Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me.
A/N: I'm moving soon, and there's a hurricane heading towards my house. This may be my last post for a while, but I promise I won't wait any longer than absolutely necessary.
Dante got a letter from Padfoot a week later that he'd deposited the horcrux at Gringotts. Granted this he already knew thanks to the goblin populace at Aether, but it was good to hear it from Padfoot as well. What he had not known was that Talon Prince, formerly Severus Snape was staying with the Marauders. From what he read this was mostly a good thing, but a small part of him wondered if this could be some kind of ruse. He decided to hold judgment until he met Talon in person and kept his letter carefully neutral on the topic.
Another less well-known fact about Aether was that the first death of the year was always accidental, and only after the first death was anyone else allowed to kill another student. Thus Dante found himself in a duel after Void Magic while he was hurrying off to Cruor Sorcery. His opponent was another student who took that class with him, judging by the inhuman speed and amber eyes he guessed the other was some kind of were,
"I don't have time for this! Class starts in like three minutes you idiot! Why couldn't you have just waited until the end of the day?" The were did not acknowledge his question and Dante swept his hand to the right sending him crashing into another wall. He ran up to Cruor Sorcery to find a shocked class, and a very amused Professor Alexei. "I'm not late so I don't know why you're looking at me like that!" Alexei laughed at him,
"No worries Dante, as a matter of fact you're a minute early. I told Henri not to bother, but I suppose this should teach him." Dante stared at Alexei,
"Wait, you knew I would be attacked today? Why didn't you tell me?" Alexei shrugged carelessly,
"Of course I knew. Henri had to get it cleared through me to duel you before class. I gave him a ten-minute extension. Why should I have told you anyway; it wasn't like you were going to lose." Dante decided Henri must be the name of the student who'd attacked him,
"How would you know?" The vampire waved a hand at him,
"If you have any more complaints save them for later. I have a class to teach." Henri came into the class, "A minute late Mr. Hunter. Go sit next to Mr. Black." Henri sat down next to Dante who gave him a death glare and then gave the smirking Alexei a stronger death glare.
"Today we will be working in pairs. Whoever you're sitting with is fine. The objective is to spot the mistakes in each other's form. You'll start out with blood whips and work your way up as high as you can go without dying of blood loss." Dante looked at Henri and objected strongly,
"What do you mean work with him? He tried to kill me!" Alexei sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
"Hold your complaints for the end of class Dante. Besides Henri wasn't trying to kill you, I would've told you if it was anything more serious than a mock duel." Dante looked at Alexei suspiciously, shrugged, and turned back to Henri.
"Well let's get started." Henri grinned,
"It's nice to meet you Black, my name is Henri Hunter." Dante glared,
"It's not nice to meet you Hunter, my name is Dante Black."
"Ouch! Hey listen, it was nothing against you. I just asked Professor Alexei if a human should be in this class and he told me he knew you were cut out for this. I asked him if I could try and duel you in the hallway and he gave me the go ahead. Again nothing against you," Dante's glare lessened, but only slightly,
"And it didn't occur to you that perhaps you should ask for a duel, instead of making me worry that I would be late to class? Or to tell me you okay'ed this with the Professor to give us more time?" Henri looked sheepish,
"Uh no," Dante sighed and looked at him exasperated,
"Look buddy, if I hadn't been in a rush to get to class I probably would've killed you. Mostly because I'm paranoid as hell, but also because you set out no rules for the duel, you just attacked me. In the future please think before you act." Henri nodded, "Now that that's out of the way are you related to Jared Hunter?" Henri nodded again,
"Jared's my cousin, but he's more like my big brother. He was thrilled that I got into Aether, but I haven't seen him much. He's so busy working on his Curse-breaking Mastery, he doesn't have any time to do anything else. How did you know anyway?" Dante shrugged,
"Your last name, the fact that you're a were, or the familial resemblance, take your pick. Anyway let's get started. I've worked my way up to the rapiers, but I haven't tried them all one after the other." Henri nodded,
"We'll alternate so that you can sit down and regenerate some blood in between. I'll go first, here's my blood whip." They spent the rest of the period correcting each other's forms, they each came up with about a dozen corrections in blind spots the other didn't know they had. "Dante move your elbow out a little, you're hunched up. Don't lock your knees keep them loose, that's it. I can't see any other problems with your stance. Let's switch." Dante shook out his blood rapier.
They had started working with blood weapons a couple days ago, and so far he could do the blood whip, bullets, daggers, and rapier. He didn't want to try for the longsword yet. There was a blood regeneration ritual he was working on that was nearly finished. After that he'd be able to generate enough blood for any of his side projects. Or at least he hoped so, he couldn't seem to find any runes that would cooperate with him. He decided to ask Professor Alexei after class.
"Class dismissed! I hope you found your partner helpful as these will be your pairs for the rest of the year." Dante and Henri smiled at each other. They weren't completely on par as Henri was still learning the blood daggers, but he had a good eye for form. Dante approached Professor Alexei,
"Professor I have a problem," Alexei nodded, "I'm working on my new ritual, but none of the runes I've tried seem to fit."
"Well I expected this problem with everyone in this class eventually, but I do believe you're a month early. What's the ritual for?"
"A blood regeneration ritual, I'm going to need it soon because I'm working on the longsword next." Alexei nodded,
"I think you're currently the only one in the class who's gotten that far, Raven should catch up with you in a few days. Anyway for a blood regeneration ritual which is considered healing, you'll need Older Futhark. Here take this one and try to find something that suits." He picked up a heavy tome from his bookshelf, "Now then have you decided what you're going to do about your tails and your situation in Britain?" Dante shrugged,
"How bad is it over there? I figured I'd just do my best to kill him in two years or less." Alexei groaned,
"While I can understand not liking the alternative you've still got a lot of magical potential that will go to waste. Britain isn't doing well. The statistician class has estimated that by the end of this war the magical population will be at least halved. Also the wizarding world will have no choice, but to reveal their existence. That won't be pretty." Dante shook his head,
"I don't know what you want me to do, I've done everything I can. For Voldemort to die I need to destroy two more horcruxes. One is Nagini and the other is a locket that was supposed to be in a cave out in the middle of nowhere. Supposedly R. A. B. destroyed it, but I know otherwise. It's in the Ministry of Magic, with one Dolores Umbridge. Vile toad that she is, I doubt it was capable of making her any nastier than she already is!" Alexei raised an eyebrow at that, Dante catching his expression defended himself, "What? She is a vile toad! She used a blood quill on students and hates all dark creatures! She should hate herself, she's the darkest creature I've ever had the displeasure of meeting!" Alexei only heard one thing and grabbed Dante's arm and ripped away the glamour to see the words 'I must not tell lies' inscribed into his hand.
"Your hatred is completely justified as far as I'm concerned. How did she carve it into your hand that clearly?" Alexei snarled,
"Detentions, I had many detentions with her while she was teaching at Hogwarts." Dante sighed,
"I cannot imagine how such a terrible person could be allowed to work at a school. A vampire would never have allowed this. We value our children too much. What is Dumbledore? Blind?"
"Try senile and now dead, Still you vampires are capable of harsh punishments." Alexei waved a hand,
"We do not use blood quills as a form of punishment for children. It is possible for even a vampire to die if this is used too often. As a matter of fact sit down, I'm going to check your blood count and such. What do you have next period? That's your free period no? You're going to stay here a few more minutes," Alexei cut a bunch of runes into his hand. His eyes glowed white and he scanned Dante carefully, not saying anything for a few minutes,
"Alright Mr. Big Bad Vampire, I'll give. What's wrong with me?" Alexei shook his head,
"Are you entirely sure you're human? You have a history of malnutrition, which explains your height. Nearly every bone in your body has been broken, at least twice. Your blood count is ridiculously low. The only thing that's keeping you standing is your magical core. Until you're on potions and such to fix this you can't perform any blood rituals, and I mean it Dante. You aren't even allowed a blood bullet right now." For a moment Dante looked mutinous, then sullen.
"Fine, I'll go see if Leon can give me the potions to correct this." He finished his comment under his breath, "Not going to that insane healer under any circumstances,"
"I'm sure Leon will be able to brew the potions. You'll be back and doing your blood regeneration rituals in a couple days." Dante snorted and stalked out of the room not even bothering to glance backwards at his teacher. Mer stuck her head out of his clothes to hiss at him,
Who taught you your manners hatchling? You don't ignore an elder like that even if you are angry with them.
Oh sorry, I didn't know. What should I do?
Nothing now, he won't attack because he knows you meant no disrespect, but in the future… She let that hang in the air for a few seconds,
I will say goodbye properly, I promise. Now then, how do you feel about reading that extinct dragons book he gave us before?
I would like that. He turned into his empty apartment. Lately all his friends had found some way or other into his apartment. So it was a miracle he was alone with his familiar. Honestly he suspected Lila had something to do with it. He rummaged around his bookshelf. He'd stored it away from curious eyes hoping Aurora and Willow wouldn't decide his rooms needed to be redecorated again. They'd already done it once or twice since the original redecorating. There were picture frames with him and his new friends everywhere, they'd even gotten their hands on a few pictures of him and the Marauders. The creepy part was that he didn't remember anyone taking these pictures even though he knew the stories behind them. He took out the book and flipped to a page on Water Dragons.
Listen to this. Water Dragons are the only Morphian Morphiped ever proven to exist. They are believed extinct as Marina, suspected to be the last of her kind died a few years ago. There is some speculation that she only faked her death to get away from the magical zoo she was encased at. Regardless, Morphian Morphipeds start out as a sea foam colored snake and are able to transform into a proper dragon a few months after they complete a familiar bond with a powerful wizard. They also have the unique ability to transform into a ball of water, which they seem to like best. Water Dragons always choose a parseltongue with mage sight as their bonded.
Something about that sounds familiar. I can't remember though. All I can remember is my age and then waking up in that garden. It doesn't matter where I came from. A familiar bond overrides all other bonds except that of a mate.
Well that's alright then, but what if whoever owned you before wants you back?
I will bite them.
You think that would solve any problem would you?
I have a poison strong enough to kill a few dozen vampires in a couple seconds.
Ah, that would solve any problem on second thought.
That's what I thought.
Now that we know what you are, what do you want to do about it?
I'll just wait another couple of months. Our familiar bond is only a month or so old. Maybe we can start with the transforming into water thing. He tried siphoning magic into her and by the end of a half hour she could turn her tail into water.
"Dante incoming! I can't hold Raven away any longer!" Dante spun on his heel freaking out looking at Willow and Lila.
"Did he hear any of that?" Lila nodded, "Fuck! Why didn't you say anything earlier?" Raven walked in,
"I believe the real question is 'Why didn't you say anything earlier?' It's been two weeks Dante, or should I say Harry Potter?" Raven sneered at him, "What did you think? Weren't we trustworthy enough to know? Willow and Lila obviously do." Dante hung his head,
"It's not like that Raven. Daisy has known since we were little kids, and Lila saw it in a vision. Every person I tell runs a risk. The risk of knowing or befriending Harry Potter. Believe me, Ron and Hermione have been targeted for years because of me. I don't want that to happen to you guys." Raven's eyes softened,
"I'm a vampire Dante, I didn't think I'd have to remind you of that. We're nearly indestructible, and I know for a fact that Moldy Voldy himself can't kill one of us. He actually tried to kill one of the Bordeaux clan yesterday." Dante looked worried,
"Just because they can't kill you doesn't mean they can't torture you."
"Actually they can't do that either seeing as we're able to turn off the nerves in our bodies." Remy contributed from the doorway where all his other friends were congregated, "So what's this about you being Harry Potter? I thought we'd made it clear that your name here is your real name from here on out." The others nodded and he smiled,
"Thanks you guys, I guess I just worry too much don't I?" Aurora nodded,
"No offense or anything, but I've never heard of a Harry Potter and I sincerely doubt any of the other elves have either." Dmitri shook his head,
"I've heard the name, but I can't remember any of the details. Something about a basilisk?" Dante nodded,
"I killed a basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets a few years back. It was nothing special. I just drove the sword up into its mouth, but in my defense the thing had gone insane." Manny smiled,
"I've heard of the name and about the defeating Voldemort when you were a baby, but I figured it was just a rumour. Is it true then?" Dante shook his head,
"Not in the way they think. My mother did some kind of ritual, her life for mine and he died." Leon shook his head,
"Dang Dante! That makes so much more sense than what we've been told." Raven looked between Leon and Dante,
"He knew?" Dante nodded,
"Of course. We went to Hogwarts together. What was I supposed to tell him? No, I'm not Harry Potter, I just look a lot like him for no reason. Yeah that would've gone over real well." Willow looked back and forth, Raven had sounded jealous and Dante had sounded defensive? Oh this would be interesting! It would be a few years though considering how obtuse both boys could be.
"Alright now that we know who you used to be, do you want to answer some of our other questions?" Remy asked, "Like whether or not you can speak Parseltongue? And why Voldemort is after you?" With a jolt Dante remembered this was their lunch period. They'd be able to keep up their inquisition for an hour and food had been sent to his room. He shared a look with his familiar. This would be one long lunch period.
"Alright I'll answer your questions, but first Leon can you make me some nutrient potions and blood replenishers? Alexei said I couldn't do any blood magic until I was on a potion regiment." Leon nodded,
"I'll have them ready tonight. In exchange I want those Wandless lessons," Dante shook his hand.
"Deal! Now who wants to start?" Dante said squaring his shoulders to face the firing squad.
Sorry it was so short, but I have to finish packing. That pairing between Raven and Dante wasn't supposed to be there, but I don't know. It sort of just wrote itself in. If you're homophobic tough luck, but if there's someone else you'd prefer I'll listen to any suggestions.