21Number 12, Grimmauld Place.
It had been a long time since he'd last visited this house. Neither he nor Sirius had wanted to be there if they could avoid it. The Black family were a dark family and much as the notion was ridiculous, it almost felt like that aura of sneering disdain dark families tended towards had permeated the house itself. It was no surprise Sirius had fled such a place at his first opportunity and neither of them had been there since.
At least, so James had thought. He had known Sirius had moved to Ipswich after the war. But in keeping himself away from the affairs of the magical, he hadn't known that Walburga Black had died a few years ago. And due to not being properly disinherited, Sirius had found himself coming into ownership of the house he fled from earlier in life.
If the frontage was anything to go by, Sirius had worked hard to brighten the place up a bit. Replaced the ebony door with an oak one with frosted glass windows. And... Were those purple curtains on the top floor? That was... Childish. The top floor had the children's bedrooms.
Oh, no.
Still, he couldn't stop now. He needed help and even after everything Sirius was the only one he trusted to give it. No matter how much he had to beg for forgiveness.
The doorbell had been changed also, it seemed. No bloody awful bell, just a quick descending arpeggio of notes that hung in the air.
James saw a shadow behind the glass of the door. It seemed to hold there for a moment and James realised the glass was likely charmed to be clear only one way.
That meant if he opened it anyway, well that was a good sign, wasn't it?
Sure enough, the thunk of a deadbolt being undone preceded the clicks of a lock and door handle. And then the door was open. And two estranged friends, brothers, were seeing each other again for the first time in most of a decade.
Sirius sighed. "Bloody Thursdays. I swear, I'm never ready for them."
"Fridays usually make up for it though?" James tried to keep the mood light, before adding, "You tidied up the beard."
"What do you want, James." Sirius asked, tone flat, the attempt at levity seemingly stillborn.
James swallowed, heavily. "I'm sorry," he said before hurrying to continue before he could be interrupted. "I know that doesn't make up for it and I understand if there's nothing I can do to fix it but I'd like to try. And, and I'd like to explain, if you'll let me. But more than anything else, Sirius, I need your help."
Sirius pressed his fingers together over the bridge of his nose, sighing heavily through it. "Right, wait here," he said, shutting the door and leaving James there for a minute before he returned with a coat and shouldered James aside. "Cauldron," was all he said before apparating away.
With a bit more caution from lack of practice, James followed.
-(-)-
"Well?" Sirius prompted, sipping on his butterbeer and lounging in the booth they'd taken ownership of. "We've got the space to ourselves and all the privacy charms I know going at once. So?"
James tested each of the privacy charms, then when he ran through them all he started double-checking them. Before he could get to triple-checking Sirius dragged the bespectacled man back into his seat and said more firmly, "Talk."
"Right, sorry, sorry. It's just none of this can get out. Not a word!"
"If you ask me to swear an oath or something, I'm leaving."
"No, I trust you! More than anyone! It's... When I left... I... The reason I left... I lied. Sort of."
"You mean you only partially lied or you lied and you don't want to admit it?" Sirius pressed.
"I partially lied."
"You said Lily had been cursed. Some African thing and you were taking her to a specialist."
"She had been bitten by a vampire."
"... So?"
"No. Sirius. She was bitten by a vampire," James repeated with added emphasis.
"... Oh."
Vampires. One word given to two different types of creature. The first, the monster in human skin. A demonic infection spread through the blood, burning away life to fuel the growth of a newborn monster. For as long as history both written and unwritten has existed, they have been lurking in the darkness to prey upon humanity.
The second... Well, the second started cropping up some time in the 14th century. The best anyone could tell, some witch or wizard who had a fascination with vampires drew up a ritual that would give them... similar abilities to a vampire. Part of their humanity went into the ritual and they lost the ability to reproduce but they got what they wanted. Despite repeated attempts to stamp it out, the ritual persisted. Taken up by vampire fetishists, and in more modern times those who had a taste for goth culture or tawdry romance novels.
For the most part, the magical world only dealt with "vampires", the genuine article a bit averse to preying on a culture with ready access to fire. So Sirius' confusion was understandable.
But with that cleared up, a lot of things fell into place.
"She turned, didn't she."
In response, James Potter downed his firewhiskey in one go before giving the whole story. The taunts, the feedings and finally, the birth. His joy that at least Lily would live on in their son, but seemingly at the cost of his son's magic.
"And so I knew what I needed to do," James explained. "I knew what his life would be like if I tried to bring him into our side of Britain. But if I cut ties completely, we could live safe, comfortable lives away from all that. Harry's happiness was more important than anything else."
"And then I showed up trying to drag you back." Sirius took a sip of his firewhiskey, having switched to something stronger as James' story went on. "But why didn't you tell me?"
"I was scared," James admitted. "All I could think about when you were acting so excited about me coming back was that you were going to ruin everything. So... I said whatever I could to hurt you so you'd leave. I'm not sure it makes it any better but I never meant what I said about you and Remus. I was so focused on protecting Harry that nothing else mattered."
Sirius ran his fingers through his hair before taking another drink, slamming it down afterwards. "I can't unpack that right now. So, baby Harry's a squib. Okay. So what do you need help with?"
"He's not a squib."
Sirius practically slammed his head on the table in frustration at the twists and turns this story was taking. Still he raised a hand and twirled it in a gesture to continue.
"He got in a scuffle with some other boys at school. In the middle of it, he... bit one of them."
"Oh, buggering hell, James!"
"Everything was fine afterwards!" James insisted. "The other boy was fine! But... Harry was a normal boy afterwards after so long of being like a doll! And he did magic! It's a gift from magic after all that shit the world has given us, we can finally have some happiness!"
"Has he drank since?"
James stayed silent.
"James!"
"He was going back to his old self! I had to try!"
"You had to-!" Sirius started to yell back, before gripping the table with all his strength, fingernails digging into the wood. "For buggering hell's sake, Prongs! We're both out of our depth here! Look, I'll make some floo calls, see if I can find-"
"You can't tell-!"
"Find someone who knows more than we do and be discreet," Sirius finished, ignoring the interruption. "You can't just hope everything goes okay with something like this, Prongs. We need to know what's happening and what might happen, for Harry's sake."
"I..." James started, wanting to keep arguing but knowing deep down his old friend was right. "I just want him to be okay, Padfoot."
-(-)-
On getting home, a little tipsy, James was soon greeted by a fellow from the ministry there to install a floo connection in his fireplace. As a favour for Chief Auror Black, apparently. A few days of back-and-forth messages with Sirius went by, and an uncomfortable conversation with Harry about what was going on.
"We just need to make sure everything is alright with you," James told his son.
"Why wouldn't it be?" Harry asked, confused.
"There was... Some things happened when your mum was pregnant with you and we're just making sure nothing bad came of it."
Harry looked at a photo on the mantelpiece, James and Lily not long after graduating Hogwarts, James arms wrapped around his then fiancé. "You don't talk about Mum a lot."
"I don't?" James asked, getting a shaken head in response from his son. "Uhh, okay, I'll have to tell you some stories. She was an amazing woman."
It was a promise he wouldn't keep.
And then, a full week after James had stood on Sirius' doorstep hat in hand, there was another floo call, Sirius asking to come through with a guest.
As Sirius emerged out of the green flames, he marched up to James, put his hands on his friend's shoulders and asked, "Do you trust me?"
Behind Sirius, another man emerged from the flames. Tall, with dark skin, wearing shaman clothing and holding a crook made of wood, animal fur and bone. "Yes?" James answered, eyes locked on the stranger.
Pulling his hands away, Sirius gestured at the other man and began introductions. "James, this is-"
"You may call me the Shadow Man," the stranger said.
James watched the stranger, this "Shadow Man", before turning back to his friend. "Sirius, why did you bring a witch doctor to my house?"
"Where is the child?" the Shadow Man asked, ignoring the rest of the conversation going on around him.
James drew his wand and pointed it at the stranger. "Sirius?"
"James, just... This man is among the highest authority on... Things. If anyone can figure out what's going on with Harry, he can."
"And he'll stay quiet?" James pressed.
"He doesn't care about magical society. Or... at least not our magical society. He won't tell anyone because there's no benefit to it for him."
James looked from his friend, then down his wand at the stranger. "You hurt my son, you tell anyone about our secret, I will kill you."
"Where is the child?" the Shadow Man repeated, unaffected.
"... Follow me," James said, moving towards the stairs, the Shadow Man following and Sirius bringing up the rear.
The door to Harry's bedroom was open, the boy lying on his bed doing his reading homework for school the next day. Looking up, he smiled. "Hi Dad!"
"Hey, son. There's someone here to s-" James tried to explain before the Shadow Man shouldered past him and immediately started drawing some sort of symbol on Harry's bedroom floor in what James hoped but doubted was red paint.
"Dad?"
"He's here to make sure you're okay, Harry," James said tightly, resisting the urge to kick the man in the back. "Remember, how we talked about?"
"What's he drawing?"
"I don't know. He's an expert so he knows a lot of things I don't."
"Okay."
Having completed his work on the floor, the completed design resembled some form of ritual circle. The Shadow Man moved to pick up the boy until James stepped between the two.
Both men's patience seemingly at their limits, the Shadow Man spoke slowly and evenly. "Place. The child. In the circle."
"Dad?"
Sighing harshly through his nose, James turned and picked up his son. "It's okay, Harry. Doctors can be rude sometimes," he explained as he carried his son and placed him flat on his back in the circle.
"Step back." The shaman-like man waved an arm gesturing the other two men back before kneeling next to the ritual circle.
What followed was twenty minutes of waiting on tenterhooks watching the strange man practicing some form of magic neither of the Marauders had ever seen before. His voice raising and lowering as he went on, speaking in a language neither understood and were not entirely sure was even a language in the truest sense. But from their perspective... Nothing came of it. No light, no change, Harry even seemed bored lying there after a while.
And then it was done, so it seemed. The Shadow Man stood, passed the two men by, saying only, "We will speak now," and headed back downstairs.
Harry sat up, noticing whatever the circle was made of had gotten on his clothes. Pulling at the shoulder to smell it he made a face, "Ugh, this stuff stinks."
"Why don't you put those in the wash and take a shower, son?" James suggested.
"Kay."
As the adults regrouped in the living room of the house, James gestured to the couch and invited the shaman to sit but received no response. Deciding he didn't mind that bit of rudeness if it meant the Shadow Man would leave sooner, he skipped straight to what he wanted to know. "So? What can you tell me?"
"It has been infused with the essence of a demon. The fledgling ember of a Turok-Han. A vampire as you would call it. It is weak now but Turok-Han grow stronger with age, growing closer to their ideal demonic state as they feed on the blood of the living. So too will the child."
"But he'll be fine, right?" James asked, not caring about any of that. "He's still human."
"It is human enough that the drive for blood does not control it. But it may not stay that way. The hunger is a part of it no matter that it can be ignored. Now that it has fed, it will wish to do so again. Should it stray too far down that path, my associates will put it down."
"What?!" Sirius and James said in unison. "You said this didn't matter to you!" Sirius yelled.
"It does not," the Shadow Man agreed. "It is another in a line of experiments we have allowed to live. But if it becomes a monster, it will be hunted as a monster. By us or by any that have a problem with monsters killing and feeding on people. You would have it otherwise?"
"Get out," James hissed through clenched teeth.
The Shadow Man, still undaunted by the father's anger, waited by the fireplace, unable to travel using it without his chaperone.
Said chaperone was trying to find some words for his friend. "James... I-"
"Sirius just... Please, I need some time," he begged, sinking into a chair.
There was no more room for conversation. Sirius slumped, taking some floo powder and calling out "12 Grimmauld Place", the Shadow Man grabbing onto his sleeve as they moved into the flames.
And there was James Potter. Left with the question of what he would do if his son became a monster. The real possibility that he would one day find out.
-(-)-
A/N: So. There you go. If the first chapter didn't establish hard enough what the premise of this story is? Here it is outlined in text. Harry has a bit of a fledgling vampire in him and so he isn't so much on a slippery slope as a double black diamond slope.
In other words? Yeah he's... He's probably going down that slope. But I've been wrong before! I let characters write my stories and I'm willing to be surprised.
Also yeah. Someone brought up that vampires in Harry Potter are a thing but there isn't much information on them beyond them being "classed" as living dead, they don't like garlic and they don't like sunlight. Doesn't even say whether they're immortal. So I figured with there being multiple factions of vampire wannabes in Buffy, if vampire vampires were a thing in HP there'd be wannabes in the magical world. And so there are and they got really into it.
A-nyway. Next time we'll probably skip ahead quite a bit. Like, say, a couple years and change? And change perspective to a more familiar protagonist.
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Thanks for reading.
