Yes, I know how evil that cliffie was – bad author! Bad author! -, but the alternative would have been worse, believe me. To pay you back for your generous patience, this chapter is nearly twice as long!
Sorry about the two German words that sneaked their way in – I fixed them, but to those who don't want to read the chapter again, they meant that Harry brushed back his hair and exposed his artery, where the tattoo is situated.
A short reply to one review before we dive into the story: Someone criticized that I was „begging for reviews" instead of just finishing the story. I don't consider my asking for your opinion on the story „pathetic" or „bad taste". To me, it is important to know whether you like what I do and what you think about the direction this story is going. I'm sorry if some of you finds that disturbing, but I'm writing this for you as much as for myself, and everyone who is a writer himself knows how much reviews mean to us!
But enough rambling, on to the story!
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The Truth Will OutThey stopped in front of an ancient oak door, secured by so many wards and protective spells that Snape had to avoid his eyes from the magical blaze.
Slowly, his hand trembling slightly, Potter knocked.
Only instances later, the door was opened by a seemingly young man clad in black leather and silk.
"Harry," He greeted him quietly. "You finally came! He's been waiting for you since last Friday."
Potter gulped. Audibly.
"How bad is it?" He asked again and got only an answering shrug.
"Can't really say. Better just get it over with," Stepping away from the door, he raised his voice to a respectful tone. "My Lord, Harry has arrived."
That said, the vampire ushered them into the room, left and closed the door behind him, all a bit too eagerly to Snape's liking.
The moment the door closed behind them, Potter dropped to one knee and lowered his head, gesturing for Snape to follow in suit. And this coming from the boy who defied the Dark Lord himself, Snape thought. In all his unfortunately long years of acquaintance with Potter, he had never seen him show so much respect to anyone. Guess I should be worried, now.
"My Lord," Potter announced in a small voice, not raising his head.
Something within the room moved towards them. Snape could here the rustling of clothes, and footsteps so soft that only the absolute silence around them made them noticeable.
"Harry Potter," A voice answered, a voice so expressionless and cold that Snape flinched against his will. So did Potter. Visibly.
"My Lord, I present to you Master Severus Snape, Potions Master and my former teacher. Professor Snape, I present to you Shadow, prince of all Vampires."
Snape felt his jaw drop open and was glad that his lowered face was hidden by his hair. Prince of all Vampires. Apart from the leader of the centaurs and the king of the merpeople the mightiest dark creature on earth. And Harry Potter had actually managed to piss him off. Great.
The silence grew until it became nearly unbearable to Snape, but the prince hadn't allowed them to rise, and Potter hadn't moved a muscle. I would prefer a more comfortable position while I wait for my execution, Snape thought, resisting the urge to raise his head and look at the mythical creature that still stood mutely before them.
"Why didn't you tell me," the cold voice finally whispered, and there was more then just fury in it.
Never call a centaur horse, and never cross a vampire, his old DADA teacher's saying darted through Snape's mind.
"You already know the answer to that question, my Lord," Potter answered quietly, his words holding nothing but respect.
"Yes. I think I do."
Snape readied himself for yet another of these long silences, when suddenly Potter was dragged up by two superhumanly strong arms. Without a thought, Snape had sprung up, too, his wand ready in his hand. But again, first impressions had been deceiving, for Potter was not under attack.
Instead, he was clasped in a tight embrace by someone who would have made Lucius Malfoy himself appear as shy and clumsy as Neville Longbottom.
Shadow was a tall vampire with a face as smooth as marble and hair black enough to make ravens blush in envy. His eyes were blue, as brilliant and intense as Potter's were green, but Potter's aura paled against that of Shadow.
His very being breathed power in a way Snape hadn't experienced even from Voldemort, his every cell stating calmly that he could kill you as easily as you might kill a beetle.
And he held onto Harry Potter as if the brat was his lifeline.
"Harry," He whispered now, finally releasing the young wizard from his death grip but not completely letting go of him. "No one drives me quite as mad as you do, I must say."
Potter grinned his well-known, sheepish grin, and breathed a sigh of relief. "But isn't that exactly the reason you love me, Shadow?"
"Only proves that I am mental," Shadow muttered, then smiled warmly and nodded his head towards a cabinet. "Whisky, I think?"
"Absolutely."
That decided, Shadow turned towards Snape, while Potter headed for the cabinet. The prince of vampires took in the standing Snape, his protectively raised wand, and the rather confused expression on his face, and cocked an eyebrow.
"Master Snape," He greeted him with a respectful nod of his head that served only to increase said confusion. "I have heard a lot about you and am honoured to finally meet you. Please, allow me to invite you to a drink."
The Gods be thanked for my pureblood heritage, Snape thought as he bowed noticeably deeper than Shadow had, every inch the leader of an ancient house. At least I have a code of manners to hide behind.
"My Lord Shadow," He announced, his voice as smooth and calm as silk. "The honour is all mine and your offer is accepted gladly."
Shadow smiled again, exposing white fangs, and offered him a luxurious armchair, into which Snape lowered himself gladly. He wasn't quite sure how much longer his legs might have carried him.
"So what exactly is going on, Harry," Shadow inquired finally, his head perched to the left in a gesture of concentrated listening. "All that Druid woman was able to tell me was something about certain and very painful death. I sincerely hope I misheard."
"I'm afraid you didn't," Potter answered in a small voice, but instead of continuing, he threw and encouraging glance at Snape.
"It's rather complicated, and Professor Snape here knows much more about it than I do."
And so Snape found himself, once again, in the position to explain Potter's illness to an interested layman.
"So it is not only you in mortal danger, but also the chance of Voldemort's resurrection," Shadow's silky voice murmured when Snape had finished. "Why is never anything easy with you, Harry?"
Potter shrugged. "Seems to be my destiny," He answered. "Wouldn't it be rather boring, otherwise?"
The expression in Shadow's face clearly stated that he didn't think this funny. Not. At. All.
"And you didn't deem this important enough to inform me?" He asked, his voice dangerously low again. "You didn't even consider that I might wish to know about your approaching death? That we vampires might possess information about treatments you wizards have never dreamed of?"
Potter, who had clearly hoped to have evaded the catastrophe, looked worried again.
"I really wanted to visit you, Shadow," He protested. "But then I was stupid enough to go to Hogwarts, thinking I would die and all that sentimental stuff that is attached to it, and after Dumbledore forced me to undergo this treatment, there was no time at all!"
The vampire´s voice dropped to a cold whisper. "What do you mean, "forced you"?"
"It means that he was quite happy to die," Snape cut in coolly, ignoring Potter´s frantic gestures behind the vampire´s back. "Only the treatment seemed to anger him, and if it hadn´t been for the danger of Voldemort´s return, he would have refused it altogether. I will remain silent about his mental capacities."
Only when Shadow had whirled around, gripped Potter in much the same fashion as Potter had the new vampire down at the bar just a few minutes earlier, and pressed him against the wall did Snape reconsider the wisdom of this answer.
Obviously, Potter had been quite serious when he had warned him about Shadow.
"So you were ready to die again, were you?" The prince of vampires hissed, his hand clutching Potter's throat, and now Snape knew where the young wizard had learned his death glare.
"That's the reason I didn't tell you, Shadow," Potter said calmly, not even trying to struggle against the power that held him. It would have been useless anyway. "I know that we disagree on this point, but you must allow me my own decisions!"
"Disagree," The vampire snarled and raised his hand, leaving Potter hanging helplessly in the air, still pressed against the white washed wall, and now Potter did struggle, though he might have told a mountain to move to the same avail. "I know you don´t care about this life of yours, Harry, but I do, and I won´t allow you to throw it away! Not after what you survived! I remember the state of your body after you freed me, I remember the nightmares that hunted you for years. And I remember that you conquered it all!"
"Stop it, Shadow," Potter suddenly shouted, and Snape thought he could detect a hint of fear in his voice. "This is not the way to discuss this!"
"Then how would you like to discuss it, Harry," Shadow was now shouting, too. "The way we discussed during the first months when we had to hide your own wand from you? Is this just another one of your harebrained suicide attempts?"
Still in the furious vampire´s grip, his feet dangling a foot above the ground, Potter had turned very still. His eyes had lost their focus, the green somehow dulled, and he had ceased to fight against the supernatural strength
"How dare you throw away your life only because you still feel guilty about your friends…"
Potter´s eyes glazed over and his features smoothed into an expression of utter peace. Then, his skin began to ripple and once more the sickly glow emanated from his body.
"Let him down!" Snape shouted, but the vampire seemed to be frozen in shock. Fascination and terror fought on his face as he watched Potter convulse, the tendrils of magic escaping his skin and whirling around him like silver mist.
"Hell and damnation, let him down this instant!"
Shadow´s hands, suddenly without strength, opened, and Potter fell to the floor, twitching and writhing, soft whimpers escaping his throat. Snape was down beside him in a heartbeat, grabbed his hair to lift his head and slapped the pale cheek as hard as he could.
"I could get used to that," He murmured as he watched the convulsions cease.
Slowly, Potter's eyes opened as a tiny moan escaped his lips.
"By the nine levels, Harry, what is happening to you?" Shadow asked, kneeling down besides the younger wizard, shock and worry in his face.
"I'm sorry, Shadow," Potter whispered. "I didn't want you to see that."
The vampire sighed in exasperation. "I am eight hundred years old, Harry. You don't have to protect me!"
The ghost of a grin darted over Potter's face. "It's an old… habit…" He croaked.
"I know. And you know how unwelcome it is with me. Here, let me help you…" With great care, he gathered the wizard into his arms, rose and carried him towards the back of the room, where he gently laid his charge down on a sofa.
"Sleep," He told him as he spread a blanket over his body. "I will entertain your Professor until you have rested sufficiently."
"I am no child, Shadow," Potter protested, but nonetheless closed his eyes and relaxed into the vampire's soft touch.
Shadow smirked, and something in that smirk told Snape that he was witnessing the repetition of a very old argument. "Ah, but to me you are, Harry. Sleep now."
And Potter slept.
Snape couldn't say that he was very happy about the changed circumstances. He was now alone in a room with the Prince of Vampires, who had just proven how unpredictable he was, and would probably be questioned closely about Potter's illness in a moment. That made him the proverbial bringer of bad news, and Snape did not want to know how Shadow dealt with this specific royal habit.
But instead of rounding in on Snape and demanding more information, Shadow remained by Potter's side, his eyes fixed on the sleeping figure.
"So he chose to return to your world, and again he must play the hero, despite his own will," Shadow whispered and sighed tiredly. "You do have to admire him, even if he drives me crazy with his attitude."
Snape snorted, so caught up in his anger with Potter that he forgot for a moment whom he was talking to. What was it with everyone falling in love with Potter and shedding their brains in the process?
"Some hero he is, indeed," He said mockingly.
Shadow turned around to him in surprise. "What do you mean? How can you not admire him?" He asked softly.
"Why should I admire someone who vanished just like that eight years ago, leaving us to do the dirty work out of some whim?" Snape asked, anger and bitterness turning his voice brittle with coldness. So many had died, so many had suffered…
"Potter had knowledge and abilities we would have needed greatly. This way, it took us another four years to end the terror, and countless people died, just because the Boy Who Lived decided to become a full time tourist," Snape snarled, not bothering to keep his voice down.
Instead of an answer, the vampire´s eyes widened in astonishment. "He never told you?"
"Told us what?" He snapped back. "He disappeared for eight years, how could he have told us anything?"
"But when he returned," The vampire whispered. "I can understand that he didn´t breathe a word to that meddlesome fool of a Headmaster, but I was so sure he would tell you…"
"I am barely an adequate confidant. The brat has always hated me."
Amusement flickered across the vampire´s face. "That a man can know so much and yet so little," He remarked cryptically.
Snape groaned. "No riddles please. They give me a headache. What is it that he should have told me?"
But again, the vampire didn´t answer, and remained silent at least for a minute. He frowned, as if pondering a difficult decision.
"I´m afraid Harry will hate me for this, but I believe you should know anyway," He finally said and Snape had to suppress an exasperated sigh, not doubting that some heart wrenching story about the poor boy currently unconscious would follow.
"I met Harry in Voldemort´s prison," Shadow began, his eyes again resting on the limp form bedded on the sofa. "Contrary to popular wizard belief, the vampires never followed Voldemort willingly. They only bowed to him because he had me, their king, under arrest."
Snape nodded thoughtfully. That certainly made sense. He had always wondered how Voldemort had managed to control the vampires, but he hadn't believed even Voldemort able of such a stunt. Holding the Prince himself for ransom? Again he remembered why exactly the Voldemort had nearly managed to rule the world.
"The Dark Lord had many prisoners while I was in his power," Shadow continued. "Wizards, muggles and magical creatures alike. They never lasted very long, so I wasn´t especially interested in the boy the Death Eaters placed inside the cell opposite to me. He looked too young and frail to withstand them for long."
He paused, his eyes directed towards a past Snape could not see or imagine. "But something was different about Harry, I noticed soon enough. He survived. And he fought them."
Tenderness and care filled the vampire´s eyes as they flickered over Potter´s body, and Snape decided to let his comment about Potter´s one big talent remain unsaid.
"I never found out exactly what they did to him in those months, for they would always take him up to Voldemort´s throne room, but there was less of him every time he returned. I never knew there was so much blood inside a wizard, and I have always considered myself an expert in this area," Shadow smirked.
"But still he fought against them. Until one evening, he didn´t return. Hours after they had taken him, a terrible scream echoed the halls, and the very walls of the Dark Fortress shook. The Death Eater who had guarded my cell abandoned his post in panic, and so did most of them. The Dark Lord was finally vanquished."
Snape's breath caught, for he knew what Shadow was talking about. He remembered that evening well, how they had met again, silenced by their growing frustration and despair. Potter had been gone for two months, and finally even the most optimistic of them had given up hope.
How Minerva had rushed into the room and cried out that Weasley and Granger were gone, along with Potter's invisibility cloak and one of the Order's emergency portkeys. How they had sent out search parties, all the time knowing that it was probably futile. And how, after hours of waiting, his Dark Mark had suddenly flamed an angry, painful red that had sent screaming waves of pain through his body, and had then… vanished.
He had stared in shock at the now unblemished skin of his left arm, oblivious to the world for a very long time, until yet another set of shouts and screams had raised him from his shock.
"Did he tell you what happened?", Snape asked, cursing the weakness that trembled in his voice.
Shadow just shook his head, still caught in the nightmares of his past.
"Never," He answered, his voice as low as Snape's. "I believe nobody ever found out about that last fight, apart from Potter, Voldemort and the victims of their confrontation. I only know that his friends somehow appeared on the scene and were killed. He never spoke of it."
Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger. Their dead bodies mutilated, battered and bruised, staining the read and gold carpet of the Headmaster's office. Their glassy eyes frozen in eternal fear. And pinned on Weasley's chest a note, a bloodstained, crinkled parchment with degrees of long- and latitude scribbled on them. And two, short sentences: "It is done. I am sorry."
"I had believed the boy dead, of course," Shadow still continued, either not noticing Snape's state of mind or not caring about it. "But Harry survived, if only barely. He opened my cell with a wand and told me to get away. Then he collapsed. Of course I took him with me, though he fought me and demanded to "die in peace"."
Snape nodded silently while another piece of the Potter-puzzle found its place. So that was where the Potter brat had vanished. They had stormed the fortress as soon as they had assembled an attack party, but had found nothing apart from a heap of ash near Voldemort's throne, a labyrinth of dungeons and a few Death Eaters, killed by an unknown force.
"So his condition was bad?"
Shadow nodded. "It took him more than a month to regain even a shadow of his old strength. But the moment he managed to use his wand again, he tried to kill himself. More than once, in fact. He seemed to believe that his use had ended, now that Voldemort had died. He seemed to welcome his own death."
Snape's own voice echoed in his mind as he recalled the months of Potter's training. If it weren't for your task, Potter, and your duty to our world, I would enjoy the thought of such incompetence being crushed by the Dark Lord. But your use hasn't ended yet. Now get yourself together and concentrate!
"We were only able to snap him out of it by placing yet another burden on his shoulders – the conflict between vampires and druids. That was how he met Ayda, and she helped him more than I could ever have. Though I still detest that irritating bully of a woman."
Snape snorted. "I couldn't agree more to that last part," He murmured, all the while pondering in his head the new information he had gained about that enigma called Potter.
His comment earned him a chuckle from Shadow. "You know, Master Snape," The vampire said. "I begin to understand what Harry liked about you. You will help him through this. I couldn't have chosen a better healer for our young hero here."
Again, Shadow's eyes rested on Potter's sleeping form, thus missing the nonplussed stare Snape directed at him. What did all these cryptic comments about Potter "liking" him mean? Perhaps it was some sort of dark conspiracy to drive him mad? If it was, they managed admirably.
"If you need any help or support," Shadow continued, turning back towards Snape. "Call to us, Master Snape, and every vampire in Britain will answer your call."
Too fast to let Snape even realize what he was doing, Shadow's hand shot forward and touched the man's throat. Where cold vampire skin met warm human one, a warm, golden feeling remained that filled Snape with a strange sense of safety.
"This is a vampire sign," Shadow explained, gesturing towards Snape's neck and then to a mirror above the fireplace. "It informs every vampire that you are under my direct protection. Only Harry's sign, a document of his adoption by my clan, is more potent among the vampires."
Turning towards the mirror, Snape could make out a tattoo quite similar to that on Potter's neck. I take him to visit a friend for a few hours and end up with having commanding powers among the vampires of Great Britain. Perhaps Potter is a re-incarnated god of chaos? Snape thought with growing exasperation. Well, at least I don't have to move to Transsylvania now. I can stay right here and have the same results!
"I trust you to take care of Harry, Master Snape," Shadow said, probably noticing Snape's irritation.
"I am honoured, my Lord," Snape replied formally. And in a strange sense, he was. Vampire's were very protective of their own, and if his clan had really adopted Potter, the man was as much a vampire as one could be without the fangs.
"You should take him away before he wakes, Master Snape," Shadow remarked with yet another long look at Harry. "He will be terribly embarrassed if that happens in my presence. He detests his own weakness, and he detests the way I fuss about him. And we don't want me to get angry again, do we?" A feral grin, white fangs glittering in the light of candles, caused Snape for a moment to remember in whose presence he was.
The Gods save us from that, Snape agreed silently.
"I will keep your Lordship informed about his condition," Was all he said, however. He was not mad enough to comment openly on Shadow's mood swings.
But the vampire's grin, even darker and more dangerous than before, told him that Shadow had understood him perfectly.
"Do that," He answered. "And remember that I can find you, Master Snape. Wherever you are. And I will, if necessary."
This said, Shadow swept open the door to his room and gestured for Snape to leave, floating the unconscious Potter alongside him.
Snape was very proud that he could suppress his violent shudders until the door had closed behind him.
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A/N: I wonder what Harry has to say to all that when he wakes up again. You, too?