Where we first meet our hero, it isn't at his best. If anything it was probably at his lowest, or at least near enough to there.

Harry was sequestered away in his own personal jail cell at the Ministry of Magic. As far as such places went, it wasn't too shabby a quarter. Azkaban's guests would probably have given anything for such treatment, it had an actual bed rather than just a pile of straw for example, but it was still a jail cell. One cot, one toilet, three solid walls, and columns of iron 'separating' him from freedom.

Harry wasn't all that different than you'd expect, if a bit more weathered than his last appearance in the papers. He had those 'heroic' muscles that a man of such stature needed, but with a bit of gut starting to form. His hair was just as messy and chaotic as it was when he was teen, even his old nemesis the cowlick remained. He'd started the night with a proper, wizardly robe but had lost it sometime between then and now so was practically indistinguishable from a muggle with his jeans and beer-stained sweater. His old circular glasses had long-since been replaced with a pair of horn-rimmed ones of a much more fashionable shape, but they were currently lost atop a toilet's cistern in the bar he'd been picked up from.

At that particular moment, Harry was taking care of some serious business whilst as drunk as you would typically have seen him in those days. He was swaying back and forth, humming a Weird Sisters song that hadn't been on the radio since before he'd graduated from Hogwarts, and smiling the sort of smile that one rarely saw behind bars.

Harry was disturbed from his stupor by the sound of someone ramming the butt of their wand against his cell. He craned his neck around to see who it was. The auror who'd drawn the short straw of 'babysitting' stared back, looking at him as though Harry had personally assigned the duty.

"Minister wants to see you," the auror said. "Says you have a job."

"Ah." Harry turned back to his business and gave it a few shakes before tucking himself in and zipping his pants up. "Tell her I'm previously engaged."

The man sighed and Harry ignored him as he flopped back onto his cot and closed his eyes. Then came the sound of ruffling parchment.

"She said that if you don't get up there immediately she'll keep you in here for the next month."

"That's fine." Harry made a show of getting comfy, wiggling back and forth. "I like it here. You lot always take such good care of me."

Another shuffle of parchment. "She said that's a lie, and that Drunk Harry should shut up before Sober Harry winds up paying the price for it."

Drunk Harry groaned and sat up to glare at the auror. The man was holding a stack of papers, no doubt straight from the minister's desk since Hermione was the only one who'd made the 'controversial' decision of using muggle sheets rather than proper parchment. The auror cocked an eyebrow at him and Harry grunted before getting out of bed.

"Go tell Hermione I'm too drunk," he said experimentally. "And to bother me in the morning instead."

The auror flipped around in the stack of papers for a moment. "She said-"

Harry stormed over and snatched the papers away. They read:

Tell Harry that if he's sober enough to carry on with this conversation he's sober enough to come see me.

"Tell her she won't like to see me right now, trust me." Turn to page 81.

"Just fuck off already!" Turn to page 2.

"I'll go when I'm ready, I can see my own way out." Turn to page 385.

On and on it went with various things that he could've said in response to that. He scoffed.

"What—"

And like that, the papers that turned out to be a portkey with the most innocuous pass phrase imaginable activated. Once he was through with the vacuum-like pressure that came from such travel, Harry changed the end of his line.

"—the fuck."

Hermione's office was quite luxurious, at least in comparison to Harry's own ministry-designated space. The two walls facing the sides of her desk were hidden behind floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, each of which was stuffed to the brim. Behind her were two large portraits. One was empty, the other contained a representation of Hogwarts' Headmistress Minerva McGonagall napping behind her desk.

Hermione's own desk was a work of art. The piece of furniture itself wasn't all that fancy, but the way she managed to keep a chaotic maelstrom of paperwork balanced atop it was. Her 'In' and 'Out' boxes were the spires of the makeshift castle, positioned on the corners of her desk and serving as the turning points for the bulwarks made up of other papers and parchments. Her name plate had been taken off the top of the desk entirely, and instead was fastened onto its front. The parapets of paperwork were at least built low enough that Harry could still see Hermione's eyebrows on the other side.

"Harry," she started. "It's good to see you."

"Wish I could say the same," he shot back as he took a seat in one of the office's leather-backed chairs. "Someone better be dying."

"Already dead."

Hermione stood, holding a manila folder. She handed it over to Harry who took it after she prodded him with a raised eyebrow. He flipped it open and had to squint without his glasses to see a man who, just as Hermione had said, was quite dead. Either that or he'd managed to figure out a way to survive his body being separated into three, more typically codependent, pieces.

"And the reason you're trying to get me to play detective?" he asked. "I've seen, and turned my nose up at, worse."

"The only reason it's on my desk in the first place is because of who that is." Hermione stepped up beside him, and pointed at some text in the file. "Jeremiah Renfield." Harry cocked an eyebrow at her. "Son of John Renfield, grandson of Marcus Renfield, descendent of…?"

"Could you skip the part where you're flabbergasted that I don't know what you're talking about?" Harry asked. "And just get to the important bits?"

"Renfield!"

Hermione is never one to miss out on a good bit of flabbergastery.

"As in R.M. Renfield?" she continued. "The servant of Dracula?"

"Ooooh," Harry said, nodding his head. "Right, Renfield! Played poker with Igor, Dr. Jekyll, and Mrs. Lovett."

His old friend glared at him. "I'm serious, Harry. Someone just murdered the favourite servant of the king of all vampires."

"So send the 'king of all detectives' to figure it out." He closed the folder and tried handing it back to her. "If you need me to go all Van Helsing on his ass, I'm your man. If you don't, then I ain't."

"Please?" she asked, trying to push the folder back towards him. "The last time he threw a temper tantrum, tens of thousands of people died." He finally let her place the folder back into his lap. "And that was before the invention of firearms. Imagine what he could do today."

"So why not just let me kill him?" Harry asked. "Harry Potter versus Count Dracula, that's the sort of thing you could write a book about." (Shut up, the line's staying in.)

"If you can figure out how to kill him, you'll become the richest wizard in the world." Hermione leaned back against her desk, somehow managing to not knock anything off of it. "Do you realise how many countries have standing bounties on his head? The only reason he's not imprisoned now is because every time we try, he has centuries to figure out how to escape, and when he eventually does,he goes on to do things like impaling entire populations of people."

"Have we tried chucking him into the sun?" Harry asked as he picked up and flipped open the file again. "You talked about having guns now, well we got rockets too."

"If you can build one and get him into it, then be my guest," Hermione said. "Until then, I just need your name on the roster of who we send over."

"Who else is coming?" he asked. "Finally going to let your husband out to play?"

"Ron is busy running his department thanks to Reginald being on vacation." Hermione pulled a dog-eared page out of the folder and handed it to him. "Officially speaking you're in charge. Unofficially, Blaise Zabini is going to be leading the investigation."

Harry made a face, and Hermione sighed.

"I know you don't much care for him, but he is good at his job. He'll be working to try and figure out what happened, while you and the last member of your 'team' play babysitter."

"And that member would be…" Harry turned over the paper and blinked. "Luna?"

"The last major interaction Dracula had with the world was in the eighteen-hundreds, when he told and helped spread the muggle story everyone's familiar with." Hermione waved her wand and a beat-to-hell copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula flew into her hand. "According to Stoker's private journals, Dracula was an egomaniacal diva who liked to overshare. Luna's the only writer I know who owes me a favour, and I figure she might be of use to you in keeping him distracted."

Harry tried skimming over the brief notes Hermione had jotted down for their old friend, but his eyes were struggling to even decipher what alphabet it was written in.

Harry hadn't spoken to Luna much since they graduated. Even when he and Ginny were together, his wife and her best friend were both neck deep in their careers and rarely had time to spend together. Where Ginny had a sport to practise for, Luna was off exploring the world and writing about the various wonders she found.

"Will it be safe for her?" Harry asked. "Isn't it dangerous?"

"You'll be there," Hermione said with a bemused smile. "I'm not sending you to Romania just to have fun."

"I thought Dracula lived in Transylvania?"

The minister stared him down. "Transylvania is in Romania, Harry."

"Oh." He closed the file. "Right."

"Dracula is offering a reward of his former servant's weight in gold for anyone who helps to avenge his death," Hermione said. "I know you don't care about the money, but this means you can't complain that I'm making you do 'charity' work again."

"Yeah, yeah." Harry sighed. "You got a stake-and-garlic stockpile for me to raid?"

"Go home, sober up. Take a shower too." Hermione was moving back behind her desk. "Be here tomorrow at eight, and we'll have everything you need."

"Fine, no. I will," he started. "And we'll see if I wake up that early." Harry drew on his magic. "Adios."

He tried to apparate away, but actually met a good bit of resistance. After blinking he turned to Hermione and found her smirking.

"We've upgraded our wards," she said. "You won't find it quite so easy to—"

With a sound more like a giant clapping than a snap, he smashed through the wards and apparated away. He'd probably just cost the Ministry thousands of galleons in repair fees for whatever fancy wards they'd set up to try and combat his ability to apparate in and out of wherever he wanted, but he figured a man-servant's weight's worth of gold would cover it.

Harry arrived at his home. Now, if you want to live to be as old as him doing the sort of work he does, then you have to be prepared. Far be it from me to say he wouldn't go in half-naked and half-drunk to fist fight the king of all vampires, he's done far more reckless things than that after all, but he does at least try to be prepared more often than not.

His first order of business upon returning home was to, as Hermione requested, take a shower and then go to sleep. Once he was well-rested and had drunk enough water to begin putting up a fight against his hangover, he showered once more and got to work.

The trunk he used was a simple looking thing. It had been a gift from the Zauberminister of Germany after Harry did the man a favour. That luggage has to be the most abused piece of travelware you'll ever see. In fact, I remember the time Harry clubbed a gigantic, genetically-altered lawn gnome to death with it. That'll be a story for some other book, though.

Inside the trunk was spacious enough for Harry to hop in and walk about. He had inside of it a wardrobe, filled with all sorts of muggle and wizardly clothes. A well-enchanted shelf filled to the brim with potions and elixirs whose effects were only slightly dulled by the length of time they'd been left sitting in there. A few weapons were tucked away as well, for times when a wand wasn't enough to get the job done. The most notable of them all was the sword of Godric Gryffindor himself. I might get into a spot of trouble for revealing this, but the one on display in Hogwarts is just a replica that they made after Harry 'borrowed' the original and never gave it back.

It took him nearly an hour to get fully prepared. The first ten minutes or so were to be expected; he was getting dressed, making sure his trunk was fully stocked, stowing away a few extra potions on his person. The rest of the time was spent trying, and failing, to retrace his steps and find his glasses. Eventually he settled for an old pair whose prescription wasn't entirely wrong.

It was nearly noon by the time he apparated back into the Minister's office, this time completely unhindered by the temporary wards they'd set up to replace the ones he'd broken. Hermione didn't so much as blink at his arrival, instead glancing up at a clock on her wall.

"Only twenty minutes late," she said. "Not bad."

Harry held back his sigh of relief. He knew Hermione well enough to know that she knew him well enough to give an earlier start time than was true. She'd said to be here by eight, so she probably intended for him to think that the meeting was really at ten, and so he would arrive at eleven. It was a weird game of chronological trickery the two of them played, but thus far Harry had managed to actually outwit his genius friend.

Either that, or it was just what she wanted him to think.

"Where's the other two?" Harry asked. "I'll be embarrassed if I'm the first to arrive."

"Unlike you they have the decency to wait in the lobby." She pressed something beneath her desk. "Merill, send them in."

A few seconds later, the doors opened, and the temporary trio finally met.

Blaise was a tall, handsome man with dark skin and well-coiffed hair. He was wearing stately robes that fully accentuated his lithe figure and made it very clear that he had more money than most others you'll meet. You'd be hard pressed to find a time he wasn't staring down his nose at people, both due to his height and ego, though we'll find a few occasions along the way in this story.

Luna has been described by others as blonde, dreamy-eyed, and quirky.

(Shut up. If you want to write more, do it yourself.)

Harry nodded at Blaise, then smiled at her. The Zabini heir, his father still hadn't given up on his title despite Blaise's mother's best efforts to arrange an inheritance, didn't deign to respond. Luna of course smiled back at him.

"It's good to see you again," she said. "I like the new scars."

Harry had eschewed his robes, as he is want to do when meeting royalty, and instead was wearing a plain green t-shirt. Along his right arm were two, near-perfectly symmetrical marks in the shape of circles. They stemmed from a pair of oaken fangs that had nearly bitten his arm off whilst he fought a corrupted treant some years back. The village he'd saved hadn't been able to magically heal his arm, but at least they kept him from getting infected. They'd had him dance in the moonlight, naked, while chanting a prayer for an entire week.

I'm not sure if weretreants are a thing or not, but I agree with Harry: it's better safe than sorry.

He also had a much smaller scar on the edge of his jaw that he claimed he got from fighting a troll. I think he's just a poor hand at shaving and didn't think to get it treated professionally.

"Thanks," he said. "You two ready to go vampire hunting?"

"You're not going vampire hunting," Hermione chided. "I'm sending you as a diplomatic envoy to assist in solving a murder. Harry and Luna, you'll be keeping the king happy. Blaise, you'll be doing the leg work."

"Yes, I'm well aware," Blaise said. "Are you sure sending Potter to do anything with the word 'diplomatic' in the title is a good idea?"

"Good point," Harry agreed. "Sure I can't just go ahead with Operation Icarus?"

"Shut up." Hermione glared at him before turning back to Blaise. "And yes. If Stoker's journals are to be believed, they'll get along like two peas in a pod."

"Oi." Harry reared up like a cat that got its nose flicked. "You called him a diva yesterday."

Hermione gave him a deadpan look. "I also implied he's a mass murdering monster, but that's the part you're offended by?"

"Actions only speak louder than words if you use your inside voice."

"That doesn't even make…" Hermione cut herself off with a sigh. "Whatever. Your portkey is down in the DoMT. Make sure to stop by the DoMA first to pick up some supplies."

Now, most everyone knows the Department of Magical Transportation. The DoMA, or Department of Magical Artefacts, is slightly newer. Hermione had more or less founded the internal organisation, due in no small part to Harry proverbially 'bitch slapping' the previous Minister when the man tried shutting it down before it even got started. The Boy Who Lived's social clout has obviously diminished a lot since then, but back in the day his support, or lack thereof, could make or break entire election campaigns.

"Yeah, yeah," Harry shot back. "C'mon you two. Let's see what sorts of crucifixial armaments they've prepared for us."

When they arrived, it turned out that 'crucifixal' wasn't the type of weaponry they were getting, nor was it even a real word. The department itself was as chaotic as any you'd see in the Ministry of Magic. All sorts of origami fauna fluttered about in the air, people ran back and forth like headless chickens, and there was a permanent cacophony of rumbling noises from every direction as experiments succeeded or failed in equally bombastic measure.

The workers there, many of whom were old house mates of Luna's and thus avoided making eye contact with her, gave them each a necklace, a few vials of liquid, and a bracelet.

The necklaces, or more specifically the pendants hanging from them, would ward off vampirism for long enough that they could receive proper aid in staving off the ailment. The potions similarly were designed to help keep them alive in the case of emergencies. Since they were going off to Romania for this trip, the bracelets would allow them to speak the local tongue, as well as a few ancient versions of it if the matter arose.

Just when they were about to leave, one of the witches stopped Harry.

"Mr. Potter," she said. "There is one weapon that might help you."

A nearby wizard groaned. "Oh, come off it, Tina. You heard what the minister said."

"It could help!" Tina exclaimed. "Just… Look!"

She grabbed Harry by the arm and drug him off. Luna and Blaise followed after them, Luna just a touch more eager than the pureblood scion. Eventually the witch, a pretty one to the distraction of Harry, stopped at a desk and finally released him. She threw open one of its drawers, fished around inside it for a while, then drew out a box which she handed to Harry.

"See for yourself," she said, eyes burning with pride. "You'll love it."

And she was right. Harry's eyes widened when he opened the box, and a smile split his face like an axe strike. He pulled out a pair of glimmering, silver knuckle-dusters. He frowned at first when they couldn't make it past his middle knuckles, but the weapons morphed in shape until they were comfortably settled against his fist.

"Oh-ho-ho, this is awesome." He threw a quick few jabs in the air. "My cousin boxes, did you know?"

"I didn't," Tina replied with a flirtatious grin. "I suppose that means you'll do wonderful with them as well."

"Doubt it," he shot back with an unconcerned laugh. "That thick bastard's got a hundred pounds on me."

I've since met Dudley Dursley, and it convinced me just how terrible Harry is at estimating people's weight. The man was as lean and athletic as they came.

"If you're done playing with your toys, I'd like to go now," Blaise said with a wrinkled nose. "If that's alright with you, of course."

Harry was as unfettered by sarcasm as he was by flirtations. "I shall allow it. Come."

They made their way to the DoMT, and the older man there made an awful stink-face as soon as he saw Harry. "Potter."

"Beltoi!" Harry said, beaming. "You miss me?"

"Like a fucking cock rash." the wrinkled wizard said with an accent before turning and spitting on the ground. "You're lucky I even let you in my halls."

"Lucky and grateful." Harry clapped his hands then rubbed them together. "I heard you have a portkey for me?"

Beltoi, as I later learned, was a former quidditch player and apparently quite a famous one.

He threw something with a spiraling pass just inches beside Harry's head, but the former athlete caught it without even looking. The item itself turned out to be a tin soup can and Harry bounced it up and down in his palm.

"Haven't lost a step," Harry said. "I'd still crush ya, though."

(Someone check in with NF department to see if Beltoi is famous enough to not require further explanation for his enmity towards Harry. I guess he used to be a coach for some team he beat? I don't know.)

"Get out!" the other man demanded "All of you!"

"That's the plan." Harry turned back to Luna and Blaise. "Shall we?"

Now, one thing about Harry that a lot of people don't know is his odd fascination with travel magic. I've heard people attribute it to his hatred for the Knight Bus, others say it has to do with him not wanting to be constrained any where for any reason. Whatever the cause is, he is a master of all things that can get him from one place to another. You might think his earlier missing of the portkey matrix stands against that fact, but believe me when I say that if anyone could get something past him, it would be Hermione.

The proof of his mastery is no less evident than in the way that, without using any password or activation spell, he forced the tin can to take them to their destination.

When they arrived, Harry frowned at the sight of a train station. A few passing witches and wizards shot them curious looks at their arrival, but no one had been in their way thanks to the square of tape someone had arranged for the portkey. He tossed the tin can that had taken them there to the side, and turned to Blaise.

"Where are we?"

"Romania," the pureblood said. "A train will take us to our final destination."

"What?" Harry demanded. "Why didn't we just go there directly?"

"Hermione said Dracula doesn't like unexpected visitors," Luna answered. "Said it was better for him to hear the whistle as we approached."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

They made their way onto the next train. Blaise handled most of the ticket-buying affair after trying, and failing, to press Harry into the duty. The wizarding world's saviour had told Zabini that if he wanted The Boy Who Lived to get them where they needed to be, he'd apparate them all over 'without any damned bells or whistles'. Before too long they were settled on a train making its way through Romania.

"I wonder if they'll have a Trolly Lady," Harry said. "Could go for a chocolate frog right about now."

"Would you please shut up?" Blaise asked, rubbing his forehead. "You do realise that the only reason you're here is because the Minister wants to protect myself and Lovegood, right?"

"Oh, is that what she told you?" Harry asked in a patronising tone. "I'm here to toss Dracula into the sun if he gets too lippy."

Harry still hadn't forgiven the purebloods for their part in the war. He acted polite enough in their presence, pretended like he was going along with the flow, but if you locked him in a room with one for more than a few minutes the truth would come out. I wouldn't go so far as to say he was a muggleborn activist, but by Morgana that man could rant and rave when it suited him.

"Which one of those two things is more likely?" Blaise nearly shouted. "You being here to play bodyguard, or you somehow throwing the immortal king of vampires into the sun?"

"Please, 'somehow'," Harry said with a scoff. "Which one of us killed your sugar daddy, hm, Blaise?"

The Zabini heir glared at him, but Harry practically lapped it up before the other man said, "That was a long time ago. And the only thing you've done since then is make me wonder if Professor Snape wasn't right about you."

"He wasn't," Harry said. "But people like you are slowly but surely changing that."

"Oh for fu—"

The door to their compartment slammed open, and on the other side was a matronly looking woman. She beamed at them, then pulled up her cart of wares. "Anything off the trolly, dears?"

Luna beamed back. "I'll take—"

"Stupefy!"

Harry had launched his spell at the woman, to Blaise and Luna's horror. But to their surprise the woman deflected it. She hissed back at Harry, revealing extending canines. He showed off his own, much smaller and much more human ones in turn.

"Ain't this a fucking surprise," he said. "Not quite the warm welcome we'd expected."

"Leave!" the apparent vampire hissed. "You are not welcome here!"

"I rarely am." Harry pointed his wand at the woman. "You really want to die?"

The vampire hissed again and flung her cart at Harry, but he deflected it onto Blaise who gasped as various treats and sweets were dumped onto him. She launched herself at Harry and he caught her around the throat with his free hand as they slammed against the wall of the compartment. The vampire's teeth gnashed up and down, its claws dug into the sides of Harry's head, but the man paid it no heed as he slowly brought his wand up to her head.

"Diffindo."

Like that the insides of the vampire's skull became its outsides. Blood, bones, and brain matter scattered against the carriage wall, and Harry allowed the body to drop down like an unstrung puppet. He ran one hand through his hair as he pocketed his wand, then he whipped out the box containing the knuckles Tina had given him.

"Harry!" Luna said. "Are you alright?"

"Fine, fine." He fitted the pugnacious weapons to his hands and clapped them against one another. "Blaise, keep her locked down here. Bar the door, keep your wand drawn, and don't follow."

"Wait." The other man stood. "Potter, whatever is going on here—"

"Is gonna be ended by me." Harry stepped out of the compartment, and looked back with a grin. "Be right back."

And like that, the most frustratingly heroic man I know left. Blaise, annoyingly, did as he was told and shut then barred the door. Luna tried arguing with him, saying that it was ridiculous for them to just sit and wait for Harry to come back, but the pureblood scion ignored her pleadings. It wasn't until the whole damn train caught on fire that he even bothered to consider that this might not be a good idea.


TMwS


And there's the first 'proper' chapter! We get a better look at Harry, the entirely secretive and not-at-all suspicious revelation of who the 'writer' might be, and gotten onto a train. I plan for this section to be a lot of fun (for me), to have a twist at the end, and to really set up what this whole collection will be like. Don't have much to say here since we're just getting started, but please leave a review if you want me to read your thoughts on this. I'll see you when I see you! Lessthanthree!