Finally finished another of my stories, so in celebration have an update a day early!

-YDHP-

There were still a couple of days until the end of the Christmas holidays, Harry was with Hermione finishing his homework (in spite of spending the entire holidays with his 'geekiest friends' he was still behind), and Vlad was reading about Acromantula to Ingrid because he knew she would love the idea of enormous spiders. Given there was only some two dozen humans in the castle, the hospital wing was generally empty whenever Vlad came in, aside from the off student needing a Pepper Up potion for a cold. So when he was leaving just before curfew, Vlad was surprised to see Professor Snape talking quietly to Madam Pomfrey next to a curtained bed. "Ah, Vladimir, off to your tower I think."

"Vlad? I didn't see him when I came in." Vlad recognised Draco's voice instantly, coming from behind the curtain. "It's still Christmas holidays right? Is Draco sick?" The nurse and professor looked at each other for a moment, then at Draco. "Do you want to see him Mr Malfoy?" Draco must have agreed, as Vlad was beckoned to the curtained area. "Holy hellfire, what happened?" The blond boy looked like he had lost a fight with Count Dracula's pet three-headed killer monkeys, bruises across his usual flawless complexion and what Vlad could only describe as spell burns on his arms. There was still dried blood on his skin - Draco would never leave that there voluntarily. Cocking his head at the sad, almost guilty expression on his friends face, Vlad took a shot. "Draco, did your father do this to you?" The silver-grey eyes widened in horror, but Vlad could see he was right.

"What makes you say that?" "Because you were supposed to stay for Christmas, suddenly went home and now you're back early looking like you tripped the whole way down the Grand staircase and fell into the middle of a wizards duel." There was a sound of whispered conversation behind them, then Snape appeared in the enclosed space. "Perhaps you can talk some sense into my godson, he is refusing to allow us to document his injuries, and our duty of care means we can't heal him until he does." Sitting on the chair next to Draco's bed, Vlad looked at his friend. "Why won't you let them?" "Because I don't want anyone to know, I'm not going to press charges or anything." Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Vlad rolled the thoughts through his mind. "One step at a time. They don't have to tell anyone, just let them record them then you can get patched up? Nobody but us will know."

Draco bit his lip, then thought better of it - Vlad could see it was still split. "Will you stay with me?" "That's up to the nurse, if I can't stay here I'll be right outside those curtains. Is that a yes?" Draco nodded, and Vlad had to wait outside the privacy sheets but he didn't go further. Snape waited with him, clearly anxious about his godson. "Thank you for convincing him." "I know what it's like to keep secrets." The potions professors eyes flicked to the door that concealed Ingrid, nodding in understanding. "Ideally I would like him to stay overnight, but there is only you and Mr Potter in your dormitory, correct?" Vlad nodded to the nurse. "Very well, he may sleep in the tower. I want him back here before breakfast so I can check he's fit to be up and about for the resuming term." Bouncing anxiously as he waited for Draco to get ready to leave, he looked much healthier with his external injuries healed at least.

"I still don't get what you were doing in here in the first place." Hoping the boy had forgotten, Vlad grimaced. "Can I tell him?" "I suppose so." Vlad beckoned Draco to follow him, leading him to the private room door. "You remember Mrs Norris got petrified, and that boy was killed?" Draco nodded in confusion, watching as Vlad opened the door and stepped through. "I was just visiting her, I had no idea you would be here too." Draco's eyes landed on Ingrid, frozen in the same position since Vlad had found her. "What happened? She isn't... She's not dead right?" "Petrified. Only Harry, Hermione and a couple of the teachers know about this, so I guess I'm offering you a trade of a secret for a secret. Ingrid would hate people to see her like this." Vlad pulled the door closed, receiving a brief hug from his friend. "Of course I won't say anything." The blond turned back to the nurse and his godfather. "What happens now?"

"Legally, nothing without your permission. If you change your mind, then that will change of course. As for in the grander scheme, I shall have your things collected from Malfoy Manor one way or another, and you shall stay with me for the summer. Unless you wish to return to your father?" "No! That's fine. Lets go Vlad, I'm exhausted." Vlad followed his friend with a slightly bemused expression, his answers so fast as though he was worried the offer would be withdrawn if he waited too long to answer. The corridors were empty this close to curfew, but the common room wasn't. "Thought you were going to miss curfew Vlad. Oh, hey Draco. It's still Christmas right Hermione? I haven't lost whole days to this essay?"

"I bumped into him. Yes Harry, its still Christmas!" Vlad didn't offer more information as the Weasley twins were in the common room, peering over Harry's shoulder to check his homework and pointing out a mistake he had made. "Somehow I don't think a flame shield will help you at all against a banshee. Though I doubt Lockhart actually knows either way." Harry scratched it out and hurried through his essay, Hermione proof reading it while Vlad waited for Draco to stop paying attention before charming his jumper to match their Weasley jumpers - almost permanent Christmas attire. "Welcome to the jumper club!" He had charmed it to match his own, black with a grey D on. "A Malfoy in a Weasley jumper, is it the apocalypse?" Fred and George dramatically collapsed by the fire, staring up at Draco with daft expressions on their faces until he cracked a smile. "Yes. You will be the first to go." "Please Master Draco, spare us!"

Hermione had abandoned proof reading Harry's homework to fall about laughing, Harry joining in the hysterics as the twins managed to cheer the surprise returning Malfoy up, without even having a clue why he wasn't happy to begin with. Chuckling at their antics, Vlad headed up to shower and get ready for bed, finding Hermione had followed Harry and Draco upstairs. "You better hope they never decide to put the same charm on the boys staircase, you spend more time in here than your own dorm!" "Don't exaggerate Dracula, I don't sleep in here." Conceding her point, Vlad dropped onto his bed and smiled at Phantom pawing Draco's face. "I think she missed you!" "She missed stealing my stuff you mean." "Same thing. She doesn't miss me, she misses her food and toys locked in my trunk so she doesn't leave them all over the castle. Mr Filch was not happy that light up bounce ball got dirty and splattered potion goo in the hallway."

Harry grinned unapologetically, having been the one who let Phantom out with a toy in her mouth that time. "So, Draco said you should tell us why he's back early, because he doesn't want to say it?" Raising an eyebrow in query at the blond, he got a nod. "He got hurt, he was in the hospital wing while I was visiting Ingrid, I saw him when I left for curfew and walked back with him." Harry and Hermione both immediately scanned Draco for injuries, but Madam Pomfrey had done a flawless job of making it look as though he had never been bruised up. "Who by?" Cocking his head, Vlad remembered he hadn't ever actually confirmed it, though Professor Snape had. "His father. Madam Pomfrey healed him up. And obviously, nobody else knows." Harry nodded, looking at their friend closely. "Do you have to go back there?" "No, Uncle Severus said I can stay with him."

"At least Dumbledore isn't in charge of where you go, I have to go back to the Dursleys again." Harry's words were strange, sparking a sudden desire to destroy the muggle family. "They hurt you?" "Mostly Dudley, though my aunt likes to get the odd swing of a frying pan in and my uncle throws me around. Still, they aren't magical I guess." Hermione looked surprised, apparently not having issues with her parents and knowing she had nothing to offer. "He makes you go back there? He put you there to begin with!" Vlad now wanted to take a shot at the headmaster for putting his mate somewhere dangerous to him, but knew that was insanity. "I have no other family, but yeah my first Hogwarts letter was addressed to the cupboard under the stairs - my bedroom. Scared them enough to give me Dudleys second bedroom, but then more letters came and we ended up on a rock in a shack. Them Hagrid rescued me and told me I was a wizard."

"You're Harry bloody Potter, any family on the Light side would have taken you in. Why them?" Harry shrugged, chewing viciously at a licorice wand. "No idea. I get the being hidden with a muggle family so nobody could look for me, but then I'm not sure it was all about my safety since nobody ever came to check on me. I mean, I've had a busted wrist, broken arm, a few concussions and a couple of cracked ribs from Dudley, I wasn't that safe." If Vlad saw this Dudley at any point, the muggle boy might find himself suddenly missing several limbs. Or being fed to Count Dracula. "Well, I will simply have to have you kidnapped at some point. Because no way are you going back again, even with Bertrand's help." Draco didn't know the vampire bit, so Vlad was happy when Harry just nodded in agreement. "If you say so. That's months away anyway, and it's getting late. Lily says feel better soon by the way." The emerald snake hissed and flicked her tongue out in Draco's direction, then resumed hanging from a lump of wood in her tank. Trying to calm his anger and protective instincts towards Harry somewhat, Vlad bid Hermione goodnight and reminded the Malfoy escapee that he had to see the nurse again in the morning before climbing into bed himself.

Harry wasn't sure why he said all the things he did - ever since he was small and the teachers just assumed he was accident prone - and lazy because he wasn't allowed to do better than Dudley at school - he hadn't told anyone what his home life was really like. But then Draco, the powerful wizarding family with vast amounts of wealth, had looked so small and scared that Harry wanted him to know he wasn't alone, and to realise he was lucky he had somewhere else to go. Then Vlad got very protective and promised to have Harry kidnapped, which was an amusing thought he supposed. Even so, he hissed to Lily about how it was nice to have people who cared so much about him. "I care for you too wizard. Sometimes." "Thanks Lily, love you too." Offering the snake an affectionate stroke over her coils, Harry curled up and tried to sleep.

He woke after a few hours, confused to see Draco back for a moment before he remembered, then again when he saw Vlad's bed empty. Their door was slightly ajar, and Harry recognised Vlad's voice coming up. Peering over the wall that bridged the first three years to the second four years dorms, he spied Vlad sat talking to Bertrand, though it was too quiet for him to hear what they were saying. Satisfied his friend was safe, Harry made to leave them to it. The voice he kept hearing stopped him dead, the cold harsh whispers of "that was just a warning. Come to me or I will do worse." It faded before Harry could even begin to think again, and his mind whirled with possibilies of what it could mean as he hurried back to the dorm, 'Lumos' lighting his wand as he scribbled down the message he had heard. "Harry?" "Go back to sleep Draco, I just remembered something I wrote wrong on my essay and it'll bug me all night if I don't do it now." "Mmkay."

Waiting for the rhythmic breathing to return, Harry stared at the note, heart hammering. If what he heard was the thing hurting people, did that mean it was hurting them to get to Harry? Or just to get rid of non-purebloods? And either way, Harry had no idea what it could be, so he couldn't exactly go to them and ask them to stop. Shoving the note in his trunk and firmly locking it, Harry lay back down and closed his eyes. He couldn't tell Vlad - If it was true the thing was after Harry, then Ingrid was currently lying in the Hospital Wing petrified, with no obvious cure because of Harry. He didn't want his friend to be upset with him, or even angry at him - he had seen Vlad angry. Scrubbing tears leaking beneath his eyelids, Harry tried to drift off. Partially successful, he didn't hear Vlad come back but the boy vampire was asleep in his bed when Harry was next aware enough to notice.

Eyeing the time, Harry figured he may as well go take a long shower - Vlad usually stirred early even after late night adventures so he wouldn't be awake alone for long. Clean, dry, dressed and much closer to awake and alert than he had been before, Harry had been right about Vlad, who stumbled past him for the bathroom half asleep and reappeared dressed and awake himself. Still not wanting to bring up the voice, Harry pushed it to the back of his mind and watched as Vlad prodded their friend awake. "Come on, you gotta see Madam Pomfrey before breakfast so rise and shine. Well, you don't have to shine, it is winter." Harry left them to head to the hospital wing, following Hermione, Fred, George and Ginny down to the Great Hall for breakfast. The youngest Weasley positively reeked of soap and detergent, slight faded patches on her robes making Harry wonder what she had been cleaning - he'd had several detentions cleaning cauldrons but then he had Vlad to magically clean him up after, so he had never had to scrub his robes clean himself.

The two didn't appear during breakfast at all, so Harry and Hermione headed up to the hospital wing - easily the likeliest place to find Vlad. Sure enough Madam Pomfrey indicated the back room, saying Mr Malfoy was fine, but didn't want to be stared at over being back early just yet so they had breakfast in the Hospital wing. Lily slithered from his pocket to wrap around Ingrid's wrist, flicking her tongue out against her pale skin. "This one cannot be healed conventionally." Hermione and Draco went outside so Vlad didn't feel guilty for letting Ingrid be seen by a room full of people, and Harry replied to his familiar. "How do you know that?" "Petrification affects any life form, we know to feed them mandrake leaves. Human physiology is different, vampire even more so." "Yes, we know that. Anything useful to offer you scaly pest?" Lily huffed at him, or as close as a snake could do, slithering up and down Ingrid's arm for a few minutes. "I think the river ends at the source." "What?" Harry looked at his pet in confusion, her cryptic answer not helpful in the slightest.

"Why must I be bound to an idiot? You must find what did this, and then you will find your answer to the cure." Suddenly wishing her particular breed of snake didn't have such bizarre insight, Harry didn't bother to pass on such nonsense to Vlad, waiting a while and then dragging him away for lunch before Madam Pomfrey lynched him. "She would tell you you're mad for spending so much time sat at her bedside chattering away. Now let's go and eat before you get any thinner and Ingrid wakes up just to call you a scrawny garlic bulb." He managed to get a faint smile out of Vlad with that, and Vlad didn't go back to Ingrid until after dinner. Overall, everyone seemed more relaxed until they found it - another message over another body. This one was also petrified, a third year Ravenclaw - muggle born - under "The truth will come out." and it was perplexing to say the least as the boy was moved to the hospital wing. "There's what, less than twenty students in the school? If this thing is after muggle burns, why not wait until after Christmas when they all come back?"

Vlad didn't answer, gnawing on his quill no matter how many times Hermione asked him to stop. "Maybe it has a hit list." was Draco's best answer. "Right, because we all know Mark Aurelius was famous for doing absolutely nothing but read. Unless this thing is a serious anti-bookworm fanatic, there's no way he was on a list other than muggle born." Draco tilted his head in agreement, biting the head off his chocolate frog and laughing as they watched the Weasley twins take turns shocking each other with their magically enhanced 'joy buzzers'. "Don't worry, we will be sure to diffuse the tension when everyone comes back. Do you think Hogwarts students will prefer tiny volcanoes, or personalised hurricanes?" "I should never have given you those books." Fred and George dropped to sit either side of Vlad, roughing up his hair until they were swatted away. "Oh but Vlad, we love them! And we promise not to get you or Hermione!"

Vlad rolled his eyes and wriggled free of the twins before they could knock his ink bottle over, tidying up his... actually, Harry didn't know what he was writing, there was no homework he hadn't finished. They headed up to bed, Weasley jumpers on (Draco hadn't changed his back yet) against the cold nights and Harry leant against his pillows, reading his book on snakes from Bertrand by candle light. The book was thick, full of information and Harry could only absorb about half a chapter at a time before he had to put it back in his trunk and accept sleep. He was just drifting off when Lily flicked her tail against his ear, getting his attention as she pointed towards Vlad. Harry looked over just in time for Vlad to spell himself invisible, so Harry quickly tugged his invisibility cloak over himself, grabbed his wand and jumped into his shoes before hurrying after Vlad. Catching the portrait hole opening, Harry shot a stinging hex at the general area and heard Vlad curse as it hit. "Vlad?" "Harry?" Harry peered round, then dropped his hood. "Where the hell are you going? Its nearly midnight!" "Forbidden Forest. You should stay, it's not safe." "Like hell. I'm just about stupid and Gryffindor enough to follow you with no idea why, lets go." Even invisible, he just knew Vlad was rolling his eyes as Harry pulled the hood back up, feeling Vlad reach for his wrist and pulling him along. If Vlad was taking them to see those bloody huge spiders, he was going to kill him. Undead or not.

-YDHP-

I wonder what could possibly be in the Forbidden Forest Harry? I llove Harry dearly, but it is startling amounts of easy to write him as a little daft because book- Harry does have some daft moments! Still, he will come into his own soon, worry not!