Feel my Fangs

Chapter Four – The Antechamber

Harry was left to cool his heels in the antechamber of the council room. He obliged the elder vampires because he understood that after destroying half of their fortress, he'd better play nice for a while if he wanted to get anything out of the old poops.

A small vampire page hesitantly made his way up to him. The young page was carrying a tray with a glass of blood. Harry thanked him and dismissed him with a wave of his hand. The page scampered away, tripping all over himself.

One of Harry's eyebrows shot up. Was he, Harry Potter, scrawny teen, scary-looking? It was an amusing thought.

Harry glanced at the blood. He sniffed it. He couldn't sense anything wrong with it. Nevertheless, he had just emptied young Bastien an hour ago. Harry didn't need to feed for another day or two.

He didn't want to take the chance of being poisoned by a drink offered by an unknown opponent. The elders on the council didn't get where they were by being stupid. They were all experienced and cunning bastards.

And, as the saying went, experience and treachery will always overcome youth and valor.

No, Harry wasn't going to take the chance. He had better listen to auror Moody's war cry of 'CONSTANT VIGILANCE.' Harry put the full glass back onto the tray.

He twirled his thumbs. He could hear arguing.

He rubbed his scar. The walls were made with vampire hearing in mind.

Harry yawned. It was all noise to him.

He scratched his crotch. This was taking way too long.

He stretched his legs. The boredom, the steady boredom was getting to him.

Harry rubbed his arms. The room was nastily cold.

He unshrank his invisibility cloak—it was the only cloak he had with him—and wrapped it around him. Harry promptly fell asleep.

…………………………….

The council was waiting for the guard to reappear with the teenager with the scruffy hair. When he didn't, Sythe sent Paula to the antechamber.

"Be cautious," he told her. "We don't know the extent of his abilities."

She came back seconds later, the guard in tow. "He's gone, Sythe. There's no sign of him anywhere!"

Everyone started yelling at the same time.

"SILENCE," roared Sythe once again into the raucous room. This time, however, he was ignored and the council members continued to bellow at each other.

Sythe put a hand over his eyes and grumbled something that closely resembled "pig-headed old coots."

Sythe let the rest of the council members fight it out between themselves. He once again recruited Paula and the two to them marched into the antechamber.

Sythe sniffed the air. The intruder's scent was still present in the air, but it was too early to tell if the child was still here or if it was only his lingering scent.

Paula held up the glass of blood. "He didn't drink any, Sythe," she said. "I don't think he trusts us quite yet." Her respect for the child went up.

"I think he is still here, Paula," Sythe said suddenly. "I advise you to be careful."

The vampire head of the council frowned in concentration and let his senses overpower him. His head abruptly swiveled to the couch in the corner facing the door.

He marched up to the couch and with one hand, hauled up the youngster under the invisibility cloak. "Here you are, you prankster!"

Harry's hood fell back. Still half-asleep, Harry mumbled something about "meddlesome old goats."

He half-snored before fully waking up. Harry stopped fidgeting.

"So, are you going to let me down? Or do I have to blast you away like one of you cheap brick walls?" Harry asked Sythe coldly.

Sythe roared with laughter, "cheeky aren't you, wizard child?" He put Harry down. "Will you accompany us into the council room now? We would be pleased if you would let us know the reason of your honorable presence amongst us meek vampires of the citadel."

Harry snorted but nevertheless, followed Sythe out of the antechamber.

Paula chuckled to herself and went back to the council room. "The wizard child and Sythe were very much alike," she thought.

…………………………….

"FINALLY!" Harry screamed mentally. He was finally getting his audience with the famed Vampire Council. But therein lay the problem. He wasn't getting to ask any questions, because the vampire elders kept bombarding him with them.

"Who are you?"

"Where are you from?"

"Why are you here?"

"How can you be a vampire and still do magic?"

"How did you get into the citadel?"

and the most popular question: "Who are you, again?"

Harry didn't bother to answer any questions and, instead, projected the full strength of his aura at them. Predictably, the council members took a step back, frightened by the sheer amount of power. But they recovered fast enough; they were, after all, part of the Vampire Council and used to playing the power-struggle game.

They, however, shut up, which suited Harry perfectly well.

"OK, a month or two ago, I was unwillingly turned into a vampire by a certain somebody who has a death wish. I was advised to come to you to find out who this somebody is so I can fulfill his most desired wish," Harry hissed slightly. "And then, I want to be a human again. I have no desire to remain a walking corpse, you see."

A councilor opened his mouth. Harry shut him up with a glare.

"So now, you need to find me this somebody. And then you have to figure out a way to turn me back," Harry concluded.

"What makes you think we'll help you at all, you arrogant young pup!" an angry elder growled. "No proper respect for the elders, you have! Taught some manners, you should be!"

"Maybe if you stopped speaking backwards, I'd be nicer," Harry said scathingly. "And if you don't help me, I'm leveling this whole mountain."

"Now you—"

"With all of you inside," Harry threatened.

He was met with silence and some unadulterated fear. They had, after all, seen what the wizard child had done to their alleged impenetrable and indestructible citadel on a whim.

"That won't be necessary," said Sythe calmly. "Because I was the one who turned you. And I assure, Mr. Harry Potter, that I do not have a death wish."

…………………………….

Harold stared at the wizard child. He stared, not because this was the boy-who-lived—wizards could go to the moon, for all he cared, as long as they left him alone—and not because Sythe was the one who turned the boy—Sythe had done plenty of unexplainable bizarre things in his long life.

Harold stared because the boy was a Potter. Harold hadn't been a Potter for a long long time now—ever since he'd been turned at the age of forty-three actually, four centuries ago. Harold was old in the vampire sense and set in his ways. This was one of the reasons he was so forcefully opposed to the wizard child-vampire's existence.

Things just didn't happen like that in his time.

Nevertheless, Harold was surprised to be genuinely curious about the Potter heir. Harold hadn't felt curious for decades now. Harold liked his routine and was usually displeased to see it disturbed.

But being curious would not do. Harold had renounced being a Potter when he willingly turned. And so, Potter or not, the boy would have to go. He was representing a threat to the Vampire Council. Threats had to be removed.

Harold would watch the Potter boy.

If the wizard child stepped out of line, Harold would contact Sanguine, the domesticated vampire who walked amongst the wizards. Sanguine was a traitor to their kind, be he was useful.

Harold winced in pain when the Potter boy slammed his hand on the table. The kind of power the boy wielded was dangerous. If Harold couldn't control it, he'd have to destroy it. Yes, he would call on Sanguine.

…………………………….

When Sythe announced that he was the culprit for turning Harry into a blood-sucking leech, Harry debated whether to blast a hole through the vampire's head or to eviscerate him slowly. Both methods appealed to him greatly.

However, he did neither of those. Harry forced himself to breathe through his nose and insisted on hearing Sythe's explanations.

The councilors were, for once, silent and united in their curiosity for the situation.

Sythe cleared his throat. "As you know, there is a war in the making."

Harry snorted but signaled for Sythe to continue on.

"The Dark Lord has been recruiting. And, I do not know if you are aware or not, the vampire community is composed of many factions, not all of them good or even neutral."

This caught Harry's attention. Had Voldemort made contact with the vampire clans already?

"We, the Themathien Clan, have always been one of the largest neutral clans," Sythe continued. "However, we can no longer afford to remain on the sidelines of this brewing war, as the outcome will surely affect vampire freedom."

Several councilors caught on to this piece of information. It had been a prime subject of discussion in the past months with the Vampire Council.

"It is our belief that if the Dark Lord comes ahead in this war, he will terminate his vampire allies as well as us, the neutral clans, by extension. That is the way of tyrants."

"Yes, Voldemort is scared shitless of potential enemy. He tried to do me in, didn't he?" Harry said, rather impatiently. "Why don't you people just ally yourself with the ministry? Your problems don't concern me."

"Ah but it does concern you!" said Sythe. "But please, let me continue."

"Then proceed, " said Harry. "I don't have all day to listen to your old geezer ramblings."

Several elder vampires frowned at this wizard child's blatant disrespect for their leader, but Sythe ignored the implied insult and went on with the story.

"The ministry of magic has never been an option, you see, because, in short, they'd cage us like the dangerous animals they believe we are. They have been trying to do so for the last couple of centuries. Why would they stop now?"

Most of the councilors agreed with nods at this.

"We cannot ally ourselves with the ministry. It would be suicide."

"Yes, yes, I get the idea," said Harry. "But please, get to the point, what does this have to do with you turning me into a blood-sucker?"

"The fact is, Harry Potter, this is where you come in as the third party. We are aware, you see, of the existence of Sybil Trelawney's prophecy, if not of the exact wording of it," Sythe explained quickly. "We will ally ourselves to you."

Harry's eyebrows shot up in sudden comprehension. "You turned me hoping I'd be loyal to your cause, didn't you," he spat. "How did you know I wouldn't lose my magic and be a regular vampire?"

"I didn't," Sythe grinned, "that's a bonus actually."

If the look Harry gave Sythe could kill, Sythe would be dust now.

"How come I don't remember being bitten or turned?" asked Harry.

"Vampires have a certain degree of persuasion on wizard minds. That's how we have managed to remain hidden all these years," Sythe explained. "You were asleep at the time so it wasn't that difficult to keep you asleep. Although, now that you have been turned, the mental influences will no longer work on you."

Harry wasn't sure whether to believe Sythe or not, but as he was presented with the fait accompli, there wasn't anything he could do about it anymore.

At this point, the councilors were mumbling between themselves. One wrinkled female vampire rose from her chair and faced Sythe. "Head councilor, the rest of us would like to know why you didn't see the need to inform us of your action of turning young Potter here."

Sythe shrugged at this. "It didn't seem relevant at the time. I didn't know if the Potter boy was going to seek us out or not. I didn't want to alarm anyone."

Many of the councilors frowned at this but if they were feeling mutinous, they kept quiet.

Then began a heated discussion between them, debating the use of one Harry Potter in the war to come. Harold was the loudest and the nastiest in his suggestions. Paula still wanted to stick Harry in a lab and study him.

"I'm not some weapon to be used and discarded," seethed Harry. "I haven't even agreed or anything." The Vampire Council was deluded if they thought he was going to help them.

"Thick old geezers. I should have known they were trying to stick me up with some new dumb prophecy. 'Vampire Savior,' my eye. 'Wizardbane,' my foot," Harry grumbled. "I'm a wizard too, or have they forgotten already?"

Old meddlesome goats really needed to get more imaginative with the whole 'I'm on your side' thing.

Harry entertained the thought of actually coming through with his previous threat of flattening them in their hole of a mountain.

But instead, he threw the fear into the elder vampires by slamming his hand on the table, quickly silencing them, and watching satisfactorily as seconds later, the table splintered into pieces, sending sharp pieces of wood into various councilors.

Wooden stakes were the bane of a vampire's existence, and Harry knew it well. Infinitely small splinters are extremely difficult to remove and would cause maximum pain to all of them; if they couldn't remove the splinters, their cell-regenerating system couldn't function properly.

The councilors wouldn't die, the wooden splinters being too small. But they would suffer. Harry hoped Sythe would suffer most, as he had gotten the brunt of the attack.

Smiling sadistically at the pained vampires, Harry said: "This meeting has been extremely unproductive so I'm leaving. Deal with your own problems."

"And next time, don't force my hand," he added. "Or I won't be so lenient."

Harry turned his back and stalked out of the council room.

He left the vampires the same way he arrived, in chaos.

"Told you he could be a prankster," Sythe winced while trying to dig out the splinters that had embedded themselves in his neck and his chest.

The rest of them groaned in pain while calling for guard vampires to help them pick out the splinters that obstructed their reddened flesh.

Sythe turned to Paula, the skin around his neck stretching painfully. "But he'll be back, eh, Paula," the head of the council said to her. "Vampires call to vampires."

A/N: "Review or I'm not updating," threatened the author. "Pretty please?"