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Chapter Text

A trail of crumbling brickwork creeps up a hill, piles upon piles of broken stone and dusty mortar, with hints of what might have been walls, might have been pillars, sticking out here and there. At the heart of the ruin, there is a single upstanding structure, a building that might have once been a great hall of what used to be even greater castle. With painted windows and vaulted rooftops, it is of a style not even the Nobility favoured, an older style, style forgotten many, many millennia ago. What used to be called medieval, before medieval style became the present.

It didn't use to be there, less than night ago.

D looks up at the castle ruins, taking in their makeup. It's all stone, no plastic, no wood, no metal, just stone. That alone is strange, but stranger still is the lack of mechanisms, of barriers or cameras – there's not even a hint of automation of any sort. No robot ever touched this place, and even when the many halls and corridors and what must've been half a dozen great towers stood still whole, there weren't so much as an automated door there. It is all… just stone.

And yet it had, somehow, appeared where it didn't use to be before.

Silently D dismounts his horse at the very edge of the ruins. "Stay," he says to his mount and then leaves it to cool down and graze at the tufts of grass sticking out from amidst the ancient brickwork.

There is a path through the rubble, a thin trail that has been tread only by feet. No hoof prints, no burrows of cartwheels – just thin line of hard packed earth where grass didn't grow. Someone had walked this little trail hundreds, perhaps thousands of times.

Soon, he is at the entrance to the solitary building. It has grand wooden doors, old and weathered but still firmly standing in the way. Judging by the looks of the hinges, they were in regular use.

Slowly, D presses his hand on the wood and waits.

"Hmm, nothing," his hand murmurs, half muffled on the wood. "No defences, no traps I can sense. It's just… wood."

D pushes – and with a creak of metal hinges, the grand doors give away.

Inside, it's all one room – some great ballroom, or perhaps a dining hall, with polished stone floor and stone walls carved with simple, angular designs. And above them the sky.

D stares up at it for the moment. Outside the hall's ceiling had been unbroken, and still he can see the sky above, with clouds covering most of it and only shreds of deep blue visible here and there. It is about to rain.

There are no hologram projectors anywhere in sight.

"Illusion," his hand comments. "A powerful one."

"But benign," D says.

"Looks that way – dunno how it would be in a thunder storm, though."

D looks a moment longer, slight frown on his face. It's an impressive display of power and of spell work of truly a bygone era. Even at the height of their power, few were the Nobility capable of such wonderful illusions – and he is not sure even they would have used one for mere aesthetic purposes. Yet here it is, a ceiling bewitched to look like the sky above, seemingly for no reason than because it happened to be possible.

Finally, D looks down, taking in the rest of the hall.

There are long tables that run along the length of the grand room – four in total, with long benches to match. They are covered in golden plates and goblets, with various eating utensils scattered all around. At the very end, there is fifth table that faces the four longer ones – and a podium that stands in front of it.

There is a person there – a dark haired man in impressive red and gold robes and cloak sitting at the head table, leaning his chin into his palm… fast asleep.

D hesitates for a moment – at a distance he can't tell what the man is. It is late enough in the day that the man could have been a Vampire, and light of illusions isn't the same thing as true light – even if the charmed ceiling above showed a sunny weather, it might not burn a vampire. This man could be of the Nobility – and certainly place like this, even in ruins, could not be created by anyone but one of the Nobility. Even without machinery, the magic here is obvious.

The castle's lack of defences, however…

D moves his cloak aside, holding his left hand at the ready in case he needs to grab his sword and then he steps forward. The man at the head table is perhaps in his twenties, and if he is a vampire he is a strange one – he is wearing a pair of golden rimmed round glasses on his nose. He also seems to have a scar on his forehead, something a born Noble would not have, and which even on a bitten vampire would fade over time.

D stands at the foot of the table, and the sleeping man opens his eyes. They're vividly green, almost luminous in the fading light of the charmed sky, and altogether startling in their intensity.

For a moment there is silence, as they eye each other, D trying to surmise whether the man is of the Nobility or not, and the man just watching him, his face still slack and expressionless with sleep.

"Welcome," the man says then, his voice rough, and lifts his head slowly. "… I guess. How did you get in here?"

"I walked," D says simply, watching as the man straightens his neck and then leans his head to the side with a yawn, his spine audibly cracking.

His canines are long and sharp. D's eyes narrow. Vampire then.

"Well that's not right," the short haired, bespectacled vampire says and scratches at the back of his head. "This place is hidden with magic; it takes magic to see it."

D says nothing, watching him warily, his hand opening and his stance widening to get better purchase on the smooth floor. The vampire at the table glances down at his feet and then sighs, leaning his cheek into his knuckles. "What, do you want to fight?"

"You're a Noble," D says slowly.

"I'm not," the vampire says, sounding bored. "I'm a nobody."

That is not what D was expecting, though at this point he is not entirely sure what he's expecting. A magically appearing ruined castle, while not completely beyond his experience, is strange enough, but to have a vampire just sitting there, sleeping defencelessly out in the open… he certainly isn't behaving like a Noble.

The vampire looks him up and down and then yawns again, pushing himself up from the table and to his feet. "Are you hungry?" he asks. "We haven't got much, but I think we can whip up a meal. Oi, you lot," he then calls into nothingness and snaps his fingers. His nails are short, unusually blunt for a vampire. "We got a guest!"

Nothing happens, at first. D looks around warily, waiting for tricks, for traps – and so misses it when it happens.

The table by which the vampire is standing is suddenly covered in food. Pitchers of water, juice, milk and beer and other things, plates and trays of ham, chicken, cheese, eggs, bowls of various sauces, baskets of bread… it's enough food to feed easily twenty people and more, and it all appeared without sound or sight, seemingly from nowhere.

Another illusion?

The vampire looks down at it all and then sighs morosely. "Looks good, doesn't it?" he asks wistfully and then takes something from his pocket – something which makes D frown even harder than the magically appearing food did.

It's a vividly crimson lollipop, wrapped in clear plastic wrap. As he watches, the vampire unwraps it and pops it into his mouth.

"Oh, sorry, do you want one?" the vampire asks and takes out another, identical, lollipop from his pocket. "I mean, you are a dhampir, right? You lot can do both, can't you?"

D stares at him silently.

"Come on, it's just a blood pop," the vampire says, waving the wrapped lollipop invitingly and then popping the one in his own mouth out again. It gleams wetly and, yes, it smells like fresh blood. "It's almost as good as the real thing, except for all the human sacrifice."

The moment stretches awkwardly and finally the vampire shrugs and drops the red lollipop onto the table, popping the one he'd already unwrapped back in his mouth. "Alright, suit yourself," he says and turns away. "You could at least try the food, though. They don't get many chances to cook these days, the elves."

Another moment of expectant silence, before the vampire sighs at him. "Alright, fine," he says. "You sure are talkative; I can barely get a word through. Slow down a little."

D stares at him as the vampire walks away from the table and to the nearest window, to peer out. As the vampire peers outside, D glances at the food on the table – it smells real, wafting out scent of ancient spices and warm, freshly cooked food.

The blood red lollipop still sticks out amidst all of it. Even though the wrapper, D can smell it. He's never scented such convincingly real odour – and yet, it isn't blood, it can't be.

Then, frowning, D looks up again as what he saw on the window registers.

Outside there are the towers and walls of a great castle, surrounding them on all sides. The ruins he'd walked through, fully restored. Another illusion – or were the ruins an illusion, and the scene outside the window reality?

How much power ran rampant in this place?

"If you're staying," the vampire says almost boredly, peering up at the sky. "Breakfast is at eight, lunch at eleven and dinner at six, and I'll see about making sure there's some snacks available here around the clock if you want them. If food just sort of appears around you, don't worry about it – they get like that with guests who can actually eat. You can have any bedroom you want, granted you can find it. Library is just on the left of the great hall – just follow the corridor and you'll find it."

With that said, the vampire turns to leave, slowly wandering towards the doors D had used to get in.

"What is this place?" D finally asks. "Who are you?"

"Harry Potter, the last Headmaster of this place," the vampire says and sighs. "Welcome to Hogwarts."

With that said, the vampire pushes the doors open – the doors which D had also pushed open, but which now open the other way, strangely. Maybe that is the key to the illusion, because where before they only revealed ruins, now… now there is a corridor outside

D hesitates just for a moment – and then he follows the vampire.

Harry Potter glances at him over his shoulder and then simply shrugs his shoulder. "Sure, why not. Come on, my talkative friend," he says and rubs at his neck, still looking sleepy and bored. "I'll give you the grand tour."

And he does, too – and it is, indeed, grand. The castle isn't quite as large or impressive as the greater castles of the truly old nobility, those who had lived for thousands and thousands of years. In relative terms, the Castle Hogwarts is actually rather small. But then this castle, D can see, wasn't build by machinery.

However the castle had been hewn, by hand or by magic, it was done by people. It has those small flaws and quirks of human construction that lot of Noble castles, perfect by not only design but by building method, simply lack. It gives every corner of this place a rough, lived in feel, where as Noble castles tend to feel more like art works, rather than living spaces.

And this place is, indeed, very lived in.

There are little nooks and holes in the walls, where D can tell by the marks left there people used to be, to hide. The carpets are worn, the curtains have holes – they also have marks of repair. The decorative statues have been chipped, the armours have dents. Everywhere he looks, he can see the wear and tear of use.

"We had hundreds of students here," Harry Potter says idly, staring down the long corridors, their worn down carpets, their statues and decorative armours. "Hundreds and hundreds of little people running around, making a mess."

"This is a school?"

"This was a school," Harry Potter says and pulls the blood red lollipop from his mouth with a pop. "It was… oh, when was it…" he stares at the floor for a moment, frowning. "Well, I have no idea. What year is it?"

D tells him.

The vampire looks at him for a long while. "Oh," he then says and looks away. "I've been asleep for a while, huh. Little over nine thousand years ago, then."

D almost stops on his tracks, which thankfully is unnoticeable – Harry Potter has stopped by a large, painted glass window. He points through it with the lollipop, and outside. "See that stone?"

D looks. It's not so much a stone as it is an obelisk of smooth black stone, a spire that reaches almost higher than the castle's towers.

"Last students of Hogwarts are written on it," Harry Potter says and sighs. "Well, last witches and wizards before we got wiped out."

He shrugs plops the lollipop back in his mouth, shrugs his shoulders, and continues on while D stares at the spire.

Last witches and wizards?

"You are…" D trails away, turning to the green eyed vampire.

"On my way to the kitchen," the vampire says. "There will be new generation of elves here by now, I should go say hello."

D blinks after him and then, with a last glance at the spire – carved full of names – he turns to follow the vampire.

The kitchen is… a surprise, but then so is pretty much everything in this place. It is full of activity, strange activity, conducted by strange, goblin like creatures. They flock around Potter happily, touching his robes and bidding him good morning and welcome in little voices that blend into each other.

Potter falls to his knees amidst them. "Who's the head elf now?" he asks the little creatures.

One of them is pushed forward. It – he, she, D can't quite tell – wrings the ragged cloth it's wearing and then bows its head. "Retta, milordy, at your service."

"What happened to Nierra, Retta?"

"Nierra passed, milordy, old age. She was an old elf. Retta took Nierra's job over five years ago, milordy."

Harry Potter bows his head for a moment and sighs. "Thank you Retta," he says and then looks at the other elves. "Anyone still around from when I was last awake?"

"H-here, milordy," one of the creatures, bend down low with painfully crooked back, says, coming forward with the other elf creatures helping it. "Delbert, milordy."

"Dolbert," the vampire says and holds out his hands. "I'm sorry, I don't remember you."

"Dolbert was but a wee elf when milordy went asleep," the elf says and takes the vampire's hands, letting the Noble – because at over nine thousand years he can't be anything but a Noble – support him.

Harry Potter hold's the old creature's hands gently. "Where are we, Dolbert?"

The old creature frowns, thinking about it. Then he shakes his head and then looks away, at the first elf, Retta. "Where are we, Retta?"

"Retta doesn't know," the first elf admits ashamedly. "Castle moved just yesterday, we elves haven't gone out seeing yet. We will go today, milordy, we will find out."

Harry Potter sighs, squeezing Dolbert's crooked hands, and then he stands up. "It's alright, we'll figure it out. There's time. Now, this is…" he trails off and then turns to look at D. "Who are you?"

D bows his head a little, looking between this… strange, strange vampire, and his small army of strange servants. "D," he says finally. "A vampire hunter."

Harry Potter blinks at him, but doesn't seem particularly worried. "This is D, a vampire hunter. Try and find him something he will actually eat," he says and then looks at the elves. "Has anything happened while I've been asleep?"

There is a minute of nothing but noise as all of the elves around them babble all in unison, reporting apparently anything and everything that happened while their lord slept. It's quite bit of noise, so much that even D can't keep up with it. Mostly it seems to consist of animals wandering in, windows breaking, crops failing, and then all those things being dealt with accordingly.

Harry Potter listens and nods here and there and then hums. "No people?"

"No people, milordy," Retta says and then frowns at D.

Harry Potter nods and then turns to D. "How did you get inside?" he asks again.

"I walked," D says again, watching him, trying to figure it out.

"Walked," Harry Potter says and takes the stick of the blood pop off his mouth – the candy is gone now, just the stick remains. He looks at it and then looks down, as every elf in vicinity holds their hand out for it. He drops it in the nearest palm, and sigh runs through the elves.

"Walked," the vampire says again and shakes his head, turning to wander out of the kitchen the same way he'd wandered in.

D casts a look at the strange elf creatures, and then follows him.

"House elves," Harry Potter says. "They gain power from the upkeep of magical domiciles."

D doesn't answer, he doesn't really have anything to say to that. He's not hundred percent certain this isn't some sort of illusion, all of it. This place seems to have many of them.

And then ghosts descend from the ceilings.

"Lord Potter," the first one, a rotund spirit in strange robe says and bows. "Good morning to you. You have slept for nearly eighty years."

"So it seems – hello Friar," the vampire says and then nods his head to another ghost. "Baron," and to third, "Nick. Anything to report?"

"Nothing what so ever," the spectre called Baron says with a huff. "The castle's protections stand ever strong. Nothing has come in that hasn't immediately gone. Except for this one," he adds and peers at D. "How did he get inside?"

"Apparently, he walked," Harry Potter says and looks at D. "How did you walk in?"

D considers him and the ghosts – the house elves which are now peeking at the corridor from the kitchen. "There were ruins that appeared from nowhere. I… investigated."

"And just walked through this place without anyone noticing?"

"The castle was in ruins – only the hall I met you was still standing," D says and then looks through the window – at the spires and walls and impressive causeways that made the castle. Had they been there before, he certainly wouldn't have been able to just walk up to the great hall. "I merely walked."

Harry Potter frowns at that a little, running a hand over his chin. "So, the charms failed partially," he says, his tone a little flat. "Specifically on the Great Hall."

D doesn't answer and the vampire shrugs, turning to the ghosts. "Gather everyone and go check the ward stones."

"Yes sir," the ghost called Nick says, throwing in a salute.

"I fly them every day," the Baron says with a scowl. "There is nothing wrong with the ward stones. The keystone stands as strong as ever."

"Check them anyway," Harry Potter says with a sigh and waves the ghosts away. They disperse, leaving D alone in the corridor with the vampire lord.

"You know," Potter says and takes out yet another bloody lollipop. "I'm not entirely sure what to do with you. What do you want, vampire hunter? I don't think you're here to kill me, you didn't even know I existed before now, did you?"

D narrows his eyes a little. "Are there others here?"

"Just me, the ghosts and the house elves, now. Maybe some pixies, probably some gnomes… the usual pests," Harry Potter says. "There are no people here if that's what you're asking. And no, I don't go attacking people. The castle moves around, as it is – has since they destroyed the island it used to stand on. I don't even know where it is half of the time, never mind where to find people to attack."

D arches an eyebrow and then motions at the window.

The vampire looks that way and then arches an eyebrow. "Oh," he says

Right now, the castle sits on top of a hill, overlooking a fairly sizeable human town built into a valley below. Good three thousand households, almost ten thousand people – all of whom had gotten understandably nervous when the ruins had simply grown on the hill overlooking their previously safe, quiet little town.

"Oh," the vampire says again and scratches the back of his head. "That's… why you're here."

"Yes," D agrees. "When a magical castle appears out of nowhere like this, it has the tendency of making people… nervous."

"Yes, I can see how it would," Harry Potter says, pushing the window open. The sun has set now, and the sky deep, dark red, growing darker as they watch it – while below in the town, streets are lighting up, and houses glow with inner light.

"Oh, they have street lights again," the vampire murmurs and leans his elbows onto the window sill. "That's nice."

"What is your purpose here?" D demands.

"I have no idea," Harry Potter says and turns his attention to the lollipop he's holding. He starts unwrapping it. "I usually don't, really. Hogwarts moves when she feels like it, I've long since given up trying to guess her whims. There might be a reason we're here, there might not."

"And how long are you going to stay?"

"Again, I have no idea," the vampire shrugs and pops the lollipop into his mouth. "Guess we'll see."

Chapter Text

"I suppose I can't just go there and meet the people," Harry Potter muses, around his bloody lollipop and D gives him a somewhat incredulous look. A vampire Noble, among humans? If he didn't try to bespell them to his thrall and the people didn't then run away screaming – which they most likely would – they would try to kill him.

The vampire sighs. "Didn't think so," he says and peers up at the sky. "Well it doesn't matter right now. Do you want to see the rest of the castle?"

D doesn't answer, watching with a frown as vampire pushes himself away from the window. It magically closes and locks after the man, who ignores the self-adjusting window and D who leans in to check – but no, no mechanisms, no servos.

"This entire castle works by magic?"

"Better yet, technology doesn't work here," Harry Potter answers, idly tugging at the lollipop stick as he heads off again, forcing D to follow. "She is the most magical thing now, Hogwarts. Every other place was… bled dry."

There's a strange, almost alien spark of humour there – a sort wrapped in black humour. The reference goes mostly over D's head, but he can guess at the connotations. Vampires and bleeding.

Then the spark is gone and Harry Potter is back to his almost dreary idolatry, he's steps slow and almost meditative as he leads the vampire hunter down the grand, vaulted corridor.

"Headmaster, good morning to you," a voice says and D almost draws a weapon. There's no one there, but it was definitely a new voice, a sleepy sounding female voice.

"Good morning, my dear," Harry Potter answers, looking at the wall – no, at the portrait there. "Looks like you had a little nap too."

"Mmyes," the portrait of a young woman in strange clothes says, gripping the handle of the… broom? She's sitting on it, eternally captured in mid jump – no, mid flight – on the thing. Her shoulders come up as she yawns and her feet kick at the air and then she shudders. "What year is it?"

"Somewhere in the neighbourhood of twelve thousand," the vampire answers with a dismissive wave of his hands. "I slept for about eighty years."

"Mm, seven for me then," the woman in the portrait says and rubs at her eyes. Then she looks down – and her eyes find D, still caught in action of almost drawing his sword. "Oh?" she says. "Oh, oh, my dear Headmaster, you brought me a lovely new thing!"

Harry Potter blinks at her and then turns to look at D in confusion. "Lovely," he says and tilts his head. "I guess. He sort of wandered in though, I didn't bring him."

"Hello there, love," the portrait says and then swoops in suddenly, her image zooming in – though she seems stuck in the portrait. "Hi, hello, welcome to Hogwarts! Oh, it's been so long since we've had guests! My name is Lavender, and you, you are a beautiful sight after so long! Please tell me the headmaster made you feel welcome, because if it's up to me, you're welcome to stay."

D lowers his hand uncertainly and glances at Harry Potter, who just seems a little amused. "It's not up to you, Lavender, but yes, he is," he says and then frowns. "Well, I offered him food and room anyway, I don’t think he actually accepted either though."

"Oh, please stay," the woman in the portrait, Lavender says, and claps her chin in both hands in almost theatrical look of a heartsick girl. "This castle could use some more beautiful things – I can't carry all the slack here, and I deserve some eye candy too, and the mirrors are just ghastly and –"

"Moving right along," Harry Potter says and does just that, setting out again at a leisurely pace. D hesitates and follows – and so does the portrait, jumping from her frame in to the next one, almost bowling over a group of sleeping men by a table full of chemical equipment.

"Hey, watch it," one of them grunts and then peers at her – and then down at the corridor in front of him. "Lord Potter!" the man squawks and almost topples over with surprise, sending the table he was sitting on falling forward and waking up the rest of the men in the portrait.

"Good morning, professors, masters," the vampire greets them all, peering at the painting even though most everyone in it had toppled off the frame. "Everyone alright in there?"

"Oh, they are fine," Lavender assures him, waving a hand at them. "Old men, such bad coordination."

"How dare you, young lady," one of the men says and a hand comes in frame to shake a fist at her. "Running into gentlemen’s work like that! Have some manners!"

Harry Potter shakes his head, and moves on again, with confused D and laughing painting of a young woman following him. All of the portraits – and it turns out there are quite a number of them – are very much the same. All of them move and exhibit personalities, and yet they are only paint, with no screens, no processors – and no programming.

While the vampire continues on, greeting every portrait and painting woken by the young woman on a broom, D lifts his left hand to a near by frame. "What can you sense?"

"I beg your pardon?" the venerable looking old man in the portrait scoffs at him, and then lets out a yelp of shock when D's palm shifts and the parasite's humanoid face pushes through.

"Hmm… paint," the hand says. "Wooden frames, some more paint, canvas under it, more paint, and oh look, a stone wall."

"Nothing else?" D asks.

"It is nothing else," Harry Potter answers from ahead over his shoulder. He's looking at them from the corner of his eye. "Now what is that?"

D squeezes his hand into a fist and lowers it. The vampire's eyes are sharp and interested now, and when he slowly turns to face D, bloody lollipop held on one hand, D almost steps back.

The man is most definitely a Noble, and a powerful one at that. The throwaway claim of nine thousand years wasn't just words – he really has lived for so long. D's hand itches to grab his sword, even though the Noble in front of him shows no signs of hostility.

"May I see?" Harry Potter asks, holding out his free hand.

D tightens his fingers, nails digging into his palm – and the parasite retreats, the contours of his face smoothing down to D's palm again. Once it's all gone, D opens his fingers and lifts his hand.

Harry Potter arches an eyebrow at him and then pops the lollipop back into his mouth. Then he lifts a hand, now holding something else, drawn from his plentiful sleeve. A long piece of smooth wood, too thin to be a stake and too thick to be a needle.

D tenses, but the vampire makes no move to attack – he flicks the thing once at D's hand and then pauses, watching D's palm. Nothing happens.

"Strange," the vampire says, and then moves forward. D holds his ground, though it's a near thing, and when the vampire goes to touch his hand he pulls it back. "I am merely looking," Harry Potter says and D gives him a look. "It's not magical, is it?"

D doesn't say anything.

"Something like that and it's not magical," the vampire hums and pokes a single finger against D's palm. Even that single touch of his fingertip feels cool. "At least not in way I know magic. And it came and went in your hand, that's tinkering with dimensions. You have an alternate dimension inside your body? That's… a little unusual."

D watches the thoughts move and flicker on the vampire's face – but there is neither revulsion, fear, nor even actual fascination there, just mild, almost academic interest. "A dimensional being with a personality, voice and apparently some powers of chemical analysis…"

D pulls his hand back and the vampire's vivid green eyes turn to him.

"You're a craftsmanship of the Vampire King, aren't you?" he asks, and D tenses all over. Harry Potter nods slowly.

Then, as suddenly as his interest rose, it fades away again and he turns around. "The portraits are magic, old magic," he says. "Enchanted with simile of the personalities of their subjects, what the painter – or the force that produced the painting – knew of them. They usually aren't exactly accurate, but the similarities tend to be close enough. Like our dear Lavender here," he motions at the young woman on a broomstick. "She wasn't much for flying when she was alive."

"It's a way to get around," the young woman says and winks at D. "Don't mind the old man – he's mental."

D looks between them, lowering his hand into the shelter of his cloak. Then, as Harry Potter with seemingly no interest and no care continues onward, he follows.

Usually when vampires of any level figure out that there is any connection between him and the Sacred Ancestor, it goes one of two ways. They try to kill him to gain prestige over the Missing King… or they stumble over themselves to bend to his will, perhaps in some faint hope of serving their Lord again.

But then, Harry Potter hadn't figured out the blood relation – only that the Sacred Ancestor had a hand in D's… creation.

"Why do you say you're not a Noble?" D asks slowly, as he moves to follow the vampire.

"A Noble is a member of Nobility, a social class with which I, in this particular case, never was," Harry Potter says. "And Noble is a person with authority, land, people, and usually a court he or she is part of and serves. Some of that might apply, but some doesn't in my case. Noble is also a position of heritance, usually – and I was hired into my position of authority. And of course…"

He glances backwards to D. "I don't want to be. I might be a vampire like they are, but I refuse the fruits of their labour when part of that labour was the systematic destruction of my world."

D frowns. "You mean to say you predate this one," he says slowly.

Harry Potter sighs and pops the bloody lollipop into his mouth. "Well, it's the same world, on the surface. It was a world divided, before. Magic and all it held within hidden below the surface of everything else above. The Nobility took one and unleashed it upon the other – and so, what it was before was destroyed."

D says nothing, waiting for more, but the vampire lord shakes his head and then continues onward, falling in idle silence again.

"I've never heard of this," D says finally.

"I'm not surprised," Harry Potter says around the lollipop. "There was a war and then another and then a third, and Nobility came on top – and winners write the history books. Or, in this case, don't."

D bows his head a little and then looks at another painting – this one of a deep, ancient looking forest with beams of light screening through the thick canopy. There, on the sunbeam crossed darkness, a glowing equine creature grazes.

It has a horn, but it's far more delicate than any Unicorn D has ever seen – and slain.

Harry Potter continues onwards, and in silence D follows.

The magical castle is bigger than D had thought it would be. Still not as large as true Noble castles, but somehow it seems to go on forever regardless of its dimensions. Perhaps that where Harry Potter's knowledge on alternate dimensions came – from experience. It certainly seems like this place has been in some ways expanded.

D trails the vampire to towers and into catacombs, past hundreds of sleeping portraits and handful of ghosts, some of the cheerful and some of them not so much. He sees numerous corridors and rooms – actual class rooms, with dozens of tables and benches sitting in neat row, waiting for students that had stopped coming thousands and thousands of years ago. Harry Potter even takes him into dormitories, where in warm common rooms fires still blaze and freshly made beds await. The house elves, according to Harry Potter, kept everything neat and clean.

There's a sadness about it that the vampire Headmaster's idle nature can't quite dismiss, which slowly seeps into D. This is a place stuck in time, waiting for people who will never come, managed by staff who cannot move on, who wait and sleep the years away.

And yet, Harry Potter is a vampire, a vampire lord no matter what title he does and doesn't claim. And as such, he must eat.

"How have you survived these years if you haven't fed?" D asks, as they stand on what Harry Potter calls the Astronomy Tower, where the vampire peers at the dark skies above them through an ancient looking telescope.

"With these," the vampire says without looking away from the device, and takes yet another blood red sucker from his pocket. "The elves make them for me; make sure I never run out."

"But that is…" D frowns.

Harry Potter blindly holds it out for him and, finally, D accepts it, taking the thing into his fingers warily. Frowning a little, the vampire hunter loosens the plastic wrap around the lollipop and then removes it, examining the surface of the… candy. It looks like any other round bit of hard sweet stuck on a stick that a human child might enjoy. You could never make blood in such a form surely, he thinks, and yet… the scent is very real.

"Try it," Harry Potter says and finally looks up, leaving the telescope behind with a sigh and moving onto the wall surrounding the flat top of the tower instead, leaning his elbows onto it. He looks bored, again. "I promise it's not poison."

D casts him a suspicious glance and then considers the lollipop. It looks innocuous enough and that's the problem he has with it. It's so innocent looking and yet…

Very carefully, he takes a taste.

A wryly amused smile breaks to the vampire's face and he leans his chin into his palm idly, watching D's expression as D frowns and then eyes the lollipop in confusion.

It's… blood.

It's just blood.

It melts on his tongue and then it feels as if he just took a drink of actual blood and nothing else. The visceral, iron tinted taste of it is spreading on his tongue as per usual, all but taking over his mouth, overwhelming like real blood. And yet, he can't tell what blood is it. Human, animal, bird or some other… he can't tell. It's just blood.

D lowers the thing and stares at the vampire.

"Food transfiguration is a special ability of house elves," Harry Potter explains, smiling a little into his fingers. "It took them thousand years or so to make them as good as they are, but it wasn't as if they had anything else to do – and it is the only food I can eat, so they had incentive."

"What materials are used to make this?" D demands.

Harry Potter shrugs. "Eggs, flour, salt, sugar, iron, various other things. Bit of magic, bit of alchemy, and voila. Blood pop."

"This could change everything," D says slowly.

"Not really," the vampire answers and looks away. "We had something very similar, if not quite as convincing, before. Nobility preferred the real thing."

D frowns and looks at the lollipop. Yes, they would, wouldn't they? "There are others who would pay a hefty price for something like this," he says quietly. "People like myself."

Harry Potter arches an eyebrow at him. "Are there more of you guys these days?" he asks, glancing D up and down

"… there are some," D says and frowns, looking away. "And synthetic blood is very expensive."

"Ah," the vampire says and looks away – down, to the human village below them. "I suppose you have to buy it from Nobility?"

D bows his head a little in agreement, eying the blood red sucker in his hand. Then, still somewhat warily, he puts the whole thing in his mouth.

It's like having a full mouthful of blood, melting sluggishly over his senses, tricking down his throat. In an instant it's already more fulfilling than the meagre blood capsules he buys monthly, and the bloody lollipop hasn't diminished in the slightest.

How would one of these last, how long would it sustain him? For a dhampir the need for blood is more psychological than physical – though there is a physical element to it. Mostly though it was about sating the urges before they got better of you. A thing like this…

Begrudgingly D takes it off his mouth again, swallowing around the lingering taste. It hadn't quite sated he ever present thirst, but it got close.

"You can have more," Potter says and turns to look outside again. "There's plenty and the elves will be happy to make more."

D swallows again and then looks at him. "I was sent here to kill you if need be," he admits.

"Yeah, I figured," the vampire agrees and glances at him. "Are you going to try?"

D frowns and Harry Potter nods in agreement, turning his eyes back to the town below them, the lines of light that marked the street lights. There was a long moment of silence, and whatever tension there had been lingering has passed – it is almost comfortable now.

D has never felt so at ease next to a vampire – and if the vampire in question had never felt tension, he'd certainly not shown it.

"Hogwarts doesn't usually get this close to settlements," Harry Potter says quietly. "She tends to stick to following the leylines and pops up in old magical sites, where-ever she can find them. I can't feel any earth magic here, though, and we're not on a leyline."

"What does that mean?" D asks, watching him.

"There's something down there," Potter says, nodding at the town. "At a guess, a child with magic who has just turned eleven."

D frowns at him.

The vampire's eyes slide over to look at him. "It used to be that one tenth of a percentage of the human population had a magical… gene, I suppose," he says and looks down again. "Then Nobility started tinkering with humanity to make them more susceptible to vampire thrall, among other things, and the expression of that gene waned. It still happens, occasionally, when there's a pure enough human family – a magical child can be born in it."

He sighs. "They don't tend to live long, though," he says with a frown. "If they aren't killed by their own families for showing abnormal abilities, then a Noble might catch a rumour of them, and do the deed themselves. Hogwarts accepts students at age of eleven, and… rare are magical kids who live to see that age."

D looks at him and then town below them. "And?" he asks coolly.

Harry Potter closes his eyes. "I don't know," he admits. "My people died thousands of years ago. Hogwarts hopes to bring them back, but in this era of Nobility… it will never happen. Even if I could ever convince a human family to leave their child in the care of a vampire to teach that child powers beyond their understanding… hah."

D frowns at that. Yes, he can imagine how it would go. The child, if ever returned, would be shunned if not killed for having any connection to the Nobility. However…

"The era of Nobility is over," D says.

The vampire opens his eyes and looks at him.

"Human Revolutionary Government claimed the Capital," D says. "They've been in rule for about hundred years now."

"… what?" Harry Potter asks.

The vampire hunter arches his eyebrows. "Humans won the war. Nobility is no longer in power."

The vampire just stares at him, his face blank with incomprehension. "What?" he asks, a little sharper now, and rises his head. "How? What war?"

"The War. The last one," D says and looks away. "No one knows why, but some time ago the Nobility started losing power," he explains. "When the Revolutionary Government took the Capital, most of its inhabitants were asleep in the catacombs below. They slay them in their coffins, and so the Capital became a human city instead."

Harry Potter stares at him in utter in shock. "They… started losing power?" he asks.

D nods and glances at him. It's not the incredulity of a man unwilling to accept his kind had a weakness – there is no pride or arrogance on Harry Potter's pale face. Just disbelief and confusion.

"I –" the vampire says, running a hand over his chin and then turning to D. "You're not lying?"

"I promise you, I am not," D says, watching him closer now.

Harry Potter stares back, a little suspicious – and maybe a bit hopeful. Then he looks down at the town below. "I need to see this for myself," he then decides.

Before D can do more than grip the handle of his sword, the vampire vaults himself over the edge of the tower wall, elaborate robes and cloaks and all – and moment later, he's gone in flutter of wings. D leans over the edge and searches with his eyes – but all he sees is the shadow of a bird of some kind, already rushing towards the town.

"Well now you've done it," his hand mutters as D swallows a curse and throws himself over the tower's wall, fully intending to drop down to the ground below and follow the vampire on foot, maybe get his horse if he was on the right side of the castle when –

He's almost gently pushed back onto the tower.

Blinking, D glances around – he's back to standing on top of the tower, surrounded by ancient telescopes and stars.

A spell of some sort, to prevent people from jumping off the tower? Why?

Shaking his head, D whirls around on his heel and then rushes towards the entrance leading into the tower – and thankfully, it doesn't push him back this time, letting him back inside and at the stairs.

"You believe him?" his hand asks. "About all the magical school nonsense and whatnot?"

"The castle is proof enough," D says, going the stairs down four and five steps at a time, and then he looks at his right hand – he's still holding the bloody sucker.

"That guy, doesn't seem like he's been around people much," his hand comments with a little mean laugh. "And these pops of his, they really can't beat the real thing, can they? All those humans with their little beating hearts and hot red blood in their veins. Anything might happen."

"Mm," D agrees around the lollipop, and then keeps on running.

Chapter Text

The castle of Hogwarts is like a maze now that D is running around in it without a guide and without full idea about where the actual exit is. It has none of the clean design of true vampire castle, and it's obvious that it wasn't built all in one go – rather, it was build over many years, many centuries, adding new wings and new towers and new additions until the result was a maze of winding corridors leading back into themselves, with no clear idea which was the right way.

In the end, he resorts to jumping out of the window – which, granted, he kept trying on the higher levels multiple times until, on the first floor, it finally worked and the castle finally let him out.

Considering that the place was school, such a thing made sense – one did not want students falling off sixth floor window, or jumping off rooftops. On more personal level, D found it extremely vexing. All in all it took him almost ten minutes to finally get out of the castle – by which time its lord might've done who knows what in the village below.

D finds his cyborg horse grazing idly on a patch of dry grass by some sort of decorative stone pavilion, and then watches with some confusion how the horse walks right through the said pavilion.

Around him, the castle blurs and shifts and changes – and whatever enchantment had allowed him to see it and exist in it with some semblance of normalcy fades – and suddenly, D is standing in ruins, and this time there is not a single upstanding structure there that he can see. There are only collapsed walls, and crumbling brickwork.

No time to figure out how the strange enchantment might work, D shakes his head and then mounts his horse. Moment later he is riding through what he is fairly sure was a corridor connecting two sections of the castle together only a moment ago – yet now only mounds of grass and moss covered rocks remain.

"That is one powerful enchantment," his hand comments. "Even I can't tell the difference now."

D doesn't answer, urging his horse down the side of the hill and towards the darkened village before. Even at a distance he can feel the terrified hush that has fallen over the village with the arrival of the vampire lord in their midst. Windows have slammed shut and been covered by curtains and whatever else they could cover them with, doors had been locked, lights doused. Slowly, terrified stillness spreads.

D rides right into the heart of it, the hoof beats of his horse echoing against now darkened houses as he searches out for the vampire. "Where?" he demands. "Can you sense him?"

"I can smell the damn lollipop. Right," his hand answers with a light twitch, and D tugs on the reins, sending his horse right.

The scent leads them the main square of the village, where they'd paced the road with cobble stone and even pitched a statue to some hero of theirs in the square. There, D finds Harry Potter – sitting on the statue's stone pedestal, one leg crossed over the other under his robes and cloaks, holding a slightly crumbled newspaper with the blood pop held between his fingers like a cigarette.

D rides over and then pulls the reins – the horse rears on its hind legs for a moment and then its fore hoofs descend with a metal clatter that echoes in the otherwise abandoned square. The noise is followed by immediate silence, and it seems as if the very world around them holds its breath.

Harry Potter turns a page.

"Revolutionary Government," the vampire says and shakes his head. "Thousands and thousands of years, and all this happens while I'm asleep."

D stares at him, taking a slow breath of the air. All he can smell is the bloody lollipop on the vampire's hand. No human scent on him, no spilled blood, no death.

D swings down from the horse's back. "You shouldn't have come here like this," he says.

The vampire glances at him over the paper's edge and then shakes his head. "I'm too old to be shy," he says simply, and lowers the paper a little. "Why is it called the Revolutionary Government if it's been in charge for hundred years?"

"It's… only been in charge of hundred years," D says slowly.

Harry Potter looks at him and arches his eyebrows a little. "Right, people of now are used to regimes lasting for thousands of years," he says and then leans back, looking up at the sky for a moment. Slight sickle of the moon shows through the shredded clouds. "Well, they'll learn."

"Learn what?" D asks coolly.

"Fragility of human governments," the vampire answers and glances up. "Before nobility took over, before the nuclear war wrecked the world, there were dozens of human governments, forever fighting each other, and even the nations that stood for hundreds of years either changed, were shattered or just crumbled to ruins. Limited life spans and all that. Sure there were nations that lasted for thousand years, even longer – but they were exceptions. Hundred years for an empire the size of this Revolutionary Government, that's a long time."

He stopped frowning. "Actually I think this Revolutionary Government is the biggest human empire in existence. Hm. Tell me, does Nobility now fall under human rule or are they considered a different nation?"

D doesn't answer – in truth, he's not even sure what the man is talking about. He's read about nations in ancient, ancient files of the Nobility as things of distant history best left in past, but… "As far as the Revolutionary Government is concerned, there is only one government. Nobility is considered…"

He's not actually sure. Politics has never been of interest for him – he's been an outsider in both the era of the Nobility and he remains such here and now, in the era of humanity.

Harry Potter eyes him silently, waiting, and in the end D shakes his head. "Enemy," he says simply.

That makes the vampire arch his eyebrows. "So, if I wanted to pay my taxes, I'm more likely to buried in blades than bureaucracy?" he asks.

"Taxes," D asks with disbelief.

The vampire sighs and shakes his head, turning his attention to the paper again. "I hid away during the time of Nobility; I wanted nothing to do with them. Nine thousand years as hermit, I wouldn't mind joining society now that their time is over. I suppose I can't."

D can't comprehend him at all – it is as if the man is from another world entirely, one that worked by different natural rules, and even stranger moral laws.

Harry Potter looks at the paper again and then shakes his head, folding it. "Well nothing fun is ever easy," he says. "Do you think I could talk to the Mayor here?"

"… not without people here trying to kill you, I don't think so," D says slowly. "Why do you want to talk to the Mayor?"

"To make myself known, to establish myself as an citizen. Possibly to figure out whether or not I need to pay for renting their land," Harry Potter says like it's obvious and motions at the hill where the ruins of Hogwarts stood. "We did take over a sizable sum of their land there, after all. And I don't think we're leaving anytime soon."

D just stares at him.

"You were hired by these people to deal with me, right?" the vampire asks. "So, you can deal with it. Arrange a meeting or something."

D blinks slowly.

"What?" Harry Potter asks, now sounding a little exasperated.

"You really were never part of the Nobility, were you?"

The vampire sighs and tucks the paper under his arms, getting up from where he is sitting, under the statue. D thinks it's, ironically enough, statue of some local hero who probably killed a vampire or something of the sort. They are holding a stake, even.

"I was an Auror until I got bitten in the line of duty, then I became a professor, I taught my students Defence Against the Dark Arts until they, probably in lack of better options, made me the Headmaster of Hogwarts, and now I've been that for, oh, nine and half millennia or so," Harry Potter says. "I have never, in my life, claimed a title of any type, not beyond those I earned. And to this day, professor was by far my favourite."

D doesn't really know what to say to that and in the end he can only shake his head with something like bewilderment. Nodding, Harry Potter plops the lollipop into his mouth with satisfaction.

"So, about the meeting," the vampire says. "Can you arrange something?"

D takes a breath to say no, and then looks away.

This vampire is like nothing he's met. Thousands of years and about as many vampires, and Harry Potter is first, perhaps only, of his kind. A vampire who acts nothing like a vampire ought to. If D didn't know the man was one, if the signs weren't there…

D bows his head a little.

There'd been time when he'd held a… hope. When he'd lived surrounded by Nobility and only seen the sides of them they showed to each other – the sides humans never saw. The Nobility that wrote books and made art and created wonderful things – the Nobility that appreciated creation and beauty, which had seemed so wonderful… which D had even believe in, before he learned what it all was build upon.

There were vampires who had once claimed to be teachers and professors, who found pride in those titles, in betterment of society. But even those Nobles had eventually bared their teeth to tear the lives of their human slaves, to drain their lifeblood for their own sustenance and pleasure.

What's to say Harry Potter would be any different?

D looks at the vampire, who is holding the half diminished lollipop in hand, patiently waiting on him – and, that's it maybe. Harry Potter feels different, he acts different. There is none of that otherworldly grace about him, the poise and pretence of grandeur. Harry Potter is poised and grand and graceful, yes – but only to a point, by nature rather than design.

There is no pretence of dignity and prestige about him, that lordliness and magnificence that Nobility so cherished. And he's talking about paying taxes to humans. What Noble would ever do such a thing?

"It will happen on ground of my choosing," D says. "If the humans agree. By terms I select."

That would be the only way to ensure safety of both parties, if one sought to injure the other – and even if Harry Potter wouldn't and D still has his doubts about that, the humans certainly would.

The vampire eyes him and then nods. "Alright," he says. "Agreed. Just tell me when and where, and I will be there."

D nods slowly. "How do I tell you?"

"You know where to find me – and it's not as if I’ll be going anywhere," Harry Potter says.

D looks up to the hill overlooking the village and sighs. "I can't see the castle anymore," he admits. "It's all in ruins now."

The vampire blinks at him and peers up – up above the hill, where the castle supposedly stood in its full glory. "That's interesting," he says then, humming. "Well, no matter. Come here."

D doesn't.

"Come here," Harry Potter says, a bit more insistent, and takes out his thin stick of wood again. "I'll key you into the wards and then you can come and go as you please."

"I wouldn't," D's left hand says.

"Of course, if you try and damage the castle in anyway, I will have to stop you," Harry Potter adds, glancing at the hand. "Not that I think you can. That castle withstood the destruction of an entire land mass – it will take little more than a little dimensional tear and sword to hurt her."

"Little?!"

D shakes his head and then steps closer. "Watch it," he says then when the vampire aims the stick at him.

"Easy now," the vampire says with some amusement and taps the stick once against his chest.

Something trembles and in a single mind bending move, the hill goes from being covered in strange ruins to being capped by a magnificent, sprawling fortifications. And it really is a move; it doesn't just fade into being.

It grows. The castle of Hogwarts seems to simply sprout into being, towers reaching for the sky like flowers and halls pushing their way out of the ground and into existence, growing and expanding until they took their rightful size and place amidst the buildings.

Harry Potter looks backwards at the impossible castle on the hill and smiles with a shrug. "There we go," he says and puts his strange little stick away again. "You can find me up there when you have anything new for me, just ask for the elves and they'll show you the way."

D blinks at the castle and then looks down at the vampire. "Anything you would like for me to tell the Mayor?" he asks wryly.

The vampire considers it for a moment. Then he shrugs. "I come in peace?"

"Like hell he does!"

D watches impassively as the Mayor paces up and down the room, all but chewing at his thumb. "A Noble, here, with a castle to boot," the man grumbles and then glances at him. "H-how big would you say it is? We still can't see it, just the ruins – is it going to spread, how large forces does he have –"

D smothers the urge to sigh. Why did he agree to this? This not his job, this is very nearly the complete opposite of his job. "Mayor," he says. "You are dealing with an at least nine thousand year old vampire, easily one of the strongest I have ever encountered. It doesn't matter what forces he has."

"And why didn't you deal with him?" the Mayor demands. "That's what we hired you to do, to find if this was caused by a vampire and then deal with it."

"… yes," D agrees. "However, the vampire has so far done no damage –"

"What does that matter, it's a Noble, it's only matter of time!" the Mayor says and waves his hand violently to the way of the window, through which they can see the hill where the castle stands. "Already people are too terrified to go out side, already we're expected to find any one of our young women bitten and turned – or, or worse! And you expect me to meet with this Noble?!"

D bows his head a little, and now he does sigh. He shouldn't have agreed to this, he really shouldn't have – but for a moment Harry Potter's casual lack of hostility had blindsided him. Here, he's fully met by harsh reality.

The Mayor takes a deep, shuddering breath and tries to calm down. "Tell me honestly, Vampire Hunter – can you deal away with this Noble?"

D looks up and then away again.

Were this but a day ago, he wouldn't have hesitated. Win or lose, he would've done his all to try, and had he lost his life in the attempt, it would have been worth it.

Day ago, his hopes hadn't yet been rekindled – and now that they have, he has hard time letting them go just yet.

"If Harry Potter attacks the people of this village, I will do my best to kill him," D says. "If he even tries, I do my utmost to stop him. But so far, he hasn't."

The Mayor makes a face. "I thought you were the one who always went after vampires, no matter what," he spits D's way. "I guess that's what I get for believing such ludicrous rumours."

"I am a vampire hunter, not a hired assassin," D answers and looks up. "I will not kill someone who so far has done no harm."

"Tch!" the Mayor says and paces a little more. "Well – obviously…" he pauses and considers. "The vampire wants to meet with myself – fine. We will have a meeting in, say, a warehouse – I should be able to get men together and –"

"No," D says.

"What you mean, no?"

"If the meeting will take place, it will do so only at place and time of my choosing," D says coolly. "And no, you will not get men together to ambush Harry Potter."

"I am your employer!" the Mayor snaps.

D sighs and closes his eyes for a moment. The man is only afraid and nervous, he thinks. Humans get stupid when they're like that. "Then as your employee I have duty to keep you from committing suicide," he says. "As it is you hired me to investigate the castle and deal with any threat I found. I have done so, I found no true threat and as such I could very well consider our contract over."

The Mayor opens his mouth and then closes it with a snap, looking troubled. "Surely not," he says. "The castle is still there, the Noble is still there. The threat obviously remains."

"As of now, I don't think Harry Potter poses you any threat," the vampire hunter says simply. "But he is nine thousand years old, perhaps older, and he possesses powers I can't even begin to understand. If you make him your enemy, then he will become a very powerful one indeed."

The Mayor chews his lip. "Then what are we supposed to do?" he demands in a wail. "Just bend to his will?!"

"Meet with him, on my terms, under my protection," D says simply. "Hear what he has to say. You might even like it."

"How could I possibly like anything a damn Noble has to say?!"

"Well, for one thing, he wants to pay rent for the hill," D says dryly. "And there were taxes mentioned."

The Mayor stares at him, with the same incredulity D still feels. "Rent? Taxes? A Noble?"

"He is rather… unusual," D agrees.

The Mayor stares at him a moment longer and then runs his hands over his face. He takes a breath and then releases it – and then he goes for the bottle of brandy he has sitting on his table, which he has already taken a healthy helping off.

"Fine," he says, and his hand shakes as he pours. "I'll meet with him. But if he tries anything –"

"I will do everything I can to stop him," D promises with a slight bow of his head and then moves to leave, hoping quietly that this wouldn't damage his reputation as a vampire hunter.

Well. Couple hundred years and no one would even remember the whole thing, if it went badly.

D scouts out the area around the town quietly, walking through the orchards and farm fields and checking the nearby houses. For such a strangely medium sized place, the village is fairly prosperous – most of the orchards are well defended with electrical fences and even electromagnetic fields and the few herds of the villages are sizable and well fed.

It's no wonder the people here got so nervous at the appearance of the ruins – it doesn't look like they've had many troubles here.

"If this goes badly, you can say bye-bye to your fame and probably fortune too, heh," D's left hand laughs against the reins he's holding as he guides his horse through the paths between fields. "You might go from the best vampire hunter of the business to the one who brought a vampire down upon an unsuspecting village."

"Always a risk," D says quietly.

"Yeah, right," the parasite cackles. "But normally it's one already doing some attacking, nice and convenient for you when things go south and people end up dead – it's never your fault is it, when vampire is doing the attacking. Here, though, nothing has happened yet. If after this meeting things go south… well. Who brought the vampire into town?"

D says nothing, scanning the scenery in the uneasy silence. The parasite isn't wrong, though – if Harry Potter proved to be a more traditional vampire after all, if he did attack the villagers… it would be D's fault, if he failed to stop it.

"We need to take precautions against it."

"We," the parasite scoffs. "What we?"

D glances down at his hand. "If I don't eat, you don't eat."

"What I eat doesn't come with five digit price tag, you might recall."

D narrows his eyes at that and then thinks back to the bloody lollipops the vampire of Hogwarts castle had dispensed so easily. Easily a month's dose of blood for a dhampir of D's level – and it cost him nothing. Better yet, Harry Potter had offered, even promised, him more and all without asking for a price.

He should have asked how long the strange candy could be kept.

"I know why you like him, though," the parasite says, now a little more subdued. "I see it too. He reminds you of the Vampire King."

D bows his head. Thing is – no, he didn't. Harry Potter wasn't anything like the Vampire King. If his facade as D had seen it is truly the man's true nature, then… he is nothing like the Sacred Ancestor.

But he might be little bit like what D had hoped he could be, once upon a time.

D sighs and turns the horse around. He's spent enough time dreaming – time to find a meeting place.

Chapter Text

The meeting would be held one hour to sunrise, in a small clearing near the village, east of the castle. It was surrounded by open fields and had neither cover nor shelter to take in, which D in the end decided would be the safest way to go around. No places for shooters to hide in, and no places for a vampire to shelter from the sun, it gave the meeting a time limit and made it impossible for the Mayor to bring in any back up that would go unnoticed.

"Of course, I am not entirely familiar with the village or whatever arsenal they might have," D tells Harry Potter. "They might have sniper rifles."

The vampire shrugs his shoulders. "Not a concern for me," he says without much care. "So as long as the Mayor agreed to the meeting, I'm more than satisfied."

"He did," D promises, though the man definitely hadn't done so happily. "Anything you'd like to make known before the meeting?"

The vampire considers it for a moment and then shakes his head. "Not really, there's no point before I actually meet the man and see what he's like," he says and turns away, to continue down the corridor he'd been walking when D had came upon him. "Are you staying for the night? I understand the elves have prepared a suite for you."

D hesitates, casting a glance at the castle around them. "No," he says then. Though he is curious, it would only complicate the matters.

"Suit yourself," the vampire says with a mild smile and shake of his head. "You're disappointing the poor elves though."

D doesn't say anything to that. Disappointing creatures he didn't even know existed few days ago doesn't really bother him all that much. "Till morning," he says instead and turns to leave.

Harry Potter hums in agreement and then calls back. "Whether the meeting works out or not, Hogwarts has settled here," he calls after him. "So whatever demands the good Mayor has, please feel free to tell him that leaving is not an option."

D glances at him over his shoulder and the vampire lord smiles faintly. "Not making threats," he says. "Simply stating facts. The basement levels extended a little during the day - we're firmly rooted in here now. It'll be century at least before she'll move again. So, we're staying, whether people here like it or not."

The sky was covered in thin wisps of clouds when the meeting time comes. D peers up at the sky, wondering at it - rare were the regions who had these sorts of weather patterns. Most went from sunny to rain and back to sun as their needs and funds demanded - very few bothered with the grey, rainless overcast.

It makes for a gloomy atmosphere, even as the sky begins to lighten in the east with the approach of sunrise.

"Here we go," D's hand murmurs.

The first one to appear by the meeting place is the Mayor - and naturally, he goes against all his promises and doesn't come alone. Two men ride at each side of the man - both of whom look deadly serious and heavily armed. The Mayor himself is all but shaking in his boots, and as he goes to dismount his horse, he almost slips and falls.

"I thought I made my terms clear," D comments, casting a look at the bodyguards.

"And I'm thinking we're meeting with a damn Noble, and I am not taking my chances," the Mayor snaps. "I have a village to run here, and if anything happens to me, it'll be all over for this place! I simply can't risk it. You're lucky I didn't bring in more!"

He did bring more though. D can both hear and smell them - hidden behind a barn some six hundred meters towards the village, a group of men and their horses, hidden from view. And if he can smell it, then Harry Potter would be able to as well.

D smothers the urge to sigh. It was expected, he tells himself. There was never a chance the Mayor would honour the terms he set, not with his attitude - and D had already shaken the man's trust and belief in his abilities by siding with a vampire on any level. Of course the man wouldn't take him seriously.

All he can hope now is that Harry Potter takes no offence.

"Well this is a party."

D just barely keeps from going for his sword.

The short haired, bespectacled vampire lord doesn't arrive, doesn't have the courtesy of neither riding in nor even flying over. He simply is there, suddenly, sending D's nerves screaming while the humans jump back in terror.

The vampire lord eyes them with idle curiosity, adjusting his golden rimmed glasses with a single finger and then shrugging his shoulders. "Well more the merrier," he says, ignoring the way guns swing to aim his way. "No seating, hm?" he casts a look at D.

D glares at him.

Harry Potter arches an eyebrow and then smiles. "Alright then," he says and takes out his thin stick. "Allow me."

D and the nervous townspeople are then treated with the dubious pleasure of watching the vampire lord break all laws of nature. He waves his stick and sketches out a nice looking wooden table, and high backed, well cushioned chairs to match, before peering up at the sky curiously and then adding in a shade to cover it all - a black metal framed pavilion with cloth roof and curtains, bound up with ribbons to the metal frames.

Potter considers his impossible creation and then shrugs his shoulder. "I suppose you won't eat any food I provide. No matter," he says and puts his stick away. Then he takes a seat at the end of the table he created, leaning back. "Please," he says, looking up at the Mayor. "Join me."

The Mayor hyperventilates at him.

There is something strange about it all, though. D looks between Potter - an incredibly powerful, ancient vampire, easily oldest and definitely strongest D has met in a long time - and the nervous, fearful humans aiming their guns at him.

The insidious eldritch horror all vampires inspire in people isn't there.

The Mayor and his men fear Harry Potter because he's unknown vampire and they think he's a Noble - but they're not overcome by the biologically ingrained, debilitating terror that usually strikes humans at the presence of vampires. If they were, they'd already be running, or they'd be struck lifeless by now.

Potter watches the humans calmly. "Please," he says and motions at the table. "Take a seat. We have lot to talk about and limited time in our hands."

The Mayor takes a breath, releases it, takes another - and then he takes the seat across from the vampire, dragging the chair back so fast he almost sends it flying. When he sits, his bodyguards move to flank him, standing behind his chair with weapons aimed at Harry Potter.

"I am," the Mayor breathes in. "I am Elles Allwright, the Mayor of Terwich. Why - why are you here?"

Potter eyes the Mayor calmly and then steeples his fingers. "I am Harry Potter, the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he says, motioning at the castle, which to these people will only look like ancient ruins. "And Hogwarts is here because in your village, there is magic."

"... what?!"

It's almost fascinating, to see the confusion Harry Potter sparks in the face of someone else - and it is quite bit of confusion.

"Back in times I suppose you reckon ancient," Potter says, taking out one of his blood pops and going to unwrap it, "There were humans called Witches and Wizards who had magical powers - the sort I just displayed," he motions at the table with the lollipop. "Before Nobility took over they took some time to wipe them out - there was a bit of rivalry for power at the time, with humanity beaten to the ground it was anyone's guess who would claim the Earth, vampires or wizards. Vampires won and human wizards... died."

The Mayor shakes his head in bewilderment.

Potter plops the lollipop into his mouth. "Every so often though, there's pure enough human lineage for magic to manifest again," he says around the lollipop. "I'm not hundred percent sure, but I think it has in your village. One of your children at least is magical - I'm here to teach that person."

"Like hell you are!" the Mayor snaps as he bounces to his feet, finally finding a thread of thought he can follow and fight against. He bangs his fist against the conjured table. "You are not touching any of my kids!"

Potter peers up at him idle curiosity. "Well, I don't know if its one of yours, specifically. All I know is that there is a possibility that at least one child in this village might have the power," he says and shrugs. "Anyway, that is why I'm here."

"Well, if that's why you're here, you can just pack up and go, because you are not getting any of our children, not one, you hear!"

Potter takes the lollipop from his mouth and points it at the Mayor. "No can do," he says. "Hogwarts has taken a liking to your hill and I'm afraid we're not going anywhere."

The Mayor opens his mouth and thin, reedy sound comes out.

"From where we get to the actual reason I wanted to meet - how much for the hill?"

"E-excuse me?" the Mayor asks.

"The hill," Potter says and points the lollipop at the castle. "I considering renting it out first, but then Hogwarts went and grew roots, which means we're not going to move elsewhere anytime soon. I'm not going to be renting the place for the next hundred and more years - so, I'd like to buy it, the whole hill. Who owns it, and how much might they want for it?"

The Mayor's mouth moves and no sound comes out.

"Mind you," Potter adds. "I don't have any current currency, I'm bit out of touch with the times, so - I'm hoping pure gold and silver and such will do. Unless we go into trade of actual goods, that's really all I have to offer. I might have some gemstones too, though I don't really know what value those might be these days..."

Even D's eyebrows rise at that, while the Mayor seems to choke on nothing.

The vampire looks between them. "What?"

"P-Pure silver?" one of the Mayor's men asks.

Potter's eyebrows lift a little as the Mayor slowly descends to sit back down. Then, when the humans just stare at him, he turns to D. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You're a vampire, offering humans silver," D says a little flatly.

"Yes?"

D almost sighs. "Silver kills vampires." And just about every other creature of the night. "It is... very rare these days."

Potter's eyebrows lower a little. "Hm," he says and leans back where he sits. "... yeah that does make sense. They did eradicate every other weakness they could, makes sense they'd go after silver too," he hums and turns to the Mayor. "What is the value of silver, then? Say I have an ounce, what would I get for it? Or, ten ounces, let's go with ten."

The Mayor just stares at him.

Potter sighs and looks at D almost pleadingly.

"For ten ounces of pure silver?" D asks. "You could buy a small house, probably."

It's Potter's turn to look shocked.

"A silver bullet to the heart will kill a Noble in a single shot," D clarifies. "There is very little that's move valuable than that."

"... right," Potter says and considers it for a moment.

Then as they all stare at the - now impossibly wealthy and possibly naive - vampire, Potter leans in a little and snaps his fingers almost theatrically.

A tray pops into existence on the table between them, silver shaded with a single thing sitting on a neatly folded piece of red velvet - a solid, shining slab of silver with a strange symbol and 1 KG impressed on top.

"One kilogram of silver," Harry Potter says as they all - even D - stare at the thing in speechless shock. "Test it, check it, whatever, it's yours. Call it a gift of good will."

The Mayor opens his mouth and not a single sound comes out.

"I'm willing to buy the hill for a... reasonable number of these," Potter says, nodding at the incredibly expensive good will gift. "If that seems like something you might be interested in."

No one answers him.

"Right," Potter says and pops the lollipop back into his mouth. "I reckon you people have lot to talk about amongst yourselves, so, I'll take my leave. It's almost my bedtime," Potter says with a mild smile and then swings to his feet. "Also, another thing - I figure you guys are probably wondering about the whole... blood thing. Here."

Another snap of his fingers and another tray appears, this one with a bowl on it - bowl full of blood lollipops.

D's throat clenches a little.

"This is what I eat," Harry Potter says and stands up. "Feel free to check them as well. I haven't drunk a single drop of human blood in my entire existence, and I never will by choice."

No one says anything and the vampire sighs. "Well then," he says. "Here tomorrow, same time?"

The Mayor swallows. "T-tomorrow," he agrees.

"Wonderful," Potter says and smiles. "I hope you consider my offer seriously," he says. "And after you have perhaps we can talk about magic again."

With that said, he bows his head and disappears - leaving behind a perfectly silent group of men, most of whom are still staring at his incredible gift and D, who stares at the tray of blood lollipops and wondering about all of its implications.

Blood and silver - two weaknesses of vampire, and Harry Potter deals with them so freely.

The Mayor clears his throat. "Well," he says and his voice cracks. "T-that was..."

D arches an eyebrow at him and then looks away, towards the castle looming over the village of Terwich.

It certainly was, though, wasn't it?

Potter is lucky that his castle is so well shrouded in enchantments and only appears as ruins to people - because of course when the word of him having seemingly large amounts of silver in his possession, there were talks of claiming it all for the village.

"... and with all this silver, taking the vampire out will be no problem!" someone shouts as everyone stares at the glowing silver bar covetously. It's easily a five million dala with of silver. "We'll melt this one, make some bullets, maybe an arrow head or two and -"

"And then what?" D asks quietly and the noise in the Mayor's office ceases. "Wander the ruins looking for a way into a place you can't even perceive?"

The Mayor hums darkly. "We've had the militia check the ruins - with no success. If there is a way in, we can't find it." He looks up at D. "How is it that you see the place?"

"Harry Potter permitted it," D says. "And even before that I only saw a very limited amount of it."

"But you can see it!" the Captain of the said militia says. "If you can see it, you can enter it! You can lead us in - or you can go in, find where he keeps all the silver and..."

D stares at the man and says nothing at all and the Captain's words wither into silence awkwardly.

"No," the Mayor says and looks at the silver bar. "No, we cannot antagonise this Noble. He has - powers. And he wants to give away a fortune like this, I say we let him."

"What about the - other thing he gave you?" D asks. "Did you perform analysis on it?"

The Mayor glances up and then sighs, leaning back. "It's some form of dehydrated synthetic blood," he says and waves a dismissive hand. "But we knew Nobles had that. The fact that he can produce it isn't exactly a surprise - nor is it a guarantee that he will stick to only to it, either."

... true enough, though it woefully undersold the significance.

The Mayor looks down at the silver bar again. "D," he says then. "What does the vampire want?"

D considers him for a moment and then looks to the widow where he can see the castle, backlit by the sun. "I suspect he wants to pass on his abilities," he says. "And bring back the caste of magicians he was once part of."

"What does that mean?" the Mayor demands. "He wants to make one of our children into a Noble?"

"Into a magician," D says.

"Ghoul shit," someone mutters.

D bows his head a little.

"And what else?" the Mayor demands. "Our fealty? Subservience? To let him run free in our lands, make them his?"

D smothers a sigh. "You know as much of his intentions as do I, Mayor," he says. "I can't guess at his future plans."

"Well what can you tell me?" The Mayor demands.

"I can tell you that what you are dealing with isn't a normal vampire – and he's definitely not a Noble as we know one," D says wryly. "This is a vampire that spent the years Nobility ruled in self imposed isolation. I don't think he even knows how a vampire is expected to act."

D finds Harry Potter in the castle's great dining hall again the next time he goes looking for him - this time the vampire is sitting by one of the four long tables, now cleared of all their golden dishware.

"Hogwarts was the reason my people got wiped out," the vampire says sadly. "It was designed on a philosophy that made my people inflexible in their way of thinking. Back when it was build there was a caste system and this idea that people fell into four distinct personality groups - leaders, warriors, thinkers and workers. We sorted our students by traits supposedly suitable for each group and the system didn't... age well. And Hogwarts was the oldest of our schools, every school built after it was based on it, all with similar systems of houses..."

The vampire trails away, looking over the great hall and its four long tables. Then he looks over his shoulder and at D. "Did you go to a school?"

D doesn't answer.

"It's a very formative experience. Can and often will determine your entire life," the vampire says and looks away again. "In the end what we had was people who grew up surrounded by people just like them in environments that confirmed all their biases and enforced this idea that everyone who thought differently was part of another group - not one of us but one of them. And after seven years of this at school they took their biases with them into adult life - once a Gryffindor, always a Gryffindor. Once a Slytherin..."

He sighs and shakes his head. "When humanity shot itself in the metaphorical foot and the creatures of the night came to us, asking us to join them in taking over the planet, my people laughed in their faces. They couldn't even entertain the thought, they were simply incapable of thinking that any way but the old way could ever succeed..."

The vampire falls into a dismal silence for a moment and then sighs. "If Hogwarts is to be a school again, the house system has to go," he muses and looks up. "I don't suppose you have good news for me."

D watches him closely. "The Mayor has considered your offer," he says then. "You can have the hill for hundred kilograms of silver."

"Done."

D leans his head back a little with surprise. "You're... expected to negotiate."

"I'm a teacher, not a merchant or a politician," Potter sighs and pushes up to his feet. "And I sit on the last stronghold of my people - on top of what remains of wizards' fortunes. For us silver wasn't that valuable - I have literally tons of the stuff."

"... Ah," D says, trying to wrap his head around it. He doesn't succeed.

The vampire smiles a little. "The past is foreign country," he says with some amusement. "They do things differently there."

Chapter Text

D moves quietly through the castle, taking in the details that Harry Potter usually stops to look at and trying to discern their meanings. The wealth of history Hogwarts has occasionally strikes him, not just by it's immensity but how... mundane it is. Little wear and tear here and there and mysterious stains in places he can't discern the cause off – like a perfect star shaped hole in an otherwise perfect piece of wall, or dark hand print in ceiling some twelve feet above his head.

It makes him wonder just how long Hogwarts was a school – and was it ever anything else. It has none of the defences Noble castles usually have, there are no turrets and no barriers, the only walls it has are made of stone. It looks as if a single shell, even a smaller proton bomb, might take the whole thing out. But then, of course, it's not as if a castle shrouded in magic that looks like a set of ruins needs many more protections.

D's eyes trail to a near by portrait, where two wealthy looking ladies are watching him, clutching into each other's hands and giggling girlishly when his eyes meet theirs.

"Hello, love," one of them, with her hair done up in a way that is vaguely reminiscent of some of the hairstyles once favoured by Noble women. "Are you lost? Would you like a... guide?"

The women titter, one of them taking out a fan with feathers and hiding the bottom half of her face under it.

D doesn't say anything, looking at them for a moment. There are a lot of paintings in Hogwarts – easily several thousand of them. Some, according to Potter, had been originally Hogwarts paintings, pictures of former teachers and students who became famous. Others had been brought in by people after, for safe keeping in the one place everyone thought would never be destroyed or taken. And it hadn't been.

"Now Hogwarts has enough faded after images to be considered a village onto itself," the vampire had said and shrugged.

"I can show you around, sweetheart," the woman in the painting calls to D. "Just say the word, and I'll take you to all the most interesting places."

"Oh, oh, I know," the other woman says and lowers her fan a little. "You're a traveller, right? Oh, I just bet you're all over dirt – there are some great baths in Hogwarts, baths like nothing you've ever experienced! We could show you there, it would be wonderful!"

"And then maybe you could show us something wonderful in turn!" the first woman says and they both break into helpless giggles, their cheeks now painted red in slightly rough brushstrokes.

D shakes his head and keeps moving.

"Oh, come on, love, don't be like that!" the women call after him. "We've been so very bored here; at least you could give us a smile!"

"Heh," D's hand mutters. "I like those gals."

"Shut it," D answers and looks ahead.

He doesn't really have an aim in his wandering. Potter had welcomed him to it, saying he had some materials to prepare and that he'd be busy for the rest of the night, but D could stay in the castle for as long as he liked. In the village of Terwich the Mayor and his men were chewing through their nails, trying to figure out the predicament they found themselves in, and thus they too were thankfully busy.

The hundred kilograms of silver had been delivered post haste – so now a vampire lord legally owns land in the village, and now the villagers themselves have to contend with the fact that they'd actually sold the land to a vampire lord and can't quite take it back. And even if Potter had had no intention of leaving before, he is now been officially welcomed to stay – and the humans are only now realizing the difference. Now, if people from outside asked, they couldn't point at the castle accusingly and say there is nothing they can do, the vampire does what he wants, woe be us.

It's an interesting situation, definitely one D has never encountered before. Problem is, it leaves him on bit of lose ends.

There is no vampire threat here; Potter has no intention of attacking or harming the people as of now. And with his surplus of silver and the easy way he dispenses it, the Mayor isn't so willing to try and have the vampire killed. There isn't really any need for a vampire hunter here.

Pausing before a set of enormous windows that reach from the floor to the ceiling, D shifts his cloak a little and takes out one of the recently minted ten ounce ingots of silver he'd been given. The silver had, naturally, been melted down as quickly as it could and then dispensed into smaller sums, to be distributed and carefully guarded.

No one, not even the blustering Mayor, was stupid enough to keep half a billion dala worth of silver in single place – even one kilogram bar was far too precious a fortune for that. Therefore, ten ounce ingots, marked only by the ounce amount. No one wanted the word of Terwich's sudden wealth to get out, after all. No one wanted to invite that sort of trouble.

Flipping the oblong ingot of silver in his fingers, D looks out of the windows, and at the village. He's heard that sizable sum of the money would be going to bolstering Terwich's protections too. New electromagnetic fields and turrets at least, with armoury of state of the art laser rifles – there had even been talk of automated defences, AI tanks and whatnot.

For now, though, they had him – hired on with the silver given to them by vampire, for sums that were wildly disproportionate for a job so simple. No one to save, no one to kill or hunt, D had been hired to keep a close eye on the vampire for a sum more fitting for a higher risk job. D doubts very much his life is in any sort of danger here and yet...

"You could just take the money and go, if you're so antsy," his hand mutters. "Few days without a vampire to kill and you get withdrawals. Weirdo."

D closes his eyes and then looks down at the ingot. He's never handled much silver – it has always been such a dearly rare resource and vampires never dealt with it. For a time, humanity didn't even believe it existed; the Nobility was so good at demolishing the supply.

The idea that it was once commonplace, that it's value had been lesser... it seems a little ludicrous. But then, so was the time span one had to consider in this case.

D flips the ingot in his fingers again. His body protests against it – his fingers tingle with a faint burning sensation, and he knows if he keeps handling the metal it will give him blisters.

"I was hired to do a job," D says. "I'm going to keep on doing it for as long as I'm paid."

It just wasn't his type of job, really – and staying here and watching Potter didn't further his goals in any way. He should have rejected it when the Mayor put two million dala worth of silver in front of him and asked him to stay – it is a lot of money, but his job can pay in higher sums, often does even. There was no true call to accept the job.

And yet he had, and now he is honour bound to stay and keep an eye on a vampire that poses no threat and offers no answers. It's a waste of time, D tells himself. He should have rejected it. Why hadn't he?

"Oh for – are you really this dense?" his hand asks and face morphs into it, just under the ingot held in his fingers. The parasite peers up at the ingot distastefully and then looks at him. "I know this whole emotion thing is a little beyond you, but this goes a bit far."

D glances at him and says nothing.

"Can't hurt to take a break anyway," the parasite says. "We've been on the road for how long?

A long, long time.

D looks up as he feels a presence behind him – a house elf, half hidden behind the corner of a near by wall, peering at him from the shadows.

"B-begging your pardon, sir," the little creature says and almost ducks out of view. "But Milordy Harry Potter asks if you would like to join him?"

D looks her up and down. She's wearing a cleaner cloth than most of the elves are – a perfectly white tunic, with a belt that looks new. Both look like they're made of silk.

"Where?" D asks.

"Delly is to show the way," the house elf says nervously.

D puts the silver ingot away and turns to face to face her, almost sending her running. D takes in her quivering form and wonders about her – about the elves in general. They look like small, skinny goblins and act nothing like them.

"Lead the way," D says and the elf nods her head rapidly, sending big ears flopping before she whirls and almost runs away. Shaking his head. D moves to follow.

The nervous little elf takes him along corridors, through a wall that seemed to be an illusion, and then up a several sets of stairs which, to D's senses, feel strangely unattached. The reason for that reveals itself behind him when the same stairs suddenly swing to meet another downward facing set of stairs, making a somewhat nonsensical staircase that goes first up and then down again, leading to and from the same level.

"The staircases like to move," Delly says, wringing the hem of her silk tunic in her hands. "Sir is to be careful with them, they might make sir lost."

D eyes the stairs and then turns his attention ahead. The staircases move. "I'll keep that in mind," he says wryly, wondering if the staircases moving were part of the larger will of Hogwarts, or if they had will of their own. There was so much about the castle that didn't make sense, what was one more?

Delly leads him on, up a thankfully non-moving staircase and then to a gargoyle set into an alcove. Delly waves a hand at it, wiggling her fingers a little, and the gargoyle glances up at D and then, slowly, steps aside.

"Here sir is," Delly says. "Headmaster's office. Delly is going now."

That said, she disappears with a little pop.

D looks up, at the staircase the revealed by the moving gargoyle, and then steps ahead.

On top of the staircase, there is a wide open office with blacked out windows, with candles floating overhead, offering light. Harry Potter is there, standing in front of a wall full of portraits, most of whom are deep asleep. Old men and women, with golden plates on each portrait spelling out their names.

"That was fast," the vampire says, glancing at him.

D nods his head, taking the office in further. There are cabinets full of strange devices, the purpose of which he can't even guess at – they shift and move and tick away in their enclosures, obviously performing some function. Then there are cases full of books with leather spines and carefully penned titles like, "Complete Defensive Compendium," and "Dark Arts Through the Ages," and "Lycanthropy, Vampirism and Being Other."

There is also a large mirror, standing in the middle of the circular office, with golden frame and clawed feet and strange text on top of the frame.

"I want your opinion on something," Potter says and turns away from the paintings. Some of them are waking up now, peering down on them curiously, but none of them says anything. "Come on, come on in."

"My opinion," D repeats a little warily, but steps into the office.

Potter hums in agreement and then motions to the mirror – which D guesses isn't a permanent fixture.

"Back when wizards were more plentiful, we had devices to find those born in otherwise non magical families," Potter says. "Those devices went haywire eons ago, there are so many people with... similar abilities to magic now that they're pretty much useless. So I'm faced with the problem of how to tell if someone has magic. Come stand here," he says and motions in front of the mirror.

D doesn't, standing back and well out of reflection range. Mirrors are common tools for bending dimensions – and even more common for psychic traps and attacks. "What is it?" he asks. "What does it do?"

Potter arches his eyebrow. "It's not dangerous," he says.

"What does it do?"

The vampire sighs and steps in front of the mirror – which, of course, shows nothing but an empty office. "For me, nothing," he says and makes a face at the empty mirror. "And because of that, I can't tell if this thing still works," he admits. "Even magic isn't eternal, and lot of things lose their power over time. I need to know if this one has any juice left, so to speak."

D gives him a flat look. "What does it do," he says again, enunciating carefully.

"It shows you – and only you – your heart's desire," Potter says. "The thing you want the most, this mirror shows you having it. It's a bit of a trap, really, but it's also an easy way to tell if someone has magic – it only works for wizards, you see."

D frowns, giving the mirror an uneasy look.

"It's only a reflection of your own wishes," Potter says almost imploringly. "It doesn't do anything else, I promise you. And you don't need to look at it for long – I just need to know if it still works."

Thing that shows you what you wants – yeah, that does sound like a trap, an insidious one. And at the same time...

"Do you mind?" D asks, lifting his left hand, feeling his palm morph.

"No, go ahead," Potter says, stepping back from the mirror and folding his arms. "So as long as you don't eat the spell up."

"Ugh, no thanks," the parasite mutters, and then looks ahead as D reaches – without getting close enough to see his own reflection – to touch the frame. The parasite considers the device for a moment, sniffing faintly and then harrumphs. "It's contained," he says. "Whatever's on the mirror, it doesn't come out."

D frowns. "That's all you can tell?"

"You can tell its magic?" Potter asks curiously, stepping closer again.

"I can tell there's spell in it," the parasite says and D turns the palm upward to see him. "I can't tell what it is or how it works. Your magic is weird. But I know it doesn't come out of the mirror, at least."

Which means that even if the mirror has a dimension trap, you'd have to touch the mirror to get trapped in it. That doesn't say anything about potential psychic one, however, for those you don't need physical contact.

"That is – fascinating," Potter says, peering at D's hand. "You're a little more than a dimensional tear after all, aren't you?"

"Tch," the hand answers. "Calling me a little, I'll show you little –"

D closes his fingers, pressing them on the face until it's forced to withdraw.

"That thing is very interesting," the vampire says as D opens his hand – now with a flat, smooth palm. "I'd love to have a closer look."

"Maybe another time," D says and looks at the mirror again, feeling conflicted.

He doesn't... think Potter would attack him in such a way. For one, D doubts the vampire would even need to – D is already in his castle and the castle seems to bend reality whichever way it wants. If Potter was looking to attack him, he wouldn't need to use a mirror to do it. And yet...

"What sort of things people see in these?" D asks.

"I saw my family, when I was still capable of having a reflection," Potter admits. "My friend saw himself winning glory and awards and being famous. It depends on a person and what they want the most. A teacher of mine said that happiest man on earth would only see himself – but I doubt person like that exists. Everyone wants something."

And everyone has regrets.

D squeezes his hands into fists and wonders seriously for the first time in... Very very long time, what does he want, really? To find the Sacred Ancestor? To get answers? To get resolution? Or to turn back time to the point where he didn't yet know?

He's not sure he wants to know.

D steps in front of the mirror.

It's been a while since he looked into one. It wasn't really avoidance as much as it was simple lack of opportunity. Most people don't like to have mirrors in their houses for reasons so deeply ingrained into human tradition that they bordered on the edge of being taboo. There'd been time when the Nobility had forbidden mirrors – all the while filling their own castles with them in a strangely masochistic bit of narcissism. Now, some house holds keep mirrors at their door just to see if their guests might be inflicted – but most still don't.

His reflection hasn't much changed, D thinks, staring at himself. Still pale, still stiff, still... disturbingly familiar. So much of his mother in his face – and even more of his father. The perfect, painful blend of both.

Then there is something behind him.

D glances over his shoulder – nothing, just Potter standing to the side, watching him with idle interest. The vampire hunter looks at the mirror again – and there it is again, a white, shrouded shape behind him. For a moment it looks like it's wearing a funeral shroud – but it's all white.

A wedding gown.

And then there is another shape beside her, a tall man in blood red and black, taking her hand into his – and D steps away from the mirror, looking away.

For a long moment there is only silence as D breathes in and out and tries not to think about it – about what it says about him that he sees that in the mirror. Potter says nothing either, just folds his arms and considers the mirror.

"I guess it still works," the vampire lord says finally.

D closes his eyes and swallows around the aching dryness in his throat. "I – don't suppose I could have one of those lollipops?"

Potter takes one from his pocket and holds it out without looking at him – D can't tell if its disinterest or kindness, but he appreciates the illusion of privacy it gives. He accepts the candy and unwraps it fingers which shake thankfully only for a moment before they're steady again.

"Hmm," Potter says, stepping in front of the mirror again. "Might be a bit... much for a test of magic," he says then. "I'm sorry, D I shouldn't have asked you to do that."

D shakes his head and puts the blood pop into his mouth, closing his eyes. The taste of blood fills his mouth and eases his dry throat a little – but it does nothing to ease the ache there. "It's fine."

He'd known, he'd always known. The knowledge isn't painful – only the impossibility of his own wishes is.

Potter looks at him with a slightly forlorn look. "It was still wrong of me," he says and waves a hand at the mirror. It fades from view, disappearing into shroud of invisibility or into the ether, D isn't sure – he's only glad it's not there anymore.

Potter turns to him. "I will figure out some other way to test for magic, this isn't the right way to go about it. I'm sorry." he says again and sighs, running a hand over his neck. "I'll make it up to you somehow."

D frowns, glancing at him uneasily. "That isn't necessary."

"It'll eat away at me if I don't," Potter admits and considers him. "What to do for a man who keeps refusing all of my hospitality... hmm... I'll think of something."

D gets the distinct impression he should be worried.

Chapter Text

So far D has been staying in the village. They'd given him a room in the local hotel free of charge, though he'd refused – he stays instead in a storage house between the village of Terwich and the castle of Hogwarts looming over head, having set up a bed and table for him where vegetables were usually stored. It is no hotel room, but he prefers it.

That tends to be the way he settles into stationary life on jobs that look like they might take a while. It is simply easier to have the freedom of coming and going without being scrutinized by potential hotel staff or managers... or anyone else for that matter. It allows him to let his horse graze outside without having to stable it, and take it in when necessary without worries, and of course jump on it straight away when he needs to go in a hurry.

Side road barns and shacks tend to not have cameras either, which is something of a bonus. Most hotel rooms are by design monitored, originally just in case of any potential vampire attacks where people might need video evidence, now days... just because.

And of course living slightly apart makes the inevitable moment of when the settlement he has settled by decides to throw him out easier to handle – it is simply faster to pack up and go when all your things are close at hand, as opposed to having to trek up stairs to get everything, and then down again, while whole villages watch.

"It can't be comfortable," Harry Potter comments when he finds out about it.

"It's not about comfort," D answers dismissively. "It's about convenience."

And if he lets himself get used to comfort, he'll then miss it when he's on road.

The vampire looks at him as if he can read the thought in his mind and then sighs, looking ahead. "I'd offer you our groundskeeper's hut for use, but alas... it was left behind ages ago," he says and runs a hand over his chin. "It would have been more comfortable than a store house. Are you sure I can't have at least a bed delivered for you? Is there even any running water there?"

D shakes his head. "That is unnecessary."

"You are a hard guest to cater to," the vampire lord mutters and then shakes his head. "Well, if you're sure. Still, if you want a bath, a hot meal, anything, Hogwarts will happily provide. And I'd really like it if you did – the house elves don't have that many normal chores to do around here. Just cooking a meal for you would make them thrilled."

D looks away, frowning a little. "What are they?" he then asks. "The house elves. I haven't ever encountered them before – how to do they work?"

Potter hums. "They are..." he trails off and then sighs. "Well, to be honest – they were for us something like humans were for Nobility. Mind you, wizards didn't eat them, but we did use them. House elves were our servants. Slaves, really."

He glances at D, as if to gauge his reaction. "They get power from magical homes and taking care of them – it feeds the needs we, in part, installed in them and enforced by selective breeding. Now they are by nature subservient and eager to please and they find pleasure in chores, in pleasing others. Vile, isn't it?"

D frowns a little.

"Most of them died out when wizards did," Potter says with a shake of his head and looks ahead again, continuing along the corridor they'd been walking on. "I took in all I could find and welcomed them to stay in Hogwarts. Now there are hundreds here, serving a castle which even at it's fullest only needed about twenty at most. They're bit starved for things to do, now."

"And if you let them go..."

Potter shrugs. "They will wither in the lack of magic and die," he says simply. "Unless they find other magical houses to serve, and vampire castles and mansions are the only thing that comes even close to what a true magical house is – and even those are dying out."

D says nothing for a moment, following the vampire lord in silence down the corridor and into another yawning pit of stairs. They stand together at the foot of one staircase, watching the stairs shifting in position, locking into new doorways and making new paths.

"This way," Potter then says, and they move down a level, D stepping off the stairs just in time to watch them swing away. Potter smiles. "They're becoming more active," he notes. "I think being rooted in suits them."

"They are capable of liking things?" D asks, looking up at the moving staircases above them.

"Magic gives things personality," Potter says with a shrug and turns to move ahead again. "They are not very intelligent – magical things can only think in terms of their own function. Stairs lead to places, and these stairs like to move, so they like to move to lead to different places. That's all it is, really. The castle is a little more stable now than it usually is, though; I reckon it makes it easy to move around."

D almost sighs. The whole place made no damn sense. "And Hogwarts? How intelligent is... she?"

Potter considers that for a moment, peering up at the arched rooftop. "I don't think it's measurable in terms we might understand. She's old, she's powerful and her purpose has been... many different things over the years. School foremost, but also shelter and sanctuary – and during the last years of Wizards' lives, a stronghold. Also, every student and every teacher has left a bit of themselves into the castle and all of that shades her."

The vampire glances at D and smiles. "She is extremely intelligent in her own way – but it's not human intelligence. I know what she is thinking, most of the time – but don't ask me how she's doing it because I still haven't a clue."

D arches an eyebrow at that and then looks away. "That doesn't worry you?"

"Not in the slightest – I know her purpose after all. Even if you don't how a thing thinks, knowing what it wants and desires..." Potter smiles a little and then stops. "Speaking of which – which do you like more, beauty or mystery?"

"What?" D asks, stopping as well.

The vampire lord's smile turns a little bit mischievous. He motions at where they are – at crossing of corridors. "I'm taking you somewhere, and you need to decide. Beauty or mystery?"

D stares down at him in surprise for a moment. It's almost worrying how well that tricky expression fits the man's face – and it is definitely the most honest expression he's seen on the man. Mostly Harry Potter is only politely amused at most, but this expression reaches his eyes, makes them almost glow.

"... Mystery," D says then.

"Man after my own heart," the vampire lord says and motions. "This way, then."

D follows him, now curious, as Potter leads him down the corridor and then up the stairs while D tries to keep up where they are. Seventh floor in the main part of the castle, he thinks, trying to map it in his head – and failing, again. The castle, he's come to realise, might be bigger than its outside leads to believe.

Potter stops again, running his hand across a blank piece of wall. Then, as D watches, he paces back and forth once, twice – three times in total, before stopping to look at the wall – at the door emerging there.

"Room of Requirement," the vampire lord says, and pushes the door open. "Come in," he says to D with a little smile. "I think you, my mystery man, will like this."

Inside there is a wealth of things. One side of the room is dedicated entirely to shelves that along the cavernous space in seemingly endless, somewhat haphazard, rows. Some of them are bookshelves, others are glass windowed cabinets – few are actually cages, with iron bars running their front and padlocks keeping them locked. All of them are full of something, books, devices, endless mysterious things.

The other side of the room is less organized – it looks like an indoor junkyard, full of broken furniture and discarded painting frames, wrapped up carpets and whole mounts of throwaway pillows and cloth – but also stranger things. Mannequins still wearing strange robes, pieces of ancient armour, brooms by the dozen, orbs that look like pieces of physical planetary models...

"In last years of Wizarding World, Hogwarts had a lot of refugees from all over the world," Harry Potter says while D steps closer, just staring at all of the strange, inexplicable devices. "It also housed the last of our governments, and whatever they could scavenge from the ruins of their Ministries. Everything they left behind is here – a whole history of a people that no longer exists."

D glances at him and then looks back at the shelves, at the endless rows of books and folders – one of them has nothing but scrolls in it. "If... there were so many people here, why did they all die?" he asks finally – something which has been puzzling him for a while. "Hogwarts can house a large population and there's plenty of food..."

Potter looks down, his shoulders slumping a little. "Human beings don't do well in captivity," he says quietly. "Hogwarts was besieged for many years, constantly attacked and harassed by the forces of the Nobility. It's a stress that's hard to handle in small sums – but for years and for years, for decades, eventually centuries... Lot of them took their lives. Or went mad with the stress and horror. And it's not exactly the atmosphere to make you want to bring more children into the world."

D looks at him silently, wondering at the hollow tone, and then looks ahead again. "Why did you bring me here?" he then asks. "It can't be pleasant."

Potter is quiet for a moment and then he shakes his head with a sigh. "I've had millennia to recover from their deaths, and I want you to see what we were really like. What we did." He smiles a little. "I'm still proud of being a wizard, you know."

With that said he moves ahead a little, to walk among the rows of wonderful thing. "Come on," he says. "Let me show off a bit."

D bows his head a little, not sure if he pities the man or if he's amused by him. Potter has been showing off since he met the man – doesn't he realise it?

D goes back to the storage house he's made his home for the duration when the sun rises. There he sits in silence for a while, wondering about what he's learned and what he's seen – and whether it matters, in large scheme of things.

Potter knows the world as it was long ago, before the Atomic War and before the era of Nobility. He remembers the world back before thousands of years of genetic manipulation and the erasure of human history. It's all there in the little throwaway comments; foreign country he says like it's a thing, Governments and Ministries.

The man is a relic of an even more ancient past than most Nobility are. It makes him fascinating, makes D want to ask him questions, and hear answers. And Potter, ever the teacher, will answer.

"Now what," a voice mutters and D can feel his palm shifts as the parasite emerges. "What are you brooding over now?"

D doesn't answer – in truth he isn't entirely sure. Shaking his head he looks up and then to the single window in the store house, which conveniently enough shows him a glimpse of the castle looming above.

"You want to go stay up there, don't you?" his hand asks and cackles. "Yeah, I know you do. You want to go there and make yourself a vampire's guest. I think part of you even wants to make him your liege."

"No," D answers. "I don't."

"Yes," the parasite laughs. "Yes, you do. He'd make a good one too, wouldn't he? All that grace and charity and all those stories – seems so wise, that guy. Of course he's still a blood sucking vampire, but hey, so was your dear old dad and he made a decent liege... until he didn't..."

D's fingers twitch as if to smother the parasite, but he doesn't. Instead he lowers his eyes a little and looks at the parasite. The face in his palm grins. "Part of you still wishes you were like them. A Noble. That twists you so bad, doesn't it? To want that."

"You're being very free with your words today," D comments.

"Well, you're being very gloomy," his hand answers. "And it's not like you get through these things on your own. Come on, kid, lay it out on me."

D bows his head a little. "You haven't called me that in ages."

"Well, you're ages old now, doesn't seem very fitting these days," the parasite answers and arches what passes a brow for him. "You're feeling a little more like you did back then, though. Gotta tell you, it's kinda weird."

D looks away, up and at the castle again. "Harry Potter isn't much like a vampire, is he?"

"Not sure he really is one. Sure he has the fangs of one, but he sucks on lollipops, not people's necks," his left hand answers. "What kind of vampire does that?"

The kind that D had once wished more vampires were like.

His hand harrumphs. "There's something off about him," he says then. "He's... I don't even know. More than he should be."

"You mean the magic?"

"Yes, and no," the parasite mutters. "I don't know. Something's just off about him. He isn't normal, that's clear enough, but he's also not normal."

"... well that clarifies it right up," D says, glancing at him.

"Tch," the hand answers and flicks a finger at him in lieu of making a rude gesture. "Something's weird about the castle too. Have you noticed it yet? I caught onto it the first time we went in, but by now you should've gotten a clue too."

D bows his head a little. "I have," he admits quietly and then leans back in his chair with a slight sigh. "I think that's the magic he's always talking about."

"Mmhmm," the hand answers. "And what does that tell you?"

D doesn't answer and the hand chuckles. "Well, anyway," the parasite says. "That there's the cause for your gloom and doom. Now you just gotta decide what to do about it."

D shakes his head and takes his hat off, setting it onto the table next to him. Decide what to do about it, indeed.

Inside Hogwarts, he doesn't feel the diminishing that has taken the life and strength of the Nobility and which gnaws at him too, though slower than it does them. Inside Hogwarts, he just... is, without his very existence wearing him out.

Inside Hogwarts, it is easier to breathe.

Its implications are damning.

D watches from the side how the people of Terwich get used to their looming vampire menace. They still can't see the castle of course – and if there is a magical child among them, they have yet to show themselves so D doesn't know if the child might see it either. Regardless, people know the castle is there, there is even a sketch of it pinned onto the notice board of the Townhouse, drawn to D's description.

But Potter is taking his sweet time actually doing anything, and in the days that have followed him purchasing the hill, people have started to get used to it. It's obvious they are still nervous and fearful, still expect the other shoe to drop, but humans, D has found, can adjust to anything. Even ghostly magical castle they can't actually see.

"Still wish the damn Noble would just do something," the Mayor mutters, often, and usually with a pointed look at D. "Is he planning anything, has he said anything?"

D shakes his head. "For now he is trying to figure out a way to tell which one of the town's children is magical," he says simply. "It doesn't seem like he is in hurry, however."

"Tch," the Mayor answers. "Find out then, ask him. All this waiting is driving people mad!"

It's driving them back to business as usual, from what D can tell. Slowly they go back to tend their fields and open their stores on time and week after the sale of the hill, they even have a normal market day, selling goods in the town square, which D gathers is a normal weekly occurrence.

That isn't to say that the days are entirely peaceful – of course, there are still the usual dangers of Frontier present. Monsters attack the fields and farm animals at night and though there are no forests near Terwich, there are orchards for fiends to hide in, which occasionally make attempt at the farmers tending to their fruit trees. That is a normal daily life for any Frontier town, however, and though D takes out a beast or two when they come too close to his shelter by the fields, he mostly ignores it.

On the eight day after sale of the hill, however, things change. That day a group of vampire hunters roll into town.

"We are the Letblood Group," the leader of the vampire hunters, a wide shouldered, clean shaven man with twin rifles at his back, announces in the market square. "We heard you folks had some people with Nobility in here parts. Somethin' about some castle appearing."

D watches idly from the shadows of the town house, as the villagers exchange uneasy, nervous looks and how no one says anything – though there are glances thrown at the way of the hill. The vampire hunters notice this as well, and look up.

There are three of them in total, all men heavily armed with rifles and hand guns which, judging by the apparent weight of them, shot something other than mere laser blasts. At least one of them shoots explosive shells, D thinks – the others are variety of sonic and photon arms. There's also couple of stake guns and one of them has what looks like sniper rifle strapped to his horse's saddle.

"What is this, now?" the Mayor comes bustling out from the town house, his coat hastily thrown on and stressed look about his face. "Who are you people, shouting about like this?"

"We are the Letblood Group, first class vampire hunters!" the leader says and takes out a handgun – and not just any hand gun. A silver shaded revolver. "We heard of your Noble problem and we thought, here's a group of people in need of some help. And lo and behold, help has arrived."

"Help," the Mayor repeats, now nervous. "Help with what?"

The man with a revolver looks down at him, frowning. "Well the vampire of course!" he says. "You got a vampire, we're vampire hunter – come on old man, it's not that confusing! You need help – we're help. It's pretty simple, really."

The Mayor dithers, looking between the vampire hunters whom he obviously had not summoned, and then throwing an anxious glance the way of the hill. "We, uh..."

D narrows his eyes. A vampire hunter with a gun that uses bullets usually means one thing – they also have silver bullets. And having such expensive weaponry usually meant one of two things – they either had very rich backer... or they went after only the wealthiest targets.

It didn't take long for the word of Harry Potter and his silver to go out, it seems.

The Mayor blusters for a moment and then, spotting D in the shadow of the townhouse, braces himself. "We've already hired a vampire hunter, sir, and we're not looking to hire another," he says and motions at D. "So we're quite set for help, thank you."

"Oh, did you now," the man with the gun says. "And when did you hire him, hm? And the vampire's still here too, I bet – not much of a hunter is he."

The man swings down from his saddle and then, still brandishing his revolver, looks D over, and then the Mayor – and then he turns to the people gathering around to gawk. "Alright, alright, let's not beat around the bush," he says. "We heard of your vampire, we heard about his silver. And yeah, you might not be looking to hire more vampire hunters, we get that, more hirelings means more money to spend but here's the deal. We're very good at what we do, and you folks, yeah, I imagine you'd like some of that silver he has in his castle, wouldn't you? Yeah, you would."

"Now wait just a damn moment," the Mayor says.

"So," the man with the revolver continues on. "How about you good folk and we make a deal? You just let us handle the vampire, and we let you have the silver. Well. Most of the silver – we need to feed ourselves somehow, right? So how about it – you don't even need to hire us, you just let us handle everything, nice and easy."

D's left hand twitches. "Charismatic bastard, isn't he," his hand mutters.

Yeah, D agrees silently and frowns.

This would be trouble.

Chapter Text

The Letblood Clan, probably new in the business as D hasn't really heard about them before, make a lot of noise about the town, talking about the vampires and other monsters they've slain, with strong emphasis on the spoils of war they've taken from them. It's not a very subtle tactic and D can see a lot of disgust in the faces of the villagers of Terwich, but there are enough interested listeners for it to be worrying. And the members of a group paint a pretty interesting picture.

"I took this off a vampire we killed in town of Grezha," one of them says, displaying a shining bracelet. "I had it valued and turns out it's worth in the neighbourhood of ten thousand dala!"

Another has managed to amass a group of younger men and older boys and is regaling them with a tale of some damsel in distress they'd saved apparently from jaws of death. "She was real grateful too, lemme tell you," the man says and makes meaningful faces. "Real grateful, yeah, that was some... gratefulness we had together."

A third, a young man with not so meagre looks, boasts his scars to some of the younger women, regaling them with a tale of arduous battles and almost losing is life but triumphing over the end by the skin of his teeth. He doesn't make quite the same impact as the man with the damsel, but his looks at least seem to garner some attention.

And all the while, they all lug around enough weaponry to arm a group five times the size of theirs. Their rifles clank on their backs as they walk, and at drop of the hat they will display their side arms, telling what powerful vampire killing weapons they are.

Of course, having claims to a reputation and heavy arsenal of weaponry wouldn't be enough against even a lesser noble, and D has no doubts about which party on this battle, should it ever take place, stood on the literal and metaphorical higher ground. But the campaign the Letblood group have gone onto with ease of practice is worrying.

It's already turning heads.

"W-what are they thinking, what are they doing?" the Mayor demands in privacy, pacing up and down the length of his office. "Why here, why now?! Oh this is a disaster. Do you – do you think they can actually do anything to the Noble, do you think...?"

D looks at him and then at the window – where they can see a group of people surrounding the man in lead of the Letblood group, who is telling another wild tale of fame and fortune. "I can recognize the tactic they're using," he says then. "They're trying to amass followers."

"Followers?" the Mayor asks. "Why?"

"To throw at the vampire," D says and turns back to the Mayor. "It's a tactic that was once used by a lot of lesser vampire hunters. They'd rouse up people to stand behind them, and then they'd use those people as bait for the vampire, to take them out while they were fighting or feasting the common folk."

There was nothing quite as insulting – and as tempting – as group of weak humans marching up to a Noble's castle armed with torches and pitchforks. For a vampire, that was as good as open buffet, really.

The Mayor chews at his already stubby thumb nail and looks at the window. "We need to stop them, we need to – this can't go on, they can't keep harassing people like this. We should – throw them out of the town."

D eyes him coolly and then leans his shoulders against the wall behind him, folding his arms.

He'd noticed that Terwich lacked a sheriff. For a town of nearly ten thousand, it was a strange thing to have no law enforcement – but then, Terwich had a well trained militia and it was an oddly peaceful place as it was, having suffered very little trouble as of late. Occasional monster attack that could be quelled by normal arms, maybe, but nothing very major, not before Potter's castle appeared.

In hindsight it was rather strange – and now D gets the feeling that he might have accidentally stepped into the empty position without realising it.

"Then throw them out," D says simply. "Tell them they're not welcome."

The mayor scowls a little and then paces some more, glaring at the window. "I have," he admits. "But we can't exactly force them to go, with all those weapons they have – it's not worth the risk."

There's a moment of silence as the Mayor paces and D waits, and then the man turns to the vampire hunter. "Do you think Potter will take this as an insult?" he asks. "If those vampire hunters attack the castle... what will Potter do?"

Be inordinately amused, probably, D thinks. "I doubt they can get to the castle at all," he says. "It has... considerable defences after all."

"But if they do – I've seen those weapons they carry, they might have bombs. If they try to destroy the ruins, or... or something. How will the Noble react?"

D frowns a little. He'd thought about it too, what might happen if someone set off a bomb in the ruins. Would it affect the castle at all? He doesn't think it would be so simple – Potter and the castle have survived ten thousand years, lot of those years spent in outright war with the Nobility. Damaging it can't be that easy if the Nobility near the height of their power couldn't manage it.

But if it did, and the castle was damaged...

D thinks of Potter's obvious love and pride for the castle and lowers his head. "I'm not sure we want to find out," he admits quietly.

"So, you're the vampire hunter they hired," one of the Letblood group members ask as D steps out of the Terwich town house. "Black get up, cloak, hat, that sword – yeah, yeah, I think I've heard about you. You're D, right? The dhampir."

D looks up at the man – it's the one who'd tried to make friendly with the young men of the village, regaling them with tales of women. The man has a pulse rifle on his back and a hefty sonic hand gun on his side, which he is resting a hand on suggestively.

"Yes?" D asks calmly.

"I heard you was supposed to be one of the best in the business, or some such," the man says, resting his other hand at his belt and, despite being some centimetres shorter than D, looks down at him. "How is it you haven't gotten rid of the vampire here, then? They all say he's there, hidden in his hidden castle and all. And you go up there too, every night."

D doesn't answer. Around them, they've already attracted some listeners – the man is talking loud enough to carry across the square. It's all very show-manlike, D thinks wryly.

"Not much of a vampire hunter, are you," the Letblood says and leans in to peer at D. "You can see this magical castle, right? You could go up there right now, while sun's up, and kill the vampire where he sleeps. Why haven't you? Eh? What's the matter, cat got your tongue?"

"What's this, now," another of the Letblood – the leader with the silver gun – says and steps closer, throwing an arm around his partner. "Ah, Del, did you make a friend?"

"Not much of a one, Goral," the other man says. "Doesn't talk much, this one. I'm starting to think he can't."

"Now, now, Del, let's not be rude. We're all in the same business here," the man with silver gun says. "I mean, I assume we are anyway – despite the fact that this one can't seem to kill vampires, but hey, maybe it's a long winded plan he got. Hey, tall, dark and silent, what is your plan for the vampire?"

D says nothing, staring at them, not entirely sure how he's supposed to take this.

"He hasn't got one, Goral," Del says, shaking his head sadly.

"He hasn't got one," Goral agrees with pity and pats the other man on the shoulder. "Well it's a good thing we're here then, see, we got a plan," he says and lifts his voice a little. "These vampires hidden in their castles, they're all the same. All those protections and for what? For daylight, that's what. During daytime they're all stiff and corpses, every last one of the bastards, and that's when we'll strike at 'em!"

D shakes his head and turns to leave.

"Hey, wait, where you're going friend?" the first hunter, Del, says. "To see your vampire buddy up at the castle? Gonna go warn him, huh?"

"Yeah, you go and tell them that Letblood's here to let his blood flow!" Goral says and throws his head back to laugh.

D is entirely correct – Harry Potter finds the whole idea of the vampire hunters extremely amusing. He is also not in least bit surprised.

"You were expecting this," D says flatly.

"Hm," the vampire shrugs his shoulders and smiles a little. "Something like it, anyway. I reckon this group is just first of many, others will follow suit," he says and plops the lollipop he's idly whirling in his fingers back into his mouth. "You throw a bit of money around and people will flock to you, trying to take that money from you. In that sense, humanity hasn't changed one bit."

D stares at him silently. "You weren't just expecting this, you were waiting for it," he says then. "That's why you haven't done anything yet?"

Harry Potter smiles a little around the lollipop stick and then takes it out again – his lips, D notices absently, gleam wet with the fake blood. "It will be interesting to see what the good people of Terwich will do now, don't you think?" he asks and his smile gains a slightly sharp quality. "Buying people's loyalty and acceptance is always tricky business. After you do it once, it tends to sway the way of the highest bidder, you know."

For a moment D just looks at him. Then he bows his head a little, to hide his eyes and whatever might show in them.

Of course, he'd never thought Potter was stupid. No vampire who survived for so long and lived so well could be stupid. But he'd had a sense that the vampire lord was a little too trusting at times, perhaps a bit naive. Having that belief so simply rendered asunder is both relieving and strangely off putting.

There's a cunning in Potter he hasn't seen before – and he has a feeling he's only seen the needle sharp tip of the iceberg even now.

"What if they manage to rouse the people to their side, if they attack the castle in mass?" D asks and looks up. "What then?"

The vampire watches him idly, sucking on the blood pop silently. Then he grins. "They'd have to get in, first and they won't."

"And if they bomb the ruins?"

Potter's smile softens a little. "Are you worried, D?"

Of them actually harming the castle, no. Of Potter reaction to it, yes, D thinks silently. "What will you do if they manage it?" he asks seriously.

The vampire Lord tilts his head a little and then takes the lollipop out of his mind. "Hogwarts had been nuked in total six times," he says. "Twice by bomber planes, three times they set their bombs as close to the castle as they could – and once, they got one into the castle."

D blinks slowly and the vampire smiles.

"If they manage to actually hurt this castle," Potter says. "I'll be the first in line to congratulate them."

D doesn't say anything for a moment, wondering about his tone of voice. Then he shakes his head. "And if the people of Terwich side with them?" he asks slowly.

"I wasn't exactly expecting them to welcome me with open arms, D," the vampire lord says and turns to look at a nearby window, from where they can see the village. "It makes sense for them to try and attack me, doesn't it? I'm a vampire and in their terms I'm wealthy, what more could you ask for a reasonable cause?"

Potter leans his elbow onto the stone window sills and spins the lollipop in his fingers idly. "It's easier all around to get the drama over and done with in the beginning," he says. "They rise against me or don't, it doesn't matter – either way, it will give an outlet to whatever they're feeling and hopefully get it all out of the way. And I'll get a chance to prove myself, one way or the other."

D frowns as a suspicion rears his head in the back of his mind. "You..." he says and then trails off.

Potter glances at him and smiles. "And once all of this nonsense is done, we'll have calm after the storm. And I can get to work, hopefully without further interruptions."

The Letblood clan continue their little recruiting campaign well into the second day until they deem the people finally positive enough to move onto the second stage of their plan – which, from what D can see, is just more boasting.

"Well, time to go and have a look at the damn blood sucker," Goral says, with an expression he probably is full of grim determination, but looks a little too well rehearsed to come across as genuine. The leader of the group is looking up at the hill. "Come on, men. Let's go."

It's all very showily executed. The Letblood group falls into a formation and stomp down the street like characters from an adventure story. All they're missing is the dramatic sunset – or going by their behaviour, an explosion – at their back to complete the image of classical heroes.

It seems to be working on the audience though, who watch them go with mixed look of wonder and fear. It is a vampire castle they're going to, after all – and the Letblood group has been doing nothing but expounding on the fact of how dangerous vampires all – even to them, the famous group of vampire hunters.

The whole group makes D feel impossibly old.

"Well," his hand mutters against his side, where it's pinned under his other arm. "This should be interesting at least. Are you going to follow them?"

D isn't sure he wants to have anything to do with them, is he's honest. So far the whole group has been full of whole lot of bark and not much bite – and D's become target of their ridiculous charade a number of times now, a piece of their game of showmanship and boasting. One could even call it bullying, if one could take a bit of it seriously. Mostly it's just tiresome.

He is interested to see how the hunters would perceive the ruins, however. As far as D can tell, they haven't changed in the slightest since the start, but he's seen a new side of Potter now – and that sharper, more vicious form of the vampire lord might very well trap the ruins...

Sighing, D pushes away from the wall he's leaning on and then turns to follow the ridiculous group of vampire hunters – making damn well sure he's not seen.

"...yes, yes, we've seen situations like this before," Goral says to the people flocking around him and his group, lying with easy smile. "It's an old Noble trick – it's how the weaker ones hide their castles. There's no defences there, see, no turrets no nothing, just this illusion. All we need to do is find a way inside, and we'll be in business."

D wonders idly if Potter is somehow watching the whole charade. He gets the feeling the vampire lord would enjoy it immensely.

The Letblood group had spent some four hours, wandering around the ruins of Hogwarts without finding anything but... the ruins. They'd made a show of it, though, just in case anyone was watching or listening, going through all the grand motions of investigation and making many very knowing sounds and gestures.

D rather regrets going after them – he still feels as if he lost a bit of his own intellect watching the show unravel. It was all such... meaningless nonsense. Sadly, it was well executed and unfortunately believable nonsense to the untrained eye – and the people of Terwich ate it up.

"Weaker ones," one of the villagers of Terwich asks and casts an uneasy glance at D. "But isn't this one really old?"

"Psh, no way," Del says, waving a dismissive hand. "Coming this close to a town like this and then doing nothing about it? And buying land – I mean, come on, what does that tell you? The guy obviously isn't strong enough to take it by force!"

"Probably spends all his time snuggled up all cosy in his coffin full of dirt," the third member of the group scoffs. "Killing him will be no problem."

"Yeah, easy peasy. We just need to find the entrance to the castle, that's all," Goral says and then frowns. "It's gonna take a while though, what with the ruins being so large. Might take days, really."

"During which time you'll enjoy the hospitality of the good people of Terwich, I assume?"

Spike of ice runs through D's spine and slowly he looks to his left. Harry Potter is standing just outside the tavern, his cloak hood pulled up, leaning into the windowsill of the open window and peering inside with the light of just set sun behind him. He leans his chin into his palm and smiles.

Everyone stares at him in incomprehension and D sighs and runs a hand over his face.

Potter grins inside. "I mean that's how it works, isn't it?" the vampire lord asks amusedly. "You set up shop near a village with a vampire problem, bonus points if it's a village that's recently come into considerable wealth, and then you just sort of... stick around to do your job. Which at first takes days, but then there's problems and it takes weeks until suddenly, you've stayed for a month, or two, or twelve... While the good people feed and water you and house you in their very best."

Goral frowns. "Who the hell are you?" he asks with confusion and D covers his mouth with his fingers quickly to stop the noise his throat wants to make from getting out. He's not entirely sure, but he thinks it might be a laugh.

In the mean while Potter's grin widens, and his fangs glint in the overhead light. "I'm the vampire problem."

Chapter Text

For a moment there is silence as everyone just stares at the hooded vampire by the window, and Potter just grins at them expectantly. Then it is as if someone had thrown an invisible grenade in their midst – people recoil away from the window, including the supposedly great vampire hunters.

"No, wait, that's not possible," Gorel says and points a finger at the vampire lord. "It's still light out – you can't be a vampire!"

"The sun just set," Potter points out.

"It's still light!"

The vampire glances backwards, at the still sunlit sky, even though the sun itself has sank below horizon. D notices idly he does it so that his face remains in the shadow of his hood – direct light from the sunlit sky must still hurt him... and yet he is up and about and outside.

"Well, would you look at that," Potter says. "I think you might be right! Well done, that's good deduction right there."

"If you were a vampire, you'd be in your coffin humping dirt right now!" Gorel says, warming up to this argument now and stepping forward. "And look at you – you don't even feel like a vampire. You – you gotta be fake!"

Potter doesn't seem to have been expecting that – he turns back to look at the hunters a little incredulously.

"Ye-yeah," Del says, also taking a step forward. "Yeah, damn this makes sense! No wonder the people here warmed up to you so fast! You're just tricking them – you're not even a vampire!"

Potter opens his mouth to argue and then makes a face. "Well damn," he says, and runs a hand over his chin with a troubled looking frown. "I – don't know how to react to that. Huh."

D feels, for a moment, a deep well of sympathy for him.

"A fake vampire – ha!" Gorel says and throws his head back. "Well that's a fucking first, lemme tell you. You're what, then, a mutant? Bet you have some sort of telepathy power or something, to make people think you're a vampire – but you're not, you're obviously not. You got no presence what so ever and I mean, just look at you, you even have green eyes!"

The vampire blinks the said green eyes. "You have something against green eyes?" he asks, with hint of theatrical offence in his voice. "Why I never..."

Gorel points a finger at him, stabbing it at the air. "Vampires have red eyes, everyone knows that!" he announces with air of dramatic reveal. "You're a fake vampire!"

D gets the feeling of absent gasps of shock, like it's a theatre play with audience missing their ques. The tavern is completely silent though and Potter just eyes the vampire hunter in confused interest.

"So," Potter says and then makes a face. "I... okay, right. Why on good green Earth would I ever pretend to be a vampire? What exactly does that gain for me – except grossly inflated market prices for local land? I paid, what, five hundred million worth of silver for less than half a dozen acres of land? Who would do that?"

"For the fear! For the prestige!" Gorel says and steps forward, eyes narrowed. "You pretend to be Noble with your supposed invisible castle, wrap yourself up in mystery and all, and then you make people fear you. Yeah, yeah, I see it now – you're trying to make these people serve you, like they served Nobles back in the day!"

Potter just eyes him for a moment. "Why?" he asks again. "Again, five hundred million worth of silver! Why would I need to pretend – for that kind of money I could just hire people!"

"Well, when people fear you, you don't have to pay them later."

Potter opens his mouth, closes it, and then blows a exasperated breath. "And how many servants could I hire with five hundred million to serve me for life?" he asks in same incredulous tone.

"Probably not a whole village's worth," Gorel says and waves his finger with a crafty sort of expression on his face. "I'm onto you. You didn't even get your eyes recolour but then that wouldn't matter – you can't fake a vampire presence!"

D glances idly at the audience. He's not sure if it's Gorel's strangely persuasive brand of logic or Potter's seeming helplessness at the face of it, but the idea is taking root in the minds of the listeners. There's a lot of thoughtful, confused frowns and exchanged looks of bewilderment going around – but less fear.

"What presence!" Potter asks incredulously and turns to D. "What the hell is he talking about?"

D clears his throat a little. "Vampires tend to have a certain... aura."

"Oh," Potter says. "Ooh, that. I mean," he glances towards Gorel. "This."

And then the whole tavern – no, perhaps the whole town – is utterly mired in the overwhelming, all compassing presence of an ancient vampire lord. It's almost thick enough to be seen, wafting from Harry Potter in pulsing waves that make even D's breath stutter, and which strike every single person in the tavern pale, speechless, and utterly frozen on their tracks.

At the center of the sheer explosion of inescapable power, Harry Potter leans his elbows onto the window sill. "I've always felt this is bit like waving your prick around," he admits, his voice still perfectly normal, not a bit of a snarl in it even as he's literally forcing people on their knees with his existence alone. "Oh look at me, see how powerful I am, fear my very presence. Tch. Nobility, no shred of decency."

And as quick as the presence appeared, it's sucked back in. Potter seems to almost inhale it all, and then it's just gone, almost as if it was never there. As the vampire lord goes back to feeling like nothing at all, people draw shaky, shocked breaths and recoil back again, their faces now deathly pale and their eyes bloodshot and wide.

Potter gives them a wry smile and then glances at D. "Did you think I was fake because I didn't do that before?" he asks curiously.

D casts him a glance and inhales slowly, silently. His heart is hammering desperately in his chest, and Potter's presence still seems to echo through him, pounding at him like alien gravity. "I... wasn't aware it was something a vampire can control, before you."

Potter leans his cheek into his fingers. "Huh, so that's why you're doing it all the time. You can't control it," he says curiously. "I thought you were – never mind," he says and shakes his head and looks at Gorel. "So, about that fake vampire business..."

Gorel lets out a wheezing sound, just staring at him in pale faced terror.

Then Del grabs a handgun and, shouting like a madman, starts madly clicking at the trigger. It happens a little too fast for a normal human to do much about it, but D can follow every move as if in slow motion and quickly prepares to grab his swords – laser blasts of that type can be reflected with metal, he'd need to watch for the ricochet, but he can still –

Potter is holding his thin wooden stave before D's fingers can even touch the sword grip. It taps the air in front of the vampire gently and then it's gone again – all too fast for human eye to catch. D stops with a frown and then watches, his fingers just at his sword grip, as laser bolts racing towards Potter fizzle sadly into a invisible barrier in front of the vampire's face.

Del unloads a full barrage of twelve shots that die into nothing and Potter folds his arms, smiling a little. Eventually the hunter catches onto the fact that the laser blaster is doing nothing, and he hesitates – and then thrusts it into it's holster, going for something bigger and infinitely worse instead. A grenade launcher.

"No, wait, Del!" Gorel snaps, but the younger man pulls the trigger anyway.

This time D is watching – he sees Potter pull the stave out of his sleeve and hold it up. He waits the infinitesimal fraction for grenade to fly through the air and then taps the stave's slender tip against it – and it instantly explodes.

The tavern is washed in intense light – but no heat – and when D's eyes adjust to the sudden, brilliant flash, he can see what Potter had done. The explosion had been enclosed into another invisible barrier, this one a sphere around the grenade instead. It glows in hot white for a moment and then turns black; a ball of smoke floating in the air.

The silence of the whole event is eerie – not even the sound of the explosion escaped the sphere.

Potter breaks the invisible barrier with a gentle tap of his now empty finger, and it bursts like a soap bubble. The smoke instantly wafts upwards and to the ceiling where it spreads out like water over it, acrid smell of soot and exploded gunpowder filling the air. In it's wake, still hot shrapnel rains to the floor at the foot of the window.

The vampire himself doesn't seem very amused now, though, and as people scream and make for the nearest exist that isn't next to a vampire – meaning the windows on the other side of the tavern hall – he turns his now serious eyes to the Letblood group.

"That," he says coldly, "could have hurt a lot of people here."

Gorel hesitates for a moment, giving Del a look. Then, making a face of indecision that quickly morphs into determination, he goes for his gun. The silver gun. "This here," the vampire hunter says grimly. "Uses silver bullets."

"How fancy," Potter answers coldly – and immediately gets shot for it.

D, having now witnessed truly colossal difference in power levels here, folds his arms and watches thoughtfully as Potter traps the silver bullet in air in front of him in a quick, now somewhat annoyed, snap of the stave. Then the thing is gone again, faster than anyone can see – anyone but D anyway.

It's some sort of directing tool for his magic, the dhampir muses, wondering about the history and application of such tool. It looks like a thin stake, or a pointer a teacher might use at classroom, if a very short one. He can see why Potter is keeping it out of human sight, it seems to be made of wood and thus might be a point of weakness. And still...

A tool of magic made of wood, vaguely reminiscent of a stake... Maybe that, finally, might answer the ancient question why wood specifically made one of the best weapons for permanently putting down a vampire. D himself uses it often – in form of wooden throwing needles which he's found to be more effective form of weapon for himself – but he'd never known why. Why wood when steel is harder and far more durable and yet so much less effective?

A question for later time, D decides, and looks up at the scene unfolding in the tavern.

Potter eyes the bullet now suspended in air in front of him and makes a considering hum. "It's not solid silver, it's just the tip," he comments and presses a single fingertip on the pointed end of the bullet. His skin fizzles at the touch, wisp of smoke curling upwards before he pulls it back. He rubs at his fingertip and it heals, crispy burnt skin flaking quickly off.

"Low quality silver at that," Potter says and the bullet in front of him falls, clattering onto the floor and rolling sadly to rest against the wall under the window. "So," the vampire says and folds his arms. "So what next?" he asks, and his voice has gone back to it's previous, idle state.

"Del, Gyrn," Gorel says and then grabs one of the rifles off his back as his partners do the same. There's a look of desperate bravado on his face and he grins through the obvious nervousness that's taken over his whole form. "I don't get many chances to use these but what the hell – this here is a pulse riffle. You know what that means? It shoots a concussive wave, it can bring down entire houses and even your  –"

Potter arches an eyebrows. "And you're going to shoot it here, inside a building where people drink and have fun and do business?" he says slowly. "I think not, thank you. Disarm them, please; take their weapons to the Town Hall."

D slides his gaze to the Letblood group –which is, as ordered, disarmed. Their guns and knifes and rifles simply disappear, wading into nothingness like mirages, leaving them holding air, with empty holsters by the dozen between them. The startled looks on their faces are almost comical.

"Shit," Del says in slowly dawning realisation. "Shit. Shit!"

Then he turns around, takes off at a dash, and jumps out of the window in the opposite side of the room. Gorel looks after him with desperate fury – then after the third member of the Letblood group who is going to way of Del.

Then, his back up thusly gone, Gorel too runs away, shouting curses as he goes.

Which leaves D alone in a suddenly empty tavern with a vampire leaning in from the window. "Well, that was a little disappointing," Potter says and sighs, leaning his chin into his palm. "That didn't even make for a good show, really."

D looks at him flatly.

"The bit with the aura was too much, wasn't it?" Potter asks sadly.

"... it was a bit much, yes," D agrees slowly. He has to wonder how far it reached, what kind of area of coverage it had. Old vampires could freeze entire halls with presence like that, and one of Potter's age... He would need to check, but he wouldn't have been surprised if it had covered the whole village.

"Bollocks, I've never been good at the whole presence thing, it just feels so rude to do," Potter mutters with a slight shudder and then leans his chin into his palm again, making a face and blowing out an annoyed breath. "I was trying to make a good showing of myself, but I guess I went too far," he admits and glances at D. "I was hoping to have a look around the village but... you reckon I should let people here recover from that?"

"They... might need a moment, yes," D says wryly and looks him up and down. Laser blasts, a grenade and a silver bullet – and there's not a scratch on the man. "How do you restrain your presence like that?"

The vampire looks at him. "You really can't control yours, can you?"

D doesn't say anything, just folds his arms.

"I'm a wizard," Potter says with a shrug and, glancing over his shoulder, lowers his cloak hood now that the sky had gone properly dark. "I went to school for seven years to learn to control my magic – and vampire's presence is magic... in it's own backwards way. So it's not really matter of control – rather the opposite. For me it takes effort to... exhibit power like that."

D frowns a little. "I see," he says quietly.

Potter gives him a look and then folds his arms. "You know... you could probably learn it too, though it might take more effort for you."

D glances up at him. "You'd teach me?"

"What can I say, I'm a teacher," Potter shrugs and glances backwards, at the street. "Come by later and I'll explain how it's done. Right now I should head back to the castle - I think I well wore out any welcome I had here for a while."

Later, while heading to see what the Letblood group of vampire hunters are up to, D is still wondering about it, that so easily given offer to teach an ability so many dhampirs - and even vampires - might kill for. While often an advantage, the insidious, eldritch presence of those with vampire blood was usually more of a hindrance. It could give you away, it made it difficult to be around normal people and of course it could be a dead give away that you were, indeed, a dhampir.

There are times when D could rein the presence in, but it tends to happen more by accident than intention. So he can very well see the possibility of the ability being taught and mastered. And yet, for a vampire to teach such a thing to a dhampir....

Well, it isn't as if he didn't already know that Potter is thoroughly abnormal as vampires go.

"... some fucking witchcraft going on here," he can hear Del voice as he enters the Town Hall, to find the Letblood group confronting the very harragued looking Mayor.

"What you got here is no normal vampire," Gorel agrees with solemn gravity. "These aren't powers many vampires have. He might very well be thousands of years old. I think at this point you should consider leaving town, while you are still in control of your sensibilities."

"L-leave?" the Mayor sputters. "Don't spout nonsense!"

"And you!" Gorel says, spotting D and whirligig around to face him. "You call yourself a vampire hunter! You didn't even do anything - you should have helped!"

"You seemed perfectly capable of making fools of yourselves without help," D comments dryly.

"D - good, you're here," the Mayor sighs with relief and runs a hand over his face. "There was a wave of - something - and I've got so many confusing reports and now these people - can you please explain me what on Earth happened?"

"This fool," Gorel motions at D, "let the vampire into town, and did nothing to stop it! We barely got away by the skin of our teeth, while distracting the vampire for long enough to let people escape!"

D arches an eyebrow at him and then turns to the Mayor. "Potter decided to visit town have fun at these people's expense," he says simply. "And was naturally attacked for it. No property damage was done, no one was hurt and only loss I can see is one of... dignity."

"No damage -?! What about our weapons?!" the third man of the Letblood group demands. "Those things cost a lot of money, you know - who's going to cover our losses, huh?!"

"Yeah - yeah! The vampire took our guns, and since you're such a good fucking buddy with the damn monster, and did fucking nothing to stop him, you can damn well recompense what we lost!" Gorel starts, quickly warming up to this new potential source of revenue.

D eyes them coolly and then glances at the Mayor. "Their armaments should have arrived at the Town Hall. Did they not?"

"I - what?" the Mayor asks in confusion.
 
"Potter sent their weapons here - didn't they arrive?"

"Well - we haven't seen them, but then I didn't know they were supposed to..." the Mayor frowns and looks at the Letblood group. Then he turns to the members of the militia, hanging near by, looking threatening. "Watch them," he orders, motioning at the Letblood group. "We'll find the guns. D, please join me."

"Now wait just a damn minute -!" Gorel says, and is ignored as the Mayor turns to leave and D follows.

"What a damn mess," the Mayor mutters. "Tell me, is Potter mad?"

He's completely mad, D thinks. "From what I could gather, he's sorry for frightening the townsfolk," he says out loud. "I reckon he only intended to make fools out of the vampire hunter group, nothing else."

D frowns a little. Damn - the vampire's speech patterns are infectious, it seems.

"I heard something about an explosion?" the Mayor asks worriedly.

"One of the hunters launched a grenade at him - old fashioned gunpowder grenade," D explains. "Potter contained it inside some sort of localised energy barrier."

"That's something at least," the Mayor mutters. "What else happened?"

As D recounts the events, they look into rooms and halls of the Town Hall until finally they find the Letblood group's guns in the basement of the building,  next to the town's safe. They've all been laid out neatly on the floor - and it's not just the guns and blades. Every crossbow bolt has been laid out in a row next to their weapons, as is every stake and grenade, even individual bullets have been put into neat little lines. It's, in total, good three dozen weapons of various styles.

D notes absently that there is only three silver tipped bullets for the silver shaded revolver. Somehow he's not surprised.

The Mayor stares at the weapons and chews at his thumb nail - he's close to drawing blood now, he's worn the thing so close to skin. "Are you sure Potter isn't angry? His presence, I felt it all the way here - it was... monstrous."

D hums in agreement. "The older a vampire gets, the stronger they get," he says quietly. "And Harry Potter is... very old. But no. He isn't angry."

The Mayor nods and swallows, looking at the arsenal before them. "This is getting out of hand," he mutters. "We need to get those people out of town and fast before they do real damage. What do you suggest, D?"

"... Not re-arming them, for one," the dhampir says wryly.

The Mayor blinks and then makes a thoughtful face. "They fired upon a - citizen of sorts. In the town tavern. It's well within our rights to confiscate these, isn't it? Yes - yes, I think it is."

D arches an eyebrow and looks at the weapons.

Had... Potter just handed the town a small fortune's worth of vampire hunting weapons on purpose?

Chapter Text

While the Letblood group puts up a howl about their weapons and the Mayor basks in his suddenly re-found position of superior authority over them, D heads up to Hogwarts. The Letbloods jeer after him, something about him going to scrape and bow to his vampire lord which D ignores – but his hand doesn't.

"If this was five thousand years ago, you would," his hand mutters with a slight laugh. "You'd even enjoy it."

"It was a different time," D says, casting a glance over his shoulder at the town of Terwich, and then heading up. There's a path that leads up to the castle, previously used by the sheepherders when they still dared usher their herds up the hill to graze. Not so much anymore, but the path is still here.

It would have been faster to go on a horse – but D prefers to take his time this once. He needs to think.

"Times change all the time, it could be that time again," his hand mutters. "I mean, just look at the guy. It's obvious he's not fading. Hell, he's doing the opposite of fading."

D says nothing, thinking instead of Harry Potter at the tavern. He'd seemed so much livelier than before, revitalized even. Almost as if he's still shaking off the stiffness of sleep and becoming slowly more and more active – which, indeed, is the complete opposite of what a vampire does these days.

True enough, the longer a vampire sleeps, the more energetic they can be when they wake up. The best... preserved these days were those who slept for decades between bouts of activity, waking up with a level of energy reminiscent of what they used to be like, thousands of years ago. But that energy, borrowed from the very Earth itself... faded quickly, and had to be savoured to last.

Potter certainly hadn't been doing that at the tavern.

And if D's suspicions about magic being perhaps the final answer as to why vampires started to lose power in the first place holds any truth to it... Potter's power wouldn't fade.

So far the vampire lord had been good about answering questions – it was time to ask the difficult questions.

D enters the castle grounds and walks amidst the towers and viaducts that don't lead anywhere. Little more than week to the castle's existence on the hill and it already looks like it's been there forever – there are wines, crawling up the wall, and the grass previously crushed under the castle foundations has recovered, and is creeping into whatever crevices on stone footpaths it can find. Like all frontier plants, they move fast.

Entering the castle proper through a small side door, D is immediately greeted by a nervous looking elf, half hiding under a windowsill.

"Netty is to tell sir that Milordy Potter is in the staff room," the elf tells him. "Does Sir know where it is?"

"I should be able to find it," D says – he'd walked past it time or two with Potter.

"M-might sir be hungry?" the elf then asks hopefully. "Netty can bring sir food, if sir would like some?"

D considers her and then sighs. "... cup of coffee," he says then.

The noise of excitement the elf makes is almost shrill before she bows her head, several times. "Netty is so happy! Sir, Netty will bring it right over! How does sir take his coffee?"

"Black. And bring it to the staff room," D says, watching her with mild alarm.

"Yes, sir, yes very good, Netty will bring coffee to the staff room!" the elf says – and then she disappears.

"Excitable little things," D's hand comments and nudges at his fingers. "Coffee, though, not blood?"

D shakes his head and then continues on down the first floor corridor and to where he recalls seeing the staff room.

"I get it," his hand says craftily. "You're being an idiot."

"Excuse me?"

"Trying to abstain so you don't get used to it, this abundance Potter has," the hand says and laughs. "Can't let your hair down and just enjoy life's little vampiric gifts for one moment, can you? I get it yeah, heh. Still hoping you get out of this unscathed."

D frowns a little.

"I'll be funny to see if you can," the left hand says, "My bets are on solid no. There's no way on earth you can just walk away from this."

D squeezes his hand into fist to silence him and then moves down the corridor, where he sees a door slight ajar with warm light spilling into the otherwise darkened hall.

The staff room of Hogwarts isn't much like any staff room D has seen – though, to be fair, he doesn't frequent schools often. Here there is a fireplace and several plush couches and armchairs, with the only table around being a mere tea table sitting amidst the comfortable looking chairs. He can imagine there once having been tables there – perhaps even one long meeting table one might expect from a room like that... but as it is, Potter is alone. What use would he have for one?

The vampire lord himself is sitting on the couch facing the blazing fireplace. He's kicked off his shoes and tucked his feet up, lounging on the couch now in apparent comfort with a glass in hand. Glass full of something red that D can recognize even before the scent hits him.

Potter glances at him, sees him eyeing the glass, and smiles. "Felt like I needed a drink," he says with a shrug and sets the glass down on the tea table. "It's still the same stuff, mind you, just liquid sort. Want a taste?"

"No, thank you," D says, looking around in the room. There is a ghost floating about the other end of the room, who is sitting in the air with arm held up as if leaning onto something, resting his cheek on it. He's asleep.

"Don't mind him – Binns is even older than I am, and only thing he's interested in is teaching." Potter says with some sad amusement. "Fell asleep on his chair again and floated right off it. Most he does these days is sleep, really."

D nods slowly and then, giving the ghost a final glance, he moves towards the couches and armchairs. Potter watches him silently as D unclasps the sword from his back, setting it down on the floor beside one of the armchairs before sitting down, unhindered. After a moment, he takes off his hat too, setting it on the long sword's handle.

On the tea table, there is suddenly a cup of coffee that hadn't been there before.

"What happened with the hunters?" the vampire asks, turning his eyes to the fire while D reaches for the cup.

"The Mayor confiscated their weapons, they weren't happy about it," D says, leaning back slowly. The chair is very well cushioned, so much so that it is impossible to sit straight on it. "If they are smart, they'll count their losses and leave."

Potter lets out a small laugh. "Tall order," he says.

D agrees silently while taking a first sip of the coffee. It's strong and bitter. Crossing one leg over the other, D slides his eyes over the coffee cup and towards the vampire. Some of the energy seen at the tavern is still there, making Potter's vivid green eyes shine, but he's mostly back to the idolatry of before. But D can recognize the cunning in his eyes now.

"Did you do it on purpose?" he asks, resting the coffee cup against his knee.

"Yes," Potter agrees easily.

"You planned the whole engagement."

The vampire chuckles and leans back a little, almost lying down on the couch fully now. "The elves have been watching the village and following those hunters around, so I had a pretty good idea how they'd react. It wasn't really that big a stretch of imagination to expect them to attack me."

D nods slowly, watching him silently.

"A fake vampire," Potter says and laughs, looking up at the ceiling. "What the hell was that?"

D looks away. "You... don't come across as normal vampire. They were expecting a Noble, or at the very least someone who tries to act like one."

"Seriously," Potter says and runs a hand over his face.

"Did you hand the weapons over to the Mayor as another test?"

Potter tilts his head to look up at him. "Imagine what would've happened if I kept them for myself? Or destroyed them?" he says and shakes his head. "But yes, I guess that was part of it. Is he planning to use them to kill me?"

"You already demonstrated that they are useless against you."

"They're not," Potter says. "Not when I don't see them coming."

D glances at him. "You're faster than a bullet. And active at hour most vampires are still asleep."

"Doesn't make me invulnerable," Potter shrugs awkwardly, pushing the cushion under his head higher up.

D looks away, considering the ease of that sentiment. And it really is only that – a sentiment. In his magical castle, behind his protections, tended to by loyal servants who are similarly magic and can appear and disappear at will... Potter is as good as invulnerable.

"The Mayor will most likely equip the militia with the weapons, once the Letblood group is out of town," D says, and takes another sip of the coffee.

"I guess that works," Potter says and shifts to lie on his side, resting his head on the crook of his arm. "You have something to say," he then notes. "Say it."

D lowers the cup and eyes it for a moment. "I only know of one vampire older than you," he says. "The closest after that was a seven thousand year old Noble who managed his strength by long stretches of sleep."

"I sleep long stretches too, you might recall," Potter comments.

"You do it out of boredom," D says, looking towards him. "Because you have nothing to do, not because you grow weak."

The vampire doesn't say anything for a moment – just stares at the fire. Or rather, the glass of blood sitting between him and the fire.

"This castle sustains you, doesn't it? It sustains vampires," D says.

"Magic sustains magical creatures," Potter says. "The ghosts, the house elves, portraits, all the little pests that still survive here, myself... we all thrive because of magic."

D bows his head and for a long moment he doesn't say anything.

"Of course, you wouldn't know anything about it," Potter sighs and reaches for the glass of blood, taking a hefty gulp of it and then setting it down again. "The Nobility did a lot of things in the beginning and one of the biggest thing they did is the lie they decided to tell the world," he says. "That they were a different species from humanity, a better species, that they were here first, that Earth was originally theirs. Divine right to rule and all that nonsense. Because of that, their origins had to be erased."

He looks up at D. "And then, over the next few millennia, they did the other stuff, the even worse stuff. Tampered with human genome until magic stopped exhibiting itself like it used to. Mind you, that was a side effect of trying to rid humans of their free will, but it still happened. And then they tampered with magical creatures, of which there were thousands back then. Now they're like humanity... different. And a little lesser."

The vampire sighs and looks away. "There was something about it that they didn't like, something about magic they had to get rid of," he says. "Their own origins."

"Their origins," D says and frowns, looking at him.

"You have vampire blood – are you sure you want to know?" Potter asks and closes his eyes. "The Vampire King did everything in his power to cover it all up. Succeeded too, more or less. Are you sure you want to know?"

D's hands clench into fists. "Tell me," he demands.

Potter smiles and says nothing for a long while. Then, slowly, he punishes himself to sit. "When were you made, D? How were you made?" he asks and glances at him over his shoulder.

"Why?" D asks suspiciously.

"Because you are somehow related to the Vampire King and I've seen his handiwork before. His tampering wasn't limited to humanity. If you're less than nine thousand years old, your brain will trip over this and maybe even kill you to keep you from retaining the information."

And icy shiver runs through D's spine. Potter watches him silently, expressionlessly, waiting for the answer.

"I'm... older," D finally admits.

Potter hums. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

The Vampire nods slowly, still watching him very carefully. "Vlad Țepeș," he then says, slowly, obviously testing him.

D frowns a little, glancing at him. "What?"

Potter narrows his eyes and then leans in, watching his face. "Nothing?" he asks. "Does your head ache?"

"...no?"

The vampire blinks and then lets out a slightly shaky sigh. "You are older then," he says quietly, in voice slightly choked. "You really are untampered."

D frowns at him in confusion. "What is that, what is Vlad Tepes?" It sounds like a name, and he's vaguely aware of there being a village named Tepes, but... this sounds like something else.

"Țepeș. That's his name, the Vampire King," Potter explains and slowly leans backwards again, staring at D in something like wonder. "Just hearing it is enough to strike people down with splitting headaches these days."

"That's... not his name," D denies slowly.

"If you mean it should be Dracula – no. Dracula was title given to him by his enemies, which he claimed as his actual after he was cursed," Potter says and leans back a little. "Vlad Țepeș was his human name – from when he was still a human."

D stares at him and for a moment he wonders if maybe Potter is right after all, maybe his mind too has been tampered because the words refuse to make sense. The Sacred Ancestor... a human? "No," he says.

"Yes," Potter answers mercilessly. "The term Nobility comes from him – he was part of human nobility, you see. Vlad III Țepeș was a nobleman, a prince of human kingdom, good half a millennia before the Atom War. He was... a special sort of evil, in life, did some terrible things... made some powerful enemies. One of them cursed him. In that sense the term, Sacred Ancestor, is entirely accurate. He was the very first vampire."

For a moment D can think of nothing at all. None of this... nothing of it seems right.

"His curse was – still is – one of the most powerful, most botched up things a wizard has ever done," Potter adds with a sort of wistful disgust. "And the curse was tied to very nature of magic itself, which makes it so damn powerful... and which had some unfortunate side effects. Immortality of a sort and ability to infect others with the curse. And like all things of magic, more magic enhances it. Hence, why vampires grew more powerful as they aged..."

"... and why eventually they weakened," D says quietly.

"Mmhmm," Potter agrees. "See, Dracula hated the source of his power. He hated us wizards, especially after we rejected him after the Atom War. He wanted to erase us, erase his own history – and he succeeded too, to a point. Wizards were erased, humanity was genetically mangled, magical creatures were mutated into monsters... and magic, eventually, waned."

D says nothing, staring at the coffee cup on his knee in silence. He thinks he's horrified. Part of him doesn't believe, doesn't want to believe. But at the same time...

There have always been aspects to the physiology of vampires that just made no sense. Weaknesses that couldn't be explained by science even after all these thousands of years. Why did they become as good as corpses during day time? Why did sleeping in close contact – preferably buried – in Earth restore their power? Why was silver so harmful? Why wood still to this day and after all the advances of science and technology made the best weapon against them?

D turns to Potter and asks him, partially hoping that Potter doesn't have an explanation, "Why wood and dirt? And why does moving water weaken vampires?"

Potter arches an eyebrow. "How much do you know about the elements?"

"We know everything about elements," D's left hand pipes in. "I eat the elements!"

"Do you?" Potter asks and tilts his head. "Do you know why?"

For that the hand has nothing to say, and D frowns a little, turning his hand palm up.

"I – get power for them," the hand says.

Potter hums. "The four classic elements. Fire burns, air blows, water flows and earth... is. How would they react with magic, hm?"

D frowns a bit at the very teacher tone of voice. "Earth traps is?"

"No – well yes, but also no. Everything traps magic and everything uses it," Potter says and waves a hand. "Earth, though, distributes it. Like plants soaking up nutrients, magical things can soak up the magic seeped into dirt. As for water – it saps it away, especially moving water. It takes magic and carries it off."

The vampire shrugs. "Now that I know about the whole aura thing, it makes perfect sense. You retain your energy like a bloody sieve, just leaking out. Go into moving water, and it will drain you dry."

D bows his head. Damn it. "And wood?" he asks.

"Wood classically retains energy. Sun's energy through its leaves by nature – is it so surprising it can do something similar to magic?" Potter says and looks away to a window. He motions towards the outside. "Hogwarts used to have a forest of thousand year old trees, hundreds of meters tall. Nothing really unusual about them – but they soaked up magic like nothing else. Wood keeps drinking magic even when dead, better than metal anyway – it's not much, but it's enough to disrupt the curse's healing aspect."

D says nothing for a moment. "And silver," he says, feeling strangely defeated.

"Silver is what we used to call a noble metal. Hilarious, isn't it? There are handful of others, and all reject magic. You can't spell them or enchant them, you can't curse them," Potter explains. "Silver has the strongest effect on dark magic especially – such as curses. It corrodes them."

D closes his eyes and runs a hand over his face, and for a moment his mind is completely quiet as things quietly click into place, missing pieces finding their slots on the whole picture. And it makes sense, it's the worst thing. It's all so simple and yet it makes sense.

So many questions they all had about why Nobility works the way it does, why it rose to power so easily and then just... withered away. All the strange flaws in their seemingly perfect existence. And all the damned efforts they'd gone to erase what flaws they had from human memory. Even now, after Nobility faded from power, people will forget if they ever discover a vampire's weakness – their brains refuse to retain it. Why, if vampires were supposed to be so powerful and eternal?

And why to this day was the Sacred Ancestor still working on perfecting them?

After taking a breath D looks up at Potter, who looks at him with some sympathy. "Why would you tell me all this?" D demands quietly.

Potter smiles a little, and it looks guilty. "I wasn't being entirely honest you," he admits and looks at the fire, ".... when I asked you to look at the mirror of Erised. I'm sorry for what ever you saw in it... but I had to know for sure."

D says nothing, waiting for the answer.

"It only works on those with magic, D," the vampire says gently. "What does that say about you?"

Chapter Text

D isn't in particularly good mood as he descends from Hogwarts again. He can't quite put a finger to the reason why. It wasn't that Harry Potter had in essence tricked him, even manipulated him. And D can see that he has been manipulated, possibly from the very start. And somehow, when ever Harry Potter answered a question with more information than was asked, he only gave birth to more and more questions, leaving D feeling forever led by the nose.

Perhaps all teachers are like that. And it is irritating now that he sees it happening but that… isn't the reason for his sour mood. It's the implications. And there are… many implications to what Harry Potter has now pointed out.

And they are tempting ones.

"Sly, persuasive bastard," his hand mutters.

D stops, halfway down the little path leading down from the castle, and glances behind his shoulder. Almost all of Hogwarts' windows are lit, and the castle looks warm and inviting against the dark night sky. It looks homely. And according to Harry Potter, it could be D's home.

The vampire had welcomed him to stay before, but this was different. No longer was he welcome as a mere guest – but now he could be a true inhabitant. One of those with magic. A wizard. And here it wouldn't matter if he was half human or half vampire – like it doesn't matter to Harry Potter that he himself is a vampire. Here being magic would come first and foremost.

A place to belong.

D looks away, at the village before him and before the castle at his back. It too is lit, but there's a terrible nervousness to the way humans light their homes. The streets are awash with UV lights and every porch is similarly lit with whatever came closest to sunlight. It's not enough to harm, but the fake sunlight is enough to chase away most creatures of the night, and it can make even a vampire hesitate.

There's a purple tint to the UV light – after all, if you use it, might as well use it to your advantage, to make your plants grow faster. At a distance it makes Terwich look eerie and cold, entirely unappealing when compared to Hogwarts' soft candle glow.

Terwich has, in its own way, welcomed him to stay as well. The Mayor might not have said it outright, but it's obvious he expects D to stay there and is willing to pay for it. D has already come something of a permanent fixture at the Town Hall, so much so that people are no longer giving him strange looks, and the young man at the counter even bids him good day when he sees D.

It's closest to a welcome he's gotten in a long time in a human settlement.

"You could, you know," his hand mutters. "Would it be so bad, to grow roots for a little while? I mean, what did potter say again – hundred years or so?"

"At least. Might be longer," D says

His hand sniffs. "You're the one who put you on this path. You're the one who can take yourself off it. And you gotta admit, this is the best it's ever going to get and it's damn good. I mean, it's no royal palace, I grand you, but…"

D bows his head a little, to the hide coldly lit village from his view.

"It was whichever of your parents was human," Potter said. "Can't be the vampire one – vampires can't be wizards."

And yet he is one – what does that say about him?

"There are still too many questions," D says and continues down the path towards Terwich – towards his little storehouse in between the castle and the village.

"Yeah, like how the hell he knows so much about the Sacred Ancestor," his hand mutters. "I get that Potter's old, but that's a little unnerving, isn't it?"

D frowns. If all vampires are indeed descended from the Sacred Ancestor, that means that Harry Potter is too. As such… he too should fall under his power. He shouldn't be able to share these things about his ultimate Ancestor. No vampire can, not really. That was part of the reason what made him so powerful.

Too many questions and too many unknown factors – that's perhaps what makes D most uneasy about it.

D wakes up soundlessly to a sense of someone approaching his store house. He'd been asleep perhaps for three hours and sun has risen – there is new light screening down from the single window. And there is someone outside the storehouse.

"Are you here, dhampir bastard?" a male voice demands and something metallic clatters against the wall of the hut. "Come out, come out, where ever you are."

Ah, D thinks and for a moment closes his eyes. He'd really hoped they'd cut their losses and left town already. Apparently not.

"Heere dhampir dhampir dhampir, where aare youu…"

D stands up and walks to the door – and just as he senses the entirely unsubtle human presence behind it, he opens the door. It clangs rather satisfyingly against the man's face.

"Son of a – my nose!" the man wails, skittering back few steps while D's hand chuckles meanly and D steps out. It's just one of the Letblood group – Del, who is holding onto his already reddened nose and glaring at him. "You fucking shitstick."

D arches an eyebrow at that and says nothing.

"I should fucking kick your ass for that," Del says, testing his nose tentatively and then releasing it when he's confident it's not bleeding. "We've got a message to that beloved little bloodsucker of yours, and seeing as he can stay awake and shit during daylight, I figure you can just scamper along to deliver it. We've got something he might be interested in."

D narrows his eyes.

"Hehe," Del says, noticing it. "See, we heard he's after some kid here, one of the militia people was talking about it. Some special kid. Hah, I bet he's just into kids, kid's blood is the best stuff, right?"

"What did you do?" D asks, his voice all but frozen.

"We didn't do anything. In fact Gorel and Gyrn are up at the school right now to make sure nothing at all happens to the precious kids hereabouts," Del says and grins. "They even brought a gift for the kiddies. It's a fun one too – a proton bomb."

D's eyes narrow and D's grin widens knowingly. "So, you're just going to scamper your way up to that castle and tell that vampire bastard that he's either going to bring us all the silver he has up there… Or he can kiss his chances of finding his special little kid good fucking bye. And don't even think trying to come anywhere near the school yourself, dhampir. You get anywhere near that place and the kids are going to suffer some unfortunate accidents, one… after… another."

It's not the first time D has gone up to the castle during daytime, but usually he doesn't do it with the intention of finding its lord. Mostly it has been to either kill time or just look around – the castle is a fascinating place after all, full of history. And the portraits, when they're not making rude insinuations, can be source of interesting stories.

Hogwarts seems a little different now. Before D has seen it through the eyes of an outside, but knowing what he knows now, he can't help but imagine himself living there, getting familiar enough to know its secret pathways and hidden tunnels. According to the vampire Lord, the dungeons under the castle are even now growing bigger –soon they'd reach below the village of Terwich even. Perhaps D could learn to know them too, in time…

There is no time now.

"Where is Harry Potter?" D demands to the empty corridor.

Immediately a house elf pops into the corridor, already looking nervous. "Milordy Potter is asleep," the elf says wretchedly. "We should not bother Milordy when he's asleep."

"It's an emergency and I think he'd want to know," D says darkly. "Where is he?"

The elf hesitates, hems and haws for a moment, even wrings his ear in his knobbly fingered hand – and then finally nods. "Dimmy shouldn't, shouldn't bother Milordy when he's asleep," he says and then seems to shrink a bit under D's gaze. "B-but Dimmy will show the way, sir. This way, sir."

The way the elf leads D isn't the way to the dungeons, however, which is a little surprising. One would think that as a vampire Potter would prefer to sleep as far below ground as he could – but then again… magic.

D shakes his head and puts the thought aside and follows the elf down corridors, up and down stairs until they make it to a tower D hasn't been to before. Its entrance is guarded by the portrait of well dressed, heavyset woman – who, like majority of the portraits, is fast asleep.

Dimmy snaps his fingers at the portraits and without so much as twitching she swings open to reveal a staircase leading up. "Milordy Potter is through here," Dimmy says, wrings his hands and then nods. "Dimmy will be on his way now."

D glances after the elf just as he disappears and then turns to the stairs, heading up to what D at first assumes is some sort of living room but which he soon realises is entirely too big for it, especially with stairs leading into what look like separate wings leading off from it. Not a living room – a common room.

It must be one of the former House towers.

It's not only as warmly lit as the rest of the castle, but it is also warmly decorated. Everything is in shades of red and Gold – the same colours Potter consistently wears – and every single piece of furniture looks comfortable. There are tables and bookshelves in the room as well – and a single portrait of two people, redhead man and brown haired woman, hanging above the blazing fireplace.

Potter is lying on a long couch facing the portrait, his shoes lying discarded on the floor and his glasses resting on the tea table before the fireplace, under the portrait. He's not asleep.

"What happened?" the vampire lord asks, his eyes still shut, his body looking strangely relaxed for a half-asleep vampire.

"The Letbloods learned of your reason for being here. They've taken the school hostage, I imagine thinking the child might be among the students," D says, looking down at him without expression – wondering privately if this too was part of Potter's plans.

Apparently not. The vampire's eyes flash open – and instant later he's sitting up. "What?!" he demands sharply.

"They have a proton bomb at the school – which, even if it's the smallest, will be enough to destroy more than just the school," D says. "They're holding the school in ransom for your silver."

"Oh for fu –" Potter groans and runs a hand over his face. "Why are people so –" he stops again and then turns away, to get his shoes back on. He grabs his golden rimmed glasses and slides them onto his nose. "Merlin damnit, I'm all woozy – what time is it?"

"Hour past dawn."

"That explains it," the vampire says, swaying for a moment. He looks up at the portrait, his expression twisting into sad nostalgia for a moment, and then he turns to D. "Did they give a deadline?"

D shakes his head. "Soon as possible was implied."

Potter frowns. "They didn't give a deadline," he says. "Oh for – this is their first hostage situation?"

"Most likely."

"Merlin, I hate first time criminals, they do the stupidest shit," Potter grumbles and snaps his fingers. "Retta!" he calls, and immediately elf in a white silk tunic appears. "Go to the vaults and prepare the silver for me, please – all of it in one kilogram bars. How fast can you do it?"

The elf doesn't even blink. "In six hours, Milordy," she says. "If every elf works."

"That's not fast enough – I'll be as good as useless by then," the vampire mutters and runs a hand over his chin. "Get the Time-Turners. I need it done now, please."

The elf's eyes widen and she lets out a eep of shock – and then she disappears.

And then she reappears. "Elves have prepared the silver, sir," she says, sounding slightly out of breath. There's a smell of soot and fire on her and her tunic is, all of sudden, singed as if by fire. "Anything else, Milordy?"

"No, thank you. Prepare to transport the silver – invisibly – when I ask. I'll be using the usual commands," Potter says and turns at D who is frowning at the elf. "Where is the school? In relation to the tavern and the Town Hall."

D tells him. "Are you really going to hand over all of your silver?" the dhampir asks suspiciously.

"Yes," Potter says and then holds out a hand. "Come on, I'll transport us both over."

"It's daytime," D says sharply. "Or – do you have Time-Bewitching Incense?"

"Better – I have magic," Potter says and holds his hand out a little more insistently.

D takes it.

It's a little like breaking through dimensions – only faster and lot less arduous. There is that same sense of being wrong for a moment, of having his own physical body squeezed through spaces it is not supposed to fit – but there is no struggle. They start in point A in space and reappear through what D can only assume is a momentary micro-wormhole Potter created to point B in space.

It is somehow less uncomfortable than it by all rights should be.

For a moment, just a fraction of second, Potter stands under the light of day, his skin already smoking. Then he's holding his slender stave, and murmuring, "Nox."

It is as if sun disappears under a very localized cloud, and suddenly there is a cylindrical space of shadow precisely around Potter, about three meters in diameter. D, standing so near him, is also inside it and through the darkness the village around them looks as if it's in a moonless night time, visible but vastly dimmed.

When he steps out of it the unnatural dark space, however, daytime returns and it is only Potter in a strangely localized piece of shadow.

There are other people around, parents and teachers and militia members judging by the looks of it, who hover around the school but dare not get close –and the reason why is obvious. On the rooftop of the flat, two story school building there is a man, one of the Letbloods, with what looks like a sniper rifle.

And on the open space between them and the school there is a member of the militia – shot dead with perfect precision.

"There you are, you fucking bloodsucker!" the man, Gyrn D thinks his name is, shouts. "At least I assume that's you in the magical fucking shadow. Go inside, you and your dhampir bitch, and don't you two even try anything because lookie what I have here!"

He pulls into view a little girl of maybe seven, who is stricken speechless by her terror and can only cry feebly as the man shakes her.

"Do anything and the little girl gets it!" Gyrn shouts and knocks the girl out of side again.

Potter says nothing, looking up through the shadow. Around them, people wail – one woman letting out a cry, probably the girls' mother. In the side D can see the Mayor, running their way with his face pale and with the Militia captain at his side.

"Let's go then," Potter says, as Gyrn aims his gun at them, and without waiting for the Mayor to catch up he moves ahead.

D nods at the Mayor, and then he follows Potter inside the school.

It's nothing like Hogwarts. This school is more like hospital, all white tiles and cold fluorescent lights overhead. It's how most schools are, of course – easier to keep them clean when children ran a muck in them. Strange, how it now looks so very uncomfortable to D.

They are greeted by Del and his stake gun.

"No funny business now, bloodsucker," the man says with a grin. "Gorel's with the kiddies, he'll take nice good care of them until you hand over the silver."

"Let the children go and I will," Potter says.

"Oh, no, no no no," Del says and waves the stake gun. "No, that's not how it goes – you hand us the silver, and then we'll get on our horses, and then we'll go, take couple of the kids with us just in case, and then we'll let the kids go at the edge of the village."

Potter says nothing, narrowing his eyes.

"And don't you try anything," Del adds, and holds out a radio. "Gorel and Gyrn are both listening in. You try anything and that's couple of very dead kids on your conscience. So," he says and clips the radio to his waist. "What's it going to be, bloodsucker."

"Half of the silver now," Potter says slowly. "You get the rest when you've let every child, unharmed, go."

Del hesitates.

Potter holds up a hand. "First patch," he says and snaps his fingers.

The clatter of the first silver bar falling to the floor in front of them is resounding in its loudness. It echoes down the hall, and while Del's eyes automatically trail down to it, the second bar follows.

And then a veritable flood of them come tumbling down from nowhere, a small landslide of silver from thin air spilling onto the smooth, polished stone floor with a sound like metal thunder. D can't quite count them, but there are easily well over hundred bars there.

It's nowhere near tons, though. D doesn't let it into his face, but it's obvious – Potter is planning something.

He can only hope it's something actually sensible.

"Half of the silver," the Vampire lord says coldly. "Second half when you let the children go. Deal?"

Del's eyes are wide as he stares at literal fortune in front of him. His hand's shake for a moment and then he reaches for the radio at his waist. "Gorel," he says, his voice a little bit high now. "We're going to need a carriage."

The Mayor arranges the carriage to the Letbloods' specification – the best carriage the village has to offer, with team of four cyborg horses and well enough space for few hundred bars of silver. While Del keeps Potter on stake point, just in case, D is ushered into first managing the cart and then hauling the already transported silver onto it.

Gorel still has the bomb and the children and Gyrn is still brandishing a sniper rifle on top of the school, and Potter is standing very still under Del's gunpoint, so D doesn't do anything either, he simply transports the silver over.

His hands are blistering painfully by the time he manages to get all of the hundred and fifty silver bars on board the carriage – and unlike the Letbloods' silver bullets, Potter's silver is pure. The blisters refuse to instantly heal.

The vampire lord casts him a silent, slightly apologetic glance. Then he turns to Del. "Now let the children go," he says.

"We'll leave the children where they are," Gorel's voice says, not coming from Del's radio but from down the hall. "They're a little tied up but just fine – they and a little surprise. For which, I have trigger riiight here."

The man is holding a trigger switch. He's also holding a young boy, maybe ten years old, by already bruised arm. And behind him is Gyrn, with the girl from the rooftop in similar situation.

"Now you're going to step out with us, and we're gonna get on that carriage," Gorel says. "And you're gonna walk with us to the end of the village. There, you're gonna give us the rest of the silver and I'm gonna give you this trigger here and the kid. You get me?"

"I get you," Potter says. He's swaying a little where he stands, and Gorel seems to notice it too, grinning wildly.

"Noon sun hitting you, huh, bloodsucker?" he grins and then his expression darkens. "Outside, both of you bastards."

D steps outside first and Potter follows in his magical space of darkness. The Letbloods give them disgusted looks as the terrified people of Terwich make way, and jump on the carriage, dragging the children with them.

"And you lot!" Gorel shouts at the townsfolk and waves the switch. "Vampire loving traitors, the lot of you! Don't you fucking dare to step a foot on that school before we're gone, or I'm going to trigger this here, do a world a favour by getting rid of whole generation of you rat bastards!"

The way to the edge of the village is painstaking, but thankfully not slow. The Letbloods all but charge away, urging the horses to their top speed – which both D and Potter can keep up with, though Potter with obvious difficulties. Even in his magical shadow, the daytime's effect on him is getting worse.

"D," the vampire lord says faintly. "When the kids are clear, get that switch."

D says nothing, but he doesn't think he needs to.

At the edge of the village, where the buildings give way to open fields, the Letbloods slow the carriage down. "The rest of the silver," Gorel demands.

"The kids first," Potter says, his voice a little slurred. "Let them go."

The leader of the Letbloods gives him a disgusted look. Then he takes the boy he's still holding onto and throws him down of the carriage. D watches the boy fall, calculates the angle he might impact the street – and then quickly moves to catch the child before he can break his arm.

He catches the girl that follows as well, catching her to his other arm and quickly moves away before the Letbloods might retaliate.

"Tch," Gorel says as D lets the children down, where they both quickly scramble behind him, and then the Letblood leader holds up the switch and glares at Potter. "The rest of the silver, now! Onto the carriage!"

Potter hesitates and without so much as glance at D, snaps his fingers. "Bring it down," he says.

This time there is no flood of bars. There is a definite flow; the bars rain down from the air and onto the carriage at impressive pace, but it's definitely slower than it was at the entrance of the school, where they all fell down like someone had poured whole mass from a Bucket. This is more a trickle.

And it works. Del's eyes are immediately drawn to the rain of silver, Gyrn doesn't even pretend to not to stare in greedy daze, and, finally, Gorel's eyes twitch over to the rain of silver bars.

That's when D moves – sword in hand he slashes out once and then darts over to catch the falling switch. Gorel's hand falls through the air and smacks down on the hard packed road with a sad sound.

"My hand!" Gorel shouts.

"Bring it all down, now," Potter says without mercy and snaps his fingers again.

As the Letbloods try and catch up with this turn of events, it seems as if the very air over them opens out and silver bars pour down on them, hundreds and thousands of them which in an instant completely bury the carriage and everyone on it. And they just keep coming, the silver piling and piling up as things under its massive weight snap and break, wheels and wooden boards shattering into splinters.

D quickly moves back to the terrified children and covers them both in his cloak, as smell of blood permeates the air – and still the silver keeps coming down, the mount of them growing ever higher as the carriage is buried deeper under it. Soon the heartbeats of those buried in all the wealth they could ever hope for stop, crushed under the literal weight of their own greed.

"What do you know," Potter murmurs sleepily, dangerously wavering where he stands. "Money actually does solve all your problems."

Then the vampire lord keels over, dead asleep – and already burning.

Chapter Text

D stands guard over Harry Potter's sleeping body, watching the drama unfold before him without an expression. The school had been emptied and the proton bomb had been disposed and, after every student and teacher was checked it was discovered that minor bruises – and mental trauma – were the worst they'd suffered, everyone turned to the vampire in their mids.

The vampire lord lays now on the couch in the waiting area of the Town Hall, slightly signed and scarred by sunlight, but still alive and relatively well and, of course, the first answer to the question of "What should we do about him?" involved a stake.

D isn't very surprised.

"Now, now," the Mayor says, nervously looking between the sleeping vampire and D and the crowd of people, mostly parents and members of the Militia, most of whom are holding weapons. "He saved the school, and –"

"It's his fault that the school was under attack in the first place!" someone snaps – a woman in militia uniform. "Him and all that silver and what he did to those guys before – he's the one who brought this upon us!"

"He put his neck out there for our kids!" another woman – this one not uniform – says. "That's more than the lot of you did, that's for damn sure!"

"Well, without him, no one would've had to!"

"Yeah, and now that this has happened and the talk about all that silver's gone out, you think it's going to end here?" another member of the militia says. "We'll get actual bandits next, not just two-bit vampire hunters! Imagine a proper gang rolls up to the town to get that silver – what then? We're going to rely on the vampire to save our asses, again?"

"Now, now," the Mayor tries again. "We are upgrading our defences; soon we will have a proper defensive wall –"

"Well why not? That's what Nobles used to do, right, they protected the people under their charge, right?" someone asks.

"Do you really want to put Terwich under a noble's charge? You know what they did to those people, right?"

"Has this one done any of that?"

"The fact that he hasn't done it yet doesn't mean that he won't – he's a vampire!"

D looks down at Potter, frowning slightly. Even now, sun burnt and surrounded by people who want to kill him, Potter doesn't look much like a vampire. Even now his sleep is more relaxed than any vampire's by right should be. It almost looks like he should wake up at the shouting – but he doesn't. And D doesn't have to touch him to know his heart's stopped, too.

Vampire, so unlike any vampire he's ever seen, and these people are fighting over whether or not he should be killed. He can understand why, naturally any human who got a chance like this – a threat like this – wouldn't take any chances and yet...

"D," the Mayor, looking harangued and stressed, turns to him. "What do you think we should do?"

The people fall silent and turn to him, looking expectant – most of them are glaring. D glances up and then looks down.

"That castle isn't empty," he says. "It's full of elves and ghosts, all of them loyal to him. Wonder what they'll do when you kill their lord."

The silence that follows is almost blissful after all the noise.

"No one mentioned any ghosts," someone mutters.

"What are elves?" another whispers to someone else.

D sighs and folds his arms. "And the castle itself is sentient, and can act freely," he adds. "What it might do is probably much worse."

The people very quickly after that decide that, yes, the vampire was still a bit uncomfortable to have around – but hey, he saved the children. Maybe there was something good about having one around. D says nothing more, just watches them as they finally leave the vampire lord to his, rather well earned, rest.

Even the mayor, after one last nervous look at Potter, leaves, nodding at D as he goes.

"Well, this is a new and exciting situation," D's left palm chuckles from where he has it tucked against his right side. "I think the people are warming up to our good old vampire here. What a development."

"Hm," D answers, glancing at Potter again and then away.

"And you, standing there guard over a vampire – incredible. How the tables turn."

D squeezes his hand into a fist and says nothing.

On the couch, Potter slowly heals.

What happens to the silver, D doesn't hear until much later, when the Mayor comes in, looking sweaty and exhausted but no longer quite so stressed. Other than the Mayor, the Town Hall has stayed empty since the initial alarm, people wanting to avoid getting anywhere near the vampire without nice big crowd at their back, most likely.

"We can't move it," the Mayor says. "Which I can't help but be grateful of."

"Can't move it?" D asks slowly.

"Ten men couldn't lift a single brick of silver in that mound," the Mayor explains. "It's not just that they each seemingly weigh a ton – it's as if they're stuck in space by some – magic, or some such. The local blacksmith couldn't even chip them."

D says nothing, quietly wondering if it was Potter's doing. Unlikely – it was probably the elves behind it.

"Not that I would've permitted any thievery," the Mayor says quickly. "But – people are people. And that much silver – anyone would be tempted."

"Hm," D answers without comment and turns his eyes to Potter again.

The Mayor does the same, first nervously as if even looking was somehow sacrilegious, and then with increasing confidence. The man frowns a little. "He's not much like other Nobles, is he?"

"He's not a Noble at all," D says. "Harry Potter predates the Nobility."

The Mayor says nothing for a moment, lifting his hand as if to chew on his thumbnail again, and then stopping mid-motion. "No, he's not much like other Nobles at all," he murmurs with a nod and then heads off again.

D glances after him and then goes back to watching over Potter.

The vampire finally wakes up, some half an hour until sunset. He does even this somehow wrong – most vampires wake up instantly the moment sun sets, going from seemingly dead to fully alert in a split of a second. Harry Potter wakes more like human, slowly and languidly.

"I had the weirdest dream I buried someone in silver," he murmurs.

D frowns a little at the choice of words. Vampires don't dream. They don't have enough activity during their sleeping hours to dream – their bodies were as good as deceased at the time.

The vampire blinks at the ceiling and then looks around tentatively, frowning a little. Finally his eyes find D and for a moment he says nothing. "Oh," he says and slowly sits up, rubbing at his eyes and knocking his glasses askew. "Um. Right. Vampire Hunters. I – did bury someone in silver."

"I think technically it was the elves that did it," D comments.

The vampire lord winces at that. "And I'll be hearing about it too," he mutters and yawns into his hand, turning his head away as if to be polite about it. Then he shudders and turns around on the couch, to get his feet on the floor. "Where am I?"

"Town Hall," D answers. "You fell asleep out in the open sun."

"Mm," Potter agrees, feeling around his face with his fingertips. The burns have healed already, but judging by the looks of it he can still feel them there. "Sounds about right. Falling asleep in middle of human settlement – one would think that would be bad for my health."

"You did almost get staked," D answers, folding his arms and looking him over. He doesn't look much worse to wear, though his hair and clothes are a little singed. "For now people seem to have decided you're better alive than dead."

The vampire lord looks up at him and then away again, frowning a little. "Well," he murmurs. "Isn't that something?"

Slowly Potter stands up, swaying a little. As he does, the front entrance door is opened, almost making him recoil from the sudden flash of sunlight as the Mayor steps in.

"Oh," the Mayor says. "O-oh, you're awake."

"I'm awake," Potter agrees, smiling a little and glancing at D. "Little confused about why I'm here precisely, but either way I reckon I've already prolonged my stay for long enough."

"No, no," the Mayor says, flails a little, and then seems to get his thoughts – and limbs – in order. "Lord Potter," he says, steeling himself – and then bowing his head. "I, as the elected Mayor of Terwich, thank you for what you have done today. You saved many of our children from certain catastrophe and the people of Terwich are very grateful. Thank you."

D arches an eyebrow while Potter just stares, looking strangely stricken. It is something, to have humans thanking a vampire like that – perhaps in ancient times it was possible, but these days? Unheard of. And even Potter, so far removed from society and sometimes reality seems to understand it.

"Y-you're welcome," the vampire lord says awkwardly. "Don't – don't call me lord, though."

The Mayor flails a bit more at that. "T-then what title would you prefer?" he asks nervously. "Milord?"

"I get enough of that from the elves. Can't you just call me Harry? Or if it must be a title, then professor?" the vampire asks almost wistfully. "I wouldn't mind being a professor again."

The Mayor looks up at him uncertainly, then at D, and then at the vampire again. "Very well then, Professor," he says then slowly. Somehow, it still sounds like lord when he says it.

Potter seems to hear it too, and he sighs. "I guess that'll do," he says. "Now, are the kids alright?"

"What –ah, yes, yes everyone is quite alright. There were some bruises, but nothing really serious," the Mayor says. "The worst we suffered was the loss of one of the militia members, but that was before you arrived at the scene."

"The man who was shot," Potter says and nods his head respectfully. "I'm sorry for your losses."

"I – thank you?" the Mayor answers uncertainly.

D looks away and says nothing as the pair slowly, awkwardly, reacquaint themselves – the elected leader and, no matter how Potter might not see it like that, the soon to be Liege Lord of the region. It's awkward and uneasy and yet somehow hopeful and D...

D isn't sure he can bare it for much longer, really.

Eventually Potter heads up to the castle. D doesn't go with him, staying in the village to settle some matters. He hears, only paying peripheral attention to the matter, that the silver that killed the three hunters starts disappearing soon after, returning no doubt to the castle. Though enormously disappointing, people all seem to agree that it was good thing it took the bodies with it. Potter, apparently, had also promised to re-compensate the carriage which had been turned into nothing but splinters under the mass.

Eventually night falls, though, and the excitement of the day finally quiets down. The streets of Terwich are lit in purple UV glow again, and the militia take to their watch towers for the night, to watch out for the nightly monsters. D walks the streets himself for a while, just checking with his senses that the Letbloods hadn't left any surprises behind. Then, satisfied, he heads to the Town Hall, where he can still see light in the Mayo's office.

"You're an idiot," his hand comments after, as D heads to the storehouse between Terwich and Hogwarts, to check up on his own equipment, and to ready his horse.

D says nothing, packing away his gear in silence.

It's couple hours to dawn when D rides up to Hogwarts again. It's only the second time he's taken his horse there, and the first time he'd done it, Hogwarts had looked only like ruins to him. Now he leaves the horse by the viaduct, to graze on the grasses there, and then heads inside though a side door.

"Good morning, sir," an elf pops in to greet him. It's Dimmy. "Milordy Potter is in the Gryffindor Tower again, does sir need a guide?"

"I should be able to make my way," D says, and then adds gently, "Thank you."

Dimmy's eyes shine as he nods and disappears.

In the week and half or so he's spend in Terwich, he's learned to know the castle a little better. It still seems a bit like a maze, but it's a maze he's growing familiar with, and now that he knows little about the secret passageways, it's easier to navigate out of seeming dead ends. It still takes him good half an hour to make his way to the tower guarded by the portrait of the well dressed woman, but he doesn't mind.

Right now, D isn't in a hurry.

The portrait is deep asleep when D gets there, as are the multitudes of portraits around her, but it is also slightly ajar, revealing the staircase behind it. D eases the portrait open the rest of the way and then heads inside into the fire lit common room.

Potter is sitting by the couch again, gazing up at the picture of the sleeping man and woman. He glances over his shoulder and then takes out the blood red lollipop he's sucking on. "Good morning, D," he says. "Everything alright in the village?"

"It's fine," D answers, coming closer. Potter is wearing a new set of robes now – these ones are silver and green, and just as grandiose as the ones before, if still very different from what a vampire Noble might wear.

Potter frowns a little. "Something wrong?" he asks slowly, setting the lollipop on his tongue again.

D realizes he's frowning and looks away. But, well... why prolong the inevitable. "I'm leaving."

Potter coughs with surprise and quickly takes the bloody candy out again. He licks his lips, eying D uncertainly. "Leaving," he says slowly. "Um. Why?"

"My contract is fulfilled," D answers. "The mayor of Terwich agrees with me – you're not a threat to the village."

He can feel the parasite's silent scoff against his fingers and squeezes his hand into tighter fist, while Potter watches him with confusion.

"You can stay here, you know," the vampire lord says slowly. "I told you so many times already, didn't I – you're welcome here. And not just because you have magic, you're... you're welcome anyway."

D almost sighs, shaking his head.

Potter looks away, frowning. "I thought..." he trails away, staring at the fireplace. His shoulders slump a little and then he looks up at the portrait of the sleeping couple. "I thought you'd... like to stay. We would love to have you here, I would –"

He trails off into silence, looking uncertain, and D waits for a moment before speaking. "Every time I come here, I keep leaving with more and more questions," he says, but that's inadequate, doesn't convey the sheer confusion of it. "You, this place, everything here, you keep... overwhelming me."

Potter's eyes widen a little – but he doesn't really understand, that's obvious. "I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," he says quickly. "I didn't realize I was doing it – I can stop –"

"When I'm here, I'm almost... someone else," D admits and looks at the castle around them, all the potential it has. "I keep losing myself here. This place is everything I could hope for myself, and I can imagine myself living here, and being someone who could live here. But I'm not that person."

Potter opens his mouth, closes it for a moment and then asks, almost plaintive, "Why not?"

D shakes his head, taking a deep breath. "I can't," he says simply. "Not yet."

Potter frowns, looking at him searchingly and then looking away. "I..." he starts to say, but then just trails off.

"Did Hogwarts appear here because of me?" D asks.

"No," Potter says quietly, not looking at him. "It was the town."

D nods, closing his eyes. He'd worried, for a moment there. "Good," he says and takes a breath.

"You could still stay," Potter says quietly and looks at the lollipop in his hand. "I was really... really hoping you'd stay. The house elves like you, the ghosts don't mind you – the portraits love you... you're the best thing to happen to this place in thousands of years."

D says nothing and the vampire turns to look at him over his shoulder. "There are still so many things I haven't told you," Potter says almost desperately. "I was hoping to teach you –"

"I don't want to be your student," D says sharply and then takes another deep breath. "I spend the entirety of my youth as little more than a living experiment in the Sacred Ancestor's palace. I thought I was a student, I didn't realize until later I wasn't, that wasn't what was going on, but... it felt like this," he motions between them. "It felt exactly like this."

Harry Potter's mouth opens and he shakes his head. "It isn't, I promise you, it isn't."

D shakes his head. "Maybe not. But that's what it feels like. You keep telling me stories and talking of magic, showing these things to me, and it feels like you're moulding me to a shape I don't know."

"I don't – I didn't mean to," the vampire says quickly, almost stumbling over his own words and stands up. "D – I promise you I didn't mean to. I was just..." his shoulders slump a little. "... trying to show off."

D says nothing, frowning a little.

"You're always so cold and you keep throwing your aura at me," the Vampire mutters with a helpless, almost bitter laugh and runs a hand over his face. "It just felt like I should... I don't even know anymore. I guess I was trying too hard. How very human of me."

They're tensely quiet for a moment, D watching the vampire who at first doesn't meet his eyes, looking almost ashamed of himself. Finally Potter falls back to sit on the couch, running a hand over his face. "Bollocks," he mutters.

It strikes D for a moment how desperately lonely the man must've been. He'd really been trying so hard, too hard, to make D like him and like his castle. But he'd also tried to make D into something like him, whether it had been intentional or not. He'd been looking too hard for the wizard in D.

In the end, D's not sure Potter actually knows anything about him at all. It's not like it ever came up – all they'd ever talked about was history and magic.

"I'm the vampire king's son," D says.

"Yeah, I figured it was something like that," Potter says, almost smothering himself in his hands. "You look almost exactly like him. He's the one who bit me, by the way."

D leans his head back and sighs, closing his eyes. That explains how the vampire knows so much about things no one else did, then. And yet again, somehow, the conversation swings to Potter's side, into a position where D wants to ask questions.

Damn it.

"How isn't you didn't fall under his thrall?" D asks, gritting his teeth a little.

"I did," Potter answers tiredly, and lifts his head – but not to look at D. He looks instead at the portrait. "For a while. I was pulled back by my friends, the greatest witch and wizard who ever lived. They did the impossible, the greatest magical creation in existence."

"Which is?"

"Me," Potter says. "Back then people believed in this thing called a soul that every human had – and which, when you died, went into afterlife. Your essence, the source of your aura, whatever. When a human is bit by a vampire, part of the turning process is that they, for a while, go clinically dead, right?" he asks and shakes his head. "Back then we believed that that was when the soul left and what resurrected was just the body with malicious will. That's why wizards turned into vampires couldn't do any magic, that's why their personalities change – because they lost their souls in the process. My friends... pulled mine back from the afterlife, and shoved it back into my body."

And again, again he's making D want to ask more questions, to learn more about this. It takes actual physical effort – and his nails possibly digging grooves into his palms – to swallow the questions, because by now D knows – it might never stop. He'll just forever be asking questions.

"Right," is all he says instead, shaking his head, and Potter glances at him wearily.

"I'm doing it again, aren't I?" the vampire asks and lets out a huff that's almost a laugh. "I talk too much – that's a new problem for me."

D shakes his head. "Not exactly a bad feature in a teacher," he says.

"Terrible in a friend, though," Potter says, searching D's face with his eyes and then smiling bitterly when D doesn't contradict him. "I'm sorry, D."

D nods but doesn't say anything for a moment, looking up at the portrait of the two humans who had lived, and died, thousands of years ago. "Sun is going to rise soon," he says.

"Right," Harry Potter says. "If – if for any reason you are in the area, maybe you could... actually," he rummages through his pockets and when he comes away empty he takes out the slender stave. After a moment of consideration, Potter flicks the thing in air and something appears in front of him – a piece of blood red crystal – which he catches midair.

"Seems appropriate, all things considered," the vampire mutters and then waves the stave over the crystal, concentrating. After a moment of consideration, he stands up and comes to D and holding the crystal out to him.

"What is it?" D asks, even as he accepts the thing.

"If for any reason at all you want to talk to me, if you need help, or... or anything, break this," the vampire says a little awkwardly. "I'll know and I'll come to you."

D eyes the crystal for a moment and then nods, putting it into his pocket. Potter stares up at him with strange sort of nostalgia, folding his arms, almost hugging himself.

"It was a pleasure to have you here, D," the vampire says wistfully. "You're welcome back any time, alright? Any time."

D nods slowly, watching him, and for a moment letting himself wonder what might happen if he changed his mind now, if he decided to stay. He'd get utterly consumed into Harry Potter's world, probably, lost into magic and wizardry and history that isn't even his. He'd become someone else, someone like this strange magical vampire in front of him. He'd be happy.

He wouldn't be himself, though.

"Thank you," D says and then, giving into a very Harry Potter-esque impulse, reaches forward to touch the vampire's face, to kiss his lips. The vampire inhales sharply but doesn't stop him, staring up at him with wide eyes – a whole new realization shining on his face.

It's almost satisfying, to have finally pulled the rug from under him in turn.

"Maybe one day," D says.

Then, without further word of good bye, he turns around and leaves first him, then the Castle of Hogwarts itself, behind.