Nope, don't own.
So now teachers, Hermione and Harry know Vlad and Ingrid and Bertrand are vampires. Ooooh.
I have writers block like you wouldn't believe, but here we are again.
On we go!
-YDHP-
The next time he went along to one of Vlad's sessions, Harry actually got to join in on their detection work. He wasn't especially good at it, so Bertrand worked backwards with him and got him to sit and meditate. "Don't try to force things, innate magic will show when its ready. Ingrid, if you laugh again I'll put you on meditation." Fighting not to laugh, and trying avidly to sit still and relax, Harry slowly tuned out the surrounding noises. "Now, without opening your eyes, see what you can feel." Picturing the cauldrons they were "detecting", Harry tried to feel them. "Poison. Healing potion. Pumpkin juice, or is that just Vlad's blood?" Harry was jolted out of his peaceful state by Vlad hitting him with a stinging hex, but he took it in stride and stood up. "Well?" "You got the same as me. Ingrid?" "Bezoar resistant poison, skele-gro, pumpkin juice." Harry looked at Ingrid in disbelief for a moment, then a vague memory of Vlad back in the philosophers stone hunt saying Ingrid was better at detections than he was.
"Well technically you're all right, but well done on the specifics Ingrid. Harry, keep up the meditation until you feel you have a good grasp on it. Vlad, Ingrid - center stage, shields vs disarming. Spells obviously, your quirky magic doesn't work on each other." Harry watched as they stood in the center of the room, wondering what Bertrand meant but figured he could ask Vlad later. They didn't speak their spells, but they were actually using their wands right now. At a guess, Ingrid was better at potions and detection based work, but Vlad was clearly the more magically powerful as he blocked more than half of hers with solid shields, and Ingrid was visibly more shaken when Vlad's got through. Bertrand gave them both vials when they called time, and they both noticeably brightened up a bit afterwards. "Replenisher, Dracula pride means we would end up exhausting our magic before we admit defeat" was supplemented by Vlad.
"Harry, you're free to go. Vlad, Ingrid, get your books." The two siblings groaned in complaint (Vlad loved reading, so they must be especially boring), picking up big tomes and conjuring desks and chairs like it was nothing (Vlad's were blue, Ingrid's purple and black) to sit at. Harry shrugged to himself, pulling out one of his blood magic books from Snape and sitting on the floor to read quietly. "Anything good?" Absorbed in the book, Harry answered absentmindedly "something about compatible and incompatible magic, but I can't read Latin and half the book is in it." "Bertrand, you read Latin right?" Vlad nudged Harry's shoulder, gaining his attention enough to pass the book to the tutor. "Leave this with me, I'll translate the whole book for you and Vlad can collect it at his next class with me. You focus on meditation, we'll have to work slowly but I'm confident you have some hidden talents." Leaving with Vlad, after Ingrid gave her brother a brief hug goodbye and hit Harry with a mild tickling charm ("why Ingrid, I didn't know you cared"), Harry remembered to ask.
"What did Bertrand mean about you and Ingrid?" "We don't know, but if we aren't at least thinking of the spell for what it is, it doesn't work. Like this" Vlad levitated his backpack in front of them, holding his hand out "isn't a spell, more like I can see strings of magic holding it up. If I do that to anyone or anything, it works, though the heavier it is the more it strains. I can't do that to Ingrid, and she can do the same sort of thing, and it doesn't work on me. It worked on dad and Bertrand, and two very brave professors. So we have to know the spell inside out to hit each other with it. And using a wand makes it stronger, which is kind of odd because the rest of the time it makes zero difference." "Huh. Strange." "Could be useful some day, who knows. Come on, before Draco gets into another sock fight with Phantom." The two hurried along to their dorm, barely making curfew (though Bertrand offered them notes if they needed them).
"Hey guys, fun detention Harry?" (his random disappearances were covered up as detention with Snape, they didn't want anyone knowing the exact nature of the tutoring/training sessions). "He had a pile of papers to grade, so I just organised some jars and hid in the supply cupboard until he let me go." Phantom clambered up on Vlad's shoulder, and Lily hissed in greeting to Harry but resumed her napping across his bed - it was a testament to her acceptance that none of their dorm mates were even fazed by a snake stretching out of her own volition by now. "Yes, I'm back now stop licking me before I feed you to Lily!" This didn't deter Phantom from licking Vlad's ear in the slightest, leaving Vlad to try and wrestle her off so he could dress for bed. Eventually convincing his familiar to go bug Dean, Vlad escaped to the bathroom to shower and change into pyjamas.
"So, does anyone know what the terrible monster in the chamber of secrets is? Or what its meant to do?" "Based on what I've heard about Salazar Slytherin" Vlad answered without even looking at Seamus, letting Lily coil around his arm so Phantom could paw her face now she had gotten back on Vlad's shoulder "it would be reptilian, and probably out to get rid of the people he considered unworthy of magic. Which begs the question of my darling sister, the first Slytherin with no magical heritage whatsoever." He wondered if Vlad was worried about his sister, his outward demeanour relaxed but Vlad was good at hiding things. "Your sister is pretty scary, it would probably run away if it saw her. Unlike me, I would defend her with Gryffindor courage!" Vlad chuckled, looking at ease with a snake wrapped around him. "Dream on Seamus, she would use you as a human shield, then hex you sideways for getting closer than she says is acceptable."
"The pale one is correct, the female snake would have the Irish boy for breakfast." Lily added her two hisses to their conversation, though only Harry could understand fully, and Phantom was too busy bugging Vlad to pay much attention. "Why do I get the feeling your snake is talking about me? And wow that sounds wrong." Harry grinned, chewing on an apple from their rarely-empty stash table. "Yes, it does. And no idea, Lily is more interested in using Vlad as a living playground for her and Phantom." The boys laughed at Vlad's 'misfortune', though he didn't actually look too bothered now he was in night clothes. He tried to lie down, carefully shifting Lily to his chest. "Are you planning to stay there all night?" "If it does not inconvenience you." Shaking his head at the sarcastic snake, Harry stood to change himself. "Sorry Vlad, Lily decided you're her bed tonight." "Woe is me. Just stay still and we have no problems, ok?" Lily hissed in agreement, though Harry wasn't sure how much she understood in English. Phantom quickly scrambled to sleep next to Lily, so Vlad had a torsoful of familiars as he waited for the others to settle down to sleep.
Vlad awoke in the early hours, the sky still dark outside and he had no clue what woke him up. Looking down, Lily and Phantom were still snoozing on him so it wasn't them. Rubbing at his eyes and turning his head carefully so as not to dislodge Harry's familiar, Vlad squinted into the dark room. Four sets of rhythmic sleep breathing/snoring sounded back at him, so one other than him was awake. Taking a stab in the dark, Vlad whispered out "Harry?" "Vlad?" "Why are you awake?" Shuffling and shifting sounds were his only answer, until Harry was suddenly kneeling on the 32nd of his bed. "I heard it again. The voice!" he hissed quietly, but now he was close enough Vlad could see the panic in eyes unencumbered by glasses at this hour. "Really? I mean, it's been weeks since Halloween and nobody has seen or heard a thing, not even us and we are too nosy for our own good." "Really! Come on!" Thinking he had misheard Harry, Vlad didn't immediately jump up.
"I'm going, you coming?" "You need to shift Lily if I'm going anywhere?" the weight of snake on his chest vanished, so Vlad carefully moved Phantom to the bed. "Get your cloak then, before we wake the others?" Vlad didn't know why he was agreeing to this madness, except that it was Harry and he wouldn't let his Ha-, no, his friend go wandering alone at night. Even as he stepped in to his slippers, and thought to himself "this is insanity", Vlad was tucking his wand into his hooded jumper and watching Harry unfold his invisibility cloak. "Ready?" "To get detention again, sure. Lets go." Miraculously, they got out of their dorm without waking the others, and Vlad was quick to charm himself invisible as Harry pulled his cloak on. "Don't run off, we can't see each other so it would be easy to get lost or separated." "Yes Mr bossy biter." "I can't see you, I can still hex you. Now quiet, we are invisible not silent." Creeping out of the portrait hole, Vlad focused his senses on keeping track of Harry as something led his friend.
"Oh no." Having scaled the grand staircase down to the second floor (Vlad doubted Harry noticed that until they got there), they found the corridor flooded again. They had to go slowly, their footsteps in the puddles wouldn't be invisible or silent as they crept along to the girls bathroom. "Vlad? We aren't girls!" "Shut up and go in." Harry groused but complied, pushing the door open and they both hurried to turn off the streaming taps. "Count your blessings, one of these sinks doesn't work." Sure enough, one set of faucets didn't have water pouring out of them, nor did they when he and Harry tried them. "Lumos!" Harry's wand lit the damp and dingy bathroom, and Vlad caught sight of something on the floor. Bending down to pick it up must have looked strange, essentially a floating object as he shook it off. "What is it?" "Some kind of book. I'll check it out when we get back." "Who's there?" Vlad froze in surprise, but relaxed somewhat when it turned out to be a ghost, not a professor.
Harry didn't answer, so neither did Vlad. Hearing wet footsteps again, he followed the light to the door and Harry luckily remembered to extinguish it before they stole out of the bathroom again. "Well?" "I don't know, I got sidetracked by the water... There it is again! Relying on the sounds of Harry's footsteps and the feel of his magic nearby to keep track of him, Vlad chased after his friend along a few more hallways. "Fuck, this is worse than flooding or cats." Vlad almost tripped over what Harry had found, a body prone on the floor. The boy couldn't have been more than eleven, Hufflepuff house colours on his pyjamas. "Is he?" Supposing he was the death expert of the two of them, being undead himself, Vlad knelt down next to the boy. "No pulse, not breathing, but look, not frozen in place. He's not petrified, he's dead." "Fuck. What do we do?"
Scanning the surrounding area for inspiration, Vlad caught sight of something else strange. "Look, spiders again. Oh." Following the trail of spiders scuttling away, Vlad found another message daubed in blood - disguised by the water and smell of death he could feel pervading the air. "This is a warning. The heir will rise." "Vlad! What do we do?" "Take him to Madam Pomfrey? She will be able to get the others." "I can't... I can't touch it." Figuring as much, Vlad levitated the boy, then thought better of floating the corpse and hefted him over his shoulder. Thankful the hospital wing wasn't far, as Vlad wasn't especially physically strong, Harry pulled off his cloak and knocked while Vlad dropped his invisibility charm. It took a minute, by which time his knees were starting to ache under the strain, but the nurse eventually answered. "We found him like this, I swear!" Harry didn't even have a preface, just blurted that out as Vlad staggered over and lay the boy out on a bed.
"Oh my Lord, what's happened?" Looking at Harry, he could hardly say they followed a voice. "Harry couldn't sleep, so we went walking. He gets nightmares you know? Found the flooding on the second floor, we were leaving and we found him. Next to another message." Hoping Madam Pomfrey believed him, Vlad waited with bated breath. "I'll get the headmaster, and I imagine your tutor will be awake?" Vlad nodded, sinking down into a chair. Harry sat in a nearby seat, staring unseeingly at the boy. The headmaster, Bertrand and McGonogall appeared a few minutes later, gasps of shock filling the room. "Where did you find him?" "Second floor, I'll show you." Harry was already being coerced into dreamless sleep on another bed, and Vlad made a note to apologise for the nightmares comment but then Harry may need it after they found a dead body.
Leading the teachers down the flooded hallways, the teachers waved their wands to dry it as they went. "We shut the taps off, is there really a ghost that haunts that bathroom?" "Yes, Myrtle. She died many years ago. Occasionally floods the place when students are harsh to her." Turning the corner, the spiders were gone but the message still there. "Here. Right next to this message. He was already... He was already cold." The blank stare of the boy haunted him, eyes open where he lay staring up at the ceiling. "Go back to your dormitory, tell your friends Mr Potter was taken ill in the night to explain his absence - the students will be waking soon. Then return to the hospital wing when they leave after breakfast for class, I will meet you there." Nodding up at the headmaster, Vlad turned and headed up the stairs, Bertrand accompanying him. When they got to the seventh floor, Bertrand looked around before pulling Vlad into an empty classroom. "What were you doing out of bed?" "Harry heard something, I didn't but I wasn't going to let him go alone." His tutor nodded in understanding, then dropped him back at his tower. "I'll meet you in the hospital wing in the morning."
Ambling back up to his dorm, Vlad went to splash cold water over his face. Lily slithered up to his bed, her tongue flicking out by his ear. Unsure if she understood, he tried anyway. "Harry's ok, I'll take you to him in the morning." Lily coiled around his arm, resting her head over his chest and eyes flickering shut. Apparently he wasn't going anywhere without her. Stroking over her scales until the others woke, he was quick to give the explanation when Draco asked where Harry was. "Is he ok?" "Should be fine, he was sleeping when I left. I was given strict orders to tell you all to go to class, and come see him no earlier than our free period this afternoon." "Damn, guess we'll have to wait. Why are you wearing a snake as a scarf?" "I think Lily must know I was with Harry last, so her idea is if she sticks to me I can take her to him." Which brought up the question of how he was going to get dressed, Lily was not moving. "Guys, a little help?" Between the five of them, they convinced Lily to let Vlad go dress for school, though as soon as he left the bathroom she coiled around his leg and slithered up his body.
"Guess I'm going nowhere until I take her to Harry. Madam Pomfrey will love me for that." The boys laughed, and Draco promised to get Vlad copies of their notes and homework if he managed to stay with Harry. "Thanks. Lily, you need to hide if you want a lift." Apparently she understood, or Phantom translated, because Lily moved to hide under Vlad's sleeve, licking the crease of his elbow as though he could forget she was there. "I'll catch you guys later, get going before we all get detention. Tell Hermione not to worry, yeah?" The others nodded as they parted ways on the staircase - Hermione didn't always wait for them if Ginny was on the move. "I thought you were supposed to be here after breakfast?" Madam Pomfrey eyed him closely, wondering why Vlad was early. "You think I got a choice?" Vlad rolled his sleeve up to reveal Lily, who hissed happily and stretched out to curl up on a still-sleeping Harry. "Mr Dracula, why is there a snake in my ward?" "She's Harry's familiar, just like Phantom and me. He's perfectly safe, I promise but she was anxious to see him, practically glued herself to me until I got her here."
Madam Pomfrey had placed the dead boy in a private room, so when she demanded Vlad sit down and eat the breakfast house elves delivered, he made an effort with it. Harry woke blinking confusion out of his eyes, fumbling for his glasses and looking around. "Why am I in the hospital wing? I had the weirdest dream." "Did it involve flooded hallways and a dead kid? Yeah, that wasn't a dream." "So why are you awake and dressed?" Peering to check Madam Pomfrey wasn't next to them, he dropped his voice and whispered "I told her you get nightmares and that's why we were out walking. So after we found that boy, she gave you dreamless sleep." Harry nodded in acceptance, shuffling into a seated position. "Try to eat, I brought your clothes by the way." "Gotta love your super backpack." His friend eventually ate some toast, and excused himself to the bathroom to clean up and dress. Professor Sprout - head of Hufflepuff - greeted Vlad as she passed to identify her student with a grave face. The other teachers weren't far behind, finding Vlad touching a snake that was in Harry's bed. "He just went to get dressed. Should only be a minute." Harry was indeed only a minute, and when he returned Dumbledore looked at them both very seriously. "So boys, why were you wandering the halls at all hours?"
-YDHP-
I have no hate for Hufflepuff, I promise!