Been watching HP3 for inspiration, laughing at Dumbledore stalling for time with strawberries and signing his 'very long name'. Ah, Dumbles.

Percy Powerful - don't worry, I seem to have confused a few there. Solace is Sorrow and Salazar's daughter, but she doesn't know that and neither does Salazar. To her, the muggle Artan is her father. I'm not sure where you got her being Lily from - Salazar and Sorrow are from the time of the founders. I do have such things noted down for Vlad, but haven't wanted to detract from Harry's dreams yet.

Jon - Vlad will find out, of course. Doesn't mean it'll be any time soon though! Hehe. Your reviews are not mindless drivel! I look forward to each and every one.

-YDHP-

Harry was already gone when he woke up, unusual as Vlad was often the first up in their dorm, all the better to take advantage of his body not demanding night time and blood yet. Sighing, he shoved his gloves, scarf and cloak into his bag, Vlad ducked into the kitchens for breakfast and took a ridiculous amount of snack food - he had asked for something easy to transport for lunch, and ended up with enough for a week. Though they did place it into a basket for him, making Vlad feel like he was taking himself for a picnic.

"Hey Vlad! What are you doing?" George was sat with the twins playing gobstones, a game he could never bring himself to play since the first time one spat in his face - the losers punishment. "Just going for a walk." "Didn't you almost die yesterday? You should be recovering." Raising an eyebrow, he realised they may well have seen him getting swarmed by dementors trying to protect Harry. "I'm fine, I had some chocolate and got a good sleep."

He did smile a little to himself - George had clearly taken the Slytherins aren't all bad on board, looking at ease with the boys he could only tell apart because they were wearing different coloured scarves and gloves. Even more so when the other Slytherin boy he had spoken properly to, Curtis, came out to join them. He had obviously taken longer to finish breakfast - there was still jam on his face. Turning to continue on his 'trip' around the grounds, he stopped at the voices of Crabbe and Goyle. "Looksie, ickle lions and confused snakes. Why did we get such a naff bunch this year?"

"Go away, we're not doing anything to bother you." Knowing he couldn't leave them to get picked on by third years, he accepted he wasn't going anywhere soon and turned back. The boys both faltered slightly at the sight of Vlad, but kept on trying to harass the four eleven year olds, kicking at their gobstones and advancing. Barely remembering to pull his wand since they were in public, Vlad quickly whispered "impedimenta!" stopping the two boys dead. Winking at the first years, Vlad levitated the stiff boys until they were hanging upside down, then lifted the Impediment jinx.

"I've told you before, pick on someone your own size. Not easy when you eat half of the great hall everyday, granted" that set the younger students off giggling, and they were attracting a crowd of sorts "but four eleven year olds playing gobstones just makes you look pathetic. Now get lost." They dropped to the floor heavily, tangled up in their cloaks before scrambling to escape.

Patting Jason and Jacob on the shoulders reassuringly, Vlad smiled. "Don't let them tell you you can't be friends boys. And girl" George grinned "but those two have the brain capacity of a flobberworm, don't let them threaten you." Curtis snorted, laughing to himself in the direction of the shrinking backs of Crabbe and Goyle.

"What on earth is going on here?" McGonogall and Snape had obviously spotted the crowd, but most of the older Slytherins had dispersed by now. "Nothing Professor, just a friendly game of gobstones." Both being the Heads of House for half of the foursome each, Snape and McGonogall eyed the game, Vlad stood nearby hastily pocketing his wand but nobody nearby looked injured so they nodded stiffly. "Very well. Mr Dracula, a word."

This much of a crowd, and it usually took Crabbe and Goyle a week to reload on brain power enough to pick anothet fight, Vlad followed his head of house back into the castle, stopping in an empty store room off the Entrance Hall. "What was really going on out there?" Shuffling nervously, Vlad shrugged. "Some of the older Slytherins were picking on Jacob and Curtis for being friends with Gryffindors. I was just passing by, I was planning to go for a walk."

She surveyed him for a moment or two, then apparently decided he was telling the truth and nodded. "Five points for protecting younger students. Do try not to get caught duelling in the courtyard Vlad. Off you go." Fighting not to smile at the professor, Vlad hurried off. McGonogall was a good person, however stern she acted. And however much she smelled like cats. That was far preferable to Harry smelling like werewolf again, evidently having spent the morning with Lupin. Not the evening though - the first full moon of Autumn was tonight, the second would be Halloween.

Twitching anxiously, Vlad spent the afternoon reviewing his homework and helping the first years again. Draco asked if he was ok, seeing Vlad not going to dinner nor had he been at breakfast. "I'm fine. Got food from the elves earlier and I want to make sure my Arithmancy is right. Go on, I'm fine. Promise." His friend looked thoroughly unconvinced, and once the dorm was empty Vlad pulled out his revision book for his upcoming blood test. Reminded again of how much he didn't want to be a vampire, cursed with the mate bond to a wizard who didn't like boys, and apparently right now didn't even like Vlad all that much.

The deeply buried part of him took a twisted pleasure in the thought Lupin would be hurting from the werewolf transformation. Born wolves were built for it, but a bitten had it forced on them - their bodies twisted and broke under each full moon. A wave of nausea at the thought of enjoying the pain mixed in, leaving Vlad shoving his book back in his trunk and curling up solemnly, trying and failing to push Phantom away. Showering before his dorm mates returned, Vlad was again safely in his pyjamas and behind his curtains when they returned.

"Whats up with you and Vlad? Normally you two are never apart, but you've barely even been in the same room today." Heart hammering as Draco quizzed Harry, Vlad awaited the answer. "We are allowed to be apart, we aren't a damn couple. I nearly died yesterday, can I not be out of normal for one day?" Harry snapped back, the anger in his voice making Vlad's stomach twist - he was angry at the mention of him, and that hurt.

"Alright. Sorry." Draco backed down, and Vlad clenched his fist tighter in his bedsheets, watching as Phantom jumped through his curtains, mewling and he heard hissing returned. Then Harry hissing back, sounding angry. Even the familiars weren't immune to his current mood. "Look, whatever is up with you, don't take it out on them Harry. I might not speak snake but that wasn't a happy sound." "Mind your own Neville." Gritting his teeth, Vlad rolled off his bed and turned to face Harry. His mate wasn't acting like himself.

"If you have a problem with me, take it up with me. Don't take it out on them, or either of our familiars." Lily and Phantom were both almost cowering nearby, whatever Harry had said apparently enough to scare them. Harry actually glared, the pain in Vlad's chest acute when his mate aimed such a thing at him. "Who said it was about you?" "You're glaring like Ingrid did when I smashed one of her nail polish bottles. Biting everyone's head off." It was hard to push the words out, but he kept his voice even.

"Just leave me alone." Harry jumped in his bed, pulling the curtains around him and not resurfacing again. Offering the other boys a sad shrug, Vlad crawled back into his own bed and silenced the curtains before letting out a pained gasp, icy pain still a knife in his chest. Bertrand had convinced Snape to give Vlad a small supply of more powerful pain potions, just in case. They only took the edge off, but since students weren't supposed to have their own potions at all, and Vlad wasn't competent to brew these ones, he wasn't complaining. Swallowing the bitter liquid down, he slipped the empty vial back in his bag and felt the pain recede to a more tolerable level.

Phantoms head popped up under the curtains hesitantly, and Lily's bright green scales appeared next to her. Vlad patted the bedspread quietly, and the two joined him on the bed. Phantom curled up on his pillow, huffing sadly and Lily wrapped around his neck loosely, resting her head on his chest and flicking her tongue out occasionally. "I don't know either guys, I wish I did."

Running a finger over Lily, tracing her unique scale patterns absent mindedly, he wondered if Harry had decided Vlad wasn't worth being friends with anymore. That made his whole body twist painfully inside, the idea Harry would never smile at him again or crack a daft joke. It had only been a day or so he had been acting oddly, but Vlad was already terrified his mate might leave him forever.

Slowly convincing Lily around his wrist and forearm instead, so he could lie on his side without crushing her, Vlad tried to master the aches inside him and ignored the tears that welled. Dozing fitfully, he woke to see Phantom curled up under the hand Lily was coiled above, and by the sounds of light breathing and Seamus snoring, nobody else was awake yet. Whispering gently so as not to spook the venomous snake wrapped around his wrist, Vlad managed to get his hand free, smiling fondly and sleepily at the two familiars nestling together.

The ache in his chest hadn't gone away, still pulsing, throbbing painfully with each beat of his useless heart. The mirror showed his sleepless night, the circles under his eyes dark and he just looked ill. Knocking back a pepper up to ease some of the exhaustion that came from the draining feeling of his mate rejecting him, Vlad checked the time. Only twenty minutes until breakfast would start for the teachers and early risers, he could take a slow walk down he supposed.

Harry's books for their shared classes were in his bag, but Vlad couldn't bring himself to take them out and shrugged the rucksack on before leaning down to Lily and Phantom. "I'm heading down now, if you want to spend the day on my bed you're welcome to. I'm sure Phantom will bring you mice." Lily hissed, flicking her tail softly against his cheek in a rare show of affection and Phantom meowed agreeingly, patting his other cheek before placing a protective paw over Lily. They were a strange friendship if ever there was one.

There were only half a dozen other students in the hall when he got there, three of them Ravenclaw students. Yawning into his bowl of porridge, he felt Bertrand's eyes on him but Vlad really didn't want to talk about it right now. He wanted to wallow in the sadness and stare desperately at Harry when nobody was looking, no matter how pathetic that made him.

At first, Harry just wanted time to think on what Remus had said. Then everyone was asking about he and Vlad, as though Harry wasn't a person without the boy vampire nearby, and then Vlad was looking at him angrily. Vlad was unarmed, but Harry remembered - Vlad didn't need his wand most of the time. He could well be very dangerous, even in his pyjamas not carrying a wand.

Part of Harry knew he was being irrational, Vlad would sooner die than hurt him, but Remus had asked him to consider what Vlad would become. And he had known his parents, known what they would and wouldn't have wanted for their son. He owed them that much. He did feel bad for lashing out at Neville, and Draco, and Lily and Phantom. But the boys would get over it, and Lily had gone to Vlad alongside the furry one. He probably deserved that, Phantom was only worried about Vlad and Lily passing on the message.

"Mother is dead, isn't she?" Solace was wise beyond her years, knew the way they had lived wasn't normal. Closed doors, magical barriers, only her father leaving for work each evening and returning each morning. He said that way, he always got to be there when she woke, and got to say goodnight every night. She knew talking to snakes wasn't 'normal' to most, though Solace had done it all her life. It made her question, as she grew older, where the ability came from - her mother couldn't do it, and her father Artan wasn't magical at all.

"I fear so Solace, as much as I wish I could promise you otherwise." Now nine years old, she looked more like her mother every day but those grey eyes that stared back at him haunted his nightmares. Solace wrapped a hand around the necklace she had never taken off, hissing quietly to it as she often did when she missed her mother.

"What happens to me now? I cannot go to Hogwarts, where her brother teaches. He killed her to get to me, didn't he?" Solace had heard the whispers, hidden in plain sight as they were. Magic and muggles shouldn't mix. And Salazar Slytherin would recognise her, no mistake about that - she had a couple of drawings, she knew she looked like her mother. "You have the choice my dear daughter. Salazar has left the school, from what I hear. The others did not quite agree with his views. However, his son may well attend the school, and would likely know you to report back to him."

Solace chewed her lip thoughtfully, looking up at her father. "And what's the other choice? Not be a witch?" Artan shook his head, holding out a book on the Academy of Magic in France. "We would have to move this year, to be ready to enroll you on your tenth birthday, but they would teach you too." "But father, I don't speak French." Her father chuckled, his brown eyes crinkling with amusement. "They have a sort of spell for that, translations apparently. However, wherever we send you, you'll not be able to tell them who you truly are, who your mother was. It's not safe Solace."

"Then we shall go to France. I don't wish to risk meeting my cousin, particularly not before I can protect myself. What about the snakes? I know I shouldn't display that skill, but they find me father." Artan deliberated greatly on that - he didn't want to teach Solace to be ashamed of her talent, but it was far too distinctive a trait for them in hiding. "I suppose you will have to ask them to stop. And perhaps little Sammy here will have to stay with me. She's getting quite big now, you wouldn't be able to hide her."

Sammy didn't like that idea, but promised she would behave so Solace could become more magical and keep them all safe. Having lived as simply and quietly as they did, it was not the biggest hardship to uproot their lives and move, though Artan hated to leave the land he had known Sorrow on. Still, Solace took the shed fang of her Runespoor snake, Sammy, to a wand maker, who encased it in a powerful yew wand.

The school she attended would in the future be known as Beauxbatons Academy, known for it's elegance and grace and grandeur, but all Artan and Solace cared for was her safety and education, both of which 'Sunny Peverell' got. Solace chose her own first name, taking her father's surname and would not change it, even when she married and had children of her own. Never did she lose the strength and spirit her mother had given her. Nor did she ever stop wearing the necklace, engraved with the emerald S, until on her deathbed, Solace passed it on to her youngest granddaughter, who too, could talk to snakes.

This scene faded away, to be replaced by a man staring absently from a bench, holding a diary in one hand and rolling a ring between the fingers of his other hand. Both radiated the dark magic with which he had turned them from simple objects into pieces of his soul. "You alright Mister?" Prepared to tell this Muggle creature to leave him be, Voldemort was caught short by the silver pendant hanging around her neck. An heirloom sought after for centuries by Slytherins descendants, carelessly slung around this... thing. Though, he couldn't deny, for a Muggle she was extraordinarily attractive, deep glittering brown eyes and hair an almost unbelievable shade of red.

Realising he had not yet answered, and skilled in the art of charming... anyone, Voldemort smiled vacantly. "Fine. Just, thinking." Pocketing the ring and diary, he held out his hand. "I'm uh, Tom. You?" "Rose." He couldn't use Lord Voldemort to this muggle, not in public. Tom would have to suffice. "You know Tom, I feel I've seen you somewhere before. You remind me so much of someone, but I can't put my finger on it. Want to talk about your thoughts?"

Against all rational thought, he nodded. "I've had this... Plan, I suppose, since I was a boy. I just can't seem to work out where it's all going to lead." Already in possession of more horcruxes than any wizard before him, Voldemort knew there was no turning back. That didn't mean he couldn't wonder, right? "I know what you need." Staring at this muggle as though she were mad to think she could possibly begin to solve his problems, she just grinned. "Alcohol. The world will make sense again, I promise." Given that he wanted that necklace, Voldemort supposed a couple more hours couldn't hurt.

They ended up spending half the night together, most of it upstairs in a private room and he would never fathom why he so much as touched the muggle, who wore a wedding band on her finger and kissed him like she had nobody to go home to that night. He hadn't slept in about five years now, so when she finally did drift off next to him, Voldemort made his move. Waved his wand to clean and dress himself, slowly, carefully unhooked the necklace and slipped it from her body, and stole out into the night. Nobody could ever know what had transpired there.

Later, when he had been back to kill the muggle and her husband personally, crafting another horcrux with those deaths and the locket, he handed it to Lucius Malfoy. "I want it well hidden Lucius, do not disappoint me." "Fear not My Lord, nobody would dare rifle through a Malfoy womans jewellery. It shall be very safe."

He didn't bolt awake this time, though he did cringe at the fact he had essentially seen his mothers conception. Harry sat up, ignoring the twinge in his scar these dreams with no rhyme or reason gave him. Lighting his wand and digging out a spare piece of parchment and the self-inking quill Hermione had gotten him for his birthday, Harry scrawled down the dream, the names and the locket. It was unmistakably the one currently sat at Malfoy Manor, the one found in a Malfoy vault. Clearly Voldemort had never banked on anyone with a sensory capability for such things making it into the vault, let alone three or four people.

He did notice he hadn't needed his glasses to see what he was writing, but nothing was glowing either - the self inking charm had a sort of blueish glow usually. About to get out of bed and look around better, he caught Vlad whispering - it was damn early, even for Vlad. He was telling Lily she could stay on his bed, in case Harry had scared his own familiar that much. Vlad wouldn't understand, but Lily did hiss back "thank you vampire" the same way she would say "thank you wizard" to Harry.

Waiting until the dormitory door closed behind Vlad, Harry climbed out of bed, crept over to Vlad's bed and was met with a warning growl from Phantom, who had a furry leg laying protectively over a snake that could probably swallow her whole. "Worry not furry one." Lily hissed soothingly, and Phantom quieted but didn't move her paw. "I'm sorry for snapping at you Lily, it's complicated." "I know wizard, I know." Casting eyes around, with only the faintest hint of dawn for light, Harry realised he could see. Hurrying to the bathroom, he gulped slightly. This cleared up vision apparently came with permanent snake-eyes.

Putting his glasses on covered the change to his pupils, but meant he couldn't see properly through his prescription glass. Staring closely at his glamoured eyes, he hid back in bed and grabbed his wand. This was a risk, but he could always say it had been an accidental Transfiguration and get new glasses. The charm to change them to plain glass worked fine, now to put the glamour back in place. What was it Vlad had said? Scouring his memories, Harry managed to remember. "Oculus Viridian" while focusing on how his eyes should look, Harry slipped his glasses back on and looked in the mirror. Not as perfect to a T as Vlad's had been, but he doubted many would notice and hopefully, he could convince his eyes back to normal at some point.

Though it was normally Vlad who helped him with this stuff, nobody else knew the full extent of what Samael's venom was doing to him. He wasn't even sure if these dreams were part of it, or if something else was giving him flashbacks of how things had come to be. Again, Vlad would be his go to for this. If he told Remus, he might decide Harry was a freak and not tell him more about his parents. But if he went to Vlad, Remus might feel Harry wasn't taking his message on board and still not tell him more about his parents. He was stuck.

-YDHP-

I meant to do some work on this, then Lazarus Rising then my new story but it just sort of wrote itself. Oops. Oh well, enjoy my wonderful little fan club!