Once and Future King

Title: Once and Future King
Author: Ren Apple (athyestean)
Pairing: Harry Potter and Alucard
Warning: Slash. Spoilers. Angst.
Rating: PG-13 (Eventual R)

Summary: A boy with a destiny meets a vampire.

A/N: For the fans who love Hellsing just as much as I. I would like to note I have taken artistic license and virgin males can be turned into vampires by males. The same also goes for females. That is all.

Chapter 1: A Little Less Conversation

Chapter Theme Song: Get Free by The Vines


Harry ran his fingers gently across Hedwig’s soft feathery wings as she rested on his crossed legs. “We can’t stay here anymore. I ca-,” Harry paused as a single tear fell down his bruised cheek, “I won’t let them use me anymore. That prophecy is bullshit! It was made up by a quack and I won’t allow it to control my life.”

Hedwig nudged his fingers with her beak and hooted quietly.

Harry nodded as if she had confirmed his decision. “Yeah, yeah… We can do it. We can escape.” Harry allowed Hedwig to jump onto his forearm as he stood shakily from the shabby bed in the smallest bedroom of Number Four Privet Drive. He walked quickly to the window and opened it with trembling fingers. He stared at Hedwig’s guileless golden eyes and winced, “You’ll be safe if you go to Ron’s. You can stay with Pig and Errol and everything will be okay, alright?”

Hedwig clasped his arm with her claws, shaking her head. She hooted mournfully.

“Don’t look at me like that, girl. It’ll be alright, I just don’t know what I’m going to do and I can’t take you with me until I have somewhere safe to stay. I won’t let you be hurt.”

Hedwig sniffed and leapt from his arm into the dark of night, her white wings glowing brightly beneath the full moon. She would wait in the trees down the road until she could follow him. She would not leave her master.

Harry watched her with his heart beating unusually fast. At least she would be safe. He couldn’t imagine losing her, his first friend.

Harry stood there a moment longer, clenching his hands into fists tightly. There would be no Order members out tonight. He had just returned from Hogwarts and they had not started a guard duty. Dumbledore was probably sure he would be overwhelmed with grief. But Harry was angry and he refused to be a pawn in Dumbledore’s and Voldemort’s war. He could escape, or at least try to because even if he got caught at least he had made an attempt and if he made it, no matter where he ended up it would be better than staying in this hell hole. Harry felt his resolve strengthen. “I can do it,” he whispered.

Harry searched through the clothing on the floor for one of Dudley’s oversized jackets and pulled it over his head. He checked his back pocket, feeling comfort in the weight of his wand. He looked around the room searching for anything else he would need that couldn’t be replaced. He briefly thought to bring his photo album, but he wasn’t sure he could keep it wherever he was going and it was still locked in the cupboard under the stairs with his father’s invisibility cloak. He looked up to the door suddenly, cursing. He had forgotten about his invisibility cloak and now it was too late. It would definitely take too much time to get both items out and probably wake his relatives. Harry ran his fingers through his hair haphazardly. He definitely could have used the cloak, but he could buy another. He had his Gringott’s key looped on a chain around his neck, and that was all he needed because sentimentality didn’t mean a shite in death.

Harry treaded carefully across the floor, stopping as he turned the knob on the door with the utmost care. “Don’t make a sound, don’t make a sound, please, don’t make a sound,” he mouthed over and over under his breath. He let out a sigh of relief when it opened just enough for him to squeeze through. If he listened carefully he could hear the sounds of Dudley and Vernon snoring across the hall.

Harry walked slowly down the stairs with his back carefully rubbing against the wall. He brushed against the last of the railing and stopped on the tiled floor of the foyer. He could now see out of the paned windows of the door. He was so close. He could almost taste it. Harry brushed his fingers against the brass lock and turned the knob with an audible click. Harry gasped, waiting for something to happen. Had he been heard? He stood there silently for a moment and then slowly began to pull the door open. Nothing. He inhaled a deep breath of the cool evening air, and took a shaky step outside onto the porch. He paused. Nothing. He closed the door softly still holding the turned doorknob with his hand until it was shut. Nothing. It was eerily silent. Harry looked around the finely manicured streets of Privet Drive, hyperventilating. He took two steps off of the porch onto the walkway and bolted.

Harry was running quickly across the sidewalk and into the street, no cars would be driving this late at night and he didn’t really care. He was free. He started laughing in a fit of hysteria. “Free! Bloody hell, I’m free!” He whispered loudly to himself. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, making him feel alive as the muscles in his legs pushed him farther and farther past the neighboring streets of Privet Drive.

Harry didn’t know how long he had been running, but he was getting tired. He was pretty close to the park near Stonewall though so he decided to rest and make a plan. He started to slow down once as the trees began to enlarge and swirling patterns of mulch leading to the park appeared. He returned his glasses from their precarious position on his nose up to the bridge with his index finger. Harry heard a click and he turned around, searching for a sign of what had made the noise. Air rushed out of his lungs as he came to abrupt halt.

Something wasn’t right. He couldn’t hear anything but the sound of his wildly beating heart. It was dark outside, and the streetlight above him flickered oddly. He looked up and jerked bodily when he heard the ‘clicking’ sound again. Only this time it seemed closer. Harry pulled his wand from his back pocket and moved quickly back towards to sidewalk under another light. He could see Stonewall High looming from across the street. He thought he could make out odd human shaped shadows moving from behind the tinted glass windows. Harry gulped. That horrible clicking noise was coming closer.

“Ah, do we have a naughty child starting trouble?” A high pitched voice joked mockingly. “My, my, what am I to do?”

Harry slowly turned around to face the most horrifying creature, for he knew it couldn’t be human, he had ever seen. From the creature’s head roots of blond hair lay in matted clumps with pieces of his skull protruding awkwardly into the open air around the site of a large gaping hole. Had he been shot? Harry thought as the air stopped abruptly in his throat. He could barely contain his scream of terror as blood dripped down the corpse’s face or what Harry assumed should have been his face. He might have been handsome once, but the rotting flesh peeling off of his face exposing the scraped pieces of sinew to the open air destroyed any visage of beauty he could have once had. A maggot fell from his shredded cheek, and Harry gulped. He could taste the acrid bile rising in his throat as the stench from the creature saturated the air around him even from his position three meters away.

The creature unsteadily moved forward as the tatters of his gray and white suit dripped more blood on to the sidewalk. Harry took one step back. He could see the man would have been very tall, much taller than Harry, if not for the fact his left leg seemed to be dragging his stub of a foot across the pavement, clicking as he shifted closer.

Harry took another step back, and allowing a short shout of surprise as he felt fleshy hands grab at him from behind. He yelled out in pain, trying to scramble away from the hands gripping his arms and legs. He stomped hard onto the hand grabbing at his left foot and cringed, feeling the sickening crunch of bone shattering. He looked down and saw a thin arm of pallid skin wrapped around his leg unattached to a body. Harry gasped, because to his right, a girl no older than seventeen still dressed in her gray and tattered uniform from Stonewall, mindlessly moaned on the ground while trying to take hold of him with her other arm. “Bloody hell, what’s going on?” Harry shouted, “What are you?”

“Questions, questions, too many questions. Well, aren’t you a pretty one…?” The creature slowly limped forward, licking his lips. “Yummy boys like you are why I became Headmaster.” He murmured seemingly to himself. His red eyes widened, “Oh, did you ask something? That’s so rude of me. Allow me to answer you, I am vampire and I have taken over the school. I was given a gift from hell! Look at me, immortality is within my grasp. Look how many ghouls I have made, a veritable army to do my bidding.” He said raising his hands in the air madly. “Of course, in a school filled with hormonal teenagers there were no virgins to be found so I didn’t have to worry about making more vampires. But you look like a virgin. Are you a virgin, pretty one?” He asked sniffing the air. “You do smell like one.”

Harry quickly shook his head, trying to clear his frantic thoughts. This had to be a dream. It had to be. He couldn’t die like this. Was this the work of Voldemort? Had he been reading his thoughts again knowing that Harry would try to escape? Harry shook his head. No, this wasn’t like his enemy.

“What!” The vampire said sharply, “Speak up! Are you a virgin? Children now and days are so rude. Well,” the Headmaster grinned maniacally, “just so I don’t make another vampire, I am going to have to rape you. Such a burden you are. Though, you look positively good enough to eat.”

At the word “rape,” Harry’s thoughts cleared. “No, no, no, no, this isn’t happening. It can’t be. It isn’t. I‘m in my bed and I’m just dreaming. I’m just dreaming.” The hands around his limbs tightened as he began to struggle harder as blood not his own seeped through his clothes and onto his skin. Harry wheezed, choking on their stench. “Let go! Let me go! I can’t breathe.”

“You won’t need to for much longer, pretty boy because you will be my eternal slave.” The vampire said, dragging his stump of a foot against the sidewalk.

Harry could still hear the clicking, and now he could see the way that vampire’s tongue would bulge and loll out of his mouth as he spoke. He shook his head, “No, I won’t!” He thrust his elbow into the ghoul behind him using the momentum to lunge forward, but more hands grabbed at his body restraining him.

“So willful, it is a pity I won’t be able to play with you longer.” The vampire smirked, running his hands up and down Harry’s sides inhaling deeply the pungent scent of fear and sweat. “I’m sure I could spend hours listening to you scream.”

Harry felt the hands pulling him to the ground and tearing at his clothes. He shuddered as sharp fingernails tore through his skin, struggling with all his might against the horrifying ghouls. Out the corner of his eye, a man in red grinned.

---

“It is a beautiful night. Is it not, owl?” Alucard praised, his yellow sunglasses glinting. He touched his red fedora with his gloved hand, nodding to his avian companion. “It is nights such as this that makes me want to suck blood.”

Hedwig circled above Alucard, gaining in elevation until she circled over the streetlights. She hooted loudly, flying towards to the school towering in the distance.

Alucard’s sharp fangs glinted as he ran through the street faster than the eye could see, the flaps of his red overcoat whipping through the wind. “A splendid night indeed.” Alucard inhaled the sweet scent of fresh blood spilt as the shadows enveloped him into their cool embrace. He nodded bringing his glasses beneath eye level as he spotted the owl he had been following, circling above a mob of ten ghouls, a human, and vampire. His fangs rested boldly above his pale stretched lips as he grinned. “Target found.”

Alucard walked slowly towards the gathering mob, his leather black boots steadily knocking against the sidewalk. He licked his bottom lip with his inhumanly long tongue. “Ah, pathetic.” He said, as the creature turned to glare at him.

“You? Who the hell are you?” The Headmaster angrily shouted, removing his hands from Harry. He limped forward with his lips pulled back in a snarl. “Don’t you know it isn’t polite to interrupt?”

Alucard’s red eyes glimmered in amusement. “Oh, have I?” The teen struggled forward at the sound of his voice, his lithe body twisting and turning away from the painful hands grasping at his limbs. Alucard admired the child for his determination, but he would only tire himself more quickly than escape.

“Yes! Well, it doesn’t matter.” The deformed vampire shouted, “My ghouls will take care of you!” He waved his arm toward the vampire dressed in the long red overcoat. “Get him! Don’t stop until you have bathed in his blood.” He looked at Harry, “Don’t worry, pretty one, I will be with you in just a moment.”

Alucard whipped his large silver Cassull from its place within his suit, his fangs glinting as he grinned. He looked over his elbow towards the closest ghoul running towards him, a young teenage boy whose red eyes glowed angrily with bloodlust. He snarled, lunging towards Alucard.

“Idiot, ghouls can’t be killed by guns!”

Alucard rolled his shoulders and teased the trigger with his index finger. His thirty-nine centimeter semi-automatic pistol balanced on his palm ready for unleashing. “So arrogant,” Alucard thought aloud, “let me show you your place.” He pulled the trigger.

The hammer pulled back as the first round released. The sound of the gun exploded through the air as the clink of the steel shell casings hit the ground. The bullet impacted the ghoul’s skull and disintegrated, his blood showering across the sidewalk. The body hit the ground with a thump. “Pathetic,” Alucard stated, firing more rounds into the surrounding ghoul students. The steel bullets blasting through their heads in the blink of an eye. “Is that all you’ve got?” The corners of his lips tilted downwards, “You are even more pathetic than I expected.”

The Headmaster vampire shook his head in shocked denial, “You can’t- Wait, no, how can you be killing them? What are you shooting them with? Normal bullets shouldn’t do that!”

Alucard rubbed his thumb over the handle of his Cassull with admiration. “The silver cross of the Manchester Cathedral was melted down to make these thirteen millimeter exploding shells. So nothing I shoot ever gets back up again.” Alucard gave the weak vampire a smirk.

The Headmaster took a step towards Harry, still keeping his eyes on Alucard. “Why are you doing this? Are you trying to protect these pathetic humans?” He shouted, grabbing Harry and pulling him to his chest while his arm wrapped around Harry’s slender neck.

Harry was covered in sweat from struggling and he could no longer fight. His breathing was shallow and he could barely stand. He blearily looked towards the tall pale man in front of him covered in red. He couldn’t make out his face without his glasses, but he looked up with his wet green eyes, pleadingly. He didn’t want to die like this.

Alucard’s inky black hair whipped around his face as his red eyes darkened.

The Headmaster knew his options were limited so he pulled Harry closer to his chest, his clawed fingers resting against the boy’s neck above the carotid artery. “He is the last one alive, the only survivor. Don’t you want to save him? Let’s make a deal. I am sure you can be reasonable. I am not asking for much. I just want to make a deal.”

Alucard stood lazily, the Cassull still resting its significant weight in his palm.

“Okay, you can have the boy. Just forget you ever saw me and I’ll disappear.”

Alucard raised the Cassull to his eye level, wrapping his other arm across his chest for leverage. The large barrel of the pistol pointed towards the Headmaster’s head.

“What are you doing?” The vampire shouted, pressing his clawed fingers further into Harry’s throat. “I will kill him! Don’t think I won’t.”

Harry gasped, black spots dancing across his vision. He could feel a small trail of warm blood sliding across his neck, and it was becoming difficult for him to breathe. “Help,” he mouthed.

Alucard pulled the trigger and the vampire’s left shoulder blew apart. He fell back, releasing Harry and Alucard fired again into his torso. Blood and innards flew into the air.

Harry knelt onto the ground, gasping as Alucard continued shooting into the vampire’s dead corpse. He shuddered each time the gun fired into the body beside him. He clutched his arms against his stomach. “I’m alive. I’m alive,” he repeated under his breath. “Oh god, I’m alive.”

The used magazine from his Cassull dropped to the ground with a thud. Alucard slid the pistol inside of his coat without a thought, looking down at the frail boy beneath him. For a human child he was quite attractive. His dark black hair was drenched with the sweet smell of his sweat and his tan lithe muscles gleamed with blood. He looked delicious. Alucard rubbed his tongue across his teeth and knelt down beside the boy.

Harry stiffened, slowly turning his head towards his savior. Tears prickled at his eyes. He wished he could clearly see him. “I don’t know how to thank you. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t showed up.” Harry said shakily.

Hedwig dived towards him, her white wings pushing cold air against his cheeks as she floated in front of his face.

Harry gasped, looking up. “Hedwig!”

Alucard smirked, “Ah, the lady has a name.”

Harry looked towards Alucard with wide eyes, “She brought you here?”

Hedwig hooted, nudging his face with her beak.

His red eyes seemed to swirl with his thoughts. Alucard sniffed the air, and his lids grew heavy with bloodlust. He reached towards the boy, his gloved hand grazing against the tattered remains of his shirt as the red seal on his gloves swirled with light and slightly faded.

Harry twisted away from the gloved hand, seemingly shrinking into himself. The energy from the vampire’s hands was irritating his already frayed nerves. “What is your name?”

“Alucard,” he said a sharp smile across his lips. “What is your name, little one?” He purred, his deep baritone sending tingles of pleasure down Harry’s spine.

“Harry, Harry Potter,” he whispered as he looked at Alucard’s blurry figure from beneath his eyelashes. He didn’t understand the feelings running through his body, but he didn’t want them to stop.

Alucard hummed to himself, his attention riveted to the blood gliding down Harry’s long sinuous neck. “You’re bleeding.” Alucard stated calmly, his mouth watering with saliva.

Harry touched his trembling fingers to his neck. His cold fingers, sliding to the open slashes left from the vampire. He wanted to laugh for some reason. This situation just seemed so unreal. He leaned back on his thighs. Harry blinked unthinkingly. “You’re right, Mr. Alucard. I am.”

“Just Alucard, my little one.”

“Alucard.” Harry mumbled, nodding as he took stock of his situation. His head snapped up. “What am I going to do now?” He said, speaking his thoughts aloud. “I just ran away. I have no where to go, and they’re probably after me right this second. I just can’t believe I was attacked by a vampire and ghouls!” Harry looked at the blurry visage of Alucard warily. “And you killed them!”

Alucard laughed darkly, “Poor little wizard, so naive. Once a man becomes a ghoul, he can never return to his human form. By killing them, I minimize their pain and allow their souls to rest in peace. It is for their own good.” He pulled out a cigarette and silver lighter from his pocket, and placed the stick in his mouth with a smirk. He popped the lid of the lighter with a clink, and lit his cigarette, inhaling the sharp tang of nicotine. It would keep him from tasting the boy, and his magic.

Harry gasped. “How did you know I was a wizard?” He shouted. Hedwig hooted loudly at her master’s distress. Harry slowly realized the man in front of him was a vampire as the conversation from earlier ran through his mind. He bit his bottom lip with his teeth harshly.

“Your magic calls,” Alucard hissed, “to me, little wizard.” He brought the cigarette to rest between his fingertips on his bent knee.

Harry shuddered. “What do you want from me?”

Alucard open his mouth to respond, but was interrupted when a sharp voice called over the static on his handheld transceiver. “Alucard?” He pulled the transceiver from the pocket within his coat. “Yes, Sir Integral Van Hellsing?”

“Alucard has the target been neutralized?”

Alucard scowled, pressing the button on side of his device. “The mission objective accomplished. The target vampire has been silenced, and the limited power release is completed.” He released the button beneath his thumb, and returned his gaze to the magic user before him. He took a drag of his cigarette. “Little one, I do not have much time before I am called to return. However, do not think this is the last of me you will see. You and I are connected.” Alucard inhaled one more take of his cigarette before dropping it to the ground. He bowed his head, dark thick strands falling around his face as the shadows began absorbing his feet. “My master.”

Alucard melted slowly into black puddle pooling at his feet. “You have made a choice. Now run! And do not let your decision be for naught.” He red eyes glowed eerily for a moment before he disappeared.

Harry’s eyes widened. “What?”