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Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Chapter 17

Time flew, well... more like trudged by in Darrens opinion. Still refusing the blood, his body was slowly falling under dis-repair. He could tell by how sick he was feeling and the constant, and at the most unoppertune moments he felt faint. Not a good thing in front of the adults who could interfere...

Sighing desolately, Darren glanced at the innocent goblet. What right did it have being all glittery like that? Holding someones life source? For him to take? Darren glared at the cup. Well, he didn't want it. Nope, no more. 'Nope. Nope nope nope nope.'

The cup sat there.

The more he thought about what was in that cup and how it destroyed his life, the more angry he got. If it wasnt for Vampires he would still be a normal, un-immortal, un-angst ridden, un-angry, un-hurt, un-insanely powerful, un-prince-like, un-happy, un-guilty, un-prophecied, un-connected to over proud beings with no sense of being, un- blood drinking normal teenager!!!!

Darren let out an angry shout and hit the cup with all his pent up frustration. It flew and crashed against the wall behind the teachers table. He stormed out of the Great Hall, passing Harry, Ron and Hermione who ahd been avoiding him and where now watching him with wide eyes along with the rest of the people. Their betrayal had been a sting to his already aching heart but Darren put that grief away for later times. Why waste over something so trivial when there where other things to do?

Escaping to the Willow tree beside the lake he fumed. The tree had lost all its leaves and the branches swayed in the breeze. Dark clouds gathered in the sky in promise for a storm that fall day. The lake gleamed silver as the moon cast its near full rays onto its surface. The moon would be nice and full this Hallows'eve tomorrow.

'I dont even want to go back to the mountain now, none of them care for me. All they want is to rule over the vampanese. All I have to do is kill Steve then I can leave, forever.' His fate decided, Darren let his head fall onto his chest and slept.

The door slammed shut behind Darren and Harry winced. 'He's angry. that's not good.'

"What's with him?" Ron said over a mouthful of food.

"Must I tell you not to talk with your mouth full?" Hermione complained. After the meeting with Dumbledore, Ron and Harry had questioned her on what she found. Confused, she thought they where nutters and asked them what they where talking about. After the attempts to remind her, they explained her thoughts of Darrens apparent status before the biased and poisoned words of the book.

Ron opened his mouth and showed a mix of toast, bacon and eggs to Hermione who cringed. "Ron!"

"What?"

"That's disgusting!"

"So what?

Harry tuned them out and rubbed his aching scar. the growing pain in his forehead was conserning. Was Voldemort up to something again? 'When is that evil flaming penguin NOT up to something?" Harry muttered the last few words aloud and quite audibly, not noticing as the scar sparked to life in the middle of the thought.

Ron and Hermione turned to look at him with twin puzzled expressions.

Harry flushed and muttered something about 'bananas' and pushed his plate away, rising to his feet.

"Im going up to the dorm. See you guys later." He waved them goodbye and as he exited from the Great Hall, but instead of turning toward the Gryffindor tower he went for a stroll through the empty hallways. The dark and ominous feeling was unnerving him and he needed to pace, by himself if he could help it.

Later that night

Harry writhed in his bed, grimacing in his sleep and clenching his teeth tightly.

Dream.

Fog and mist obscured all as Harry stumbled over the grassy floor. 'Run!'

Harry panted and ran faster, trying to escape the hidden phantom of his pursuer who cackled behind him belevolently.

"Im coming, Harry..." the voice crooned and a cold whisp of air brushed Harrys neck. He gasped and looked over his shoulder, seeing blood red eyes with black slits for pupils staring out at him from the mist.

Suddenly a grave loomed in front of him and Harry was forced to run through it or be caught by the phantom. The stairs cut down steeply and Harry could no longer control his legs for they moved too fast. The black gloom was broken by the odd torch casting an eerie green light on the walls.

A ghostly face of Voldemort appeared in front of him and Harry yelped, loosing his footing and rolling beneath the spectre and down the cold stone steps.

He felt bumps and bruises rain down on him as he hit the steps and walls. Colliding with a solid object, Harry groaned and held his head in pain.

Evil laughter echoed behind him and Harry stood swiftly, backing away from the spectre of Voldemort standing in the door. The evilest being to ever be evils grin sent shivers down Harrys spine.

"Potter..."

"Tom." Harry hissed back, purposefully irritating the Dark Lord "Ugly as ever I see..."

Voldemorts eyes flashed in anger then suddenly he was in front of Harry, holding him up by his neck. "You think thats funny?" Voldemort growled.

Harry choked, gripping the solid hands and trying to pry them away. Voldemort threw him onto the stone box in the middle of the room, leaving Harry stunned as he fought to regain his breath. Voldemort waved his wand and Harry's arms and legs where tied down to the stone slab with invisible ropes. He circled Harry as the boy who watched him with conempt, knowing struggle would be a waste of energy.

Approaching, Voldemort twirled his wand "My plan is almost complete." he hissed then looked Harry in the eye "But you already know that, dont you?" it was not a question as he waved his hand and the man with a purple face from his last dream entered, smiling sinisterly.

"You have proved again and again that it is impossible to kill you." the snake man bent close to Harry and grinned, roving his eyes over Harrys face "So why kill you?" This shocked Harry. Voldemort pulled away with the grin still on his face. "Indeed. It would be foolish. And I am not foolish."

At Voldemorts beckoning, the purple faced man approached and looked him up and down like Voldemort had moments before. "So, I will make you my weapon." Voldemort finished.

The purple faced man used a clawed hand to examine Harrys throat who pulled away and snarled "I'll never serve you!"

Ignoring him, Voldemort nodded to the purple faced man "Do it now, theres not much time left." The purple man stopped his examination and used one of the extremely long fingernails to cut the inside of Harrys right hand in a jagged line. Harry held in his shout of pain and struggled to free himself as the man cut his left hand. He was about to join the two when another ghostly figure appeared beside him. This one had a long cape around his shoulders and similar long nails of Harrys assaliant. As the ghost was colourless, Harry couldnt tell if he had a purple face but he knew, these where two of the same species, whatever they where.

The new ghosts' face betrayed no emotion as he sunk his hand into the purple faced mans back, no blood that Harry could see from his position on the stone slab but he saw the purple faced man freeze, his face a mask of extreme pain. A few seconds later the second ghost withdrew his hand and the purple faced man collapsed to the ground. Dead.

The ghost turned to Voldemort who looked distantly confused and displeased. Seeing the new ghost as a threat, Voldemort snarled at Harry "You will be mine!" he threw one last spell at Harry and disapparated. The spell his Harry in the chest and he screamed in pain as what felt like hot irons his his chest. After what felt like hours, Harry felt the pain ease and opened his eyes, searching for his savior. His view was blurry, but he was able to see the grey figure standing beside him.

"W-" Harry croaked. The man moved towards a wall and was about to disappear when Harry called for him. "Wait... please." The man turned around for a moment then disppeared through the wall. Harry groaned and sat up, realizing that he was free of his bonds. Using one hand, he propped himself up and felt something cold and metallic under his fingers. He turned around and squinted, trying to read the metal plaque painted red. 'Why is it red?' Harry wondered as he ran his fingers over it then gasped as the red wiped off in his fingers. It was blood! Looking around, he could see that it was dripping off the sides of the stone slab and looked back at the plaque. He squinted and the blurred letters turned to focus:

Here lies

James and Lily Potter.

Harrys eyes widened and he screamed.

Nightmare.

Harry woke up to Ron shaking him furiously. "Wake up mate! Its a dream. Just a dream."

Harry rubbed his eyes with his shaking hands. "Ugh..." he carded his hand through his hair.

"You all right?" Ron asked worriedly.

Harry nodded and looked down at his right hand. Nothing was there. 'Its was just a dream. A bloody scary one!'.

A noise creeped into the room.

He looked at Ron questioningly who answered his unvoiced question "It's Halloween today. No classes!" he added with an excited smile. Ron stood "Come on! Lets go down to the common room!" Harry got dressed and went down to the common room where the rest of the house was milling about excitedly. The only light was the glow from the fireplace, barely visible through the bodies of the other Gryffindors. Hermione spotted them and waved goodbye to Lavender and Pavarti and approached them.

"Hi guys. I -" she was cut off by McGonagall adressing the house.

"Students, will you please follow me to the Great Hall."

Hermione continued as they walked through the hallways "I can't believe its Halloween! I've always wanted to experience Halloween at Hogwarts!"

"Something special happens on Halloween here?" Harry asked, "Why hasnt it ever happened in the past few years? I've never seen anything special other than floating pumpkins instead of candles."

"Its only celebrated every 7 years. This is because the Founders only started the celebration 7 years after the creation of Hogwarts and a trend was formed. This is also they way that the 7 years we are in school where formed instead of the Muggle 13 years." Hermione said, quoting her favorite book: Hogwarts A History.

"My brothers used to tell me about it as a kid." Ron said with a silly grin on his face. "Its gonna be amazing!"

They rounded the corner and entered the Great Hall where the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws where already waiting. The house tables had been removed as well as the staffs table. There were no pumpkins floating in the Great Halls roof and for the first time in Harrys life the roof was actually visible.

The Slytherins slithered into the room behind them and stood off to a corner by themselves. Harry spotted the platinum blonde hair of Malfoy bobbing in the crowd before losing track of him.

"Good morning students!!" Dumbledore greeted and the din died down to a near silence. "Happy Hallows'eve! A day to eat candy-"

Ron jabbed Harry in the ribs and whispered "what day is it NOT a day for Dumbledore to eat candy?"

"- and drink pumpkin juice! Though," he added with a snicker, " you do that every day anyways. I'll tell you not what we are going to do today. Only this: " An evil grin spread over Dumbledores face "Lights out." The Great Hall was plundged into darkness and some Hufflepuffs screamed. Some of the Gryffindors chuckled but Harry was more suspisious why he heard nothing of the sort from the Slytherins. Usually they would be the first to riddicule the Hufflepuffs. In the windows, thunder rumbled and dark clouds moved in. Lightning flashed and Harry saw a figure crouched on the windowsill burnt into his eyes as the darkness was absolute again. He tugged on Rons sleeve "Ron? Somethings not right."

Harry could hear the smile in his voice as Ron answered "Its just part of the game, Harry."

Harry shook his head "No. Something is not right."

Harry heard a sigh. "Hows your scar?"

"Its fine, but-"

"Then drop it and have some fun." Ron interrupted and Harry felt him move away.

Harry sighed and felt around for Hermione. 'Maybe she'll listen.'

He bumped into someone around Hermiones height "Hermione?" The person turned suddenly and latched onto his arm, the fingers tightening painfully on his arm. Harry furrowed his eyebrows, "Hello?"

"Help me!" the voice whispered fearfully. It was definately male and the person was not about to let go of his arm so he whispered back. "What's going on?"

"Them." the voice whispered and then, the room exploded into screams of terror. There was cackles of laughter and people where rushing around, bumping into each other in a panicked frenzy. Harry felt something sharp graze his cheek and bent low, grasping his wand. "Lumos!" The area around him lit up and terrified students screamed again. Seeing the light, others had the same idea and lit up their own wands, exposing the attackers. Purple faced monsters flipped through the air, jumping on students and cackling evilly. Up on the staff table, Dumbledore and the staff just stood there looking pleased. 'Death Eaters.' Harry immediately thought. Captured the teachers and rounded the students. Harry heard a roared "Stupify!" behind him and remembered his parasite. Unable to see who it was, Harry shot off a spell of his own. The light from his lumos went out as he did it but he hoped the spell would hit anyways. "Lumos." The light started up again but Harry saw that his spell had done nothing and the monster had jumped on top of a student. Was it... biting her neck?

Looking around, Harry could see that other spells weren't working either. Just being absorbed into the monsters' skin without stalling the monsters. Red flashed by and Harry felt an arm grip his opposite arm and pull him away, dragging his partner with him. "Ginny!" Harry reconized the flaming hair and bat bogey spells.

The girl didn't look backa dn continued to race across the Hall, "We need to get you out of here!"

"What!?" Harry shouted "But we need to save the students!"

Ginny looked back and asked "With what? Our spells dont work and they're stronger than us!" She turned back around and shoved someone out of her way "You won't be doing them a favor getting yourself caught!" They weaved and dodged till they got to the doors of the Great Halls and, darting out into the Eanterance Hall, met up with Ron and Hermione.

Ginny let him go and turned to them all. "Dumbledore asked me to take you three..." she paused and looked behind Harry. "Draco?"

The rest of them turned around to see a disheavelled Draco Malfoy, pale and eyes wide in fright, clinging to Harrys arm. "H-h-h-elp me." he begged and Harry never saw him so afraid. "I-i... didn't take the" he gasped "mark so their gonna k-k-kill me!" A scream was heard behind the closed doors of the Great Hall and Draco flinched.

Harry nodded. "Then you're with us." He looked expectantly at Ginny "You where saying?"

Ron was about to say something but Ginny shut him up with a look. "Dumbledore said that, if anything was to go wrong, to find you three and Darren. Though, I can't seem to find him."

Harry nodded "So you don't know why the staff is acting like this?"

Ginny shook her head and was about to answer when the Great Hall doors burst open and two of the purple faced men where standing there, blood all around their mouths and their hands.

"Ahhh.. here's some more, Hekten." the thing licked its lips.

The other cackled and, without another word, leapt towards them, bloody fingers arched in front of it. Harry dodged and kneed it in the face as it flew by. There was no crack and the thing just landed on its back. They fled out the main doors and onto the grounds with the two things chasing them. Harry could feel the stinking breath on his neck when a dark shape darted towards them, knocking it aside.

Still running, Harry looked over his shoulder. The new person was fighitng the two purplefaced monsters and surprisingly, winning. Harry was about to turn around again when he saw their savior get hit in the head and go down. Harry stopped and started running back, grabbing a rock on the ground for a weapon. The monsters hunkered over the struggling body and Harry threw the rock at them. "Get away!" He picked up another rock and this time it hit one in the head.

He brandished his wand even though it was useless as the monsters turned towards him, growling. Quicker than the eyes, the figure on the ground moved and ripped a hand into each of the monsters' torsos, the bloody digits appearing on Harry's side. The hands where quickly withdrawn and the person grabbed Harry, running back to the rest of the group. "Thanks for that." the person said to Harry.

They all disappeared into the Forbidden forest and continued to run. The newcomer was faster than the rest and didn't seem to tire even as they all lagged. He even picked up Hermione when she tripped and carried her a few yards. They broke out into the other side of the forest where farmland was prominent. They stopped and Harry looked at the newcomer.

It was Darren.

"Darren!" Ginny greeted. "Where were you?"

Darren brushed his hands off on his trousers, leaving long red blood streaks. "By the lake. I fell asleep."

Harry shook his head nad turned to Ginny. "Do you know where we should go?"

Ginny shook her head. "I was only supposed to get you this far."

Ron added "We can't go to the Burrow. It was destroyed in the last Death Eater raid, remember?" Harry nodded. Yes, they all got out alright though.

"And no one can get into Headquarters without Dumbledore." Harry finished.

There was some pensive silence in which Harry, Hermione and Ron looked thoughtful, Draco looked uncomfortable and Darren swayed from foot to foot. Darren thought fitfully. Should he bring them to the mountain? They would be the only humans there... ever. He was sure of that. They might not even make it all the way there plus the trip up the mountain would be nearly impossible. 'Without me. But if I where to lead them... Its insane! Not possible! The other vampires would tear them up!" But was there any other choice? It is the only safe place left.

Darren let out a sigh. "I have a place."