Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Bloody Skies	By : TokiMirage Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Slash - Male/Male Views: 44832 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: JKRowling owns Harry Potter. Everything else is mine. I do not make any money writing this fic.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Bloody Skies:
oOo
Chapter Five:
oOo
“And finally, this is your room for the rest of your stay. Dormitories aren’t split by year or race here. Most of the time we don’t even know who our neighbours are. Living here, if you don’t know enough about protective wards, can be dangerous to your health.” The werewolf sounded like he was reading a warning label.
Cyrus felt his stomach sink a little. He knew nothing about wards. He didn’t even know how to stop himself from smacking face-first into one, and he had a feeling that his ‘tour guide’ wouldn’t help him if he asked. They probably saw it as a sign of weakness. He was so screwed.
“Anything else?” the werewolf drawled, a supremely uninterested look on his face. He’d shown Cyrus where the gym, the dojo, the pool, the library, the Healer’s room, and some of the classes were. When Cyrus had come back with the time turner, the first place he’d gone to was the Headmistress’s office in order to return it. She’d had a guide prepared for him, and the werewolf had followed Kyranes’s instructions to the letter, neither falling short of or exceeding her expectations.
Cyrus attempted a smile. “No. Thanks for your help.”
The werewolf didn’t reply and left.
With a soft sigh, he opened his door and noted the lack of a keyhole or a lock. Not that they would have stopped an Alohamora – or a foot – but it was nice to wish.
The room was twice as large as his bedroom at Snape’s, but most of it was taken up by the kitchen, some bookshelves, and a table and chair. And a dresser. At least now Cyrus didn't have to try and half-ass a transfiguration. He'd never been very good at that class. Sure, he knew some basics, but he didn’t go out of his way to study it. He would just look up the spell for whatever transfiguration he needed at any given time.
Snape and Cyrus had gone to Flander's to pick up the full body armor before side-along apparating to Gemini Square, so Cyrus knew where it was for later. The first thing he had done after coming back in time was shop for his supplies and clothes. The robes Snape had gotten him were fine, but they weren’t exactly his style… He didn’t particularly like so much wind between his legs. From what he’d seen of Shikaan so far, they also favored pants. Probably for maneuverability. Remus had been concerned about Cyrus going alone to Gemini Square, but Snape insisted that it wasn’t any more dangerous than Shikaan, and at least Cyrus had a wand now. He wasn’t completely defenseless.
He was particularly looking forward to the Necromancy class. From what he’d heard during the tour, the first day of a handful of classes, Necromancy being one of them, was actually a test for the ability. If a student didn’t have the potential, they were allowed to pick another course in its place. From what Ollivander had said about his wand, he was pretty much guaranteed to get in. He just hoped that the lack of his phoenix feather wand wouldn’t cause him too many immediate problems.
Speaking of immediate problems. Wards. He needed to learn how to cast them, and how to break them if he was ever going to get into Dumbledore’s office and get his phoenix feather back. There was that strange sight of his that could dismantle spells, but warding had to be more complicated than that. Bill Weasley had spent years studying warding for his job in Egypt. It was better to be safe than sorry, so the first thing Cyrus did after unpacking his clothes into the dresser (but leaving his books in his trunk, as they were safer there), was go to the library.
oOo
The library was the only place in the entire school that didn’t seem to be fashioned out of black marble. Aside from the stone floor and walls, all the furniture and shelving units were a dark red wood. He wondered if they had anti-fire charms on them. Probably.
The lighting was weak, but just strong enough in the right spots to allow visitors to read worn spines. Not particularly wanting to futilely search every bookshelf for a subject, he turned to the best substitution for a Hermione: a librarian.
“Excuse me?”
A bored-looking woman sat at the counter, flipping through a muggle magazine of all things. Next to it were a stack of other magazines such as ‘Celebrity Hairstyles’ and ‘People’. Was she muggleborn? She glanced at him briefly. “What can I do for you?” She didn’t sound particularly enthused to be there.
“Where would I find books on warding?”
She stared at him. “Wow. You must be a real noob if you don’t even know what section to look in.”
Cyrus glared. “That’s why I’m asking.”
She tilted her head curiously, and actually closed the magazine to stare at him. “No need to be so defensive, little human. That’s why you’re a freshy here, so you get less stupid.”
Cyrus had the urge to send a fire spell at her magazines, but he ruthlessly suppressed it when his magic stirred around him in response. No need to piss off a senior student. Already. It wasn’t even first day of classes yet.
She smiled at him, and her eyes flashed behind a pair of narrow glasses. “You got decent control for a noob. You study wandless magic before you come here?”
“Don’t see why it’s any of your business.”
The next thing he knew, her face was two inches away from his own. He jerked and took a step back in surprise. She laughed. “You’re funny. I think I’ll help you. But only if you pay me a small price.”
“What price?” Green eyes narrowed.
She grinned. “An ounce of blood.”
“I’d rather not.” And with that said, he walked away.
“It’s not wise to turn your back on a potential enemy, little human.” The sound came from right next to his ear. He jumped away, eliciting a laugh from the crazy librarian. “But you got guts. I like that in my food. I’ll give you a little lesson for free this time, but next time I’m expectin’ compensation.” She walked off into an aisle, and Cyrus cautiously followed.
“There are a couple different kinds of warding. The most popular and most ineffective kind is by spell. A wizard or witch waves their wand and speaks the spell and poof, instant ward. These are the easiest to break, of course, because they exist purely as magic without a focus to bind them to existence. If someone were to break the connection of the spell to whatever it was warding, the entire structure would fall apart as easily as a spider’s web. Prime example: Notice-me-not charm.
“The second kind of warding is casting a spell on a focus, and using the focus as an anchor. Your ward lasts longer this way, and it’s moderately harder to break, but a person versed in intermediate ward-breaking could easily pick it apart. A branch of this method is using blood in the spell-creation. Blood boosts all kinds of things. Once blood’s in the picture, you start moving more towards ritual wards than spell wards.
“The goblins have their own ward making methods, which they don’t share, so the last one I could tell you about is the rune-based wardings. I’ve never taken Runes myself, so I couldn’t tell you much about them except that they’re notorious for being the most complicated and difficult to break. Very few people ever spend the time to become Rune Masters. It’s a very tedious learning process, and figuring out how to craft the runes out of magic and string them all together… well, let’s say I get a lot of flack from my brother about how tough his course is. He’s a wuss when it comes to hard work that doesn’t involve beating the shit out of people.”
She winked at him, and Cyrus couldn’t help but be a little impressed.
“I’m a fountain of useless knowledge. That’s usually why I ask to get paid. I’m TA for the librarian, and in return for working for her, I get unlimited access to her personal library.” She put her hands on her hips. “This was a first-time freebee, but next time I’m expectin’ to either get paid, or get laid, capiche?”
Cyrus blushed. She could be a useful resource.
“Thanks for your help.”
She nodded and motioned at the bookcase behind her. “This is where you’ll want to be looking for any detailed information. I know that they cover it a bit in Charms class, the spell warding that is, but it isn’t until you get into the higher levels of Runes that you learn any ward crafting. That’s usually why magic-folk prefer to hire someone to do wardings for them. It’s a rather obscure and tedious branch of magic.”
Cyrus nodded. “Thanks.”
She nodded and traipsed off, probably going back to her ‘People’ magazine. Why was a vampire of all species interested in the muggle world? She did say that she was a fountain of useless knowledge. Maybe she just liked to read. Or know everything. Kind of like Hermione, actually, except not.
He started pulling a couple books off the shelf to browse for spell wards. It would be the best place to start.
oOo
It had been a week since his arrival at Shikaan. Cyrus had spent his time perusing his own library, as well as the school’s. His goal had been to learn enough about warding that he wouldn’t be killed the first night of classes, but he could only hope to have succeeded. The few students he’d run into in the hallways had ignored him for the most part so far.
Now tomorrow was the first day of classes, and Kyranes had made an announcement through the school that the welcoming dinner would commence at 6 PM. So far, Cyrus had had to buy and cook all his own food in his tiny kitchen, but he honestly didn’t mind. Since he’d paid his tuition, meal, and other extraneous fees upon his arrival, he didn’t have to worry about food until the end of the first semester, which was Christmas, coincidentally.
Cyrus took a deep breath as he prepared to enter the Main Hall where everyone was gathering to eat. There were no doors, just a gigantic archway, and he wasn’t the only person cutting it close. He got a few leers from older-looking students, and wary looks from new ones. Not really knowing where to sit, he headed for the first table of people that didn’t glare at him. A few vampires flashed their fangs at him as he walked past. He wondered if they were genuinely hateful of his species or if it was just a game to them. Two points a flinch, five points a scream, ten points for a double whammy. Drinks are on whoever gets the least!
At exactly 6 PM, Headmistress Kyranes stood from her place at the head table and examined her students with cool, red eyes. “Welcome.” She slowly lifted an empty wine glass, and it filled with a dark red liquid. She held it up in salute. “To a new year a Shikaan. Half of you newcomers will not be here for graduation, but may you attain as much as you can during your allotted time here.” She took a sip, and as she sat down menus appeared on every table.
Cyrus raised an eyebrow. Well. He could only hope he was in the lucky 50 percentile.
Turning his thoughts away from the grimmer side of things – hey, he was out of the Dursleys’, it could only be so grim – he glanced down at the menu in front of him. There were a couple students at his table that were the first to order, but most of them were just as curious as he was. Beside each item of food was a number. The numbers were declining every second. He quickly scanned the options and blanked at the sight of ‘raw steak’ and ‘chicken’s blood’, as well as other oddities at the top of the menu. What was a fried chikalow tail? Quickly scanning to the bottom, he found steak & potato and touched it with his finger. The dish popped in front of him. Huh. He tapped ‘water’ and ‘lemonade’, and two glasses appeared next to the plate. It was far more efficient than the Hogwarts method of overflowing the tables and leaving the students to fight over the chicken.
During his meal, Cyrus shifted his attention to the throng of people around him. He couldn’t tell who was what, unless they revealed the telltale amber of bestiality in their eyes or the flash of fang. And were there other species? His acceptance letter had been vague about it, and Snape had never really told him.
The meal progressed with minimal chatter. Cyrus could pick out a few cliques, label a few faces as ones to avoid, but other than that there wasn’t much to observe.
Until Kyranes left.
It was as if the room had been unofficially declared a war zone. Cyrus could feel spells flying subtly, and not-so-subtly, all around the room. He felt a few hexes hit him, and ended up growing bat ears and buckteeth, but it wasn’t until a pain spell and a cutting curse nearly smacked into him that he pulled out his wand and wrapped the skin-hugging shield that he had learned in the past couple days around himself. It would absorb and redirect most spells that hit him harmlessly into the floor. With the kind of shield he wore, if you had the power to keep it in existence, it was priceless. If you didn’t, it was useless. It would break at the first powerful dark spell that hit it, and you’d get a nasty backlash. Cyrus hadn’t tested the spell yet, but he’d never had a problem powering spells before – just controlling the finer details.
And so, when a curse powerful enough to knock him to the floor smashed into him, and the shield survived the power drainage, you could say the caster and a few more observant upper classmen were… surprised. Alarmed. Curious? Cyrus burned their faces into his memory and disapparated to his room. They were added to his mental ‘avoid’ list.
He couldn’t say he was very impressed with the reception and induction thus far.
oOo
The ‘friendly’ hexes took a little research and improvisation to remove, but Cyrus had them off before the end of the night, thank Merlin. He’d have to get used to there being no Madam Pomfrey to remove hexes and heal scraped knees. It would have been social suicide if he didn’t have the hexes removed by morning. His non-existent reputation would have been tarnished for eternity. It would be the end of the world. He’d never live down his infamy.
There were plusses to no longer being famous.
He could joke with himself about it not being that big of a deal, but with this school, he wasn’t so sure of that. He could get his ass handed to him if he didn’t know what he was doing. It wasn’t like Hogwarts, where Harry Picking His Nose In Public made the headlines, but he had a feeling it could be just as bad. He didn’t know if Shikaan had a paper, but they probably didn’t need one with the gossip networks that always seemed to exist wherever people existed.
The hexes were off, but Cyrus was seriously considering trying to figure out a way to keep a personal shield going all day, or more importantly, all night. At least until he knew some basic warding. He couldn’t exactly go to Spinner’s End to live. And he had to wait a month before he saw Remus or Snape, or before he even went to the bank. After all, Harry Potter didn’t actually have blond hair at this point in time… it was all very confusing. Some things he didn’t think would be a big deal, like going to Gemini Square, but he didn’t want to push his luck and fuck anything up, so he decided to just play it safe. He just had to survive the first month intact, then he could go crawling back to Snape.
He cringed at the thought. Snape had thought he could handle it, but could he really?
He only knew three shield spells: one that protected against physical objects, one that absorbed weaker spells, and the full-body bubble he’d just learned in the past three days. He needed a bigger arsenal of defense spells. Or else he was goin’ down.
oOo
The next morning Cyrus almost had to crawl out of his Weapons & Battle class. Ouragan, a werewolf master of twenty different forms of martial arts as well as 50 different weapons, had worked them into the ground with their new training schedule. Most of the vampires and werewolves did fine, but it became quickly apparent that humans and the other magical species were just not meant to fight each other hand-to-hand. There were a handful of ‘humans’ that did relatively fine, but Cyrus had a hunch that those ‘humans’ were really just Veela, or something.
And so, back to the crawling. Cyrus was almost late to his first Necromancy class because his legs wouldn’t function properly. He got a few dirty looks from the other students as he stood in the doorway just as the bell rang. When they changed a few seconds later to ‘oh shit look behind you’, he nearly jumped out of his shoes when a gravelly baritone growled in his ear.
“Are you going to clear the doorway or make me late for my own class?”
Cyrus quickly shuffled aside and was almost floored by the scent of the man as he pushed past. Cinnamon and musk. And by the wings and tail. Bat-like wings. Huh?
“Sit down like the rest of the class, so I can start my lesson.” He had the most intense sapphire eyes. Inhuman.
Cyrus gave himself a mental shake and sat at the closest desk. There were no books for Necromancy. They just needed a kit with a blade, salt, and a couple different herbs. He left his kit in his bag, as he doubted they would be using it. The first day of classes for Necromancy, like the Elemental class, was a test for the ability.
The… Professor, whatever species he was, settled himself at the front of the class with an ease that Cyrus had only witnessed in people such as McGonagall, who just enjoyed teaching. Snape, comfortable hanging over a potion or chopping up ingredients, had never been so at ease in front of so many people. That was why he had tried to let the textbook do the teaching. Obviously, he hadn’t been very successful. The mortality rate of grades in his classroom was legendary.
“Good evening, class. I’m Professor Yankovich, and for those of you who don’t know, I’m a rare breed of shadow demon. Some of you I’ve seen before, others are new faces here at Shikaan. As most of you are aware, today is not a formal class. I’ll be testing you all for the gift, and those without it’ll be forced to leave. If we have time before the end of class, I’ll give a small lecture. You’ll each come to the front starting at the far left desk closest to me, moving back down the row, and then the next row, et cetera. You’ll sit quietly until I’ve finished with everyone.” Yankovich sat himself down in one of the two chairs at the front of the room. His tail curled around one of the legs of the chair, and his wings flared slightly to the side so he didn’t sit on them. Cyrus wondered if he’d always had wings.
The class was incredibly boring. They weren’t even allowed to talk to each other, not that they would try, and Yankovich sat across from his students with their hands in his, eyes closed. Some students took two seconds for him to send on their way or invite them to stay, while others took ten minutes each. Cyrus hoped to Merlin this wouldn’t be like his wand-choosing.
Since he’d been late to class, he was conveniently in the far back right corner of the room, and therefore, last. He spent an hour of the class mentally going over spells he was studying before he was finally called to the front.
Yankovich’s eyes were not kind when they settled on him. Cyrus didn’t know if it was because he was human, he was late, or because the teacher just wasn’t friendly, but intense sapphire eyes focused on him for a whole five seconds, studying, before they slipped shut and warm, long-nailed hands clasped his own. He felt a weird sensation ripple up his arms, and he instinctively shoved it out. Yankovich’s eyes snapped open and stared at him. Then they narrowed. “Don’t resist, or this’ll be more difficult than it needs to be.” The demon hadn’t said anything to the other students, and so this break from the norm caught most of the bored class’s interest. Only one quarter of the original class remained at that point.
The energy traveled up his arms again, but this time Yankovich kept his eyes open and focused on Cyrus’s face. The human tried to keep his rebellion under control, but he really wanted the foreign whatever out of him. When the tendril of sensation touched his core, he almost exploded. His magic hummed under his skin, the current increasing in speed in response to his heartbeat.
“Relax.”
Cyrus grit his teeth. “Kinda hard.”
A faint sparkle of amusement entered the cold blue eyes. “Feels like someone has a finger up your ass, doesn’t it?”
Cyrus choked on his breath and stared at his Professor in shock. The demon was smirking now, especially in response to the half-hearted laugh of the room. They didn’t know whether it was supposed to be funny or not.
“Well, I suppose we might as well make a lesson of this. Attention class, this is your last-minute lecture of the day. To those who’re more in tune with their magic than others, also known as magic-sensitive, having someone extend their magic through you like a probe is as intimate as a lover pressing themselves inside you. Most of you will be incapable of doing this anyway, one day, but some of you will. Those who are both lucky and cursed to be magic-sensitive can expect mind-blowing orgasms or mind-blowing pain. It depends on the skill of the lover, which can be said for any sexual situation, really.”
Cyrus was only half-listening to the conversation going on outside his body. The tendrils of magic poking around in his core were very distracting. Yankovich was looking for something, but Cyrus had no idea what. At this point, the tendrils didn’t feel pleasant or painful, just… weird. The demon was very gentle, not eliciting any ‘reaction’ on Cyrus’s part, which would have been incredibly embarrassing.
The bell rang, and Yankovich was still poking around. “You’re all dismissed. I’ll see you next class.”
Cyrus felt a stir of panic at the idea of being alone with the demon, but nothing changed as the last student went through the door and shut it with a soft thud. A couple minutes later, Yankovich pulled back and let go of Cyrus’s hands.
“Why did you choose this class?”
Cyrus stared. What, did Yankovich not find anything? Ollivander said he could do death magic, though. “Um… because of my wand.”
The demon got a hint of interest in his eyes. “Show me.”
Carefully, Cyrus reached into his left pocket and pulled out his wand. He’d had to do some modifications to Ollivander’s leg holster, and his pants, in order to get the sheath into his left pocket. He’d found that the fifteen-inch wonder wouldn’t fit any-bloody-where else. It was like trying to fit a sword sheath under your sleeve. It just didn’t fit.
Yankovich raised an eyebrow. “Why did your wand-maker leave it so long?”
Cyrus found himself blushing, though he didn’t quite know why. “He said it wouldn’t let itself be shortened.”
Dark eyes examined the length, and his head tilted slightly to one side in curiosity. “How does it cast?”
Cyrus blinked. What did this have to do with finding out if he had Necromantic abilities? He cast a levitating charm at one of the desks in the room, and it was quick to respond, nearly bouncing into the air.
“Can you cast Avada Kedavra?”
His mouth fell open. Why would he want to know that? “I’ve… never cast it before.”
Yankovich raised an eyebrow. “Couldn’t cast it, or never tried?”
“I’ve never needed to.”
Yankovich’s lips twitched. “You’ll need it now.” Cyrus wasn’t sure if he was referring to this class or his stay at Shikaan. “Try to cast it.”
Cyrus frowned. “I thought death magic wasn’t all about the Avada Kedavra curse.”
“It isn’t. Just do as I ask.”
“How?” Cyrus looked down at his wand. “Just say the words?”
“Think about the spell before you cast it. Think of how that kind of spell could function, how it could work. Then cast it.”
Cyrus stared down at his wand and held it in front of him. He thought about death, about killing a person. About the hate that Voldemort felt every time he cursed one of his followers. The disgust that drove him to killing them if they failed him. The feeling of satisfaction that the monster felt every time he felt the power flowing through him. Cyrus stopped that trail of thought immediately. He didn’t kill for pleasure, so when would he ever need to kill someone?
Defending himself.
Cyrus thought of the faces in the Main Hall, of the cutting curse that had almost hit him. He imagined the face that was the most surprised at his shield and could imagine the hatred that could have driven another person to attack him in that way. He thought about how, one day, he would need to kill the bastard who had killed his parents. He lifted his wand and whispered the words. “Avada Kedavra.”
His wand burst to life under his hand, and happily formed the green death magic that went crashing into the still-floating desk and blew it to pieces. He stared at his wand in shock, then at Yankovich, who had stood up behind him and had his hands on Cyrus’s shoulders. He could feel the tendrils of a foreign energy, and resisted the almost undeniable urge to shove it away.
“There it is,” the rough baritone murmured behind him. “You have quite the lid on your death magic, Mr. Obsidian. It will be a slow process prying the door open, but once you get there…” He stared at Cyrus with an odd intensity. “You should hurry to your next class. You’ll be late in a few minutes.”
Cyrus’s eyes widened, and he took off down the row of desks and snagged his bag as he went. He didn’t want to be late to his Animagus class on the first day.
oOo
The first week of classes went by rather smoothly. Almost… too smoothly. Cyrus still couldn’t tell who was what species, unless they were vampire. Most of the bloodsuckers weren’t exactly subtle. The only time he could tell a werewolf from the crowd was when their eyes changed amber in anger. Not knowing who to attempt to make friends with, he mostly kept to himself and the library.
And so, the librarian TA that he had met his first day at Shikaan would often taunt him about his lack of sociability.
“Hey, kid! Whatcha in for today?” she asked, a friendly smirk on her face.
Cyrus nodded in greeting. “Just studying.”
“Again? You ever gonna make some friends?”
He raised a sardonic eyebrow. “If I can find one that won’t off me in my sleep.”
She laughed. “Do you honestly think some freshman’s high on another student’s priority list? Sure, a vampire might sneak into your room for a midnight snack, but why would they kill their meal ticket? Most of the killings in this school are more… personal. Generally someone has to do something to offend another student, they duke it out, and they either come to an agreement or off each other. Simple as that. You could do to make some friends, get some connections…” She eyed him up and down. “You don’t look like much, and if you maintain this loner attitude of yours for too long, attention’s going to be brought to you. The kind you don’t want when you have no friends to back you up.” She lifted an eyebrow.
Cyrus shrugged.
She scrutinized him. “Unless you expect people to just flock to you.”
“I don’t expect anything. If there’s someone here who would make a good friend, we’ll meet. Eventually. There’s no point in floating around looking for superficial relations.”
She scoffed. “Whatever.”
Cyrus went back to studying. He’d been learning more spells in the last couple days than he ever had in a month in Hogwarts, and that was in and out of his classes. Charms was a tough class. Sure, they went over spells like Wingardium Leviosa, but since it was an ‘easy’ spell, they would learn five to ten of them in one class. This totally screwed Cyrus up because on the days they only learned two hard spells, he managed to get them going in a couple minutes, whereas when he had to learn a handful of ‘easy’ spells like Accio, he was treading water for hours before he figured them out.
From what he could remember from Snape that day they were talking about why the vampire would never have survived Shikaan, it had something to do with his power output. He overloaded easy spells, but got the hard ones like a piece of cake. This resulted in him more often than not skipping over the easy spells during his personal study time because they took more work and there wasn’t much reward.
He had learned a lot of spell wards in the last week. He had five different locking charms on his door, as well as a notice-me-not spell. His window had been saturated with strengthening spells and locking charms. He had covered the entrances to his room, but he wasn’t nearly skilled enough to do something like put a complete ward around the room. Ward crafting took more know-how than a couple waves of a stick, unfortunately. From what he’d read, it truly was an art form, even the most basic level of it. Magic-folk preferred to hire ward crafters rather than learn more than they needed to.
This, of course, made it more difficult for Cyrus to learn the art. What he really needed was to apprentice to a master, but apprenticing was full time study. With him being in school, he wouldn’t have time to apprentice even on the off chance that someone would be willing to take him on.
The closest he could get was Runes. It was by far the most uneventful class in his schedule, which wasn’t really a bad thing, but when they had to memorize the equivalent of magical math for hours on end… Well, he could tell why most people didn’t have the patience for it. However, most people didn’t have the advantage and incentive of being able to see everything made of the runes. It was an odd mixture of math and language, as some of the runes were all about the numbers and others were words with actual meaning. Every day, as he learned more of the ‘language’, of the ‘math’, he broadened his understanding of the spells he studied with his sight in the privacy of his room.
It was a slow process, but a fulfilling one. Unfortunately, with his zeal to learn as much as he could from the Runes textbooks, the class was quickly becoming the most boring in his course load.
oOo
At the beginning of the second week of classes, Cyrus woke to a pair of fangs in his neck and strong hands restraining his surprised thrashing. With the sensory overload of pain, pleasure, and being unable to move, the magic current burst from the confines of his skin and blasted the vampire off of him and into the ceiling. Cyrus rolled out of his bed before the vampire’s body could obey the laws of gravity, landing in a crouch on the floor, his wand appearing in his hand out of nowhere. He wasn’t in the right mindset to notice its transportation.
The vampire landed gracefully on his bed, flashing fang through a satisfied smirk. Cyrus fired off as many explosive and permanently damaging spells he could remember, but the vampire just laughed and vanished into the shadows of his room.
Naked except for boxer shorts, a thunk echoed through the suddenly quiet room as Cyrus collapsed onto his ass. He stared at the hole where his wall used to be. At least the door was still standing. He absently noted that he needed to coat his walls with strengthening and protective spells, so they wouldn’t blow up at the first sign of heavy spell fire. Casting a broad Reparo, he watched the marble rubble form back into solid stone, wanting to avoid the thought of what had just happened for a little bit longer.
Wide awake, he abandoned the idea of going back to sleep for the next three hours until class started. Shuffling into the kitchen, he wandlessly conjured a housecoat and set about making French toast.
He didn’t let himself think until after he ate the comforting, sweet food. He cautiously raised a hand to his neck, and flinched at the sting. His finger came away with blood. He conjured a bandage and had to use his bathroom mirror to put it on right. It was still bleeding sluggishly.
Taking a deep, calming breath, Cyrus dressed himself and headed to his only place of respite now that his room had been violated.
The library.
oOo
“Whoa. What happened to you?” the librarian TA asked as soon as Cyrus came through the door.
He ignored her, and went straight for the section where he would find ‘vampires’. He managed to pull out two books before the TA came and found him.
“No, seriously. What happened to your neck?” Cyrus thought she almost sounded concerned.
“None of your goddamn business.” He glared at her, and felt a pang of regret at the taken aback look on her face.
It didn’t last long. She glared at him and ripped his bandage off in retaliation. He hissed at the pulled hairs and the sudden breeze that irritated his still-bleeding neck. He brought up a hand to protect his injury but didn’t get very far when the vampire snatched it mid-air and held it in place. She leaned in uncomfortably close and sniffed. She sniffed. Then she made this low-pitched growl in the back of her throat that had Cyrus’s hairs standing on end.
“Asteeeeras,” she hissed. “Only that pathetic lowlife couldn’t restrain his breakfast long enough to heal a bite. When I see him next I’m gonna kick his ass.”
Cyrus started in surprise. Well, surprise up until the point she started sucking on his neck. Then he was just plain pissed. He tried to throw her off him with his magic, but she just wrapped him up in a cocoon of power until he felt like he was suffocating. When she finally pulled back, she was irritable.
“Geez, chill the fuck out. I’m trying to do you a favor and you get all defensive!” She crossed her arms over her chest. “If that bite was left alone, it would’ve started festering! Vampires have a enzyme in their saliva that prevents clotting until they’re done feeding, and a sure sign of a weak vampire is a failed healing of their bite.” She spat the word ‘weak’ like it rotted in her mouth. “Lihmeth Asteras is the little bugger who bit you. He’s a third-year crooked fang who couldn’t tell which end of a sword to hold if it staked him through the heart. He avoids the library after the last time he got on my bad side…” She growled. “Little fucker thought he didn’t have to pay for my services…”
Cyrus remained as still as he could, not wanting to draw her wrath to him, and not wanting her to realize she had been doling him freebees for almost two weeks now. He hadn’t paid her back with blood or… the latter option, a single time.
“Haven’t you been teaching yourself any decent warding?! I showed you where all of the good books were!”
Cyrus’s eyes narrowed. “Like I know how to protect against that shadow walk thing you buggers do.”
“It’s called shadow stepping. Here's a hint: how can a vampire shadow step if there isn’t a single shadow in your room?”
Cyrus’s mouth froze open.
She rolled her eyes. “Vampires need a shadow that’s big enough for their body to fit through. You figure it out from there. If I have to fix one of your bites again, it’s your ass I’m gonna kick, capiche wizard?” Without waiting for a response, she walked away.
Cyrus stared after her. He really didn’t understand that woman.
oOo
The rest of the week moved a little more smoothly. Cyrus rigged a network of wizarding lights that he bought in Gemini Square all over his walls, ceiling, floor, under his bed… everywhere. They were a bit of a pain in the ass to set up because he had to already be in bed when he levitated them to their locations, but it was worth it in the end. Unless they could blow through the strengthening and shield charms all over his walls, door, and window, no vampire was going to get in his room again.
He walked into his Runes class a week before the end of September in good spirits, having finally enjoyed a good night’s sleep. With no ‘silly wand waving’, as Snape would say, in this class, there was little risk of bodily harm. It was hard to make scribblings on paper grow legs and attack you. At the moment this was his most loved and hated class, as he’d been studying ahead for weeks now, and while he liked the way Rivehn taught the material, it was still boring as hell.
“I hope you’ve been studying the vocabulary and equation sheets I’ve given you, because you have a test today.”
Nobody dared to groan. Rivehn was very soft-spoken for a vampire – but those with an ounce of brain matter didn’t let that fool them. Cyrus hadn’t actually seen Rivehn tear into someone yet, but he’d heard rumors. From what he’d heard, Rivehn was the oldest vampire alive for a reason, and everyone knew not to fuck with him. Even Kyranes, the Headmistress of the school, apparently adhered to his judgment in matters of vampire politics.
You’d never guess it from the look of him, though. He appeared to the ignorant as nothing but a reserved librarian with a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.
A wave of papers were wandlessly sent to each student. “You have the duration of the class to finish the test. The first page is entirely vocabulary, the second is mathematical structures and equations, and the last is a spell deconstruction with more than ten errors in it. You need only find seven errors in order to pass the final question. If you find ten or more, you will be given bonus credit. Any questions?”
No one raised a hand.
“Very well. Please be advised that if you obtain less than 70% on more than two tests in this course, you will be removed from the class and given the option of repeating next year. I do not suffer uninterested students. You may begin.” Rivehn waved his hand and the sheets on their desks flipped themselves upright. He sat down behind his desk and pulled out a book.
Cyrus looked down at his test. They had only scratched the surface of the material so far in class, but as he’d been doing his own study, he wasn’t sure how he would do on the last question.
Breezing through the first two pages in ten minutes, he finally flipped to the last page. He blinked, and stared. It was 2D flat, and the runes were scrambled and connected improperly, but he swore that it was intended to be a levitation charm. A very butchered levitation charm. It wasn't quite the same as Wingardium Leviosa, but from the similar structure and intention (which was Runes lingo for ‘meaning’) of the runes, it was quite obvious what it was.
Rubbing a hand over his face, he wondered where to start first.
He was the last person to leave the classroom, which Cyrus personally found hilarious because he was probably the only one there who really knew what he was doing. He’d been toying with the structure for what felt like forever because something was nagging him, and he couldn’t figure it out for the life of him. There was something fundamentally wrong with the spell. He knew that if it was cast the way it was written, it wouldn’t work properly, but he didn’t know how he knew that. It was all quite frustrating. He’d even pulled out a separate piece of paper and scribbled variants all over it. Nothing was clicking.
“I’m afraid that I’m going to have to ask for your test, Mr. Obsidian. You are already late for your next class.”
Cyrus jerked away from his paper in surprise, coming out of his thoughts to see Rivehn standing two feet away from him. He stared up into the blank, violet eyes for a moment before nodding and jerking his seat backwards. He was reaching for his scrap piece of paper so he could puzzle out the question later when Rivehn pulled it out from under his hand, along with the rest of his test. When he opened his mouth to object, Rivehn raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Do you not have class to attend?”
Cyrus took that as a dismissal and spared one last forlorn look at the paper before rushing from the room. He completely missed the look on Rivehn’s face when the vampire examined the scrap paper.
oOo
Necromancy class was going well. They were studying the history of necromancers on the side as they learned how to ‘tap into’ their death magic – something Cyrus had been failing at miserably thus far.
It was right after one of these classes that he spotted him. Lihmeth Asteras, the vampire who had bitten him (according to his librarian friend). He barely recognized him in full colour rather than shadow, but the grin was unmistakable. And the laugh. That alone would have given the cocky bastard away.
He tried to avoid the cluster of vampires entirely, but it wasn’t meant to be. Asteras, spotting him or sniffing him out Cyrus didn’t know, was quick to show off in front of his posse.
“Would you look at that! It’s that human I was talking about last week. I’ve been itching for another taste.”
When Cyrus tried to slip around the throng, he was expertly boxed in by sneering faces. He didn’t even have to pull his wand out of his pocket, as it materialized in his hand as soon as he finished thinking about it. A wave of taunting noises murmured through the group. Looking around, he deduced there were seven vampires total, and then a couple onlookers of unknown heritage. Somehow, he doubted he could take them all.
“Ah, poor thing. He’s terrified of us.”
Cyrus froze. The voice had come from right behind him. Before he could move, iron-strong arms wrapped around his chest and locked his arms in place. The bastard must have come out from Cyrus’s shadow.
“What say you to a little taste? I have truly been craving your unique, sweet flavor.” Cyrus’s mind raced, but he couldn’t think as the fangs sank into his neck again. His nerve endings couldn’t decide whether the electrical pulses going to his brain were pain or pleasure, and he sagged for a moment against the vampire’s body.
A raging hard-on poked him in the ass as he shifted, and the vampire started gyrating against him. Instead of making him embarrassed or uncomfortable, he felt downright angry. Who did this fucker think he was? Not only had he sunk his fangs in Cyrus’s neck, he was going to get off on him too?! Fury fueling his body, he charged a large dose of magic into his hand and grabbed the thing poking into his back. The vampire let out a groan of pleasure that quickly turned into a screech of agony as Cyrus squeezed with his magically charged hand. He imagined his magic was quite prickly with his displeasure. The vampire ripped his mouth away from Cyrus’s neck in agony.
“Let go of me or I’ll light your dick on fire, you prick.” Cyrus felt sick pleasure at the sight of the vampires backing away from him with wary looks on their faces. Asteras was breathing heavily behind him. The arms let him go, and Cyrus took a step away and met the eyes of the vampire behind him. Icy gray eyes were watching him frantically. “Don’t come near me again, or I will melt your balls into a mass of scar tissue.” He spoke slowly and clearly, as if talking to a child. “Do we have an understanding?”
Asteras glared at him. Cyrus was so not in the mood for a pissing match. He could feel the blood dripping down his neck and into his clothes.
“I believe you do. Is that not right, Mr. Asteras?”
Gray eyes widened in genuine terror and flickered over to the side. Cyrus followed their direction and froze at the sight of Rivehn, of all people – er, vampires.
“B-but, sir-“
“You have forfeit your right to drink of this human, Mr. Asteras. Two failed drinkings in less than a week.” There was no change in the inflection of the vampire’s voice, but every person in the corridor was on edge. “If you cannot restrain your prey, or find a willing donor, perhaps you should go in search of a muggle.”
Several gasps echoed in the sudden silence. Cyrus turned to Asteras’s face and watched with morbid curiosity as it turned a deep red – from anger or embarrassment Cyrus had no idea.
“Release him, Mr. Obsidian, and come here. He will not attempt to drink of you again.” Cyrus stared at him in confusion. When the eyes narrowed slightly, the tension in the room jumped up a few notches. He released Asteras anxiously, keeping a suspicious eye on the vampires around him as he made his way over to Rivehn. He felt some sort of wave gently brush against his shielded mind, and all the vampires in the hallway vanished into the shadows. Was this that vampiric telepathy the books talked about? And why did his Runes professor want him to come to him?
When he was a few feet away from Rivehn, the vampire reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. Eyes wide, he had no choice but to move as the hand pulled him within a foot of the ancient. He could feel his body shaking as Rivehn bent down towards his neck. Wide green eyes met glowing violet before the vampire’s face was in the crook of his neck, sinking his fangs into the still-weeping bite. There was no confusion of pain or pleasure with this bite. Sheer ecstasy burst from his shoulder and spread to every corner of his body. He felt his magic hum under his skin, stretching and following the waves of pleasure like a cat languishing under a ray of sunshine.
Rivehn pulled back from his neck with a gentle lick that sent shivers of after-shock down Cyrus’s spine. He was absolutely horrified to discover his pants were sticky with come when he shifted nervously. Quickly casting a wandless cleaning charm, he felt his face turn what felt like twenty shades of red. After Asteras’s first attack on him, he’d been reading about vampire culture, and thus their bite. All vampires had an anticoagulant in their saliva, as well as an aphrodisiac. Apparently they were survival traits. Cyrus just hadn’t believed the texts when they said that a bite from an experienced vampire could be so… orgasmic.
His Runes professor didn’t twitch from his normal blank expression, but Cyrus swore that the swirling violet in his eyes was some kind of emotion. He just didn’t want to know which one.
“Now that your wound is healed, please follow me to the Headmistress Kyranes’s office. We have something to discuss.” He turned and walked away, not waiting for a response. Of course, it wasn’t like Cyrus could say ‘no’, so he quietly followed after the vampire, nerves on fire and mind a swirling chaos of confusion.
The trip through the hallways was quiet and short. Most of the after-class bustle had disappeared during the altercation with Asteras. The school wasn’t as big as Hogwarts, after all, and the space was used in its entirety. They were probably all at the Main Hall, eating dinner.
He recognized the office when they stopped in front of it. He had absolutely no idea why Rivehn would want him to be there when he talked to the Headmistress.
Rivehn walked in without knocking, and Kyranes didn’t look surprised to see him. “What can I do for you, Rivehn?”
When Cyrus carefully slipped into the room, he almost jumped when the door closed behind him.
“I would like Mr. Obsidian transferred to my second year Runes class effective immediately.”
Cyrus imagined that if he’d had a mirror handy, the gaping look on his face would be quite amusing to see.
Kyranes raised an eyebrow. “Really? And why have you decided this?”
Rivehn reached into his robes (most of the older vampires wore robes – whether it was tradition or they fought well enough without their movements impeded, Cyrus had no idea) and pulled out some paper. When he placed it on Kyranes’s desk, Cyrus started in surprise. There was his scrap of paper! “The student in question has displayed a higher level of comprehension and analysis than most of my second year Runes students. First year Runes is for the curious. It would be a waste to subject him to such a juvenile setting for the entirety of a year.”
Kyranes picked up his paper and looked over it. She turned red eyes on Cyrus. “Tell me, Mr. Obsidian, what were you trying to do with this equation?”
His mouth froze open for a moment before he could shake off his paralysis. “I… uh… I was just trying to figure something out.” When Kyranes raised a ‘no, really?’ eyebrow at him, he continued nervously. “I, well, Professor Rivehn gave us a test today in class and told us to find seven mistakes in a structure. When I finished answering the question something about it was bothering me, so I tried to figure out why it wouldn’t work.”
“What do you mean by ‘why it wouldn’t work’?” Kyranes asked, turning her eyes back to his scribblings.
Cyrus floundered for a moment. How was he supposed to explain how he just knew that the way the spell was it couldn’t levitate a dust cloud- Wait. His eyes widened as it clicked. He knew why it wouldn’t work. Single-mindedly, he strode up to the desk and grabbed the paper and snatched a pencil (god was he glad they weren’t into quills and parchment at Shikaan. Useful muggle inventions should be used) from a mug on the desk. Scanning the mess for the structure that he found the most logical, he erased a few things before rewriting them with a new string of runes.
“There,” he said contently, eyeing his handiwork. “Much better.” Then he realized just how that might have looked. He took a few steps away from Kyranes’s desk and kept his eyes down. “Er, sorry about that. I just, um, figured out what was bothering me earlier.”
When he chanced a glance upwards, Kyranes didn’t exactly look angry, per say. The corner of her mouth twitched. “Please, do tell.”
Realizing that in taking a step away from Kyranes he had put himself closer to Rivehn, he took another step to the side. How much space did ancient vampires consider respectful? “The levitation spell. It didn’t have a limit on it.” When Kyranes stared at him, he could feel blood rushing to his face. “That is, the equations took into consideration everything but the measurement of mass. The heavier an object is that you try to levitate, the more energy it takes. There was no limit to how much weight the spell was designed to take, so the spell would have automatically defaulted to no weight and utterly defeated the purpose of its own existence.” He blushed. God he sounded like Hermione… how embarrassing.
Rivehn raised an eyebrow at Kyranes. She smiled.
“I’ll have him transferred.”
-Toki Mirage-
Er, yeah. That took a while. I got stuck on that one for three months. And university life is busy, besides. The only reason I finished this chapter is because I’m procrastinating. I don’t want to start my Music History Paper… ugh.
I hope you like how the chapter turned out! I finished it last night and reread this morning, and I happen to really like it! I hope you do too. Once I got going, I was on a run. (winks) Unfortunately, I can’t tell you when the next one will be coming out. By now you guys know how unreliable I am.
Time to go eat some lunch.
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