Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything really. What a shame.
A/N: I'd like to thank everyone for reading my story and would like to encourage more people to give me their thoughts on it. In other words, PLEASE REVIEW PEOPLE! -I'll give you an invisible cookie:)
A Future Riddle
Armenius Bacauda
Armenius led a quiet life in the busy city of Rome. He was an intellectual and a scholar, one of the best around. By the time he was twenty, in the year 10 AD, he had already become a widely regarded (in that time at least) painter, poet, and philosopher.
It was truly a great tragedy when he mysteriously vanished on his twenty-eighth birthday.
It is possible that, had he been allowed to live longer, he might have become as revered as some of his Greek heroes, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. However, when he was turned at the age of twenty-eight, his own path to enlightenment did not die with his soul. Because, when Armenius Bacauda became a vampire, he discovered an entire other world that had been hidden to him.
The world of magic fascinated him to know end. He devoted decades, even centuries to the studies of all things magical. He became the first vampire to discover that they, the vampires, when bitten, became magical creatures, and thus had the ability to perform magic just as any Wizard or Witch might.
When the Great Merlin was alive and casting, Armenius was right there, in the shadows, taking notes.
His research and findings were sometimes considered dangerous to the Wizarding population, but it didn't deter Armenius, he just continued to do what he wanted, though as time progressed, and he saw his fellow demons hunted down with wooden steaks and turned to ashes, he became more cautious and only revealed himself when he absolutely had to.
Sometimes, he didn't reveal himself at all. He was sought out by those who wished to learn what he knew and gain from it. Jessie Pandora was one such creature.
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The modern city of Rome was a tourist trap.
When Jessie first arrived there, she had found no problem in fitting in with the masses that littered the crowded streets of the Eternal City at night.
Jessie had heard of the ancient vampire, Armenius, from a friend she had met in Washington D.C. Her friend's name was Fritz Romani, and he was the first magically oriented vampire she had come across in her fifteen years of wandering around North America.
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She had met your basic animalistic vampires who were only concerned with blood. She had met the elegantly styled gothic vamps who were hero worshipped in night clubs all over urban America and Canada, and she had met the solitary vampires who hunted alone and closed themselves off from the world.
Each group treated her differently. The gothic night clubers accepted her and a few even invited her to join their clans. She had almost stayed with the Clan in Vancouver. The leader there, a tall blonde haired, century old vampire named Owen Rogers, had seemed quite taken with her and had been impressed that her sire was a descendant of Drakula. However, when she had gone on a routine patrol around the city with them, and viewed their "methods" of hunting, she had declined the honor.
When she had been assaulted by one of the animalistic clans in D.C., Jessie had almost died, the kind of death where you don't come back from.
Luckily, Trixz had been hunting her usual prey of other cats, dogs, and rodents, and had not been with Jessie when they attacked. Apparently, they were smarter than she had previously assumed and had been monitoring her actions since she had entered their turf, a week ago.
Now, in her fifteen years as a vampire, Jessie had picked up a little in the fighting department, and she had nothing to be ashamed of, but when you pitted five psychotic blood-thirsty vampires against her, she was bound to lose.
"Come on sweetie," one of the indistinguishable vampires of the clan with matted hair and a body that probably had not been exposed to soap in the past decade said as he and his buddies advanced on her. They had successfully cornered her into a lonely, dark alleyway. She frantically scanned her surroundings for an escape, but turned back to her assailant when he continued, "You should have known better than to hunt here. This place is spoken for and you're not invited."
The even filthier vampire to his left asked rhetorically, "And do you know what we do to little fang gang girls who aren't invited?" He was just about to reach out and grab her, and he and his friends were no doubt about to rip her to pieces, when a smooth voice from above suddenly shouted, "You ask them out to dinner and seduce the waitress into coming out back so you can drink her blood together in a romantic moonlit alleyway near the restaurant?"
Everyone froze and involuntarily looked up to see the dark figure jump down from the fire escape he had previously been hiding on. Jessie couldn't help but smirk at the fact that her knight in shining armor was a handsome dark haired Italian vamp who had been about twenty five years when turned. Boy, could she ever find them!
Upon seeing that his crowd, minus Jessie, was less than pleased to see him, the mystery man, or vampire in this case, said, "Oh, wait, maybe that's just what I would do." The group took that as their cue to attack, and immediately, Jessie and savior boy were engaged in the fight of their unlives.
The dark haired vampire surprised Jessie when, halfway into the fight, he pulled out a wand from his pocket and in a commanding voice shouted, "LUMOS SOMEM!" From his wand erupted a blinding blast of sunlight he directed toward the snarling unkempt clan.
Sounds of sizzling flesh were followed by screeches of pain as the vampires were forced to back off and retreat. When the sound of their howls had finally died away, the Italian vampire wizard turned to Jessie and offering his hand said, "Name's Fritz. Nice to meet you miss..." He looked at her questioningly and she was again startled by how charmingly human he looked. The only thing that gave him away when he wasn't in game face was his pale skin. Snapping herself out of it, she said in a cool, even voice, "Pandora. But please, anyone who saves me is automatically spared the formalities and is permitted to address me as Jinx." She took his offered hand. He smiled approvingly and jokingly offered her a tour of the city. She accepted.
Later that night, after Trixz had found the two talking by the Potomac and been properly introduced, Fritz had suggested that they stay with him while visiting the capital. Seeing her chance at finally learning where and how vampires fit into this magical world, Jessie had quickly agreed. A friendship had been born that night.
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Jessie had ended up staying in D.C. longer than she had stayed in any previous city. Fritz was someone she got along with very well. He was intelligent, fun-loving, and above all, worldly.
He had been, or all things, a lawyer before he had been turned, eighty-six years ago. His lawyer background had not helped him fit in with the riff-raff clans of the district, so he, just as Jessie had done, fled his sire (a coveting vampiress named Celia) and began touring the world. In London, he had come across a small, dingy tavern named, "The Leaky Cauldron."
It was there that he first heard of the magical world and that vampires were just as much hated and feared there as in the world of humans. Only, in the world of humans, vampires had the advantage, in that their prey doubted their existence.
Becoming intrigued of this hidden world, Fritz put his lawyer researching skills to good use and dug up all the records of magical vampires he could get his cold, pale hands on. All of his findings led to one particular wizarding vampire, who, like himself, was Italian. Though this vampire had actually been born in Italy, unlike Fritz, whose family had journeyed to America prior to the 'Great War.'
As could be guessed, the vampire was Armenius Bacauda, one of the most ancient beings on the planet. Asking around, Fritz found that he had last been seen in Rome.
Unable to quell his curiosity, Romani traveled to Rome. It took him eight months to get a hold of the allusive master vampire, and once he did, it took him another three to warrant an audience with him.
He was not to be disappointed however. Fritz found out that for the past six centuries, Armenius had been tutoring fellow vampires in the arts of witchcraft and wizardry in his own private hidden villa in Rome.
As fate would have it, Armenius took a liking to Fritz and agreed to take him on as a pupil.
Fritz spent the next ten years studying everything the wise Bacauda had to teach him in total isolation, for it was a severe penalty under wizarding law that non humans be taught magic.
When Fritz "graduated" from Armenius, he went back to his home of D.C. to see how it had changed. He found it even more corrupt than when he had last left it and decided to permanently stay there and keep the riff-raff vampires he detested from getting out of control. He used his magical abilities to help him obtain blood and disguise himself more effectively. Thus he had been living for the past four decades.
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Going to stand in front of the Coliseum where she had been told she would meet Armenius, Jessie couldn't help but miss Fritz. He was most likely chatting up some intern near the capital and offering her his coat, which he didn't need anyway, considering his body temperature never changed. She laughed at the thought of the intern's grateful look. Fritz sure knew how to lay it on thick!
"Pandora, I presume?"
Jessie quickly spun around at the sound of the calculated and beautiful voice.
He was different than she had imagined. For one thing, he didn't look to be over two thousand years old. For another, she had forgotten that he had been only twenty-eight when turned. But for all his youthful exterior, she could sense an underlying grace and nobility. He was elegance and knowledge exemplified.
"That's me. Though I would prefer it if you called me Jinx." Trixz's golden eyes flashed a vampiric yellow for an instant and she meowed on Jessie's shoulder. "Oh, and this is Trixz. It's an honor meeting you Armenius." Jessie said as she gave the customary bow she had learned was formal in the Fang Universe.
Armenius gave a small smile and shook his head. He then softly cupped her chin and slowly raised her from her kneel. When she was looking him in the eye, he told her in his quiet articulate tone, "And I would prefer to call you Pandora my dear." He dropped his hand and offering his arm to her, escorted her away from the crowded ancient Roman Coliseum. Unable to escape his thrall, she willingly followed, the creme colored cat placidly clinging to her shoulder.
He continued to lead her through the city to what her dizzy mind assumed was his villa, when he again turned to her and said, "Afterall, Pandora is a Roman name, and as I'm sure you've heard, when in Rome...