The Next Generation

“How’d you like your first day little Snapes?” he asked with teasing smile. Rave beamed up at him and replied cheerily,

“It was amazing.” Despite his earlier conviction that something was going to happen today he now felt confident that nothing could ruin this day.

Chapter 5:

Rave sat at the table practically inhaling his food. The day had been long and trying, plus he felt as if all through the day something had been connecting with him and siphoning off little bits of his energy. The combination left him with an uproarious appetite. He all but ignored the others although he noticed the half glare that Itzal gave his younger brother and found it a little odd.

“Raveal Snape you’d think you hadn’t eaten in days.” Vera scolded cheerily watching her brother eat in a manor similar to their Uncle Ron. At least uncle had the excuse of his creature which caused him to burn calories twice as fast compared to a human metabolism. As far as she and Rave knew nether of them was anything but human. When everyone was slowing in their meals and letting the lethargy of a food stupor take over Harry stood up and the head table and cleared his throat.

“I hope that all of you have had a pleasant first day, as pleasant as a school day can be at least,” he began drawing laughs, “I would just like to remind everyone of the various clubs and activities we have this year, including some other sports than quidditch. Both the announcement boards here in the great hall and near my office have any information you need on joining or merely on the clubs so take a look! That is all.” He finished nodding to them and taking a seat. The trio shared excited looks and vowed to take a look at the board once the hall cleared a little. However in the midst of some of the other students clearing out and others trying to get to the board there was a loud shout.

“Bloody hell!” shouted a male voice a boy, proudly boasting a Gryffindor third year badge, was backing away from Damien in horror. The young vampire was clutching his forearm and hissing in pain fangs fully exposed. Any doubts as to what his heritage might be was ended then and there. Rave stood to try and go to his new sort of friend’s aide but Vera grabbed the back of his robes in warning.

“What happened?” another boy asked as Harry surveyed from the head table, waiting until it went decidedly sour to intervene, as much as he hated it he couldn’t be rumored to favor the children with magical creature heritage.

“I was going to look at the board and he bumped against the silver charm I have…” the Gryffindor said watching the younger boy. Many vampires still had a near fatal reaction to silver but it had been proven that it was only at best a severe species oriented allergic reaction not anything mystical. Damien looked like he wanted nothing more than to get away, perhaps to the hospital wing to get the burn treated. The boy who had burnt him looked less frightened now but several of the other Gryffindors were muttering murderously dark looks on their faces. Rave caught snatches of the words, ‘vampire’, ‘dark creature’, ‘should do something’, before his papa flashed over to the congregation of students. Rave loved it when his slender papa made a grand entrance by flashing to make up for his smaller stature. It always worked wonders.

“Damien are you alright?” He asked addressing the wounded boy first, it was only fair, the young vampire nodded slowly, Rave felt a brush of anger when he noticed his dorm mate was gritting his teeth against the pain. He stood again and went over,

“I have something to treat the burn in my dorm, Headmaster.” The vampire said stiffly looking at Rave in relief when Harry nodded and gestured for him to go ahead with Rave to make sure he was alright. They hear Harry address the crowd of students and Gryffindors telling them a bit about vampires and assuring them that no one was in danger. Damien snorted angrily,

“Thirteen generations since Vampire signed the peace treaty with wizards and they still hate us.” He muttered one had still clasped over the burn on his arm. Rave chose not to broach the subject of inborn prejudices. Instead he gestured to his companions arm with a look of worry.

“Doesn’t holding it like that make it hurt more?” he asked and the young vampire looked down startled, he gave a little quirk of a smile and removed his hand. It was the burned imprint of a cross. Rave understood now why he covered it, vampires weren’t really affected by ‘holy’ objects but more people tended to believe they were to add credence to them being dark creatures.

“Was it really and accident?” Rave asked somberly, he’d picked up on the other boy’s creature in a day’s time surely others had as well.

“For the boy wearing the cross yes, for the girl who pushed him… maybe it was too hard to tell.” He responded yellow-green eyes shadowed and cold. Rave felt bad but there really wasn’t much he could say as they walked slowly towards the dorms. Damien gave him a sideways glance before speaking again.

“Does it bother you?” he asked, clearly referring to his vampirism. Rave gave him a bright smile and shook his head.

“I figured it out yesterday, I didn’t mind then and I still don’t.” he replied honestly. The other boy looked surprised,

“Was I doing that badly at hiding it?” he asked looking a bit embarrassed. Rave shook his head assuring the other boy that he was just very observant. Rave wasn’t quite ready to expose his empathetic powers, although now that the other boy had been outed in a sense his emotions and vampiric nature weren’t nearly as oppressive. They returned to the dorms and Damien ferreted through his trunk with the un-burnt arm. Rave was debating offering to help even though he didn’t know what the other boy was looking for when Damien gave a triumphant grunt and pulled out a small jar. He then looked back at Rave a bit sheepishly,

“You should probably go.” He said looking embarrassed, “There is an herb I take to speed up healing but it affects my bloodlust. Not for long but for about five minutes I become completely insatiable, but only if someone is in the same room. I wouldn’t take it but it would take a day or two to heal and I can’t bandage a silver induced burn, it would smolder any bandages.” He explained quietly. Rave gave him and encouraging smile,

“I’ll keep anyone else out for a few minutes should they come back.” He replied.

“Thank you.” Whispered the young vampire as the he left the room, Rave sat at the bottom of the stairs thinking. How awful it must’ve been for Damien to know that everyone would treat him differently just because of his creature, but Rave had the same problem because of his parents. He’d never really thought of it as a bad thing before but that was just it, whatever he did reflected on his parents and what they did affected him. It was hard for him to picture that, maybe he was a little self-centered, he thought. Growing bored he figured it had been a good ten minutes and he ventured up to the dorm rooms. Later the more sensible part of him would reason that Damien would’ve come down if it was alright but now he was too caught up in his turbulent thoughts. Entering the room he immediately knew he’d been stupid. He could tangibly feel the other boy’s blood lust and despair when he entered. Damien’s eyes were solid yellow and his pupils were constricted down to pinpoints.

“D…Damien?” he stuttered before the boy surged forward pinning Rave between him and the wall. Rave gasped as the air was knocked from him, and looked desperately up at his friend. But Damien wasn’t there, just the pure instincts of a vampire. Rave shuddered as the other boy licked the side of his neck almost playfully. He saw Damien’s fangs and practically whimpered. It was too much, the physical touch enhanced his empathetic powers, giving him insight to exactly what a vampire felt when engulfed by the bloodlust. The need, pain, joy, and carnal hunger, each feeling made Rave shudder. He almost didn’t notice when Damien’s fangs sunk into his neck, but the onslaught of pleasure alerted him. He arched practically off the wall, Damien’s carnal pleasure at having fresh warm blood mixed with Rave’s own reaction to being bit. Being bit by a vampire was always a varying experience for the receiver but in most cases, that didn’t result in death, it was a more than pleasant one. However for the eleven year old boy it was overpowering.

“Rave!” someone called and he slumped against the wall as someone removed Damien from him. Blearily he saw Sterling holding Damien by the throat, a feat that should’ve been impossible Sterling was half the other boy’s weight if that, and wings that had clearly ripped through the smaller boys shirt. The wings were huge and feathered in a, go figure, sliver color; the most frightening thing was perhaps his eyes. While the gray-white eyes he typically had were disconcerting, adding an eerie blue glow and venomous amounts of anger and they were truly terrifying. Rave was still disoriented both from the previous onslaught of feelings and blood loss but he was conscious enough to notice that he still couldn’t feel anything from the other boy even though he was clearly furious beyond reason.

“Enough!” shouted an imperial voice. Harry had flashed into the dorm with Itzal who immediately began chattering at his younger brother in another language, one that was extremely vowel heavy Rave noted. Damien was sucking in large gasps of air as his eyes took on their greenish tint again. He looked around then paled so much Rave thought he would faint,

“H…Headmaster!” he gasped, standing only then did Rave notice the burn still present on his arm. Shouldn’t that have been healed, it was now slowly. “S… Someone switched my hawthorn herbal mixture with bloodroot.” He hurried on looking a Rave with a mixture of horror and despair. Harry looked at the distraught vampire,

“The hawthorn was to speed your healing right?” he asked and received an affirmative nod, “Someone in your dorm must’ve known what you are. Bedsides Rave. Vera go find the other boys for me? Tell them to wait in my office or so help me I will call Severus and have him round them up.” He continued looking at his daughter. She gave Rave a worried look but nodded and rushed out with Ione in tow. Itzal had talked Sterling out of whatever had happened to him although the wings were still present. Harry ignored them for a moment waving his wand and summoning up a potion handing it to his son, trying to hide his obvious worry and desire to simply gather the boy in his arms and run back home.

“Blood replenishing potion.” He explained and Rave nodded drinking it. Harry sighed and looked back at Damien who was huddling disgracefully on the floor,

“Don’t worry so much Damien; I believe that you did not mean to attack anyone. We will sort this out. Rave is fine and I’m sure he’ll forgive you.” He said extending a hand and helping the vampire up and leading him to a bed to sit on. He then turned to the two Yates completely at a loss with how to deal with them.

“You two me and Rave will adjourn to my office, Damien I advise that you visit the hospital wing just to make sure there are no lingering effects of the bloodroot. He said finally having an excuse to touch his son as he helped him up and flashed all four of them to his office. He gestured for all of them to sit resigned to this discussion, what had possessed him to let these boys enter? Sagging in the chair he looked at Sterling,

“I take it he’s fixated on Rave?” he began, talking to Itzal person to person instead of student to headmaster. The boy looked a bit startled then nodded slowly. Rave watched in utter confusion. Harry sighed again; he needed a drink, or Severus preferably the latter.

“You cannot court him yet, both of you know that. He’s eleven and human.” He said finally and noted the almost imperceptible relaxation of Itzal’s demeanor. Sterling wasn’t as subtle he sagged against the chair only to sit up again in discomfort. Rave looked from each of them in confusion,

“What are you talking about?” he demanded. Harry sighed and rubbed his forehead, this was too much for the first day of classes!

“I’m going to presume he’s compatible with one or both of you as well.” He said looking at the brothers and received another nod.

“Rave I’m sure you’ve felt something with either of them despite your short encounter,” he tried to begin only to falter. Itzal huffed and looked at the younger boy,

“Both of us are part of a rare race called Inheri, and well Sterling marked you as a potential mate. When he saw the vampire feeding off you, a very intimate action, his instincts took over.” He explained shortly. Rave simply stared at him in shock.

“Bloody hell.” He said finally looking back at his papa who seemed to agree.

AN: YAY! You got a name, and description next chappie. I do so love it when my reviewers pick up on the hints I leave, it makes me happy. And I like knowing that I’m not way to vague all the time. So um.. yeah. XD