Blood Ties 6

Sirius waited until the boys were asleep before moving again. First things being first, he had to find a weapon. He considered borrowing one of the boys' wands, but decided it would be best not to. He didn't want any trouble for the children. He crept off without a sound. At the Fat Lady painting her was surprised to see the girl with the long braid sneaking out ahead of him. He remembered what Harry had told him about her and shrank back into the shadows so she wouldn't notice him.

He followed her down the darkened corridor. She made her way without a candle or light spell, which he was grateful for. Even in the darkness, a dog the size that he was had to move carefully to stay out of sight. He followed her down a back hall to an open trapdoor above one of the dungeons. The room below was lit with a light too steady not to be magical. Pale yellow vapors rose from it and judging from the cabbage/turpentine smell, Sirius guessed it was one of the Potions class.

Voices drifted up from the trapdoor. One he recognized as Snape's, but the other was female. He thought for a moment it might be Esme, but then changed his mind. Raye crept up carefully to listen, and Sirius slunk as close as he dared without actually coming into the light. He couldnt see into the room as Raye probably could from her vantage point, but he could see shadows move on the wall below. It was easy to recognize Snape's profile with a nose like that.

The woman's shadow was unfamiliar. She paced, her shadow gliding from one side of the room to another. He heard Snape tell her it was all right and she exploded back at him. The scent of another dog reached Padfoot's nose and he hoped the stink in the dungeon would keep it from smelling him.

"What did you expect?" Snape asked, sounding as if he'd been having this argument for awhile.

"Nothing!" the woman snapped back. "Which it seems is once more too much to ask!" Her voice was very clear and might have been sweet if she had been in a better mood. Snape's shadow held up its hands in a placating gesture and the pacing stopped for a moment.

"Think this through," Snape urged. "It wasn't you. Very well, but who was it? Who are our enemies? Who would want you gone? Is there anyone?"

"No," some of the anger drained from her voice. "I've neither friends or foes worth speaking of."

"Is there anyone who...might want your position?" Snape persisted. "Another professor?"

"No!" Even her shadow slumped a bit at this. "The Elmskill faculty have fairly oozed sympathy and interest in my 'condition'. And not one of them is insane that I know of. Headmaster Ficus has been very..."She seemed to be searching for a word of praise she could stomach. "Supportive."

"Any students?" Snape pressed and she snorted.

"Don't insult me. I'm not even sure I could do it properly, and I've studied summoning for longer than most of them have lived. Ficus is correct in one thing: I am the only one at Elmskill capable of summoning the Morthahg." Her shadow slid down to a sitting position so that Sirius could only see the top of it. He glanced at Raye who was as tense as a cat in her own hiding place. She was listening so hard he thought he saw her ears stretch. Snape's shadow sank down to sit beside the woman's.

"You shouldn't overextend yourself," he told her. "You haven't healed internally yet and I really don't think you ever will unless you-"

"No," her voice went flat. "I won't do that. Not to heal it. Not for anything."

"I can keep making the potion for the pain," Snape sounded annoyed now. "But if Madame Pomfrey can't help the burn, there's nothing I can do for it, either."

"I don't care about the pain," her shadow looked away from his. "I can fight this."

"It isn't something a vampire CAN fight! Snape protested. Sirius felt his eyebrows raise and Raye sucked in her breath. It went unheard below, however, because the woman turned on him again with fury.

"I am NOT that!" she hissed, the sweetness of her voice turning sharp. "Not YET. There's still time. Still time." Her anger dwindled as fast as it flared and the next words were almost whispered. "There's still hope."

"I've looked in all the old records on vampires," Snape said, more cautiously.

"There is nothing about your condition in it. Blood dolls are never mentioned."

"Do they mention the Path of Blood?" asked the woman. Sirius thought it was safe to assume that she was the Professor Lorelei Zephyr he'd been told of.

"I have not heard of it." Snape admitted. Zephyr's shadow nodded.

"Have you heard of the Razor Kiss Clan?" she asked next. When his shadow shook its head, she snorted again. It was an oddly harsh sound in contrast to her voice.

"Many things in existence are not carefully recorded, Severus. I happen to be one of those. Maybe the vampires here are a different breed than back home."

"How...did this happen?" Snape asked. He sounded as if he'd been dying to find out, but been too polite to ask.

"I was tricked," she said quietly. "And I'll say no more than that."

Snape might have asked more, but then a sudden bark from the dog in the dungeon made the four of them jump. Raye's eyes widened and she quickly hurried down the hall as Snape's shadow vanished from the wall. An instant later his head popped up through the trapdoor entrance. Sirius held as still as he was able. A black dog in a shadowed corner of an unlit hallway is easy to miss, even by eyes as piercing as the Potionmaster's.

Snape climbed the rest of the way out and looked both ways in the hall. His eyes passed over Sirius twice, once flicking back to him so quickly that he was sure he had been discovered. Then, from around the corner Raye had disappeared behind, came the soft click of a door. Snape was gone in a flutter of black and Sirius was quick to duck to a better hiding place. His heart hammered from the close call.

A moment later, Snape reappeared, dragging Raye by the arm. She had a mug of something hot in her other hand and was protesting loudly that he was making her spill it. He gave her another tug and it slopped on her fingers, making her yelp.

"You don't have to yank!" she whined. "I'm coming! I just wanted a drink!"

"Creeping the long way around in the back halls?"Snape snarled. She glared at him with more spunk than he was probably used to.

"I tried to go the main way, but that creepy Peeves stole my candle!" she snapped back. "I wasn't about to give him a chance to dump hot tea on me!"

Sirius had to admit the girl was a cool liar. Snape sneered some more and hauled her away towards the Griffyndor dorms. Sirius crept out of hiding and slunk off the rest of the way to the kitchen.

Only a few house elves were still up and about. One was actually dusting in her sleep, snoring softly as she waved a large feather duster. They gave him a few glances and he hadn't gotten three steps before a bowl of milk was plunked in front of him. He was tempted, but passed it by to snatch a sturdy cutting knife from the clean dishes rack. None of the elves seemed to notice him leave with it.

He trotted back to the teacher's lounge door, where he had last seen Esme. There were so many scents there, he couldn't tell one from the other, so he went back to the storage room they had hidden in. Her scent was strong there and he had hopes that she had been there since he had been with her. The trail was clearer from there and he followed it down the corridor. He became more reluctant with every step and hoped he'd find her soon, before he lost all heart for this.

It took him all of three hours to find her. A crunching sound and the smell of peanut butter gave her away. She was sitting in the floor of the 4th year Muggle Studies classroom, eating the teacher's private stash of snacks. She smiled when he came in and dunked a pretzel in the jar of peanut butter. He has shifted to his human form in the hallway when he was sure it was her, and hidden the knife in his sleeve. He hoped beyond hope he wouldn't have to kill her.

She looked kind of pitiful at that moment. She was eating the pretzels in a half-starved sort of way that told him she hadn't made it to the kitchen like he had. The curl spell had worn off of her hair and she was dressed in her Muggle clothes again, jeans, sneakers, trench coat, and another black t-shirt that said PLEASE SPEAK SLOWLY. I AM A NATURAL BLONDE. across the chest.

"Are you?" he asked and she looked at him, puzzled. "A natural blonde, I mean"

"Mm-hm," she said, with her mouth full. A smile twitched at her mouth, but then she stuffed another pretzel into it.

"Did you make your delivery?" he asked, squatting down to look her in the eyes. She shook her head and swallowed.

"No. She was squirrelled away in that meeting for most of the day. And then I couldn't catch her alone afterwards." She licked a spec of peanut butter out of the corner of her lips. "How was your day?"

"By 'she' do you mean Professor Zephyr?" he asked as neutrally as possible. She hesitated a bare fraction, then nodded and went on eating. "How do you know her?"

"Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies," Esme said and when his face darkened, quickly added. "This was a mess long before I became part of it, Cyrus. I'm TRYING not to make it worse."

"Are you a vampire hunter?" he asked and she sputtered on her bite of pretzel, turning it into a chuckle before she gagged.

"Are YOU?" she returned, teasing, but he wasn't going to play that with her again.

"Yes or no, Esme," his voice lowered dangerously and he leaned toward her. He saw the pulse pick up in her throat and felt a touch of dark satisfaction knowing that she was frightened of him, if only for a moment.

"You're not coughing anymore," she said softly. "I guess you won't be needing more medicine."

"Esme..." his voice was now a growl and the threat in it was clear. He half rose and she jumped to her feet with him. He made a snatch to catch her arm, but she was out of his reach in a flutter of coat tails before he could. He couldn't help but be surprised at how fast she was.

"There are no vampires here," she said. "And that should answer more than one of your questions." They glared at each other, there in the dark, both tense to spring at the other's first move. A telltale glow lit up around Esme's fingers. Sirius lunged for her, determined to stop whatever spell was coming. She flickered in his sight and was gone. He looked around wildly for her. Behind him, the door opened and shut again, even as he spun.

He cursed aloud in frustration, then quickly shifted back to Padfoot to follow her. He noticed that she has managed to spirit away the pretzels and peanut butter too.

I should be grateful it was just an invisibility spell and no battle magic, he thought as he tore into the hall. If she was even telling the truth when she said she studied it. He caught a whiff of peanut butter and tore off in that direction. She can't REALLY be a delivery witch, he thought fuming. She always screws up traveling spells. She said so. Unless that was a lie, too. Her travel spells could be just fine, but she needed some excuse for being in the Forest. In the Forest where Buckbeak and that centaur had been mauled...Harry had mentioned something about Hagrid's rabbits too. Just what WAS going on in the Forbidden Forest anyway?

A sudden hiss startled him as Mrs. Norris pounced out at him from nowhere. He had been running blind after the scent and hadn't noticed. He snapped at her and ran on, with her giving chase. Sirius cursed some more. It was widely believed among the Hogwarts students that Filch and Mrs Norris had some sort of telepathic bond. If the cat had seen him, Filch would be on the way in no time.

He was wondering how this could be more of a hassle, when he rounded a corner and slammed headlong into Snape. The impact knocked them both over. Snape went over backwards with a gasp. One of his knees caught Sirius squarely in the gut and pitched him forward into the Potionmaster's face. There was a mad struggle, which Mrs. Norris joined, claws first. There was a yelp from Snape and then the scraggly cat flew into Sirius.

She jumped up on his head and sank in her claws. He roared and flung her around, trampling on and getting tangled up in Snape. He managed to toss her off, but she took a chunk of skin with her. A wild spark of an idea lit in his bleeding head. With another roar he lunged at Mrs. Norris and she froze in shock before tearing off down the hall with a shriek of her own. He gave chase, herding her along the way of Esme's scent, leaving Snape to shout shocking things ti an empty hall.

Once out of sight, Padfoot let Mrs. Norris out distance him and slowed to follow the trail better. He could always pretend to be trailing the cat. It led into another empty classroom, but before he could open the door, Filch appeared waving a broom and yelling like a Viking. Sirius ran for it again, biting his tongue with impatience. The nearest secret passage was another hall over so he sprinted that direction.

It wasn't a particularly useful secret passage, because it only led you in a big circle, but it was perfect for this situation. The entrance was hidden under the huge clay pot holding a plant that had been dead so long it was petrified. He tapped it twice quickly and it slid aside to reveal a hole in the floor with a ladder leading down. He jumped in without the ladder, knowing it wasn't a long fall, and the pot slid back into place above him.

The old tunnel still stank. Once upon a time, he and Peter had held a contest between them as to who could best describe the stench. They had been at it for a day and half when Remus had gotten tired of it and told them that it smelled like someone had tried to brew beer out of moss and mice. They had agreed that there were no better words for the odor and had a party to celebrate.

He jogged along the passage, twice stepping in something slimy. It gave him a chance to catch his breath before he had to climb the ladder at the opposite end. He listened carefully for Snape or Filch and pushed up, raising a large stone in the main hall. He climbed out quickly and since the coast was clear, shifted to his human self.

It had only been a few moments. He made sure he still had the knife in his sleeve and quickly threw open the door into the room her trail had ended in. It was empty. A window on the far wall was open and he thought he saw something flap away from it. He rushed over to look out, but there was nothing there except for a small bottle of stolen cough tonic on the windowsill.