Chapter 1: Dallying With A Bit Of Blood?

Harry had determined, after that dreadful day that her name had come out of that stupid cup, that her time at Hogwarts was more than likely ruined.

The place that was once her home, her escape from her horrible relatives, the place where she could truly be herself, had quickly become a place where she was isolated, and alone, and one where she was worried and paranoid beyond belief.

The only thing that hadn't entirely changed was Hermione, but she had somewhat distanced herself to also save face with her other friends, mainly Ron, and only a few other people who talked to her.

Everyone else hated her.

The Hufflepuffs were ever loyal to their champion Cedric, and while he hadn't done anything cruel to her, seemingly believing she didn't enter herself into the tournament, the rest of his house did not share the same sentiment.

The Ravenclaws deemed her a mystery they couldn't solve, for they had all thought that no one could break Dumbledore's age line, yet her name had come out of the goblet. Professor Moody said only a powerful wizard could have been able to fool such a powerful magical artifact, but Harry Potter had just been an ordinary witch, say for a few rumors which were hard for them to believe.

The Slytherins stayed pretty normal to how they were before: a few Purebloods, mainly Malfoy, were still being the same wannabe bullies they had been before, and the rest of the house remained neutral.

But what had hurt her the most were the lions, her own house: House Gryffindor.

The same people who had cheered thunderously when the hat said that she was going to their house, the same people she had won multiple quidditch matches for, won the house cup for, and most importantly, the people who had become her surrogate family, had all but shunned her.

Her dorm mates had all but acted like she didn't exist, and only ever talked to her when they talked about how she had cheated her way into "eternal glory". The people of the quidditch team, save Fred and George, acted like her being in the tournament was a stab in the back, especially Angelina, whom many thought would have been the champion for Hogwarts if not for Cedric.

But the one that hurt the most was Ron.

She knew her friend had an inferiority complex, with his constant talking of wishing he had as much money as she did, or her grades, or her fame, but she didn't think it would butt its head in such a way that would break their seemingly unbreakable 4-year long friendship.

But when her name came out of that goblet, and she told him she didn't enter nor did she wish to engage in the tournament, he had shouted that she was an attention-seeking liar and that she could find herself a new best friend.

The only people who talked to her now were Hermione, Neville, Fred, and George, and she was barely able to correspond with Sirius as he was constantly on the run.

That was about it.

Everyone else either shunned her or dragged her name through the mud whenever they could.

And it hurt.

Her first task involved… a dragon.

A bloody fire breaking, magic-resistant, bone-crushing strength dragon.

The thought terrified her. While she had faced a 60-foot basilisk, a hoard of dementors, and a lunatic of a teacher with a face on the back is his head, she would have no help against this dragon.

No Fawkes, no Time-Turner, and no magic she had would burn the face of a dragon, no matter how much she wanted to.

And it terrified her.

What was a fourth-year student, even though she was the girl who lived, supposed to do against a dragon?

When Hermione had originally approached her with Ron in tow, she thought that she had finally talked some sense into her best friend. But, that was asking for too much, as he had simply tagged along to have Hermione send her a message that he had intended for Harry.

That Hagrid wanted to meet with her.

It took a lot for her not to send a curse over her female friend's shoulder and strike her so-called best friend, but the glare she sent over her shoulder as she turned back to help Neville with his homework made him shudder with dread.

Neville was a sweet, if not timid, boy who was often the laughing stock of Gryffindor for bullies and child tormentors the like, but he was a good friend, and he believed she didn't put her name in.

He often did his homework and studied outside, and she did not like being inside the castle as of late, so she often hung about with him, either helping him with his studies or simply hanging out with him.

It had taken a little bit for him to get used to her, as they hadn't talked much before this, but he was someone she found herself wishing she had sought out earlier at Hogwarts.

She had stuck to Ron and Hermione, and to a minor extent, the quidditch team, and she had come to regret that decision slightly.

Even though it seemed like they wouldn't have believed her regardless, as Ron had, it still would have helped. Or maybe it would have hurt more. She'd never know.

And so, she had met with Hagrid outside of his hut bordering on the edge of the Forbidden Forrest, and with her trusty invisibility cloak in tow. And so, Hagrid had dragged her through the woods, all the while talking to Madam Maxine, the thought of them still made her gag, and when she saw the dragons for the first time.

And that led her to where she was now.

Harry, along with Hermione and a somewhat reluctant Neville, had met up together in the library to try and find ideas for her to do anything against the dragon.

Ludo Bagman and Bartemius Crouch had said nothing to her about the task beforehand; no clue as to what it was, what it entailed, anything, and the thought of her blindly going into an arena to do something involving a dragon made her sick.

Even now, the knowledge that she was going to have to face a dragon in about a month, still left her feeling nauseous and ridden with anxiety, so, she had come to the library to figure out a way to prevail against such a powerful magical beast, but it had only left her more anxious.

Dragons had magically resistant scales and hide, and it often took dozens of handlers to secure one, much less defeat one, while she doubted that she had to kill the dragon, she would have to do something with the dragon.

Dragons also had wings, and while she had her fire bolt from her godfather, she doubted that she would be able to walk into the arena with it.

Dragons also had a fire that could melt steel as fast as butter, and had claws that could tear rock like it was made of foam, and were strong, and terrifying, and-

"Harry? Are you alright?"

Harry, lost in her trance of anxiety, snapped her head up from the book she was hanging her head over, and saw her friend staring at her intently.

"What? Sorry, I was just uh…. thinking, I guess."

She felt her face heat up as her friend cocked her head at her in mild curiosity, and she looked back to her book before her and felt her thoughts start to run rampant again.

There was a pause as Hermione put a note in her book folded it up and closed it.

"Well… always know that I'm here for you, okay?"

She felt herself nod as she turned the page of her book and tried to ignore the burn of her friend's gaze on her back.

What she to do against a dragon?

The seventh-floor corridor was a bleary sight for Harry as she trekked down the hallway that housed her common room and dormitory. It was almost curfew, but she had stayed up later than she had intended to in the library, and Hermione and Neville had left early to catch dinner.

As such, she was alone.

The winter months made it so that the sun set early, and as such, the moonlight shone through the pained glass in such a way that reminded her of why she loved the castle.

She stopped in front of said pained glass and the full moon painted such a beautiful visage on the Black Lake that she stopped for a moment and simply gazed at the scenery beneath her.

Her life before Hogwarts had left her desiring anything other than the bleak, boring landscape of Number 4 Privet Drive, and she had loved the scenery and beauty of Hogwarts and the surrounding countryside.

And now it was all ruined.

Because of a goblet… and also a dragon.

She willed herself to look away from the scene before her and began to walk toward her common room. It was only herself in the corridor, and the soft pattering of her boots was the only thing filling the emptiness of the hallway.

The torches were lit, but the magic within them made it so they didn't crackle with the flame, and so she walked and walked and walked and let her mind begin to wander off as she waddled slowly down the hallway.

Even though she had been in potentially one of the largest libraries in any school, she still felt that she had no idea what she would do or what could even be done to the dragon.

She was hopeless.

As she stalked down the hallway, her mind going more to how she just desperately needed a solution to her dragon-sized problem, something utterly fascinating happened.

She had been walking along the hallway, right in front of the assuredly ridiculous painting of Barnabas the Barmy attempting to train trolls in the art of ballet, when the wall began to move and morph, and eventually formed a door, one made of intricate silver and one that had a dark mahogany finish.

It was also massive and was easily twice as tall as her, and more than a few feet wider than her arms could spread across.

Silence permitted the hall as she stopped once more, and she stared meekly at the wall as she attempted to think of what and how this door could have possibly gotten here.

She had been here for four years, two of those with the marauder's map, and she had never seen this room on the map, had never seen anyone enter this room on the map, and she would have surely heard of a hidden room on the seventh floor.

But, to her knowledge, no such door existed.

The door, which hadn't done anything since it had seemingly appeared from nowhere, beckoned at her tauntingly as the moonlight gleamed off of the silver, and she just kinda stared at it.

She fisted at her worn jumper anxiously and debated about whether she should enter the room.

She took a hesitant step forward, unsure as to what would happen, and as she looked to her left and right, she was shocked when the door seemed to take charge when she could not, and it creaked as the left door slowly opened backward, letting moonlight enter the dark room.

She gathered what courage she had, took a deep breath, and entered the room.

The room itself was massive.

The height of it alone made her baffle due to the sheer largeness of it. It had to be at least 30 feet tall, and she couldn't see the end of it due to all of the stuff in it.

And boy, was there stuff.

Items of all sizes and shapes, colors and patterns, and just everything you could possibly think of filled the room, and Harry found herself marveling at just how much was in one pile, much less how many piles there were.

There were a lot of piles.

Books, furniture, glass bottles, stone statues, anything and everything you could think of filled the room, and Harry found herself wandering around the small walkways that separated each pile and just walked.

With her mind on the tournament, the dragon, and her sudden loss of friends, she needed a break like this. Something to just do to take her mind off of things for a while.

And on and on she went, before she found something that stopped her in her tracks, and stared.

While most of the things in the room had been things she had seen before, the things she hadn't were old. Like, Middle Ages old, and were things that she thought belonged in some old castle with King Richard and the crusades, but the item, or rather, contraption she had found in the room was old, but odd, more so than anything.

The first thing that came to her mind was an IV that her cousin had to use one time when he went with Petunia to the hospital. Vernon wasn't home, so Harry had to go with them and had watched as he was dotted on and taken care of with no small bit of envy.

However, while those machines were new, stark white, and modern, this one was of similar design to the door, a sort of odd silver decorating its features and a vial of what looked to be blood, but something that was much thicker and sludgy, much closer to the wine she had seen her aunt drink. The rubber tube connected to the vial in which the blood was held was covered in what looked to be dirt and a bandage that appeared to be soaked in blood and was connected on the other end to an odd syringe, one that looked similar to something out of a gothic horror movie she had seen Dudley watch.

It also stood separate from all the other items, as though someone thought the other items would become tainted or impure with the touch of the object, but Harry thought none of it. Despite its somewhat creepy appearance, something about it drew her in, and she found herself walking towards the stand and the table that stood next to it.

It too was of a strange design, although this one didn't have any silver on it, instead, it was a dark-colored wood with a red cushion on top of it, and all in all, it seemed to be a beautiful table. Odd little marks were carved into the side of it, and she found herself running her finger along the sides of the table, and instead turned her attention back to the IV stand, or whatever it was called.

There was a note, that was definitely on a paper of some kind, not quite a piece of the rough and thick parchment that they used here at Hogwarts, but not quite the paper they used to use at her old muggle school either…

It was loosely tied to the stand, and she gently untied the note and unfurled it, reading it aloud.

"Once a patient… has had their blood ministered, a unique but common treatment in Yharnam? What the hell is Yharnam? …Successive infusions recall the first, and are all the more invigorating for it…"

A sudden thud broke her out of her thoughts about the strange note, and she almost jumped back as she saw that there was now a book on the table that was next to the stand. The book, an old and tattered thing, just sat there, not like it had just appeared out of nowhere on the table. She slowly marched towards it and even slower she reached out a hand towards it.

Suddenly, she took a small breath and then grabbed the book with her hand and used her other to put the note down on the chair.

The title of the book set her off a bit though.

"The Art of… The Art of Blood Ministration?" That had sounded like dark magic to her, something that Voldemort or something a dark wizard would have used, and she almost immediately sat the book back down on the table but then her eyes flashed back towards the note.

She picked it up again and reread it, wondering what it meant by invigorating in the context of the note attached to the stand.

Invigorating as in helping her with her energy?

Helping her with her studies?

Helping her… defeat a dragon?

The book suddenly lurched into her hands, bounding seamlessly from the table she had rested it on, and she just knew that the book would help her with defeating her first task.

Wondering what kind of strange magic this book, let alone this room was, she made to sit down on top of the table and did so, letting the book rest on her thighs as she set the note back down again.

"The Art of Blood Ministration…"

And the author's name was… Laurence? Who the hell named their kid Laurence?

The book itself wasn't that big, it sitting rather small against the frame of her legs, and she flipped it over to the back, seeing if there was anything on the back. There was.

An odd-looking symbol donned the back of the old novel, and she wondered what it meant. In the middle of the symbol, there was a spade-looking shape, but where the bottom extended out, it also went inward and made a cup-like shape, almost like a chalice. On both sides of the spade, there were two women, nuns by the looks of it, and they had their arms extended towards whatever was in the middle rising out of the chalice. There was also an odd flower shape near each side of the clover, almost making a triangle. Below the symbol, in a text she could almost not read due to the fraying of the back, it read Fear the Old Blood…

Whatever that meant, Harry thought to herself. She turned the book over once more, and then gently opened the first page, quite afraid that the book would rip apart if she were too rough with it.

Suddenly realizing she was acting quite a bit like Hermione, she chuckled to herself and read the small quote on the first page of the book: Our thirst for blood satiates us, soothes our fears. Seek the old blood, but beware of the frailty of men.

What an odd message.

She turned the page again, and she realized that quite a bit of the book's pages were either damaged beyond recognition or simply weren't there. The book itself was awfully narrow, and as she leafed through the pages, a few of them even fell out, although those didn't have anything on them.

When she finally found a page that had something on it, it was a diagram of the exact stand that waited next to her…

She glanced back up at said stand and noticed the way the thicker parts of… whatever it was in that vial drifted down towards the bottom of it, and then seemingly raised again, and the way it almost shone in the dim light of the room left her wondering what its true intentions were.

She almost had to drag herself away from the view that the vial presented to her, and she looked back to the book, and leafed through a few more pages…

The "transfusion" as the book called it, seemed to be very simple. One was simply to inject the needle into the vein in her arm and let the machine do the rest. Apparently, despite its age, the stand was able to transfuse blood if injected with only the flip of a switch on the vial itself, and it would… change her.

The rest of the book offered a few bits of information, about the man named Laurence, who seemed to be the founder of the idea of Blood Administration, and apparently ran a church? What she could read was shoddy handwriting at best, but most of the book was torn out or unable to be read.

She had been hesitant to believe that the vial, which she now learned to be filled with strange blood of some kind, would help her, but she thought of needing a book of spells, and a book came whizzing at her from one of the piles in the room.

Apparently, this room was custom-tailored to fit any desire of the person in it.

She had tested that a few more times, and she believed the results. So she believed, if somewhat reluctantly, that this blood transfusion would help her.

It had taken her summoning another book, one distinctly muggle if the title was anything to go by, and the book even flipped to the page in which it talked about finding her vein and injecting a needle into it.

Putting Nursing 101 to the side, and with shaky hands, she grabbed the syringe attached to the vial and, after a bit of slapping and some proper sterilization from a lighter, she injected the needle into herself and then flicked the switch.

She watched, almost hypnotized, as the blood slowly wormed its way down the rubber tube and into her arm, and while at first it felt cold, it made her feel… warm.

Like she was being embraced by a warm and smothering and intoxicating hug.

She felt her eyes droop, seemingly of their own accord, as the feeling in her arm began to go numb, and then soon the rest of her left side of her body did the same. She barely managed to flop herself down onto the table, delirious as she now was, and sighed slowly as she felt amazing.

The needle, seemingly on its own, popped out of her arm and she suspected it was the room.

Then, things started to get weird.

The room itself seemed to tear and stretch in front of her eyes, and she knew she was either intoxicated or drugged, or even both, as her entire body felt sluggish and light, and she felt a prickly sensation over her head, and then her world went dark.

When she awoke, she was in the infirmary at Hogwarts, and she lying down in a bed. Her head hurt. Like a dragon had stomped on it a million times, and she felt sluggish and feverish.

Almost as if she was sick…

Her eyes, almost glued shut for some reason, almost didn't open when she willed them too, and she felt like even the slightest of movement would set her body afire with pain. She felt clammy and could feel the sweat sticking to her from the sheets that loosely hung over her body.

She looked around a bit, somewhat blinded from the light peering into the infirmary, but squinted, and then everything was better. The light didn't hurt her eyes as much, and she tried to prop herself up to get a better look around but was quickly but gently pushed back down by Madam Pomfrey.

"Oh dear, none of that now… you need your rest."

The doctor then pulled out her wand and ran some spells over Harry, and she could almost feel the magic rolling over her, in a way she had never felt before, and she just knew that something was wrong with her.

"How do you feel, Ms. Potter?"

Harry herself closed her eyes and took a moment to think about the answer to that question and when she tried to take a deep breath, she began couching.

It was an ugly thing, wet and deep and it racked her body until her entire body was jerking back and forth with the force she was coughing with. She felt a hand lightly press into her back and after a bit, the fit had subsided.

Her hand, however, which had come up to cover her throat, had some blood splayed on it, and she felt her heart start beating wildly in her chest.

"What… what is wrong with me, Madam Pomfrey?"

He heard Madam Pomfrey sigh, and gently she removed her hand from the young witch's back. She then backed up slightly and grabbed some potions from the tray that sat next to the bed Harry was resting on.

"I'm… not sure, Ms. Potter."

Harry felt herself frown inadvertently when she heard the older woman finally talk, and then she looked back down at her hands again. They were deathly pale, more so than she already was, and they also seemed thin.

"Well… uh.. who got me in the room then?"

She had remembered injecting herself with the blood in the vial, and she remembered lying down on the bed, but she didn't remember waking up, or someone coming to get her. She also didn't remember leaving.

Surely she would have remembered leaving the room?

"What room, Ms. Potter? You were found, unconscious and all scraped up, lying down in the middle of the hallway on the third floor. It gave Filch quite the scare… I'm sure the man thought you dead."

Harry nervously smiled and hid her now-shaking hands under the sheet she was lying under.

"Oh-uh yeah! Yeah. I was uh… on the third floor, um… looking for something?"

Madam Pomfrey, who seemed to not be paying attention, just nodded along and kept preparing her potions.

Harry, who just lowered her gaze back to her hands forced herself to take another deep breath, trying to not force herself into another coughing fit, and just closed her eyes and breathed.

Everything felt… different.

Her hands, which were still shaking, seemed to be exhausted and yet filled to the brim with energy at the same time. The sheets she was lying on felt awfully soft, and she fiddled with the hem of it before grabbing her hand with her other and willing it to stop.

She seemed to be an anxious wreck recently, and it seemed that this "blood transfusion" had only left her more worse for wear, and she had really thought tha-

"Oh, goodness! Ms. Potter, are you alright?"

Harry, who hadn't even noticed, lifted her gaze sluggishly and shrugged at Madam Pomfrey, and then looked down.

Her nose. It was bleeding.

Her headache, which had somewhat gone away, had then decided to return with full force, and when she tried to grip her head with her hands in a desperate attempt to ease the pain away, it felt like she was on fire.

Her limbs protested as she then lowered them, but they still ached and shook as if she had just lifted a ton of weight. She tried to meekly raise her hand to swipe at her nose, but it only made things worse, and when Madam Pomfrey went to wipe at her nose, Harry's entire body cringed when she was touched, and, much like an abused animal, shrieked away from the touch of the Matron of the Infirmary, but she had to stop once she fell into another coughing fit.

Raising her hand to once again cover her couch, she pulled back and noticed that somehow more blood was now coating her hands and was dripping down onto the white sheets, and it dripped most exquisitely.

Odd, she thought.

And with that, her world went dark once more.

When she woke, she was lying down on a table in a dusty old room, one similar to the style of the table and stand she had found in the room, and it took every ounce of her will to move her head and look around.

The room itself was small, with a few other tables and vials scattered around the room. Its walls were filled with books and the like, and the big table that was in the corner of the room was covered in what appeared to be parchment, but what she knew to be the paper of the book she had read.

The room, while scarcely lit, was not too terribly dirty or anything, and it didn't really scare her for some reason that she could barely move.

A click and the sound of wheels made her shift her gaze though, and her eyes fell upon a man in a tattered old top hat, sitting in a wheelchair. It was ornate, covered with red cushioning, and accompanied by a little lamp that sat on the back of it.

The floorboards creaked under its weight, and it took a considerable amount of effort to look at him.

His eyes were covered with a bandage, and she could tell by his white hair that he was old. Suddenly, the chair jerked as it stopped, and the old man leaned forward so she could get a better view of his face.

"Welcome, traveler… you've suffered a long journey to this great city of Yharnam. And you should be glad you did… The blood used in ministration, the trade of Yharnam, is a special thing indeed... The only thing that can cure your sickness..."

His voice was raspy and made her shiver as he spoke, but he seemed to take no mind, or simply couldn't see what he was doing to her. He then leaned back and rested his arms on his lap. He spoke again:

"Aren't you lucky? This blood is rather special. It may well cure you of your peculiar condition. Now, let's draw you up a contract…"

He then twisted his chair around and went towards the table in the corner, seemingly trying to find whatever this "contract" was.

Harry, somewhat panicked as she was, tried to sit up but her limbs had betrayed her. They let her lie there as if she was nothing more than a slug, and time seemed to drag on forever as she yelled at herself to move, to get away, to do anything!

The blood she had taken had made her sick, and however this man was, he wanted to inject her with more! She had been kidnapped! Surely, and who was this man? Was he in league with Voldemort, trying to kill her? But why like this? Why-

"Aha! Your contract…"

Harry blinked again and the man was back in front of her, leaning back down so that he was closer to her, and pushed the said contract forward, her eyes dropping down to see the piece of paper in front of her, but couldn't read it…

"I… can't read… it."

It took a mountain of effort for her to even say a few words, much less try to escape, so she let herself simply play along with his game, maybe she would be able to escape later.

"Ah. Something the contract will fix, of course. All you need is a bit of blood to sign, as well."

She had been wondering about a pen.

Wait! Merlin, what was wrong with her! She was being kidnapped and was about to sign something she couldn't read. However, before she could think more, he grabbed her hand and she felt something prick her thumb, and when he let go, her arm fell rather ungratefully, and she heard the quiet drip of blood hit the stone floor.

The only other sign of sound was the torches in the room, signifying that they weren't magic, and she looked back to the man again, trying to detect what he was getting at.

She saw, or rather felt, as he gazed down at her, which was weird because he was blind…

"I'm not blind, silly girl. You'll one day understand, I hope. Hopefully, if you make it that far."

She somehow knew that his gaze then flickered over to the door, where she heard a thunderous crash, and then she gazed back down towards the contract.

Oh what the hell, she thought.

And with what felt like the effort of a thousand men, she lifted her thumb and gently pressed it to the piece of paper, letting it smear as her thumb dragged down it before sliding off and back to her side.

"Good. All signed and sealed. Now let's begin the transfusion. Oh, don't you worry. In a few moments, you will be as good as new... Like it was all just a bad dream."

She felt her eyes droop with almost every word, but then she heard another crash, and she jerked forward, almost forcing herself to get up and fight. Wait, fight-

"Yes, yes, see? Woken up with something of nightmare, have you? A foul, murky story, quite beyond my own reckoning. Won't that be something to tell to the grandkids, eh?"

Whoever this man was, he had a terrible sense of humor. Apparently, she had said that aloud, as he chuckled at her and then gave her a slight push back down onto the bed. There was a louder crash this time, and she swore something had just burst through the floor.

"Yes, yes, see? Woken up with something of nightmare, have you? Heeh, hee hee... Oh, but I have nothing more to tell. I only show the way and the way has been shown. Now, its' in your hand. Until the dank, sweet mud takes us all... Upon the awkening of Ebrietas."

The man was undeniably mad, she thought, and had something burst into flames to her right, she jerked slightly away from the flame, only to realize that it felt… good. Comforting. The sizzle of the flame danced against her skin. It didn't hurt. But what about the-

"My death matters not... It's your nightmare, after all..."

And with that, her world went dark once more.

Special blood used in ministration. Restores HP.

Once a patient has had their blood ministered, a unique but common treatment in Yharnam, successive infusions recall the first, and are all the more invigorating for it.

No surprise that most Yharnamites are heavy users of blood.

-text on the item "blood vial"

Hello! I've gotten super into Bloodborne recently, and I've always loved Harry Potter (disclaimer, I'm not FromSoft or JK Rowling, so none of this is mine) and thought I had some leeway for a kinda cool idea of a story! The "first" chapter is a longer summary, but this one is the first official chapter of the story.

Note: the text from the wheelchair guy is from the Bloodborne Wiki, and also from the game, so all the credit goes to them and not me!

other note: someone left a review reminding me to run this through Grammarly, so now the words make sense lol.