» Two weeks later
"Er." Erred Harry, who was holding a small pinch of glittering powder between his fingers. My brother stared at the open fireplace ahead of him hesitantly. "Not to be disrespectful Ma'am, but is this really safe?"
"As safe as any other method of transport can be." Answered McGonagall, taking a step back so that she stood at a safe distance away from him. "Just remember to enunciate your destination clearly after you enter the floo-flames, and there shouldn't be any complications."
"Right." Said Harry, convinced but still undeniably reluctant.
He threw the pinch forward into the fireplace, blinking in surprise as the crackling orange flames soared upward and morphed into a brilliant emerald green.
'Oh,' Thought Harry, his concerns all but eased by the fire's familiarity. 'That was anticlimactic. They're just the same as mine.'
I was about to open my metaphysical mouth and reply that no, they were definitely not the same as his, before my brother took a deep breath and stepped forward into the towering magical flames.
This prior preparation turned out to be a mistake as Harry accidentally inhaled a lungful of soot on his way in and was already one foot into the dusty fireplace before he realised his error.
『 You cannot be serious Harry. 』I groaned.『 McGonagall explained this three separate times. What the hell are you doing? 』
My brother gagged loudly, and I felt McGonagall's magical presence soar in alarm behind us.
The boy coughed out a garbled combination of "Diagon Alley," and "Shit." before he was whisked away through the lit fireplace, leaving the startled McGonagall alone behind him.
「 I didn't think you were this stupid. 」I sighed, watching as Harry twisted through a complicated labyrinthine network of cracked stone, ash, and floo-powered fire.「 I actually cannot believe you just did that. 」
"Oi! It's not my fault there was soot everywhere!" The boy shouted, falling into yet another coughing fit as he repeated the mistake of opening his mouth.
The din of disjointed, broken voices and roaring floo-flames surrounding us suddenly vanished, replaced by a deafening, empty silence.
Then Harry promptly shot out of a new, unfamiliar fireplace and tumbled his way across the room's stone flooring, hitting the opposite wall with a loud thump.
Harry groaned in pain, thoroughly dazed by his violent ejection from the floo network. 'I thought it was going to be like my fire.' He muttered, shaking his head and wincing. 'No ash, no soot, just fire. My bad I guess.'
The building we were in seemed to be a bar of some kind - And an old one at that.
Its walls were made of a rough-looking cement that was sandwiched between a collage of misshapen stone bricks; its flooring a simple array of dirty wooden planks.
The only lighting in the room came from the large crackling fireplace, with deep orange flames casting long, dark shadows that danced lightly across the surrounding room.
All-in-all, the place gave off a near-medieval vibe; an observation that was supported by the fact there wasn't a hint of any modern appliances in sight. Nothing that a bar would usually have on display anyway.
A deep, snarling voice entered Harry's still-ringing ears.
"You. Who are you?"
The boy whipped around, narrowly resisting the urge to flinch backwards as he was met with a pale, gaunt-looking face that was barely an inch away from his own.
"And how the fuck did you get here?!" The man continued, shouting. His slitted cat-like pupils thinned under the weight of his anger; his eyes burned a deep, unnatural red.
"It's common courtesy to introduce yourself first before firing off questions you know." Harry snapped furiously, hastily peddling backwards from the man while reaching up to wipe away the ash that clung to his blackened, soot-stained glasses.
I regretted insulting my brother immediately. I had probably put him off balance with my name-calling, as it didn't happen often.
This kind of disrespect in an unfamiliar environment was a terrible idea, and it was not something Harry would have normally done. Especially considering this stranger's supernatural-looking eyes.
My brother choked loudly as one of the man's hands snaked forward and encircled his throat, before lifting him clear off the ground.
The stranger pulled the suffocating Harry toward him, his eyes blazing with that same resonant fury.
I noticed there was a sliver of fear there, too, if only a little bit.
「 Vampire. 」I bit out, regret blending into my tone.「 Do as it says, Harry. 」
The man's grip tightened, his sharp nails starting to dig their way into the sides of Harry's unprotected neck. "Answer me boy! Before I bleed you dry!"
Harry gasped, tapping the hand that was holding him by the neck twice in what he hoped was a clear show of submission; an action that prompted the hostile vampire to drop him to the ground roughly.
The boy huffed loudly as his blood rushed to his head, his vision briefly blacking out.
"The floo," Harry gasped, shaking fingers tracing his bleeding throat. "I misspoke. It. Sent me here."
"W- What?" The man stuttered out, eyes widening in shock. He ran his hands through his short hair disbelievingly, an edge of panic now creeping its way into his tone. "No, that's not possible. It can't be. This isn't the kind of place you can just floo into by accident." He glared down at Harry, a familiar, angry mistrust returning to his gaze. "You're lying, tell the truth or I'll-"
A new, silkier voice cut across the man's accusations. "Relax, Gerard, The Stacks are not compromised."
Our vampiric assailant whipped around in astonishment before dropping into a short, respectful bow that was aimed toward the newcomer.
Harry stared across at the tall, overbearing woman who was standing in the bar's doorway.
"Leave us. I will handle this in your stead." She instructed, red eyes sliding over Harry's downed figure with a look of casual intrigue.
"But-" Gerard began to protest, but was instantly rendered silent as the woman's eerie gaze suddenly switched from eyeing Harry to bearing down on him.
The man practically recoiled underneath the penetrating calm of her stare.
No further words were exchanged, but Gerard nodded jauntily before stepping past the woman and moving to exit the bar. He cast a quick, almost sympathetic gaze in Harry's direction on his way out.
'Oh fuck.' Said Harry, massaging his bruised neck. 'Why the hell did he look at us like that?'
「 I've got a few ideas. 」I said, eyeing the woman with a curious apprehension.
Her hair was long and brown; her slitted cat-like eyes the same unnatural red - Similar to the previous man's.
She, too, was a vampire.
The woman wore a long black trench coat that was coupled with a crisp white shirt and a dark red cravat tied tightly around the base of her neck.
The strange nineteenth-century-esque look was topped off by a pair of striped grey dungarees that had a singular middle pocket sewn into their front.
'Please tell me these vampires are just horrendously old-fashioned.' Harry prayed, eyeing the woman's clothing apprehensively. 'I do not want to go outside and find Victorian fucking England waiting for me.'
「 I highly doubt that floo powder gives one the ability to time travel. 」I replied dryly, deciding against knocking the sarcasm from Harry's tone.
It was likely just his way of coping with the ridiculous situation he had landed us in.
"You are Harry James Potter, correct?" The woman asked, walking toward the bar's counter and sliding onto the stool in front of us.
Harry and I stiffened up, our thoughts unanimous.
How did she know his name?
"What year is it?" The boy asked, eyeing the woman's attire carefully.
She let out a single deep laugh, staring down at my brother in amusement. "Nineteen-ninety-one." She replied. "No need to fret, little one - There's nothing to worry about in that regard."
"Well, thank God for that." Harry breathed quietly before piping up again, hoping to distract the woman while he searched for some sort of escape route. "Any reason why you and your friend look like you raided a museum?"
The woman let out a low hum in response, lazily withdrawing a small velvet bag from the middle pocket of her dungarees and depositing it onto the counter beside her.
"Many of our kind reminisce about the older days, back when life was less complex. It's become something of a theme around these parts." She drawled, fixing Harry with a slothful but calculating stare which he picked up on immediately. "In any case, if you answer my previous question, I'll give you this pouch of floo powder, and you can be on your way. Unharmed."
'Art?' Harry asked, his eyes glued to the bag, unable to think of an alternate way out of this. 'I've really fucked up this time haven't I?'
「 Yeah, you have. 」I replied, thinking quickly.「 She'll beat you to the door easily and may kill you if you try and steal the bag. That's if there's even any powder in it anyway. 」
'So I comply?' Harry said, staring into the woman's narrowing eyes.
I sent him a wordless agreement.
I really didn't see any other way out of this. I also didn't know how lethal a creature vampires were yet. Struggling uselessly over something that might very well be a lie just wasn't worth the risk to our lives.
Despite my well-reasoned cautions, my brother hesitated.
This was the first time Harry didn't follow up on my advice immediately upon my sharing it. I supposed it was normal - Second-guessing my guidance when his life was at risk.
But it made me uneasy.
One day, he might end up not listening to my advice at all.
"Okay. I am who you say I am," My brother admitted, quickly struggling to his feet and walking over to the counter. "The bag?" He requested, holding out a hand.
The female vampire gestured toward it in a leisurely sort of way, making no move to make the effort to pass it onto him herself.
My brother willed his magic into action.
Fire danced beneath the surface of his skin, ready to explode outward at a moment's notice.
It was a good precaution by him, and something that I copied immediately, only readying my telekinesis instead of his magical fire.
Harry leaned forward, intending to grab the bag and retreat as fast as he was able.
Just as his fingers tightened around the bag however, the boy felt a single feminine hand grab a hold of his hair from behind and yank his head to one side.
Smouldering green fire instantly blossomed across Harry's shoulders and raced up the back of his neck; an act that would have likely been a sound endeavour to burn the vampire off of him.
Harry's burgeoning magical flames, however, died the moment he felt a viciously sharp set of fangs bury themselves into the side of his exposed neck.
His desperate surge of pyrokinesis simply winked out of existence the moment his neck began to bleed anew; the boy's jade-coloured flames burning out into small embers before they could begin their directive to devour his attacker's face.
"You lying bitch…" Harry snarled, twisting violently under the woman's iron-like grip.
My brother's clumsy floundering made the bite even more painful as his furious struggles tore the wound even larger.
Harry could feel the blood being sucked out of his neck, and it terrified him.
And somehow, I could feel it too.
My sense of touch was returning.
The overpowered sensory stimulation that I was so unused to blindsided me completely.
I tried, as pitiful as the attempt might have been, to pick up the slack where Harry's magic had failed and use my own to send the woman flying across the room.
To my dizzy and pained shock however, magic didn't beckon to my call.
All I felt in reply was a deadly, unreactive silence.
This wasn't a simple lapse in concentration - Even then, I would still sense some sort of feedback.
But now?
I felt nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
「 We're fucked. 」I said numbly, my shock so horribly potent that it temporarily superseded the burning pain I was in, briefly granting me the ability to speak once more.
Did vampire bites suppress magic? Why on Earth was I beginning to feel things now?
Harry's vision began to blur as small red tendrils curled their way across the whites of his eyes, obscuring his sense of sight. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, stunned; his eyelids fighting to stay open.
"What's she… Doing?" My brother ground out, his voice slurring as he confused reality with our mental link.
My brother's eyes, mouth, and nails began to sear with a torturous white-hot pain.
I screamed, but Harry screamed louder.
The unbearable heat slowly spread out across the rest of our body, lighting our nerves ablaze with a hurt incomparable to anything I had felt before.
The woman clamped a hand over our mouth, muffling my brother's cries.
The boiling sensation coursing through our body was overwhelming, the pain driving both me and Harry well over the edge of sound, rational reason.
After about a minute, the vampire pulled her teeth out of Harry's neck and licked the wound clean, seemingly satisfied. She did not drop him to the floor like her fellow had however, instead choosing to hold him upright while he recovered.
Murmured words of disdain rang through my brother's addled ears. His head lolled backwards unnaturally, green eyes beginning to flutter open once more.
"Magical blood is as disgusting as ever," The woman said, removing her hand from where it covered Harry's mouth. "But with this, my debt to you is repaid, Hunter."
Harry blinked as his vision began to return at a staggering rate, the sea of redness retreating back into the corner of his eyes and disappearing from our sight.
Our eyes, nails, and teeth still stung painfully, but they were becoming progressively number by the second.
"What- What did you do to me?" Harry asked, stuttering, staggering out of the vampire's now gentle embrace.
Our vision swam; our eyes blurring with unshed tears.
The world, strangely, looked more vibrant than before. More colourful. More complex.
Both of us felt like throwing up.
"Only what I had to." The woman replied, her tone audibly distasteful. She walked forward slowly before placing her hands onto my brother's shoulders firmly, guiding him toward the crackling fireplace. "No go, properly this time - And never return here. You will not be so fortunate to encounter me again."
"How the fuck is this fortunate," Harry snapped, brushing off the woman's slender hands and reaching up to trace his fingers across the unprotected patch of skin where she had bitten him.
To both our surprise, his neck felt wholly unscathed - Other than being slightly sticky from the vampire's tongue.
"Well, you are free to leave after all." The woman replied, sliding her hands back into her dungaree pockets. "Not many outsiders have visited here before - Intentionally or otherwise, and many more died for their ignorance or overconfidence either way." She fixed Harry with an unimpressed stare. She extended a lone hand to gesture toward the bar's exit. "Take Gerard for example; he would certainly not have been so kind."
My brother took one look at the woman before snarling again and throwing the velvet pouch into the fireplace, not even bothering to check what was contained inside it.
He was afraid - I could feel it. And rightfully so.
We watched closely as the bag slowly burned away to reveal that same glittering green powder as before.
Harry's eyes flickered across every single speck of ash that crumbled away from the scorched velvet of the bag. He gagged loudly, forcefully turning his head to look away.
I could feel my brother's feeling of sickness heighten across our link. He wasn't taking to these changes well at all.
We could see every single grain of that sparkling green sand in crystal-clear detail, a fact that was making my brother's head spin.
It was nauseating for me, too, but my magic was beginning to return, and it was offsetting it by a great deal.
My magic felt oddly foreign somehow, but I didn't dwell on it.
I was focused on other, far more important matters right now.
The fireplace suddenly roared with activity, and Harry staggered forward into the haven of emerald green flames, pivoting around to steal one final glance at the eccentric female vampire.
"Diagon Alley!" He shouted, staring back at the woman's unsettlingly casual demeanour.
There wasn't a hair out of place on her head. It was like she hadn't even attacked him at all.
A second later, and we disappeared from the bar's fireplace in a torrent of magical, emerald green fire.
✽ ✽ ✽
"Mr Potter!" An irate McGonagall all but shouted in Harry's face. "Did I or did I not walk you through how to operate the floo network three separate times?"
My brother, still shaken from his ordeal, flinched backwards and collapsed against the stony floo monument that lay behind him.
"I'm sorry." He bit out, staring up at his chaperone with a poorly disguised fear. "I thought it was like my fire."
「 Harry… 」I muttered, sighing.
McGonagall was probably going to have questions now - More than she would have had before, at least. I just hoped those questions would be the wrong ones.
In all honesty, I was more worried about his magic.
Unlike mine, it was still silent. Whatever the vampire had done to it had completely and utterly voided it from my perception.
"Your fire?" The tall woman asked, looking down at his unsettled expression with more than a hint of remorse. She seemed to be regretting the strong tone she had used on him.
"It was green," Harry justified, staring at the ground in an hour an honest shame, brainstorming a way to remedy his slip-up. "I just wasn't expecting there to be soot."
McGonagall looked at him before shaking her head regretfully. "Well, let's move out of the way - I don't wish to block anyone trying to floo in."
The two moved away from the carved headpiece of Ignatia Wildsmith, who was the long-dead inventor of floo powder. Her monument served as one of Diagon Alley's many entrances, though according to McGonagall, it was the most commonly used.
Not even a moment later and the small fire burning within the basin that protruded from the monument roared once more, with an unfamiliar man twisting out of the floo network and landing on the cobbled street where Harry had been standing mere moments before.
"Now then," Said McGonagall, apparently deciding to put off her reprimands until a later date. "Where exactly did you end up?"
Harry flinched again, subconsciously bringing up a hand to where he had been bitten. He berated himself for his mistake immediately, another flush of shame creeping up the back of his neck.
"I honestly don't know." He replied, eyes downcast. "It looked like a tavern of sorts, but there wasn't anybody in there." The boy plastered a rather sheepish expression onto his face before looking back up to lock eyes with the older witch. "I might've stolen some of their floo powder to get back though."
「 Well played. 」I said, staring back at Harry from within McGonagall's glasses. My eyes flickered down to his hands, my satisfaction at his deflection freezing rigid upon catching sight of his nails.
They were no longer short and bitten down - A bad habit my brother hadn't managed to lose since his younger days.
They were long - Not too long, but far longer than they had been, nonetheless; and they were pointed too, now to the point of looking razor-sharp.
McGonagall huffed disapprovingly, turning away to glance up the main street, stern blue eyes glinting with thought.
I had no doubt she was already planning our route through the Alley.
"In any case, I hope you've learnt your lesson?"
"Yes Professor." Said Harry, nodding vigorously in agreement. He had indeed.
「 Harry… Don't show her your hands again. 」I warned, more than a little concerned about my brother's physical changes.
The boy glanced down at his hands, eyes widening as he noticed his elongated nails for the first time.
'What the fuck?' He whispered, quickly clenching both hands into fists and thrusting them down by his sides.
「 Not only that. I also can't feel your magic anymore. 」I said, not bothering to disguise my worry.「 Can you? 」
A moment of silence passed between us.
'No. It's gone.' He muttered, and I felt his anxiety spike to a level it hadn't reached in a very long time. 'It'll be back, right Art?' He asked, his voice sounding desperate.
「 I don't- 」I said, my reply getting cut off by McGonagall's next, damning question.
"Now then, pray-tell, what fire were you referring to?"
"I can make fire." My brother blurted out, further unbalanced by his evident lack of magical power. "It's green, just like the floo flames, only a shade lighter." He covered hastily.
Our chaperone's eyes widened in something that looked like amazement.
"Well," She said, looking down at Harry with a genuine curiosity. "That's an impressive feat, to say the least. Especially given you are without proper instruction." The woman glanced at our surroundings before striking my brother with an evaluative stare. "If you don't mind, could you… Demonstrate this for me?"
'Art? This doesn't seem like something I can refuse,' Harry muttered, really starting to panic now. 'What do I do? My magic isn't responding - I can't make any fire right now.'
I took a moment to think.
In that short, brief moment, I sped through my very short list of possible conclusions.
Only one fit.
The elongated nails - The burning pain had originated there when the vampire bit us. The same feeling had begun in our eyes and teeth.
It stood to reason that they had changed as well.
Had Harry been turned into a vampire? Was that why the bite wound had disappeared - Because of his newly advanced regeneration? Was that why his magic wasn't responding? Because the transformation had influenced it somehow?
If so, was this silence of power permanent?
I needed a solution - No, we needed a solution. Now.
Otherwise, Harry surely wouldn't have a place at Hogwarts any longer.
An answer suddenly hit me.
It was crazy, sure. But not impossible. Probably.
I had lived with Harry for long enough. I had felt him use his magic for years now. Watched him summon those jade-coloured flames for over half a decade at this point.
Could I copy them somehow? Even though I hadn't been able to expand my magic beyond simple telekinesis before - That strange magical pressure notwithstanding - We had no other option right now.
I had to try.
「 I'm going to try something. Get ready. 」
My magical presence flared into life. My 'river' began to flow.
I focused inwards.
Everything felt strangely clearer now, more refined. Was it because of the bite?
I could sense the hollow, empty space where my brother's embers had once resided.
It seemed more solid now, more palpable; a far cry from the intangible wildfire that had been burning there previously.
I could feel my own 'space' too, swirling around like rushing water - Like a reservoir of sorts. I quickly coined the term reservoir for our magical spaces, a it seemed like a fitting term to use.
Then another solution struck me. Maybe I wouldn't have to copy his fire after all.
『 I probably couldn't have managed it anyway. 』I thought idly.
I pushed past my negative sentiments, instead choosing to focus on this far more applicable solution.
With little more than the barest push, my river changed its course; a tiny offshoot of water began trickling toward Harry's corrupted reservoir. It seeped inward through its defences, one magical drop at a time.
I felt my brother seize onto this feeling immediately, and a smattering of sparks flared into life within his reservoir. Harry's personalised brand of fiery magical presence was returning, albeit very slowly.
It was rather bizarre seeing my 'water' so seamlessly transform into his 'fire'.
It felt strangely as if it hadn't even changed at all.
I didn't dwell on this fact for long though - I still needed to concentrate on the transfer.
The trickle of water gently evened out into a continuous, gushing stream, carving the path from my reservoir to his wider and wider with each split-second gone by.
We were running out of time.
My brother's reservoir of flames was filling up. His fire burned strongly once again.
'Ah,' Harry exclaimed softly. A blend of excited relief worked its way onto his face. 'You're… Brilliant, this is perfect.'
The boy raised his right hand under McGonagall's watchful gaze.
Harry snapped his fingers, his minor action compelling a small jade-green flame to blossom into life between his thumb and forefinger; the magical fire moving to hover just slightly above his outstretched hand.
"Oh." McGonagall breathed. She stared down at my brother with more than a hint of pride. "Well, that is a sight to see. Wandless magic at your age - Self-taught too."
The flame flickered out. Harry's wildfire dimmed.
My brother restrained his instinct to frown masterfully.
Something was wrong.
"You'll be a credit to whichever house you are sorted into, I'm sure." The woman continued, shooting my brother an approving look.
Harry said nothing in reply, instead scratching the back of his head in an embarrassed sort of way.
Internally, though, he was starting to panic once more.
I, on the other hand, let out a sigh of relief.
Whatever I had done had worked.
As temporary as it might have been, it had worked.
We were in the clear, for now at least.
✽ ✽ ✽
〘 A/N: The two-week time-skip is calculated, so don't worry, you aren't missing anything. 〙