Chapter 2

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

Severus Snape looked over his shoulder and pointedly glared at the redhead. "Yes, Mister Weasley." He returned his gaze to the colossal stone gate in front of him. There were multiple battle scenes carved into the granite and several gruesome executions depicted as well, the flickering torchlight causing some of them to take on a life of their own.

Charlie Weasley rubbed the back of his neck, feeling his uneasiness increase the closer they came to the fortress of the Novăceşti. "Maybe I should wait here."

"Coward," Snape muttered. He laid his hand on the images, feeling the coarse grit that defined each character. "Afraid they'll eat you?"

"Would you let them?" Charlie stressed the challenge in his voice by crossing his arms. "And I'm not a coward; I'm just very much into self-preservation."

"As am I." Severus then paused for a moment. "No, I would not let them eat you." He smirked. "I would have that pleasure before they could."

"You almost did." The redhead lightly touched the marks on the left side of his neck.

Snape grabbed Weasley's chin and forcefully pushed it to the side so he could study the marred flesh. "I already told you," he huffed in exasperation, "I was not in my right mind when you happened upon me." He released the young wizard's freckled jaw and stepped back. "Be glad of the goat that nourished me beforehand."

"That was meant for Rhiannon, the Welsh Green," Charlie grumbled. "Not that you cared."

"Considering I'd been surviving on rodents or hares, you're right." Snape sneered. "I didn't care that the largest meal I'd found in weeks was meant for a reluctant dragon."

Letting out a long and heavy sigh, Charlie closed his eyes and wiped his face. "My boss is going to kill me."

"You Weasleys are so overdramatic."

"You should see our mother," the ginger dragon-keeper said, trying to stifle a snort. "We learned from the best."

"I knew your mother, though she was several years above me, and interacted with her during Order meetings," Snape mused idly, stroking his jaw. He smirked, knowing exactly what would rile the man. "It explains your siblings."

"Oi, you back off right there... professor!" Charlie snapped, ready to defend his family. "Bloody git, should've let you starve to death."

Folding his arms across his chest, Severus stared down the second-oldest Weasley child. "Yes, I'm curious as to that: why didn't you let me starve, knowing what I was?"

"Don't suppose you'd accept that my mother would have my hide if I hadn't helped you, would you?"

"Beat a few manners into you, did she?"

The murderous glint in Charlie's eyes showed he wanted to hit him. Hard. "You're an ungrateful malcontent, you know that?"

"And just whom do I have to thank and what do I have to thank them for?" the Potions master questioned snidely. "The last thing I remember is Lucius Malfoy seeking me out sometime during a night in May, and then nothing!" He spat the last word. "Next, I wake up in a filthy room, my throat raw, and my head feeling as if it'd been split in two. Naturally, I recognized the Shrieking Shack, but I'm so weak that I have to crawl across the floor that is littered with blood and footprints, and barely make it to the trap door." He began to pace back and forth in front of the gate. "Then, when I made it to the end of the tunnel, my only thought was to get back to my dungeon, back to my lab and fix whatever had befallen me.

"But no!" he hissed, his expression murderous. "No, I am denied exiting because of the waning sunlight still present outside."

"No one told you?" his former student asked meekly, having never heard the full story of how Snape came to be a vampire.

The dour man gave a short bark of laughter. "Ha! I waited and waited in that tunnel for someone...anyone...to come and find me, to tell me what was going on." He finally stopped pacing to stand once more in front of Weasley. "By the time night descended, I was ravenous, and I could hear creatures within the earth moving about, tempting me... making me hunger." Turning in shame, Snape eyed the gate. "I left hurriedly, bypassing Hogwarts altogether. I did not wish to risk the lives of the students should they happen to find me in that state."

"You ran," Charlie ascertained softly. "To keep them safe."

"And myself." Snape's lips pursed and he shrugged. "For all I know, they believe me dead." A sorrowful look flitted across his face but then returned to his neutral air. "And I prefer it that way."

"I could find out..." the other man hedged.

"No!" Snape's fury was immediate. "You will tell no one of my being here!" He stepped so close to Weasley that their noses touched. "You would not live long enough to sign your name to the parchment."

Charlie closed his eyes slowly, reopening them when they watered, and waved a hand in front of his face. "You should really brush your teeth."

The dark wizard stared at the man before him, nonplussed. "You are a strange, annoying, and off-putting boy."

"And you two argue like an old married couple."

Both men turned towards the stone gate...which had apparently opened quite silently...and beheld a tall, thin man with a long, straight mane of onyx hair, studying them intently. He was dressed in black linen trousers and a white peasant-style shirt with flared sleeves. The latter was covered by a crimson vest, intricate black brocade imprinted upon it. Knee-high obsidian leather boots completed the outfit.

"We could hear you bickering once you set foot on the mountain pass." He approached them, his hands behind his back. "I am surprised the wolves did not make a supper of you."

"Not for lack of trying, mind you," Charlie countered, then pointed at Snape and smirked. "Seems they found him a bit too... repellent."

"I swear, if you hadn't..."

"Ah, but I did, dear professor. That means you owe me a life debt, doesn't it?"

"Silence."

Weasley and Snape obeyed without hesitation. The man stepped closer, sniffing the air around each of them, his shifting movements exposing him as a vampire. He turned to Charlie.

"Despite your lack of respect, you care for your companion."

The redhead looked at Snape, who wore an expression of astonishment, and shrugged. "He's an intelligent conversationalist. That's hard to find in the mountains of Romania, you know? Not exactly the soiree of the century out here."

"You're as deep as a shallow puddle, Weasley," Snape observed with a snort.

"And you..." The man's eyes widened somewhat. "Frate sau rudă?"

Frowning, Snape mentally cursed the fact that he knew little Romanian. "Pardon?"

"He said 'brother'," Charlie interpreted. Snape arched a brow. "What? I've lived here for years."

The man's tone and demeanour changed abruptly as he beckoned them through the gates. "Come, prieteni. You are welcome at Fortăreaţa Novăceştilor. My name is Bujor Novac."

~*~

Hermione rubbed her temples rather forcefully for the fifth time in the past two hours. She glanced at Bellatrix's wand, lying on top of the table she was sitting at, and contemplating if it would be a good idea to spell away the increasing ache in her head. After much consideration, however, she decided that it really wasn't wise to aim such an unpredictable and still lethal wand at her brain.

"You look like shite, Hermione."

She peeked up from her tome to glare at one of her best friends. "Thanks ever so." She winced when Ron turned on the overhead light in her kitchen and shielded her eyes against the bright intrusion. "Could you please turn it off?"

"Thought that's why you had a headache, because you were reading in the dark," he pointed out.

"For your information, it wasn't dark in here, Ronald," she huffed in irritation. "It was merely dim, and that wasn't the reason I have a headache." Seeing his confused expression, she rolled her eyes and closed her book. Pushing away from the table she opened the refrigerator to seek some sort of nourishment for the boy and hoping he'd go away afterwards. "I have leftover chicken."

"'M not hungry," he said a little petulantly. "I came over to talk."

Laying her forehead on the edge of the icebox, she mentally groaned. She didn't need this...not tonight, not two days before her twenty-first birthday. "What about?" she murmured, still staring into the appliance as if it would produce the answer.

"You know what about."

"We're not having this discussion." She slammed the refrigerator door shut. "He's alive somewhere. I just need to find out where."

Not a moment went by that she didn't berate herself for leaving the professor in the shack, alone and defenceless. She'd promised the vampire that made him to watch over Snape if she survived the battle, and...damn it...she always kept her promises! When she'd been able to escape back to the dilapidated building almost forty-eight hours later, however, all she had found had been a few claw marks and signs that something heavy had been dragged away. Retreating to the tunnel, she'd followed it until it exited just under the Whomping Willow...which had sadly been destroyed in the skirmishes that had ensued. She'd noticed several holes that had been dug out along the wall and at least nine rat carcasses that littered the ground.

He'd been hungry, she'd realized, and the guilt had increased, causing her stomach to roll. Hadn't the vampire...she couldn't remember any name that he'd given her, so distraught was she at the time...instructed her that Snape needed to feed after awakening? Emptying the contents of her belly onto the grass outside of the tunnel entrance, she had lain there in the cool evening, letting the dew gather around her body, her tears adding to the moisture. Gone. He'd left before she had been able to return to him. Logically, her mind told her to give up and that whatever had happened to him, happened for a reason. But emotionally, she always came back to the look of desperation that had been in the vampire's eyes, making her feel as if she were vital to Snape's survival. She was not one to dwell on unproductive thoughts, and she was determined to find him, regardless if he needed her or not.

In the following days, during her darkest moments, she'd often wondered if he just hadn't wanted to be burdened with the annoying swot and had left before she could impose herself upon him. But some niggling doubt deep within her had told her those thoughts were unfounded. Harry, bless his cotton socks, had wisely said nothing to the contrary, even helping her search at night for the newly made vampire until he'd succumbed to sleepiness and collapsed. When they'd both been too tired to venture out one evening, Harry had shown her Snape's memories in hopes of finding a clue that would lead to his whereabouts. She'd wept for days, but it had strengthened her resolve in the search for him.

Ron was another story altogether. He had constantly scoffed at their efforts, going so far as to inform her that he knew Snape was dead...the kind of dead that doesn't kill the living...because he'd heard about a newly risen vampire that had been slaughtered in Wiltshire, and wasn't that where the Malfoy's lived? She'd immediately dismissed that speculation, refusing to believe it, most of all because her instincts had told her it wasn't true.

Her life soon became altered in that she slept mostly during the day and was wide awake and searching throughout most of the night. The inheritance she'd received when her parents passed away allowed her to live this way, and would do so for a great many years. Odd changes in health prevented her from working any length of time, as the blinding headaches, irritability, and sluggishness during the day caused her to be unfit for even the most mundane of tasks. Harry never tried to convince her that her illnesses weren't real, or of the fact that Snape might indeed, be dead... really dead. He'd seen what kind of person the former Headmaster really was, and he begrudged the man nothing, especially the peace Harry knew he sought. Ron's presence her life, however, started to suffocate her.

As the months passed with no sign of Snape...the closest to a trail they had was a decreased rat population in the southeast of England...Ron became increasingly intrusive. He would show up unannounced to the flat she'd recently purchased in Muggle London, making himself at home on her sage-green sofa, saying he would take her to the next game of the Chudley Cannons, or something else just as dull. She reasoned he stayed with her those times as consolation her for her parents' death...they'd been killed before she could return to Australia and retrieve them...but that had been quite a while ago, and she had to wonder at his inclination to stand vigil a great deal of the time they spent together.

The first few times he'd popped by, she'd shrugged it off and tolerated his presence because he was her best friend, and sometimes best friends did things that irritated each other.

When it became a regular habit that he spent more time at her flat than at the Burrow, she'd put her foot down after a particularly heated argument about her nocturnal activities. She'd shoved him out her door, afterwards warding it so heavily that one touch would send him flying down the corridor, then curled up on the sofa he'd just vacated, sobbing and clutching at her chest reflexively. Once or twice soon after, she'd caught him sleeping on her doorstep, and that familiar feeling of guilt had overwhelmed her enough to invite him in to sleep on the couch.

Now, two years later, the only time he gained entrance to her flat was when she was thoroughly distracted and didn't bother with the wards. It should irk her that Ron wouldn't knock, instead inviting himself inside to have a poke in her cupboards or icebox and smiling hesitantly when she'd meander down the hallway to find him rifling through her kitchen. Most times she'd feed him and he'd chat a bit about Harry and Ginny...and their waffling attempts at a relationship...or George's slow recovery after the loss of his twin. Apparently, Ron had moved into one of the spare bedrooms above the shop and had a go at running the business on George's worst days. That explained why Ron always showed up hungry...Molly's cooking was famous throughout the Wizarding world and, living on their own, her children were hard-pressed to find any better.

At the beginning of September, in a last ditch effort to locate Snape, Hermione had written a missive to all the vampire clans known to the Wizarding world. Although they were not allowed to gather in large numbers in Britain, there were several 'covens' on the continent, Asia, and in the Americas, and she hoped that maybe one of them had a clue as to where Severus was, or a way to find him, since all her resources were exhausted. She'd hesitated to write them beforehand, not wanting to draw unnecessary interest that was deadly in the least...and beyond that, she didn't want to know...but her headaches nearly incapacitated her to the point of fainting, and she was now starting to hear sonorous echoes. So far, she'd only received one reply...from the Hikawa clan in Japan. They'd indicated that no, they had not come across such a man, but if they did, they would be sure to contact her. She'd heard nothing further. Knowing as much as she did about vampires and their culture, she knew she'd reached the end of her metaphorical rope in writing to them, but she had nothing left to lose and she was optimistic that she would hear from another coven.

"Why are you so hung up on this?" Ron asked, his voice laced with thinly veiled anger. "He hated us during school; why keep searching for the greasy bastard?"

Clenching her teeth, Hermione inhaled and exhaled deeply one time before she focused her attention on the man in front of her. "Because I made a promise, Ronald. That may not mean much to you, but it does to me."

Ron frowned heavily. "What promise?" He stepped into her path as she tried to leave the kitchen. "What're you on about?"

She tried to go around him, but he kept impeding her attempts. "It's none of your business. Now move, or I'll..." There was a harsh tapping on her window, and it drew her to the other side of the room, Ron forgotten in her haste to open the pane.

One of the blackest ravens Hermione had ever laid eyes on sat perched on her sill, a piece of parchment attached to its leg. It cawed at her, expecting her to take the paper and, once she did, it flew off into the humid night.

"What's that?" Ron peered curiously over her shoulder, brushing up against her.

Cringing at his touch, she quickly moved to the sofa and sat, breaking the red wax seal on the letter. When she read the contents, her eyes welled with tears, and she covered her mouth to muffle the sobs that threatened to escape.

We have that which you seek. Expect a visit.

There was no signature, no indication of which coven the missive was from, not that it mattered. Relief engulfed her. She folded the letter and pressed her lips against it, paying no heed to the man standing behind her and reading the same note.

The blow and the ensuing darkness caught her completely off guard.