make it conceivable to have her out against enemies that were faster than either of them could dream to be.

Blaise would catch glimpses of Harry, and long to help out, but she knew it was imperative to not give away their positions. The fact that there were 3 people out there fighting and drawing the battle to them that were more than human was the only thing keeping the vampires away from where they were.

Sliding down the wall, Blaise's eyes surveyed the area. She saw the fear in the townspeople's eyes as they sat, huddled together, and the restlessness in Lulu as she practiced her casting. Looking over to the far corner, Blaise looked at the small boy. He had told her that his name was Sam, not Sammy, not Samuel, just Sam, which was odd because when they had found him, he didn't know who he was. He was a bit round when they first came into contact with him but, oddly enough, he seemed to have dropped weight during the few hours to the point that he seemed fairly thin.

Suddenly, light filtered through the window above her head and illuminated the face of Sam as he sat on the floor before her. And the moonlight seemed to ricochet through his yellow diamond-like eyes, refracting flashes of light everywhere. And suddenly the light was gone, as a body blocked the light. It was a vampire, its body standing by the window, peering inside at all of the people within. Licking its lips at its newfound buffet, it grinned darkly. And its shadow was all but blocking out the existence of Sam in the shadows. However, suddenly there was a pair of bright golden lights shining from the darkness. And just as quickly, a figure launched forward, and the window above her exploded, and in a rain of glass, the shadow the vampire that had cast the shadow was gone. And in the light shining through, Blaise realized that Sam was gone.

The night air was shaken by a loud howl. And somehow, suddenly, the howl seemed to break the overhead clouds, and just as quickly, the rain seemed to fall in buckets. And Lulu, who hadn't been paying too much attention, lifted her head and sniffed for a moment, before muttering, "Why does it smell like wet dog?"

-----

Kyoto's movements were cold and calculated as the rain broke overhead. He wasn't fast by any means in rushing toward enemies, instead, he tended to make slow movements that seemed to display a semblance of power that no one on earth should have been able to place into single movements.

One side-kick that shattered the breastbone into crushing the heart through the lungs, effectively drowning the victim in its own blood in seconds.

A roundhouse that lifted the vampire's body from the ground, flipping it into an unintentional half-cartwheel, where the side of its neck met the ground at an angle that no muscle or bone in the neck was strong enough to stop the impact from shattering everything within the passageway.

A dropkick that sent one particularly pugnacious opponent through the air, where he was impaled straight down a 4 foot long tree branch through the sternum, where he hung, unable to move, for the minute it took him to completely die, and by then 3 others had been strung along the same branch.

Lighting a cigarette while completely immobile, Kyoto was still in the process of lighting it when a vampire ran full speed, head first, at him. Raising his leg in a movement that was all too bored, his straight leg met the lowered head of the vampire who was, charging full speed ahead moments before. And the second the vampire hit his booted foot, his entire vertebrate cracked in on itself, and he came to a very ungraceful stop in a heap on the ground in front of Kyoto. Using the same foot, he kicked the crumpled body forward, hitting 3 more charging vampires.

Taking a drag from the cigarette, he heard a gust of wind, and felt a presence near him. It was Harry, and he had leapt from a street lamp and had taken out a vampire that Kyoto would have handled easily, but was occupied with his smoking. In Harry's hand, he was holding a bottle of gin. "What's that for?"

"Hey, its gonna be a long night. That, and I have found that it burns when it gets in their eyes. Besides, I found one of those stupid ass Ops drinking the shit. No point having a drunk sniper." Kyoto nodded, before he grabbed the bottle.

"Hold this." The vampires were all in front of them, looking antsy as Harry backed into a simple boxing stance, while Kyoto pulled his cigarette from his mouth and handed it to Harry. "I heard a saying once, 'Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day'…" Kyoto dug in his pocket and pulled out his lighter, clicking it open and shut a few times. "…'But set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.' Always loved that saying." He took a quick drink from the gin, then he held the lighter up, and blew the liquor out, effectively making a fireball in the air, igniting some of the vampires that had rushed toward him. "It's so damned true."

Harry chuckled and handed back the cigarette just before he punched a vampire in the face, collapsing the creature's nose in on itself. He followed that by jumping in the air and spinning, kicking the vampire in the upper chest, where his clavicle shattered and cut through its windpipe.

Turning to Kyoto to look back for one fleeting moment, he halted in his words before they could even leave his mouth, as he heard a scream. It was Blaise's voice, and then there was the sound of a feral growl following it. Suddenly there was the sound of metal scratching against hard material as Harry drew his sword, and then he was gone.

Kyoto looked around to the vampires around him, and one vampire suddenly rushed him. He laughed as he threw the gin bottle directly at the vampire before leaping in the air and using the vampire's shoulders as a springboard. He lit the flammable vampire aflame and then jumped away, as that vampire served to burn all of the others around him out of existence.

-----

Cleo Abbott hated her sister. She actually hated Hannah so much that they literally had to alter the girl's schedule to the point that she had to be across the school from her older sibling at all times to not attempt to kill her. Since Harry had left, Cleo had literally tried 17 times to do just that, and had succeeded in cutting over 4 inches from Hannah's hair as the girl was pushed out of the way by Susan. Those 4 inches could have been the girl's throat, and Hannah had broken down in tears as her sister was carried away, cursing at the girl in language that literally made Seamus cringe.

Cleo herself often sat up late nights, just looking out of the window, staring down on the grounds hoping that Harry might just come strolling back to the school. Lavender made a comment at some point that the actions were much too awkward for an eleven year old, and often times, Cleo would wonder about that herself, and often times it would bring tears to her eyes.

Cleo Abbott wasn't your normal eleven year old. Outside of the obvious, there was one particular reason she wasn't like the other eleven year olds in her year. That was because Cleo wasn't eleven. She was twelve. And she was to turn 13 in the next few months. It would really depress the girl, as she realized that her stay with Ace had caused her to be unable to go to Hogwarts. Unspeakables were not locatable by owls, meaning she missed her first Hogwarts letter. The last summer, Ace had decided to take her out on a "fun day" as he called it, but really meant some outside time away from the house before they headed back and he would sing her The Song. But that day, the owl had found her, and she had responded before he could know.

Cleo's eyes drifted off to the forest line, and she looked out in the darkness. She knew something was going on just across the forest line, she could feel it inside of her. And she knew Harry and Blaise had to be there. Cleo sighed to herself, she deeply missed the two and deeply wanted them back, or wanted to be where they were. "Harry…wherever you are…please be safe."

-----

The moonlit main street yielded two forms. The Ops stationed atop the houses with their sniper rifles had steadily been taken out, and the last remaining stood next to his commander, with the sniper rifle strapped to his back, and naught but his automatic rifle in his hands. Rose was holding her two handguns, with a riot shotgun on her back, and her eyes darting about. She had already been mobbed, and the spread-shot of the shotgun had been her salvation. But she was running low on ammunition, and sunrise was some time away.

The sound of displaced air and heavy rainfall in one place heralded the appearance of one more of the vampires. Standing at the end of the street, the large form stood, cracking its fingernails. Rose's breath caught as she recognized the battle armor the creature wore. It was one of her men. And no matter the power of her handguns, or how close, from that distance, she wouldn't be doing any type of significant damage, and by the time he was close enough to make the riot shotgun work, it would be too late.

They had been standing in the middle of the street, and as the last remaining sniper turned, they realized they were being closed in. At the opposite end of the street was yet another vampire. Suddenly, as the vampires seemed to be about to attack, there was the sound of shingles falling to the ground, and Rose turned, watching as the duster-clad form of Baretta leapt from the roof of the nearby store and landed in a crouch. The vampire from the opposite end of the street, the one that wasn't an ex-member of Rose's troop, rushed forward as Baretta stood. The darkness loomed as the figure was blasting toward them, and with a flash of lightning, a gun was in Baretta's hand. It was a shimmering chrome number, the one Rose had seen glinting beautifully atop the table the first time she had met the man.

And suddenly the vampire's head was caught in Baretta's hand, its head held back by the man's hand atop his head. And he lifted the vampire and spun him around in the air by his head so he was facing the vampire that was once a Paranormal Studies Special Op. And into the vampire's mouth the gun barrel went, and as the vampire tried to clamp its jaw shut on the barrel, its teeth splintered and shattered. And all at once, 3 things happened. The lightning over head flashed, the Ex-Op vampire began to charge forward, automatic rifle blazing, and the nonplussed form of Baretta pulled the trigger once.

The thunder drowned out all of the automatic gunfire from the rifle, but one thing sounded out just seconds after, and nearly as loud. Baretta's single bullet. Rose watched in shock as the bullet ripped through the vampire's skull, fired forward, and ripped into and through the harsh barrier of the body armor, shattering it, and the vampire launched back a foot in the air and back onto the ground. And in Baretta's hand was nothing but tattered remains of a head, as the vampire Baretta had been holding sank to the ground, nothing left of anything above the neck save the base of the mandible and a collapsed windpipe.

Turning around, Baretta slipped the gun back into the holster, before he pushed back his duster, which floated behind him for but a moment, and his hands went to his back, and suddenly he spun on the toe of the right military issue boot he wore, bringing his left leg up, before he slammed his left foot down on the ground, stopping his spin as he spun only 45 degrees so he was facing the building he had just leapt from, before he took off running to the side, as he held two SMGs, firing the guns with such speed that the gunshots never seemed to have any apparent end, seeming almost like one long gunshot.

Atop the roof was a dark form that Baretta began to unload at the figure moving inhumanly quick and quiet, the shots missing his fast movements, never once disturbing any of the shingles atop the roofs. "Uh…ma'am…Operative Reed requesting permission to speak freely?" The operative asked uncertainly, as both he and Rose stared after the retreating form of Baretta, chasing after the rooftop running vampire.

"…Granted…"

"Uh…what in the bloody hell was that?"

"I don't know, Reed, I do not know…"

-----

Blaise's screams ended the same way they began, with the shattering of glass. Her screaming began as a vampire shot through the window next to the one that the boy, Sam, had disappeared from. And it ended as Harry broke through the last remaining window and purged the room of anything non-human in seconds. But something was different. Blaise felt it the exact moment that he saw her pressed against the wall by the vampire. It passed through his eyes, and suddenly she couldn't see his eyes anymore. And in seconds, the vampire was seemingly in ribbons at her feet, and his sword was dripping with the dark blood of the creature. And his hand was cracking as he set and cracked the bones in his fingers repeatedly.

"Do. Not. Touch. Her." Harry seemed to speak, while poking the clearly dead vampire with the sword to accentuate and further punctuate each word. "Understand?" He seemed to ask the dead body. "Good boy, now you can go, as long as you don't do it again." He spoke darkly, before he kicked the destroyed creature, and turned away from them.

"Harry…"

"Knight, sweetheart, I'm Knight. Harry is indisposed at the moment, and I am trying my damnedest to make sure he and you survive. Everyone else, they can go to hell."

"So…you're Knight…not Harry?" Knight nodded to Blaise's question. "And the difference between you two is…?"

"Not as much as you would think, babe, and not nearly enough." He muttered to her, before one finger eased to the bottom of her jaw and was used to lift her face up toward his. "Gaby, not nearly enough, I am so sorry to say." And he traced a ghost of a kiss to her lips before he was completely gone from the room. And as she allowed her eyes to flutter open, she saw through the window as Knight ran behind a vampire and did a kind of punt kick that sent the creature into the air, before he cut the figure straight in half with the sword.

" 'Not as much as you think' he says. That's a lie, and we both know it. Something is going on…" Blaise muttered before she took a deep breath. "Kyoto! Bring your sorry ass here, Now!"

-----

The moon overhead was causing the raindrops to reflect the silver light above, and the almost seemed like the sky was crying mercury. The cold of the night bit the humans in the town to the bone, but there was one form that was completely unaffected by the cold. Standing hunched low on two legs in such a way as to make it seem like the figure would fall to all fours at any moment, was Sam. But it wasn't the small, timid, round boy that had met the two older teenagers earlier that night. No, this was someone else entirely. Something else.

A howl pierced the night like a blade through human flesh, but was cut short by the sound of something heavy hitting the earth. Turning, Sam looked before him, and there was a vampire. Pale-skinned, dark-eyed, and glaring down the road at him. An animosity welled up in Sam that seemed so natural and instinctual that he didn't question it. Shaking his fur and glancing up to the moon one last time, as if looking to a lover before walking away from her, a longing last look, before he dropped down to all fours and bounded forward, the light seemingly trailing its finger down his vertebrate as he bounded forward, leaving a trail of lighter fur there, and all too fast, he was upon the vampire.

And with a fast motion, he had overshot the vampire, holding a section of the creature's throat in his mouth. Spitting it out, he sat back onto two legs before leaping forward, a huge paw making contact with the vampire's head, the force literally knocking the head off of the partially severed neck, and rolling across the ground. Sam turned and bounded off from the scene.

Perched atop a nearby roof was a form that seemed to be warping the world around his very form. He was tall, thin, with glowing, ice gray eyes. Spiked upward red hair framed his face, but there was a thin ponytail coming from the back of his head that was over his shoulder and down to his waist. His arms were crossed, and he wore armor that looked like someone had literally burned and tainted gold. His eyes looked to the scene beneath him, before he felt a presence pulling to him. He turned and without even bending his legs, he was gone up into the air, arms still crossed.

-----

Blades in wartime were designed with the idea of having somewhere for the blood to go from the blade, while other blades simply had a coat on them that allowed the blood to roll off of it. However, that was not an issue for the one calling himself Knight at the time, because he was moving much too fast to worry about blood slowly drifting and draining from his blade. Cutting vampires in half at the waist, while decapitating others, and even running 2 through at once, before simply shaking the blade, causing them to be ripped from his blade. However, suddenly he felt a pulling feeling inside of him. He slipped the blade back into the scabbard on his back, and the guns were in his hands, where he blew a hole through the head of the vampire running toward him.

Looking through the hole, there was a figure standing at the other end of the street. Tall, with deep, blood red hair spiked up. His stone gray eyes locked on Knight through the hole, before Knight kicked the oddly still standing vampire in a simple gesture, sending the body to the side, moving the only obstruction between him and the figure. Uncrossing his arms, the figure revealed his hands. The gloves he wore were huge, to the point that the figure's hands, which were in fists at his side, where about two-thirds of the size of the man's head. The gloves were a bright reddish-golden color with black accents, and absolutely huge.

"So, Demon, you seem to have found your way here the one time we make this raid. Interesting timing if I do say so myself. But I must ask, who are you?" However, before he could even find out, there was a string of gunshots interrupting his speech, and in a circle around his head on the wall behind him was an outline of bullet holes outlining his head.

"Don't waste my time, you sorry leech. Give me a reason, and you will be laying here dead, like your brethren. Get in my way, and I will have that reason. Move on from here, lest I paint my masterpiece upon this earth using your tainted blood." And then Knight had turned from him.

"Do not turn your back on me, Demon scum!"

"Shut the fuck up. Now." Came Knight's reply, before there were 3 gunshots. 2 were blocked by the man's gauntlet-like gloves, but the third hit the mark. Right in the middle of his forehead. Falling back onto the ground, the figure seemed to almost be asleep or unconscious more than dead. Walking toward him, Knight kneeled down near him, and peered at him. "When you wake up, remember this. Tell your master I am coming for him. Tell that sick bastard that he started this war, and I will finish it. My name is Knight, and it would be best for him, and furthermore the rest of the living world that I not be made angry, as I have the tendency to…shoot first, and not give a shit about asking questions. Come looking for Harry Potter, and I won't be very happy, so back up and stay backed if you want to see the end of this."

And turning away, Knight stalked off.

-----

The sun was inching its way up the sky, and as the rays fell on the small town, there was little that wasn't cast in a crimson haze. The night was ending, and more lives had ended that night than anyone would have the capacity to know the names of the dead, no matter how many times they tried. It had gotten to the point that it was easier to identify who was dead by counting the people left than the people gone. Body parts were strung about the town, dead bodies littered about, intestines and other innards strung about the town like sick, demented Christmas decorations, and so much blood had sank into the cobblestone streets that the grout would probably forever be stained red, and it was like walking along a street made of ruby bricks.

And perched atop the last standing streetlight was a dark figure, white hair fluttering out behind him like a reminder of the world before that night, still stark white despite everything that had gone on. His entire body language gave off a distant appearance, and in his hand dangled the severed arm of someone, blood drops few and far between at that point. Leaning against the side of the street lamp was the duster-clad form of Baretta. He was leaning, and his gun was trained on the door, as the last surviving members of the town filed out slowly. Blaise's eyes darted about, searching for the one person she needed to see, but she saw nothing. Nothing but the barrel of Baretta's gun focus on her for just a moment too long, before he put it back in its holster, then using his shoulder, pushed himself from his leaning position on the lamp up to an upright stance. Kyoto seemed to almost fall from the lamp headfirst, causing the people in the town to gasp and scream, before, at the last second, he flipped over and landed on his feet, without even bending his knees, looking as if he was always on the ground.

Kyoto whistled out one loud, shrill note, and suddenly the ground shook. To the side, they all watched as a house literally seemed to shift to the side, right off of its foundation, before collapsing out into the street. In the debris, there was the sound of a loud crashing, and suddenly a form shot out from the rubble and into one of the broken streetlamps that, despite not working, was still standing. Bending the post to an awkward angle, the figure seemed to roll out of this predicament just to leap back up. Hulking and covered in fur, the creature growled a low, feral sound out, before suddenly a dark blur shot from the rubble.

Taking a punch to the face, what could only be a werewolf flipped over, only to lash out with a paw, but the dark figure dodged to the side and laid a kick to the side of the right leg of the creature, and the shattering of the bone was literally audible, to the point that it almost sounded like someone had taken a sledgehammer to a sheet of crystal.

And suddenly it was clear who the dark figure was. It was Harry, or more precisely, Knight. And with a smirk that seemed to be so many different levels of wrong all at once, he grabbed the werewolf around the neck. And as the sun came up the horizon, the changes began to reverse, and the wolf seemed to steadily fade back into the boy that he was before the night began.

"Harry, wait, he's just a boy! Don't kill him, its murder!" shouted Blaise, but she was stopped from running to Harry by Baretta's arm, which came out before her, holding his gun in hand, and Kyoto arm, holding…the severed arm he had been holding. Blaise recoiled if for no other reason than to not be near the arm.

"No, Blaise, he is a dog. And you know what happens to a dog when it has gone rabid and is a danger to everyone it is near? It is put down. And that's what I am doing." And suddenly there was a groan from the boy as he slowly awoke, before he began looking around in confusion.

"What's going on here? Where am I? Someone…help…please!" The boy shouted, but before he could utter another word, there was a fast twist of his hands, and his body slumped to the ground. At that moment, Blaise snapped, and charged forward toward Harry.

"You bastard!" She shouted at him, but as she pulled her hand back to slap him, he put his hand up and forward to stop her. His head was down and away from her, and there was some kind of aura about him.

"Do not come near me if you wish to live. I am not your Harry, and though I do have his feelings for you inside me, and they will keep me from cutting you down right now, they won't prevent me slapping the holy hell out of you. Now is not the time." The echoing, dark voice of Knight rang out and echoed down the silent street. And suddenly Knight leapt backwards, just in time to dodge a figure that had landed where he was, fist first, and shattered the pavement, large gauntleted fist buried in the stone past the wrist.

Landing a good 10 feet from where he had been, Knight looked at the form in front of him. It was the man he had shot before, a scene that only he and the other man knew of. Cocking his head to the side, Knight looked at the man. "Do you have something to prove by dying or something you foolish vampire? Then again, foolishness was always tied closely to courage…just say what you have to say and get out of here."

"Do not disrespect me, Demon, do not make that mistake ever again. I am your better, and you would do well to remember, for I will be coming for you. And do not think you will be able to hide behind that dark haze that you are in now. Soon I will catch you as you are. And you will not survive."

"Oh get stuffed, you stupid bastard. Regardless of what…'haze' you catch me under, you won't be leaving alive. Now bugger off before I decide to shoot you in the head. Again."

The figure glared at Knight, and was getting ready to walk toward him when he was slapped on the side of his head. Spinning around, he saw Kyoto walking by him, swinging the severed arm in his hand, which he had just slapped the man in the head with. Growling low in his throat, he crossed his arms, and glared at them all, before a blur marked his departure.

Knight cracked the knuckles in his hands, before nodding toward them all, and there seemed to be an energy coming from him, and when he looked up again, bright green eyes shone brightly. It was Harry again, and he was looking around him as if he was lost. But he wasn't. "Tell me I didn't do what I think I did."

"Well, kid, you did. But that's not even the most shocking thing. This is." And he held up the arm in front of them all and turned the arm to face them. There, on the inside of the pale, vampire arm, was something they all knew.

The Dark Mark.

-----

"Young Miss Abbott, I think that it would definitely be in your best interest to not be staring out of the window all night, and get to sleep, because I do not care for you sleeping through my class." Cleo hated the 1st year Defense class, nothing was learned in the class, there was nothing taught there that made her feel like she would be able to go and help Harry and Blaise, and she felt like she needed to learn something more than ways to ward off angry kneazles and how to cast a Knockback jinx.

She liked the Defense teachers, she really did, and Ms. Madison was very supportive of Cleo's distress in the week since Harry and Blaise had left, but her support didn't change the fact that the girl felt like she wasn't learning anything of use. Bella had turned in on herself, and hadn't much time for Cleo as she seemed to debate her every action, wanting to ensure she did nothing that would give her away. This left the girl to her own devices, which had turned from energetic and slightly annoying, to borderline suspicious to anyone who was watching her. She stayed up all night, staring out of the window or reading some book or another that few had ever heard of.

"1000 and 1 Ways to Kill a Pureblood? What are you doing reading that book, young lady?" Dumbledore had asked her one night when he appeared out of nowhere. It seemed that he had been doing that a lot to the people that had stood by Harry in the Great Hall the day he disappeared.

"Because I want to know how to kill a pureblood. Do you have a problem with that…sir?" Cleo had quipped back, and before she could receive her answer, she marked her page with the picture of she and Harry asleep on the couch, stood from her place, and walked away from the man. She didn't like him, he reminded her too much of her brother. Any means necessary to get to the needed end. People mattered, if for any reason than that their willing support to help you get to where you need to go was easier than forcing them.

And she liked him even less after the confrontation with Harry. However, there was one undeniable fact. At Hogwarts, he had all of the power, all of the control, which meant that he had control over her.

Once more staring out of the window as she practiced the wand movement for a very interesting spell she had read about, Cleo muttered to herself, "I seriously need to look into a transfer."

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