And now, on we go. Bonus points for anyone who knows the tree Vlad's wand is made from!

-YDHP-

The day was finally here, Vlad was about to accompany Ingrid to Kings Cross station via something called a portkey (apparently unpleasant but nowhere near as bad as apparition), as they didn't have magical parents to aid their travel. Checking his trunk for the millionth time, Vlad was now wondering what house he'd be placed in to.

According to Ingrid's notes (she was a Slytherin, apparently unheard of for someone with non-magic parents) Vlad belonged in Hufflepuff because he was a 'dweeb', but Ravenclaw was for geeks so he'd probably end up there. Smiling at her attitude evident in writing, Vlad made a note to ask Ingrid what her 'story' was for family as they weren't supposed to announce they were vampires just yet. Fingering the long box containing his wand, Vlad changed into his uniform eagerly. It felt strange, the robes sort of reminded him of his cape but not high collared, bearing the Dracula coat of arms or made of old leather.

Ingrid laughed at him already dressed in his uniform as he lugged his trunk down the stairs. She was dressed in her usual heavy black and red attire.

"Everyone get's dressed on the train, you zombie brained zombie."

The Count swanned in then, rather surprising as it was nine in the morning and sunny outside - rare for a Stokely september.

"Ah, Vlad my boy! Make me proud, be a good vampire and scare those peasants witless!"

Vlad joined Ingrid in a scowl as he disappeared without saying a word to her.

"Ingrid, what have you told people about our family? Obviously we can't say we're vampires but the Dracula surname is bound to attract attention."

Ingrid gave him a strange look, and Vlad almost thought it was affection.

"We're an old European family, apparently our ancestors were vampires and we've kept tradition. The Slytherins weren't impressed a "non pureblood" joined them but I naturally brought them round. You turning up will cement that, as it will be clear there's abundant magic in the line somewhere."

Vlad nodded, committing the information to memory so Ingrid wouldn't be caught in a lie.

"Right you little coffin breath, grab hold of this, your trunk and that furball."

Stuffing Phantom in his pocket and her carrier in his trunk, Vlad grabbed hold of the stick Ingrid held out to him and grasped his trunk as she did. A truly bizarre sensation overtook him, feeling like he was being pulled along by something behind his belly-button. His feet slammed into the ground and he fought to stay upright.

"We have to get here early as nobody can know we portkey in, it's technically against the rules but magical vampires are exceptions. Now remember, not a word about chosen ones, vampire transformations or your super special stick to anyone, got it?"

Nodding dumbly at his sister, Vlad looked around the empty station. A huge red steam-engine train filled the track, and a sign said "Platform 9 3/4". Nine and three quarters? How strange.

"People will start arriving in the next hour, so pick a spot and take your trunk. If you're looking to avoid too many people, sit at the far end, parents dropping off their kids all hog the front."

"Thanks Ingrid! I know you aren't going to turn super nice, but I really appreciate you helping me out with all this, it's so confusing!"

Ingrid gave him another strange look.

"I know what it feels like, and I'm a much less easily intimidated person than you, you might pitch yourself onto the tracks if you were left to deal with it alone and apparently you're important. So remember me maggot."

And with that, Ingrid left Vlad to heft his trunk down to the far end of the train. Pulling out Phantom's carrier before he stowed his trunk, Vlad put the little creature into her carrier and stretched out on the empty seats. The others would start arriving soon and Vlad needed to be prepared, he hadn't socialised with many bre- humans before, so he felt a little unsure what to expect. And he had to remember all the things he wasn't supposed to tell anyone. Straigtening his uniform out again, Vlad sighed and prepared to wait.

Harry spent the month between Hagrid's visit and September 1st mostly alone and reading his new school books. The Dursleys largely ignored him, with aunt Petunia outright refusing to come into his room now he had a pet owl - his birthday gift from the large man. The trip around Diagon Alley had been overwhelming, literally hundreds of people pointed, stared, whispered "Isn't that Harry Potter?" and even approached him to shake his hand and say thank you.

Harry had literally no idea why until they got to Ollivanders, a small dusty shop run by a small, strange man. Even stranger than the goblins who ran a bank where Harry apparently had a sizable amount of money left to him by his parents. His parents who hadn't died in a car crash. That was still a sticking point in his mind.

Ollivander had talked of how his wand - holly and phoenix feather - had a brother, its core from the same phoenix tail, and that the brother wand had given him his scar. Harry had quizzed Hagrid over their dinner later, and Hagrid was clearly uncomfortable. Eventually he'd spilled the story - an evil man named Voldemort (mostly referred to as You-Know-Who) had tried to kill him, his parents had died protecting him and Harry had somehow survived, deflecting the curse back on to Voldemort.

This man had amassed a reign of terror, killing any who refused to join him and trying to bring the wizarding world to it's knees. And little Harry had stopped him. He was 'the boy who lived'. Harry didn't feel very special, he'd done something he couldn't remember and lost his parents, yet everyone seemed to want to ask him about it and congratulate him. After that, Hagrid had taken him back home, handing him a train ticket and gave him the information.

The Dursleys had (only just) agreed to take him, no doubt thrilled at the idea of getting rid of him for most of the year. The feeling was mutual, Harry couldn't wait to leave.

As September first approached, Harry checked off his countdown on his wall. Finally it was the day he started, his trunk packed, his new owl - Hedwig - in her cage sleeping and carefully loaded into the car. His uncle helped him load up a trolley, grinning rather strangely the whole time. As they wheeled into the station, Harry learned why.

"There's platform nine, and there's platform ten. I don't see a nine and three quarters Harry. See you next year!"

His uncle left him there, with a trunk and a hooting owl in the middle of a busy station. Harry had no idea what to do. He asked a conductor, who told him off for talking nonsense. Harry was beginning to get desperate when he heard "muggles" - Hagrid said that was a word for non-magic people.

Turning around, he saw a group of vibrantly red-haired people pushing trunks like his, one even with an owl on top! Pushing after them, Harry caught "platform nine and three quarters this way!" and wheeled along a little faster, he didn't want to risk losing them. Three boys who looked much older than he had simply wheeled away, disappearing behind crowds of people and seeming to vanish into thin air.

The youngest boy, taller than Harry but with a youthful, freckled face caught Harry staring. The woman Harry assumed was his mother turned to see what he was looking at.

"Are you lost my dear?"

Harry shook his head.

"I was just wondering, could you tell me how to get... how to get on to the platform?"

The woman, middle aged, large but with warmth radiating from her smiling face, nodded at him.

"Not to worry dear, it's Ron's first time as well."

The young boy nodded in agreement, and Harry noted that like him, 'Ron's' clothes were a little loose. They had a big family by the looks of it, maybe he wouldn't be the only one in hand-me-down clothes for once. At the same time, he felt bad for being happy about that. It was hardly fair of him.

"You need to walk straight at that wall between platforms nine and ten. If you're nervous, do it at a run."

Harry nodded and a small, red haired girl mumbled "good luck" to him as he went. He felt unbelievably silly as he geared up to run at the wall, but decided he had little option as it got closer to eleven o clock. Breaking out into a run, Harry felt darkness press in on all sides before his ears filled with a sort of whooshing sound. Moving in case 'Ron' was behind him, Harry looked around.

A huge steam train was pumping white clouds into the air, children and parents milling about everywhere. Wheeling the trolley over to the train, Harry loaded his trunk and grabbed his owl before searching for somewhere to sit. Many of the compartments seemed full, various 'house colours' scattered about. As he reached the end of the train, Harry found one compartment with only a pale, dark haired boy sat alone.

"Do you mind if I sit in here?"

The boy shook his head, smiled and gestured at the seat opposite before standing and helping Harry with his trunk into the rack.

"Thank you. I'm Harry, Harry Potter."

Harry thought the boys eyes widened then, but given some of the blatant gossiping that had followed him up the train, that was nothing and his face relaxed quickly.

"Vladimir Dracula, but you can call me Vlad."

The boy had an interesting accent, European with hints of Welsh. Harry offered his hand to the other boy, a cool hand returning the grip.

"So, Dracula? Like the movies?"

Vlad shook his head. That didn't take long for someone to pick up on.

"My family hail from Transylvania and we were raised on the stories of our vampire ancestors, but no I'm not a vampire like the movies."

He wasn't lying, they weren't like those cheesy horror movies. Well, maybe his father acted like a womanising bloodsucker, but still. Harry Potter was not quite what he expected if he was honest. The boy was almost as short as he, though as Ingrid pointed out, almost everyone was taller than him. They shared shaggy black hair, though Vlad thought his sat a little neater than Harry's. Harry had bright green eyes, hidden behind round glasses and held together with sticky tape. His clothes didn't seem to fit him well, and Vlad felt a bit self conscious in his fine robes Granny Westenra had paid for.

A pudgy boy looked in on them, nervously asking if they'd seen a toad. They both replied negatively, and Vlad felt guilty at the sad look on his face as he disappeared. A red headed boy who seemed to recognise Harry asked if he could sit with them, and Vlad had nodded along as the boy introduced himself as "Ron Weasley".

Phantom seemed unhappy, glaring at the red headed boy and her eyes flashing between blue and green. Vlad couldn't see anything amiss, nor did the room suddenly feel full of dark magic. Maybe she was hungry. The pet shop man had said she was scared of birds, so Vlad opted to leave her in her carrier as he fed her treats, which seemed to distract the little creature.

"So, you brought a cat?"

Harry enquired. The Weasley boy didn't look so enamoured. Vlad shook his head.

"I don't know what she is, she's Phantom, my familiar but the pet shop guy didn't know what breed she was. She's scared of birds but will chase mice, looks like a cat and is apparently powerful enough to help protect me from evil spirits."

Ron had looked confused, Harry intrigued. Harry pointed out Hedwig, and Ron had pulled out a rather wilted-looking rat, who was fast asleep.

"This is Scabbers, he used to be my brothers. He's a little pathetic, I know."

Phantom was now glaring at the rat, so Vlad told her to stop trying to hunt and go to sleep. Phantom flashed her eyes red at him, thankfully out of sight of the others. Hoping to keep their attention off the cat-not-cat, Vlad started enquiring about Hogwarts.

Harry, like him, had no real idea as an only child but Ron was the sixth of seven children to go and so he went on about quidditch (it sounded terrible, Vlad didn't like flying practice with his dad let alone with others), and houses.

"There's not a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin!"

Vlad was rather unhappy about that.

"My sister is in Slytherin, so they can't all be bad!"

Ron looked slightly sheepish, didn't retract his words, then moving on to talk about his brothers - all Gryffindors.

A lunch cart made an appearance then, and Vlad suddenly realised why he needed money to go to school. Purchasing some pumpkin juice and a few pumpkin-shaped pastries, Vlad sat back in his corner and left the other two boys to talk. They were quite animated as the red headed boy engaged in Harry's sweets.

Harry offered Vlad a handful of random sweets, and Vlad didn't want to be rude by refusing the first offer of friendship. He took them, carefully picked through a pile of brightly coloured beans, chewed on a licorice stick and offered both boys some pumpkin juice. Ron jumped at the chance, his own lunch of pre-made corned beef sandwiches ("I told my mom I hate corned beef!") making Vlad feel a bit sorry for him. Harry accepted too, though much more calmly. The door opened again and a girl with long, wavy brown hair had walked in.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville has lost it."

The girl had no house colours - a first year like them. They all replied with a no, and the girl caught sight of Harry.

"Holy cricket! You're Harry Potter!"

Ron suddenly became pestering, and Harry lifted his fringe to show a scar shaped a bit like a lightning bolt, though he looked more than a bit uncomfortable at the attention. The girl introduced herself as Hermione Granger (Vlad may have asked her to spell it), and Ron introduced himself rather grotesquely around a mouthful of cake. Vlad shifted the sweets from his lap and stood up to offer his hand.

"I'm Vladimir Dracula, but call me Vlad."

Hermione nodded at him with a smile and Vlad sat back down. The girl seemed to stare at him, but after a minute Vlad realised she was looking at Phantom,

"Is that a Bastion familiar?"

Having absolutely no idea what that was, Vlad shrugged.

"I think it is, named after Bast the egyptian goddess, half cat and half human. They are really rare, and only bond themselves to powerful people, or so the legends say."

Vlad shrugged again, not wanting to be seen as "special" already. Hermione moved to the carrier then, reaching through to pet Phantom.

"What's their name?"

"Her name is Phantom, I was going to call her Poltergeist for sneaking around causing havoc but it was too long."

Phantom was purring, lapping up the attention and her eyes were clear - Hermione was alright then. Vlad also felt better about already having his uniform on, she did too. She'd then spied Harry's broken glasses, and terrified the boy by pointing her wand between his eyes. Something like "occulus repair-o" later, Harry was lifting fully fixed glasses.

"You're not even at Hogwarts yet, how did you do that?"

Having only seen the briefest instances of magic, mostly from Professor McGonogall, Vlad couldn't help being curious.

"I memorised all my books and tried out a few of the spells in there for practice."

Vlad hadn't even thought of that, both Ingrid and Professor McGonogall had told him no magic outside Hogwarts until they were seventeen, unless it was life-or-death to protect themself from sunlight after they turned sixteen, and even then it had to be really really urgent spellwork. Already impressed by this girl but not wanting to sound creepy, Vlad smiled at Phantom and passed her another treat in thanks.

"I expect we'll be arriving soon, you two had better change into your robes."

Hermione left then, Ron and Harry both rummaging through their trunks for robes. Ron's were slightly faded, possibly hand-me-downs. Harry's were rumpled - he hadn't folded them correctly. As it was their first day, they weren't obligated to wear uniforms other than the robes but afterwards, every single weekday other than seasonal holidays was strictly adhered to uniform policy (Vlad had checked).

True to Hermione's guess, the train began to slow down. Told to leave their trunks and pets together, Vlad petted Phantom through the wire until she purred before promising he'd see her soon and disembarking. The most enormous man he'd ever seen (and Vlad had seen full-grown werewolves) called the "firs-years" over to him in a booming voice, and Vlad, Harry and Ron had approached him together. Harry greeted the man fairly casually before mentioning to Vlad that Hagrid had taken him to Diagon Alley.

Remembering his own trip with a staff member there, Vlad nodded. They were all led to a very tiny fleet of tiny boats - each one held four students, or one Hagrid. As soon as they were all in a boat, the boats moved of their own accord, racing across a black lake towards a looming, tower-riddled castle. Why did everything in Vlad's life have to involve castles? Ingrid's notes were already coming in useful - Vlad avoided the splashes of the lake when others put their hands in - apparently there really was a giant squid in the lake.

Disembarking, Vlad heard yet another splash. He turned round to see a large, square headed boy having slipped in the mud. Ron laughed, but Vlad didn't think it was funny to almost drown on your first day of school, so he'd scowled until the other boy stopped. Hagrid waved a huge pink umbrella at the boy, who quickly stopped shaking and looked a little drier. They were all led into the castle, then into a side room before being left there, herded together and more than a little nervous.

A ghost floated through the walls, waving at them silently and scaring half the children there. Having lived with a six hundred year old vampire who set fire to things and caused thunderstorms for fun, Vlad was not really phased. Vampires didn't have ghosts though, which he found intriguing. Can the undead die and become undead again? Shaking his head, Vlad recognised Professor McGonogall come sweeping into the room.

"I am Professor McGonogall. In a moment you will be sorted into your houses, which will be something like your family here. You will support each other, live together and definitely co-exist. Triumphs will earn you house points, rule breaking will lose you points. Mr Weasley, you have dirt on your nose. Mr Longbottom, is this the toad you were looking for?"

"Trevor!"

The pudgy boy from the train darted forwards, picking up a small brown toad and clutching him tightly. Ron scowled and rubbed at his nose, ignoring the odd jeer from a couple of students.

"Very well, let us proceed."

Vlad wasn't sure where he wanted to end up, but a small, irritated part of him hoped it wasn't with the red haired boy who was currently rubbing at his grubby nose. For starters, he had been the first since Count Dracula to set off Phantom, and while Vlad could hardly judge anyone as a vampire, something about that boy didn't sit right with him.

Shrugging off the feeling, Vlad followed the crowd of other first years towards the front of the hall. He spied Ingrid under green and silver banners - that must be Slytherin. A sea of eyes turned to them, and Vlad heard whispers echo and travel through the hall.

"Is that Harry Potter?"

"He's in Hogwarts!"

"How are they all so tiny?" and so forth.

The stern woman stopped next to a raggedy, stained and patched up hat on a stool. She began reading off a list, in alphabetical order which made Vlad realise he was up early - Dracula wasn't far down the alphabet. Each student sat on the stool, Professor McGonogall placing the old hat on their head which would then shout out one of four names - the four houses. Some looked happy, others apathetic, and a few terrified. "Dracula, Vladimir" had a few snickers and whispers in the hall and Vlad scowled as he stepped up to the stool, feeling the hat get placed over his head until he was staring at nothing but a slightly smelly black fabric.

-YDHP-

It's not a long chapter, I know! There will be more Harry POV as time goes on but I'm trying to make sure Vlad has a firm character basis first and I find it a little easier to write from his POV. Harry is the second main character, worry not!

Also, I couldn't remember the first year sorting song, please forgive me.

Next chapter - sorting, dormitories and all those beginnings! After that it's the start of first year!