Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: Sorry that it took me so long to post the chapters, but frankly I realised that the chapter I wrote was complete *crap*. I had to rewrite it and it was *crap*. And so on and so forth how many times? FIVE! I was on brink of despair by the time I wrote this fifth time (I don't really know why - there aren't any difficult scenes here or anything like that, it just worked this way). This version is fairly satisfying and I can post it, and be proud of it :) Still, 4,200 words is too short IMO but I'll try to get... say 6000 words in the next chap :) Read, enjoy and review :)
They talked a little and he bid her goodbye. He went to his dormitory and went to bed. The talk was emotionally draining for him. And there came the problem with Hermione's feelings. He thought about it for long time and decided on course of action. He would write her a letter, from Harry Potter. But it wasn't time to write this now. He was already emotionally drained and writing a letter like that would only deepen this condition.
The next day he woke up and noticed that there was his timetable at the trunk. He would have Ancient Runes and Arithmancy as electives. Good, he would use some mind exercise instead of sitting in perfume-filled classroom listening to Trelawney's boring lessons.
But the first lesson today was surely going to be quite… adventurous. DADA with his oh-so-nice boss Andrew Bolton would be simply a marvellous event. There was a snowball's chance in hell that he was going to be somehow cheered up before seeing Bolton. And lesson with him was going to be a tragic event.
He conjured himself some blood and when he drank it he suddenly had a thought Well, if there is anything to cheer me up than this is the thing. He dressed himself in usual black school robes and went to the classroom, awaiting his doom. When he saw 'professor' entering the class he was sure that guy would want to make an impression.
Andrew lazily traced the desk with the tip of his wand. Harry simply couldn't know what was going on with the twisted mind of this guy. He's probably thinking about making me miserable Harry thought. The teacher slowly stopped and put down his wand at the desk.
"Maybe a few words of introduction. My name is Andrew Bolton. I used to work as an Auror in the ministry for last thirty-five years. I know a lot about Dark Arts and I want to teach you at least basics. Don't cheat yourself that you will know something more than that - it takes years of devoted studies to know something advanced about it. I won't be able to teach you everything but I at least hope that you will know how to defend yourself in critical situations. I won't lie to you. You will probably find the work exhausting and hard. You will hate me more than you could ever imagine. But when you will face a Death Eater or a Dark Creature you will thank God that I taught you. Now today's topic." He waved his wand at text appeared at the blackboard. And the first word of it was…
"Vampires." He said loudly Now that proves my previous suspicions… "Are either an enemy you don't have to worry about or are the most powerful beings you'll every encounter. It all depends on the strength of this undead creature." He very loudly emphasised the word 'creature' and looked pointedly at Harry Oh, yes, he simply loves to make me miserable "What I will tell you during this lesson, with some help from Mr.Clark will be everything you'll need to know about vampires."
"Let's start with little history. We do not know when, how or who was first vampire and how he became one. It is not necessary for you if you want to defend yourself against creatures of the night."
"If you face strong vampire, you're dead or embraced. If someone doesn't know vampires refer to transformation from mortal to vampire as an embracing."
"It's extremely hard to kill one. Sometimes it's simply impossible because after thousands of years vampire achieved practically complete immortality. Yes, I mean that they're almost invincible."
A gasp was heard among the class. Harry was sure that no one expected this. Well, knowledge about vampires was quite limited even in the Department of Mysteries. But Bolton was rather too overreacting. Even Antediluvian's [A/N: Antediluvian is the highest 'title' describing a vampire. Think of it as a synonym to demigod] neck could be cut of with sword. And you could kill being with magic.
"We do not know the maximum extent to which vampire powers can go but I assure you that if all of them could walk in daylight then we would be under their command. However even the eldest vampires cannot walk in the sunlight. This ability is reserved only to vampires that were wizards before they were… reborn. You wanted something Ms.Patil?"
Parvati looked around and then asked. "So why won't the vampires… err… embrace wizards and then you know, do something like New World Order." Few nervous chuckles were heard among the class.
"I will get to that in a moment Ms.Patil Now, the important things you need to know. If you want to fight a vampire than you should first learn whether you would be able to defeat them. Surprisingly determining the strength of a vampire is extremely simple. You point wand at vampire and gesture it in sign of cross. Look." Bolton pointed the wand at Harry and made a gesture. Few seconds later a blue mist shot out of his wand and formed a number
'1254'
"You see this number normally from every side. This is age of the vampire or how old he should be when you think about it in terms of power. Don't worry, Mr.Clark isn't as old. His maker was very old and thus he has power of 1254 year old vampire."
"Now remember this. If the number is lower than 100 you can fight the guy and probably defeat him. But I won't say that this will be easy. Now I think that most of you after the school would be able to defeat a vampire that is somewhere between 100 and 250 and with additional help, for example potions which would enchant your psychical attributes you could defeat a vampire that is up to 300 maybe 350 years old."
"And here the trouble begins. Vampire older than five hundred years old is a very worthy opponent. Only trained vampire slayers are able to kill ones as powerful. If you get vampires that are one millennium or older than I think that a War Mage might be able to beat one that powerful. Vampires older than two and half thousand years are akin to demigods. Vampires older than five millennia are practically beyond your imagination. I don't even think about Vampires who would be for example ten thousand years old. A creature like that would be something like incarnate of power." Some people were now nervously glancing at Harry.
"I'll tell you about something. I once knew a vampire that was a muggle before embrace and at the time I met him when he was five millennia old. He was able to ignite whole forests with merely a thought." Few jaws dropped.
"And now to Ms.Patil's question. To embrace a wizard you need to be a very old vampire. Otherwise it's impossible. Do you know why? Because we're more alive than muggles. Our life… force is amplified with magic thus giving us much longer lives. And when vampire is embraced he must gain power to live as undead equal to or stronger than it was before the embracing. Besides there might be other reason - simple jealousy. The embracing vampire would be jealous of the sun-walking abilities of his child." Duh, he's really good actor
"I think that this will be enough for you now. Let's get to some practical knowledge. Identifying vampires. I don't think that any of you would know that Mr.Clark here is a vampire unless someone told you or you would look very closely at his teeth. Fangs are almost completely retraceable; skin can be tanned to normal level with a spell or by using a vampiric ability. Identifying is possible if a vampire doesn't use a spell or ability to glamour himself. Extremely pale and smooth skin plus fangs. That's a vampire."
"Now, how to defeat one? Forget about everything you know. Stakes are extremely useful when fighting a vampire but they don't kill. They immobilise a vampire that is up to somewhere around 250 years old and considerably slow down older vampires. But the old ones can pluck it out of their chests. If you want to kill one than we have fire, sunlight or magic."
"Now turn to page 64 in your books 'All you need to know about Dark Creatures' and take notes. For the next lesson I want to see five feet on parchment about vampires." Whole class groaned. "Maximum half feet of introduction, rest filled with practical information." Another groan from whole class. "If you want to get something additional except for the normal lessons than handle me ten feet of parchment on the subject. If anyone will try to get information from Mr.Clark I will personally make sure that this person won't pass the N.E.W.T.s Besides that I require you to learn at least two spells that could at neutralise a quite young vampire. Five spells if you want additional work." Then he added in almost self-hating tone "You are excused from the work today Mr.Clark as you have… personal experience."
Harry almost threw a curse at him. But he restrained. It wouldn't do any good for him. Well, maybe some people would actually like him since they would very soon learn to hate the bastard. That was however still not a good thing to do simply because Bolton was his superior. Both in Department and now as he was pretending to be a student.
Several minutes passed and everyone headed for transfiguration. Harry would later ask McGonagall to teach him how to accomplish Animagus transformation. At least he had something to look to. Harry said hello to James as he passed him in the corridor. Whole class arrived at already opened door to the classroom. Everyone seated immediately and McGonagall started speaking.
"In your first five years you covered transfiguration of animate and inanimate. Your fifth year was about human transfiguration and sixth about conjuration. In this year we will cover practically every kind of transfiguration but it will be rather… impressive one. Today we will start from turning bits of paper into… well, every one of you will have different assignment." She conjured several pieces of paper and wrote name of different animal on each one. She handed them the papers. Harry's eyes nearly fell out of his orbits when he saw what was written there.
Horse
He had to transfigure a piece of paper into horse?!?!? McGonagall went mad, that was certain. By groans of frustration in the classroom Harry suspected that others received assignments equally hard to his.
"Of course I don't expect that you will be able to do this today. It would be quite astonishing really. But by the end of the year I expect that you'll be able to do similar transfiguration."
Harry sighed, tore a little piece of parchment and put it on the floor. If he were about to change it into horse it wouldn't do good if the animal would be standing at the desk.
Harry focused all of his will on his task. He pointed his wand at the piece of parchment, pictured horse clearly in his head and simply tried to let the magic do the rest.
He felt power going from somewhere around his heart to his wand. He stopped it at his wrist as he realised that this will need 'little' more energy. In this transfiguration the actual problem was not the transfiguration itself (he could for example change a desk into horse). It was only the difference in size between a small piece of paper and grown horse.
He felt that enough of magic accumulated in his wrist and he let it go through his wand and do the transfiguration. Surprisingly he almost managed the transfiguration. The only problem was that the horse was half of the required size.
"Not bad Mr.Clark Ten points of Gryffindor." Harry smiled but focused on the task. He muttered 'Finite Incantatem' and the horse changed back into piece of paper.
For the rest of the lesson Harry tried to change little paper into horse he succeeded once but he couldn't repeat it later. The bell rang and his classmates went to lunch. He waited until everyone was out and approached professor McGonagall.
"Professor?"
"Yes?"
"Could you teach me how to become Animagus?"
Her eyes went wide. " If you really want to I could ask professor Dumbledore for permission and I could teach you."
"Of course."
"I will tell you when we will train."
Harry said goodbye and decided to go to the grounds. After all it was a long break now.
He wondered whether he could tell Hagrid that he was in fact Harry Potter. But then he remembered that his half-giant friend could never keep secrets. Harry saw that there was something happening in the Forbidden Forest. He had to check it out - it was his job.
He went slowly and noticed some more shuffling in the bushes. He readied his wand and went further into the forest. He heard growl behind him and had dodged werewolf who tried to attack him. WEREWOLF!?!? During the day??? What the hell is going on? The werewolf jumped at him once more. This time he was prepared. He grabbed his neck with his left hand, threw over his left leg and pinned the werewolf to the ground. He now regretted his decision a little. Werewolves were bloody strong when they were in their human form. In the wolf form they could be as strong (or much stronger) as Harry was but only for very short time. It tired them immensely.
The wolf threw him off his back and got a little distance from Harry. Both turned now to face each other. Harry had the advantage that he still had his mind. Werewolves were directed with primal instincts and in their wolf form couldn't really think properly. Unless they were given Wolf's Bane potion. Fighting with werewolf created potential danger for Harry. Although bite didn't turn him into one of them, it created wounds that weren't healed with normal vampiric regeneration. He would have to use particularly difficult ability called 'Blood Healing'. It was strictly vampiric ability to heal wounds that were created by sunlight, fire or some other means. In this case - werewolf's bite.
They wolf once again jumped on Harry. He ducked and kicked the werewolf as hard as he could in its stomach. The werewolf practically flew through the air and hit a tree. It cracked werewolf's skull open. Harry quickly used several petrifying and immobilising spells on it. The skull would heal in matter of minutes and he couldn't risk it escaping.
Harry tried working out a telepathic link with Bolton but the bastard was completely closed to it. Harry concentrated as hard as he could and sent a message to him with as much power as he could muster as a vampire and additionally amplified with magic.
"BOLTON!"
"What do you want?"
Came the reply and telepathic link was set up."Come here. I've got something you simply have to see."
Harry now sent information concerning his whereabouts.Twenty minutes later came a pissed off Andrew Bolton.
"What the hell did you want?"
"This." Harry pointed at the immobilised werewolf.
"What the hell?" Bolton's eyes grew as wide as saucers and his mouth was hanging open.
"Well…" Harry started. "… In my opinion it's a werewolf. Especially since it was able to throw me off its back. A feat like that is quite rare among the world. And a mere wolf wouldn't be able to do it. It's either a wolf that has ten tons of something in his veins or it's a werewolf. If you want I can check for sure by drinking its blood. I know how does blood of werewolf taste."
"Yeah, sure, check it." Harry shrugged and kneeled by the werewolf. He retraced his fangs to long one and bit into its neck.
If you could compare taste of blood to taste of food, than human blood was something very sweet, almost like a chocolate. But werewolf's blood was something along the lines of 'hot and spicy'. And Harry could feel it very clearly. But there was also something, like a potion or poison cursing through the veins of werewolf. He stood up and retraced his fangs.
"Yeah, that's surely a werewolf. But it has something in its veins. A potion or a poison… whatever it is it has dragon blood, a lot of it, phoenix tears, and unicorn's hair. We'll have to ask Snape whatever that might be." Harry now thought that he would have to restrain himself a bit - for unknown reasons werewolf's blood gave him even more unstable mood-swings.
"Snape?"
"Potions professor here."
"Hmmm… I think we should take this guy over here…" He pointed at the werewolf "… and check out what happened to him after he will change back."
Harry levitated the werewolf and they went to the castle. They conjured a cage in the training room and locked up the werewolf in there. They went to the potions classroom. Harry waved goodbye to Bolton and headed to Ancient Runes classroom. He used a spell to check what time it was. He was two minutes late. He ran there as fast as he could and few seconds later he was standing at the entrance of classroom. He went inside and apologised to Professor Stepelli [A/N: I have a felling that I'm not the first one to use this name for Ancient Runes teacher] for being late. She gave him a text to translate. They were obviously revising something.
Professor Stepelli was about sixty-five years old. However she looked like a thirty-five year old. How did this happen, Harry had no idea. She had blonde hair and grey eyes. There was something about her, a strange sense of familiarity as Harry looked at her. But he didn't know where it came from.
Harry glanced at the parchment she gave him. It was a really ancient language. It probably came from somewhere around 5000-6000 BC He wasn't expected to translate it correctly (as that was deemed almost impossible with traditional means) but rather interpret the text, aiding himself with known languages from this point of time.
Fortunately for him, older vampires understood instinctively the languages. He didn't have any idea about workings of it. It just worked. He looked at the runes and started reading them. Very soon he heard the words in English. And the parchment seemed very interesting
After the Great Tragedy he came to us.
He was eternal, immortal.
His name was Cain.
And he gave chosen ones gift of immortality.
But they were not ready.
For they have died.
He gave us the gift once again.
And we became immortal.
But we were different.
We were dead and walking, so was he, dead and walking.
But we were burned by life-giving sun.
He was a sun-walker.
Harry immediately knew what it was. It was one of the few known fragments of so called 'Chronicle of Darkness'. This book contained information about beginnings of the vampires and their history. Unfortunately today's magical historians couldn't relate any events to the 'Great Tragedy'. Truth to be told the book was more mystery than origins of the vampires. The only information from this book was that name of the first vampire was Cain and even this was not sure simply because there were many other sources which told other name of the first vampire. But the name was widely accepted as the 'real' one.
Harry wrote a translation on piece of parchment and gave it to the professor. Her eyes went wide and she told him to wait after the lesson. Well, he was clearly impressing the teachers. Hermione was the first to finish after him although it took her much longer (no surprise here). After the lesson ended he waited yet again in the classroom. Fortunately he didn't have any lessons later. He could talk with Bolton about the weird case of werewolf.
"Well, Mr.Clark I see that either you are very special or you took great amount of time in learning Ancient Runes."
"I'm a vampire."
"I know about that. But how does that relate to this translation?"
"We instinctively understand every language."
"Ah, so it might be useful. Would you like to work on some other translations?"
"I will think about it."
"Very well. Goodbye."
Harry went out of the classroom and walked with normal, human speed to the room he expected Bolton to be. As far as Harry knew Bolton couldn't have had time to talk with Snape about this. Both had their classes. He went to the training room and waited there at the same time looking at the strange werewolf. In the mid-time Harry drank blood.
Finally, after about three hours Bolton came into the room.
"Come on, we have to go to Snape." He announced at the entrance.
"Sure."
They went to the dungeons and caught Snape just as he was walking out of the classroom.
"I have something to discuss Severus." Bolton said calmly while Snape glared at him.
"We have to know some things about certain potion." He continued. Snape grumbled and went inside of the classroom. Harry found a chair and sat on it, Bolton did the same. Snape glared at them.
"I don't have all day to waste."
"Okay…" Started Harry "… today I was on the grounds. I saw something moving in the Forbidden Forest and went to inspect it. As it later turned on it was a werewolf. I don't know how since it was broad daylight and full moon will be in about two weeks but the fact is that it was a werewolf who wanted to take me as a snack. After a fight I managed to immobilise him. I called Bolton to inspect it and as I later drank its blood in order to make sure it was a werewolf. Indeed it was one. But there was something in its blood. Some kind of poison or potion. I could taste few ingredients. There's quite a lot of Dragon blood, phoenix's tears and powdered unicorn hair. And now we come to you since you're a potions master. What could it be?"
Snape looked at them and sat down. He took a piece of parchment and started writing on it. "What are you doing?" Asked Harry.
"The three ingredients you mentioned act explosively with each other. To neutralise the explosiveness you must add additional ingredients. Those are the ingredients, which neutralise the effect. Look at the list and tell me whether you could feel something from this list?"
Harry took a look and read. There were possibilities. Aside from these three there were no really distinguishable tastes. But there were few things that surely wasn't there.
"Everything could be there. But I'm sure that there was no powdered Basilisk's eye. It has a specific taste. There couldn't be any of powdered Dragon's scales there also. No blood of vampire, that's certain."
"So this had to be The Beast potion."
"What?"
"The Beast Potion. It draws out the most primal urges, instincts and feelings from the person. Here it was a werewolf. For example if you, Clark would drink it you would turn for some time into psychopath who would suck out blood of everyone you could see. You wouldn't be able to stop yourself. If you would give it to human; the person would turn into ruthless killer, rapist, and so on and so forth. The potion was never thoroughly tested since the ingredients are very expensive and grow only during certain very short periods of time. But I'm quite sure that once a werewolf would drink it would change him into his werewolf form for about a month."
"Holy shit."
"Hmm, the potion is dangerous and the only problem that I find now is that you wouldn't find some ingredients to it now. They don't grow in any part of the world. And they won't last for that long. So the only option is that…"
"… Someone managed to create them artificially." Finished Bolton. Snape nodded and said.
"I must inform Headmaster about this."
"It would be wise to do so."
"There is one more thing about this potion that you should know."
"What is it?" Snapped Bolton.
"This potion, when added for example to drink automatically changes its looks, taste and so on so that it completely resembles the drink. Its perfect to add it to, for example, butterbeer."
This time it was Bolton who said "Holy shit."
"Yeah, you'll have to carry around a flask." Harry smiled. He didn't drink anything besides conjured blood. He was safe from this.
"There is another thing. The potion might start working after some time or trigger after consuming some kind of food, using a spell, by particular action or thought. It can be triggered up to twenty-four hours after consuming the potion. Another thing is that the potion practically doesn't leave any marks. Everything simply disappears from body ten minutes after rage stops. It's practically a perfect weapon."
"We've got to inform someone in the Ministry, Bolton." Harry said solemnly. The potion seemed to be perfect for someone like Voldemort. You simply gave person something to drink, you added some of this potion which automatically disguised itself and could be triggered practically by anything. And now, somehow Voldemort learned how to create ingredients artificially or he learned how to preserve them for more. Also Voldemort could frame practically everyone using this. They probably wouldn't be even questioned using some truth serum - as Harry learned they weren't used too often (ingredients even to simplest truth potions were usually rare, and to the strongest ones they were considered impossible to get).
"Inform me when this guy will turn back." Bolton nodded.
As it later turned out few days passed until the guy changed back into human. There were wards placed around him simply because this guy presented feats incredible even for werewolves in their wolf form. The cage he was in had bars that were one-inch thick and made from steel. But once, in fit of rage the werewolf twisted them like they were made of water. It took few mages to subdue the beast later. But professor Snape later explained that people on whom The Beast potion was tested tended to show extreme psychical and magical abilities for some time.
On Sunday morning Bolton send Harry a telepathic message simply saying 'The werewolf woke up'.
A/N: Well that's it. I hope that the chapter was a good one, regardless whether it was or not click the little button in the lower left corner of the screen when it's set as 'Submit review' and then 'Go' :) By the way - Remus Lupin, contrary to the popular belief isn't the only werewolf in the wizarding world... Till the next chapter!
What's next on the show? Who is the werewolf?; A little vision; Ron and Hermione talk about both Harrys; Harry starts writing the letter; and as a bonus (if I will feel very warm and tingly from the number of reviews :) Harry's embrace!