Stormwalker

Chapter 7: Broken Hearts, Shattered Dreams

The next day seemed to Hermione a boring blur, but it took all of her courage to walk into the Defense Against the Dark Arts Classroom.

It still looked like a martial arts school, and some students were still in the changing rooms switching out their robes for their workout outfit. But the man standing in the center of the room was not Gabriel.

He had long, curly, red, hair that went down to his shoulders and a well-defined face. His eyes were a shade of red-tinged copper, like blood dripped onto a penny. The man was a little taller than Gabriel, and just as muscled. His face was as blank as a stage mask.

After everyone had changed, they got into the line they had been in previously, waiting for the new professor\'s instructions. He inspected them for a moment before giving a slight nod.

\"Good evening. I am Professor Christoph Rakas, and I will be your substitute until when and if Professor Lunax returns.\" His tone was cold and held no room for nonsense.

One student whom Hermione didn\'t recognize raised her hand, and he nodded.

\"What is your question?\"

\"Do you know what happened to Professor Lunax, sir?\" She asked.

The Professor looked rather amused. \"As he is one of my oldest friends, I would he either needed a break or is lying dead in a ditch somewhere. So has been my experience with the man. Any more questions?

The fact that he was one of Gabriel\'s friends kept Draco or anyone else from making a comment about their Professor\'s absence. Hermione was surprised by the Professor\'s bluntness, but if he was truly one of Gabriel\'s friends, it didn\'t seem like much of a shock.

\"Begin your normal stretches and-\"

\"Excuse me, Professor Rakas\" The voice of the Headmaster made everyone\'s head turn. \"But I must borrow one of your students.\"

\"Of course, Headmaster.\"

\"Miss Granger, will you please grab your robes and come with me?\"

Hermione swallowed and nodded. She knew in her gut that this had something to do with Gabriel. Even though he had frightened her and anger blazed in her chest, she could not silence the little voice in her head that still had tender and lustful feelings for him. Picking up her robes and sliding on her shoes, she followed the Headmaster out of the room. Dumbledore closed the door and turned around to face Hermione. She spoke first.

\"Headmaster, may I know what this is about before we go to your office?\"
\"I think you already know, Miss Granger.\"

\"Gab-\" She caught herself quickly. \"Professor Lunax.\"

\"Exactly. He has disappeared, and you were the last one to see him.\"

\"Did you look in his coffin?\" Hermione\'s voice sounded a touch angry and hurt.

\"I know how you feel about his vampirism, but whether or not it matters to you, he does not sleep in a coffin. I am told he despises the things.\"

\"What could I do anyway, Headmaster? He didn\'t tell me he was leaving.\"

\"He may have left some sign that only you could recognize or understand. You are much closer to him than anyone else.\" She flushed at his assumption. \"Some of the Professors are still unaware of his condition.\"

\"Alright, Headmaster, but I won\'t promise anything.\"

\"I have no wish to disturb the class anymore, so we can go into Gabriel\'s room, so we can get there through Professor Snape\'s dungeons. He is done with his classes for the day.\" He informed her as they walked.

Hermione paused for a moment. \"They\'re connected?\"

\"Yes, from what Severus has told me, the two of them spend their weekends talking in Gabriel\'s room, swapping stories of their past and arguing with each other about whatever\'s on their mind. They\'re friends of a sort.\"

That surprised her even more. Snape, Gabriel\'s friend? Now that was certainly bizarre. She couldn\'t picture that. The teenager said the only thing she could to steer away from this conversation.

\"Oh.\"

They walked through Snape\'s dungeons, and the Potions Master was not there. Dumbledore walked to one of the blank walls and whispered the password. \"Carnis Sanguis.\" A section of the wall slid down into the floor, revealing an unlit hallway.

Hermione did not recognize the Latin of the first part of the password and the Headmaster informed her that the complete phrase translated to \"Flesh and Blood.\"

How appropriate, she though bitterly as the two of them walked down the hallway into Gabriel\'s room, magnifi as as before. It did not seem any different than yesterday, with the exception that the door was attached to its frame again. Hermione paused and looked at the floor. She saw his diary face down, instead of on the table where she\'d dropped it the previous night. Picking it up, Hermione saw it was turned to the page with Belle\'s portrait. A crimson stain marred the picture and a black hair fell out of the book.

\"Headmaster?\" Dumbledore had been searching in the adjoining bedroom while she had been looking for clues.
\"Yes, Miss Granger?\"

\"I have an idea about who took him.\"

He walked out of Gabriel\'s room and looked over her shoulder, glancing at the portrait and the bloodstain. \"Her?\" He pointed, examining her unmoving features, fierce as before.

\"Yes, she was his-\", she paused for a moment, remembering the incestuous words he had shouted at her, \"-niece. He might have turned to this page to prove she was the one who captured him. And it doesn\'t look like it was a peaceful reunion.\"

\"Did he tell you anything else about her?\"

Hermione shifted uncomfortably. She would keep the gruesome facts to herself, in case he had only said it to disgust her. \"Only that she was 17 when she was changed into a vampire and that,\" she grimaced, \"she was raped in the same year, just like her mother. He mentions it in the book.\"

\"Professor Lunax wrote the book?\"

\"It\'s his diary.\" She said simply.

\"I\'ve attempted to use locating spells to find him, but powerful wards are blocking his current position. Since only a few wizards can block my personal magic, and because the Lunax family is not a wizarding bloodline, I assume his niece has fallen in with Voldemort, and perhaps captured him soon after.\"

Hermione felt her blood run cold at the thought of Gabriel in the claws of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. That was followed by a choking, writhing, rage. She clenched her hands into fists. Hermione suddenly screamed as she heard Gabriel\'s voice in her head.

Hermione!? His voice was a little panicked and then she heard a skin-tearing scream erupt from Gabriel\'s throat and echo in the coils of her mind. It was so loud she reflexively covered her ears to try and silence the obscene sound.

Yes Gabriel, it\'s me. Where are you?, she thought back, desperately hoping he could hear her.

Maison de S-He screamed again, and it ended in a moan. Hermione saw the image of what he saw swim before her .
.

A pair of wickedly green orbs stared out of the shadows right at her. A bloodstained, razor-studded, whip snaked out and ripped into his chest, provoking another moan. Hermione could smell the blood in the air and feel his ravenous hunger tear through him like a second whip. As the image crumbled, she heard a silky laugh that made her shudder and the words, \"You know you want it, Gabriel.\"

She snapped back to reality as the mental connection shattered. Dumbledore was shaking her by the shoulders with wide eyes. He let go of her quickly. \"Hermione, are you alright?\" Hermione nodded slowly, not really sure. \"Yes, Headmaster. What happened?\"

\"After I mentioned Voldemort, you screamed and covered your ears. Then you just froze and stopped breathing for a moment or so.\"

\"I…I heard his voice in my head, trying to tell me where he was and…then he screamed. It was the most horrible thing I\'ve ever heard. Then I could see what he was seeing. Belle was torturing him. She laughed and then the image disappeared.\"

She didn\'t think she\'d ever forget that laugh.

\"Did he tell you where he was?\"

\"I\'m sure he was trying to say Maison de Sang, but I didn\'t hear the last word and I have no idea where it is even if that was what he said.\"

\"He told me once that his home was in Rauvasla, a land that used to be in the forests of Germany before the 1400\'s. It was a kingdom ruled mostly by vampires, and a place where humans and others could be bought for a few coins of silver.\"

Hermione felt slightly nauseated. \"A mansion in the middle of a forest?\"

\"Because every Lunax is a vampire, I would assume it was some kind of underground crypt or some such thing.\"

\"I have to find him. Now.\"

\"Hermione, it is much too dangerous for you to go alone. You would be facing a 700-year old vampire that managed to incapacitate her sire, a vampire four times her age. There may be others of the family there as well.\"

Dumbledore paused. He had said a bit too much and Hermione gaped at him. Wrapping her mind about Gabriel being a vampire and 700 hundred years old was hard enough, but 2800? It wasn\'t fathomable.

\"Dear God, he could have…he was born…Jesus Christ…He…\" He voice trailed off in shock.

\"You cannot go after him. I will not have the most brilliant student at this school waste her life chasing a vampire whose sanity has been in question since his birth! If I had even thought to imagine that this would happen, I would have never let him teach here.\"

Hermione\'s vision swum with red in fury at those words and then completely lost it. \"What the bloody hell are you babbling about, old man?! Gabriel is not a lunatic! He\'s protected me!\"

Dumbledore\'s voice was calm, but had a cold edge to it. \"You may not be aware of it, Miss Granger, but your beloved,\" She blushed furiously. Hermione supposed that she deserved that, \"suffers from multiple personality disorder. He is also rumored to be a ravenous masochist. Professor Lunax is extremely careful not to injure himself lest his wall crumbles and he kills himself. I only let him teach here because only he knew what was needed to protect you and the rest of the school.\"

\"Liar!\" She screamed. Hermione grabbed the book and frantically turned the pages. After the portraits, she found exactly what she was searching for: a map. It looked much like the ones of modern times, with two crucial exceptions. That Germany was labeled Rauvasla, and that a small black dot indicated the location of Maison de Sang.

Hermione fled the room, ignoring Dumbledore\'s yelled protest, running as fast as possible, wand in her hand. It was much easier in the workout clothes than her robes. She ran into quite a few people, including Ron, but only paused a second to laugh at his confused and shocked face. Running outside the gate of Hogwarts, she immediately Apparated and found herself surrounded by thick trees and a darkness light could never penetrate.