(A/N): Hey Guys! So, this chapter has changed a lot. If you remember what the original chapter was, you most likely understand why it couldn't stay the way it was. I basically had to rewrite the whole thing, and subsequently had to make changes to a few chapters after this that reference events in this one.

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise.

Leo

Ever since we'd arrived back at Hogwarts, or since I woke up in the Hospital Wing I guess, I've been having a little trouble controlling my body. For one, I've been needing to hunt more because I've gotten randomly very thirsty; more than a few times a day, my hands felt the need to spasm and twitch, and Remus and Elaine have alerted me on four separate occasions that my eyes have turned dark. When I paid a visit to Madam Pomfrey, however, she said that it was all perfectly normal- what was really strange though, was the first training session I had after the incident.

Greygorry started me out with the meditation thing like he usually did, to improve the range of my senses. "Breath in. Good, now- out," He said, and my mind began to wander of its own accord. What's wrong with me? If my mother really is behind this, why didn't she just kill me? Why risk revealing my condition in front of the whole Gryffindor house and not just snap Elaine's neck when I had the chance? Or kill the entire common room full of people, for that matter. Why wait? Why do it in public? Why-

"Leonides, are you listening to me?" My eyes snapped open, and focused on Greygorry. "Leo..." Blinking, I realised my eyes were dark again, having half sunk into Sensory Alert, and I quickly forced it away.

"Yeah, yeah. Can we actually train now?"

He watched me for a second before nodding reluctantly. "Sure. Let's train." And with that, his fist struck my face; it hurt, but I wasn't really paying attention. In fact, he got three hits in before I felt the need to retaliate. Specifically, I launched myself at him, knocking him flat on his back as my hands wrapped themselves around his throat. I knew I'd slipped fully into Sensory Alert by the way my teeth were elongated and stabbing into my bottom lip; my thighs bracketed Greygorry's stomach as I choked him, but he simply rolled his eyes at me and pried my hands away.

"You're lucky I don't need to breathe, Leo." I hissed at him in response to this comment, but the next thing I knew, he had me on my back. My arms were pinned to my sides by his, which were wrapped around me probably as tightly as he thought he could without hurting me. After the split second it took for me to truly recognise what, exactly, had just happened, I automatically started to struggle. I didn't like being restrained at the best of times, and I especially didn't like being almost completely immobilized by a much older, much stronger, much deadlier vampire- even if he seemed much more intent on just holding me down than actually harming me in any way.

His full weight was pressing me down into the dirt and leaf litter that covered the forest floor, and, as the part of me that'd instinctively tried to fight him off eventually came to the realization that it was futile, I felt the coolness of the earth start to sink into my skin through the material of my shirt, and I found myself thinking that it was actually... kind of nice? The dappled sunlight fell on my face through the leaves high above me, and as I took a breath, the crisp air seemed to pierce my lungs in way I hadn't noticed it doing earlier. Despite the added weight compressing my lungs, I felt like I could take my first full breath in... I don't even know how long.

I felt one of his arms move from its spot ensnaring my torso and I immediately started to tense, preparing to try to wiggle my way out from under him again, before the hand attached to that arm dropped down on top of my head. That soothing little touch stole whatever fight I had left, and when he put the lightest bit of pressure on the crown of my head, I let him guide me until my chin hit the top of his shoulder. It was a dangerous move for Greygorry to make, considering that I had razor sharp teeth the same as him, and the fact that I'd tried to strangle him not even five minutes ago, but if he'd hesitated, I couldn't see it.

He didn't play with my hair or even stroke it- something I would be grateful for later, but found myself resenting in the moment- he just rested the weight of his hand on top of my head. His right arm was wrapped around me at waist level, pinning my left arm to my body, and his left arm was loosely holding my right arm to my body as it lay up the column of my spine, so his wrist could rest where it met the base of my skull. My head was spinning, not in a 'everything's happening too fast' kind of way, but in a 'what's going on? I don't know, but it's kind of nice' sort of way, and while I could hear my heartbeat thumping away in my ears, it was softer and slower than I had heard it since I'd started experiencing the issues with my control. I think I felt calm... and I didn't know why, or what to do about it.

It was a few, long, quiet minutes before Greygorry apparently finally thought it fitting to break the silence. "Feel better?" And I did; I did feel better. So much better, in fact, that I didn't feel the need to lie about it.

"Yes." My voice came out quieter than I thought it would- like my own body was trying to keep it a secret from me.

"So you're not going to throw another little tantrum anytime soon?"

Without even thinking, my right arm- the one he'd only felt the need to loosely keep a hold of since his hand had moved to my hair- slipped free of his grasp, and before he could catch it, I shoved him off me. "What the hell was that?!" I growled, and he stared at me for a second, wary.

"I had to calm you down; this was the easiest way to do that." I couldn't argue the fact that it'd worked- at least for a little while.

"The easiest way to calm down a raging vampire is to squeeze them like a body pillow?" Greygorry's lips quirked, and I wondered whether it was the beginnings of a smile, or the precursor to a growl.

"Well, no. The easiest way to calm down a raging vampire is to kiss them- but I wasn't exactly about to employ that technique on a fourteen year old."

I raised an eyebrow at him, bemused. "The easiest way to calm down a raging vampire is to kiss them?" We really needed to stop saying 'the easiest way to calm down a raging vampire'.

"Well, when I say 'calm down' I really mean 'distract', and someone kissing you out of the blue can be quite distracting. I would recommend giving your friends that little bit of advice, since they can't manhandle you like I can." I flushed at the term 'manhandling', but there wasn't really any other way to describe what Greygorry'd just done to me.

"I'm not telling my friends to kiss me when I'm... like that. Even if there was a guarantee that I wouldn't immediately attack them for it, most of my friends are... boys." Greygorry's reaction to this seemed to be half amused, half sympathetic.

"Leo, vampires tend to take whatever they can get their hands on- in fact, most creatures like us do." He nodded at me. "Don't worry about whether it's a bird or a bloke, because trust me- no one else cares. It doesn't suddenly become some mortal sin for your friend to kiss you just because you're both the same gender."

And with that, training was over.

(A/N): So, basically, Greygorry becomes a weighted blanket and gives Leo some deep pressure stimulation to help his anxiety.

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This chapter has had some major edits made to it on 25/12/22 - It was pretty much completely rewritten from after Greygorry says, 'You're lucky I don't need to breathe, Leonides.'

This chapter has had some fairly minor edits made to it on 16/5/24 - formatting, and reconfiguring of sentences so they make more sense (did that while I was here so hopefully I won't have to do it later). I specifically edited this chapter now because I was rereading and didn't like how many times Greygorry called Leo 'Leonides' in this chapter. The first time I left, because while Leo is unaware, I think that wasn't the first time Greygorry tried getting his attention, and calling him Leo wasn't working so he eventually called him Leonides, which DID work- which is why immediately after that, he calls him Leo. As you can tell by what I wrote just above this, Greygorry originally called him Leonides again, when Leo was strangling him (which sort of makes sense because I'd be annoyed if someone was choking me, too) but I changed it to him calling him Leo as sort of a sign of respect? Like, yeah, he's a little annoyed, but he also understands that none of this is Leo's fault, so he's being unusually (for Greygorry at this point in the story, anyway) soft with him right now. I considered not having him use Leo's name at all here, but then I realised it's better this way because he's probably using Leo's name to anchor him- hence why he also calls him Leo later, as well.

While I was here I changed 'girls and guys' to 'birds and blokes', because that sounded more British (even though that doesn't really matter in Greygorry's case, since... well, yeah), but if, like me, you think Greygorry calling girls 'birds' is a bit out of place, the reason is because he picked it up from someone he's really close to (someone who we've gotten to know QUITE well, if you've come back to this from 'current day', aka 2024 onward. If you're reading this chapter for the first time as you go through the story, don't worry about it- just know he's mimicking someone who WOULD call women birds, and it's surprisingly poignant for what it is if you come back to it later, considering the relationship that person has with Leo). On top of that, I changed Greygorry saying that 'all vampires take whatever they can get their hands on', to 'vampires tend to take whatever they can get their hands on', which better reflects that while MOST vampires are bisexual by nature (whether that's caused by the vampirism or whether bisexuals tend to become vampires more often for some reason remains to be seen), not all of them are- as we see firsthand later in the story. This particular part is still a bit 'wish fulfillment-y', since it's basically, 'no one cares that you're bisexual, because being bisexual isn't something people should care about', but that's kind of what this whole story is, isn't it?

I also changed Leo's right arm being pinned to his left arm being pinned, and him using his right arm to push Greygorry away, since I thought that would be funny, considering what he later uses that right arm to do, involving punishing Grey (Ch: 347 Broken Puppet).