Blood and Magic

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Chapter Four: Vampires Are Trouble

Harry watched Jean-Claude make his way through three apples before stating awkwardly that he'd be outside finishing his chores. Honestly, it was rather embarrassing watching the vampire suck on blood-apples as if... well, as if they were something other than blood-apples. Harry blushed when a particularly loud moan followed him out the back door. Very embarrassing.

Walking into the barn, Harry went over to the thestrals settling down for the night, full and content after their meal. "Hey, there," he said quietly, to keep from bothering the other animals sleeping in their stalls. "I gave the last of your apples away, so you'll have to wait a bit before you can have more."

The one he was petting, Therdad, gave out a low, shrill whine and butted into Harry's chest. "Oof! Hey, careful!" Harry admonished. "I'll get more, besides he's a guest." Harry thought about that. "Well, sort of.... I did invite him for something to eat anyway."

Therdad shook his head, sending a wave of silky black hair over Harry's hands. He clearly wasn't satisfied with the explanation. Harry patted him anyway and wandered off to clean up the room he'd butchered the goat in. He'd left it longer than he should have and the blood would be congealed by now. Although, looking about, it seemed that several tongues had come in to lick up as much of the cooling blood as possible. Maybe half a goat wasn't enough of an evening meal for four thestrals? Though it wasn't as if they didn't eat plenty during the day.

He waved his wand to wash up the floor and set the knives to cleaning themselves while he divvied up the remains. He'd made sure to pack away the parts of the goat he intended to eat before starting on the part for the thestrals (good thing too), so all he really needed to do was dispose of the bones and organs the thestrals wouldn't eat. Oh, and there were the bones that had been left by the side of the house. He'd gather those up as well and take the lot to the back of the house to be burned. First, though....

Harry got one of the smaller knives from the rack and sliced open the stomach on the table. After rooting around in the gooey wet sack, Harry's hand pulled out the prize he'd hoped to find. A bezoar. Harry grinned as he banished the mess on the table into a bucket and took the fuzzy stone over to the side of the room to place in a jar with the others. In the six months or so that he'd been cutting up goats for the thestrals, Harry had only come across four bezoars of a proper size to be effective against poisons. But after having seen the miraculous effect the things had, it was definitely worth getting his hands dirty to find them.

Still grinning happily, Harry turned from replacing the jar on the shelf to see Jean-Claude leaning against the door frame of the small room. His eyes glanced from the jar to the shining knife clutched in Harry's hand before he smiled warmly. Harry stared at him nervously and tried to tell by listening whether the knives were still washing themselves. It sounded as though they'd finished, but Harry really needed to be more careful.

With a nervous grin, Harry walked over to the sink to wash off the knife as well as his hands. Over the running water, Jean-Claude spoke.

"Will you not use magic to clean this room too? Or can you not when blood is involved?"

Harry froze. He'd... he'd cleaned up the mess in the kitchen without even thinking about it. With magic. Oh. Bloody. Hell.

"Mon sorcier, are you well?"

Harry jerked awake and finished scrubbing the last of the blood off his hands. When he turned around, Jean-Claude was watching him with that pleasant smile he always seemed to have. Harry's eyes narrowed. That was really starting to annoy him.

Without bothering to answer the vampire, Harry grabbed the bucket holding the offal and bone, and stalked past Jean-Claude and out of the barn. Walking over to collect the rest of the bones, Harry noticed Jean-Claude following quietly behind him. By the time they'd made it to the back of the house and dumped the refuse into an iron box to burn, neither of them had said anything and Harry was starting to worry about it.

"Er, you finished the apples pretty quick," he said, unable to think of anything better.

Jean-Claude shrugged delicately. "They were quite filling and you had already watched me suck three before you left."

Harry blushed scarlet. Why did that sound more perverted than it was? "Uh, right..."

Silence returned as they watched the embers and smoke rise out of the vents on the box. Harry really didn't do well with silence.

"I'm rejecting," he said loudly, glaring resolutely at the smoke. Beside him, Jean-Claude sighed tiredly.

"Can I not convince you otherwise?"

"No," Harry said. "I- I don't really want to be involved in whatever it is that's going on. I like having a peaceful life."

"Are you truly satisfied with that, mon emeraude sorcier?" Harry turned his head to find Jean-Claude facing him with a disturbingly suggestive expression, his eyes glowing like blue embers. "I could make your life more enjoyable."

Harry stepped back only for Jean-Claude to follow him. "What are you doing?" Harry asked startled. A breeze had started up, but in the summer heat beside a fire, it was unusually cool.

"I would like you to reconsider," Jean-Claude said softly. Harry flinched when the cool wind wrapped those words around him and rubbed. The air was so thick with magic Harry felt almost dizzy watching it swirl about. He didn't know vampires could call magic up like this, and just just fling it about like water. He'd never seen any magical creature do something like this before. He'd never seen magic become visible outside of a spell before.

While Harry was distracted, looking wildly about at the swirling wind of power, Jean-Claude appeared before him and clutched him to his chest.

"Hey! Wait- Stop!"

"I cannot, mon emeraude sorcier." Harry felt a hand brushing through his hair and struggled to get away. The arm around his waist tightened like a steel bar. He'd known some wizard vampires could perform advanced transfigurations, turning into animals or objects or such, but he'd never heard of any type of vampire turning its body to something so hard while retaining its shape. "I need you to accept my Master's offer."

Harry gasped as the wind got colder and Jean-Claude leaned down to nuzzle his neck. "Wait a- what- I'm not going to accept anything!" he yelled. "What are you doing?"

Jean-Claude sighed next to Harry's ear. "My Master forbade me to feed on any but you."

"What does that have to do with anything!" Harry tried to shove away enough from Jean-Claude to loosen the arm with his wand holster. Both the vampire's arms were locked behind him now, as unyielding as actual stone.

"You offered me the blood of apples, Harry," Jean-Claude was whispering in Harry's ear as he held him. "A truly magical gift, but if I return to my Master with your refusal, she will believe the blood filling me came from somewhere else. That I disobeyed her."

"So, what? She thinks if I let you drink my blood I wouldn't say no or something?" Harry said angrily. "That doesn't make any sense!"

"She believes it, though," Jean-Claude's lips parted against Harry's skin. "But then, she has not met you and seen your... unique resistance for herself."

Harry was shaking now, though whether it was from fear or fury or just the fact that the bloody wind was freezing his bullocks off, he couldn't tell. Hermione had been right to be worried, so very right.

"What do you mean? What resistance?"

"You are unnaturally resistant to us, mon emeraude sorcier." Now that Harry had stopped struggling, Jean-Claude brought one of his hands up to run through Harry's hair again. "I have never met any human who casts our power off so casually. Neither I, nor any of my people could bespell you for even a moment."

"Bespell me?" Harry asked roughly. He could stay calm as long as Jean-Claude kept talking, because if he was talking he wasn't... doing something else.

"Take over your mind."

Harry felt his insides go colder than his skin. Muggle vampires could mess with people's heads? Like Imperio, or Legilimens, or Obliviate? The vampires he'd met had tried to do something like that to him? Jean-Claude had? Why hadn't he noticed?

"Even now, with the rush the pommes de sang you gave me, you are still free of my control." Jean-Claude laughed darkly. "But somehow, mon emeraude sorcier, I must make you agree to the alliance."

"Why?" Harry snarled, frightened beyond reason at the thought of vampires toying with his mind. "Why are you so set on this? Why can't you just give up like the other one did?"

Jean-Claude leaned his head away from Harry's to look down at him, smiling disdainfully. "Oh, but Theresa did not give up, she was thrown away. Our Master punished her for failing even to speak to you."

"She told me why she came-- I said no," Harry reminded him forcefully. "I'm still saying no."

Jean-Claude shook his head ruefully before leaning down to rest his cheek against Harry's. "Unfortunately, mon emeraude sorcier, I have already failed my Master in procuring an ally for her. To do so twice will result in a greater punishment."

Harry stiffened as Jean-Claude rubbed their cheeks together. "Do you wish me to be punished, little wizard?" he whispered in Harry's ear, teeth brushing his skin.

Harry couldn't take any more. "GET OFF ME!" he shouted desperately, trying again to free his arm so his wand could come loose. Jean-Claude had barely begun to shift his arms to pull him tighter when several shrill shrieks tore through the air and both Harry and Jean-Claude were tossed aside.

After rolling to a stop on the grass, Jean-Claude had time to lean off Harry to look around before a dark shadow dragged him further off and away from the house. When Harry sat up, wand in hand, he saw all four thestrals biting and kicking Jean-Claude into the ground, their hollow cries still piercing the air. Harry jumped up and rushed over to them.

"Whoa- whoa! Stop!" Harry grabbed onto the closest thestral to him, Rigel, and pulled the shrieking creature away. Rushing into the space made, Harry waved off the other three and backed up with them to watch Jean-Claude climb shakily to his feet. Blood dripped down his arm and stained the front of his torn shirt, looking almost black in the glowing light of the burn-box.

Harry cautiously watched Jean-Claude sway before him, the wand in his hand and the thestrals hissing around him giving him comfort. He waited patiently for the vampire to say something.

Jean-Claude only regarded him and the creatures around him with a sort of shaken amazement. When he finally did speak, it almost made Harry forget to be afraid of him, it was so unexpected.

"No wonder you keep apples of blood, to give to such blood-thirsty horses, monsieur."

Harry blinked. "Horses?" He looked at the thestrals around him and then back to Jean-Claude. "You see horses?"

"Is that not what they are, Monsieur Harry?"

Well... that answered that question. Harry shook his head, it wasn't important right now.

"You shouldn't have attacked me," he said angrily.

Jean-Claude smiled. "It may be for the best, monsieur."

"What?"

Jean-Claude held up an arm with a long gash on it, blood dripped from the torn edges of the sleeve. "My Master may believe this is the result of approaching you. You may be left alone now."

Harry stared at him. "Won't you still be punished?"

"Perhaps not as harshly." Jean-Claude looked down at his torn clothes and gaping wounds. "Not if these do not heal quickly."

Harry winced. He shouldn't feel bad considering Jean-Claude had been planning to eat him, but he hadn't actually been hurt and those slashes looked painful.

"If they don't..." Harry took a breath and stared Jean-Claude in the eye. "If they don't, come back. I might have something that'll help."

Jean-Claude blinked before laughing quietly. "You are most peculiar, Harry, but," a smile stretched his lips again. "You are most fascinating as well."

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The day after Harry had watched Jean-Claude limp away from his home, he set about updating the wards. The new ward, keyed to vampires, would only activate if he was attacked again, forcing the offending creature to be immediately expelled from the property. He thought about using a more powerful ward, one that would simply light an attacking vampire up like a candle, but remembering Jean-Claude's parting words and how empty he seemed when he mentioned "his master"... well, Harry decided not to. Let the vampire have a chance to run away; so long as he wasn't eaten what did it matter?

The only problem with the more passive ward, was that it required Harry's blood to spilled during an attack. Blood had been needed, not only to help the vampire ward soak into the borders, but also to key itself to Harry. Meaning, if someone other than Harry was attacked, the ward wouldn't activate.

Harry wasn't particularly bothered by this, seeing as he lived alone and rarely had guests. The real problem was that it would stay dormant until Harry bled and last night, Jean-Claude hadn't even broken his skin. Jean-Claude had terrified the life out of him, bruised him a bit, and was most definitely planning to bite him, but not a drop of Harry's blood fell before the thestrals came to help him. How was he going to stop an attack like that happening again without needing to get hurt worse first?

It was a problem. Harry had thought he could craft a ward to activate when vampire magic was used, but he had no idea how to identify that sort of magic in the first place. He'd never seen anything like it, and a quick perusal of his DADA texts and vampire-specific wards made him certain that no one else had either.

There was also the issue of what Harry would do if he met a vampire away from home. He did go into town once in a while, to relax. Strolling about, looking at shops, picking up better food than he could make himself, icecream.... Harry liked going into the city whenever he wanted, and he'd never bothered to worry whether it was day or night either. Even knowing vampires were wandering about more frequently hadn't upset him. He had never been afraid of the dark before and he wasn't about to start now.

So that meant he needed to figure out a way to defend himself without a wand. The first thing to pop in mind was crosses. Everyone said crosses worked on vampires, but Harry had heard from muggle news that not all vampires were greatly deterred by them. Some vampire imprisoned in California had killed twenty people and all of them had crosses. So, no.

The other thought he had was fire. He knew a number of fire spells and charms, but he still needed a wand for all of them. Although, he thought, he had gotten better at wandless magic. He could levitate objects and summon them without a wand, and he had always been good at calling light without a wand as well.... Wait, that was it! Vampires didn't do well in sunlight, and there were some light spells made to mimic the sun!

Harry grinned. He had a plan to keep the vampires away from him, no matter what.

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A/N:

So, it seems people are very interested in the blood apples, as surprising as I find that, I'm rather pleased. Does everyone remember the "blood pops" from the HP books? Sort of suckers geared towards vampires? I figured, if they could make blood candy, why not other things for vampire customers? Something they could really sink their teeth into? I also thought it would make a nifty inside joke. ^_^ Hope this chapter explains why Harry has them anyway.