In the sudden silence, ears still ringing, Sirius was nearly flattened as a door flew open to his left and Madame Pomfrey burst from it like a juggernaut in a ruffled apron.

“What is it??” she demanded. “Who’s hurt?” Then, without even pausing to hear an answer, she was off like a shot down a corridor. Dumbledore followed and Sirius fell into step with him. The other teachers were puzzled, but returned to their classrooms to answer the buzz of questions that they could all hear rising from behind the doors. Apparently, with Pomfrey and Dumbledore on the move, they were satisfied that the situation was in hand.

It seemed Madame Pomfrey had an innate sense for locating an injury, because she never wavered from her sprint towards the dungeons. Just as Sirius became positive that she was heading for Snape’s chambers, the Potionmaster himself rounded a corner and came running for them. A look of actual relief flickered over his pale face, making an odd change from his usual glare. But then, the Potionmaster noticed that Madame Pomfrey wasn’t alone. His eyes fell on Sirius and a much more familiar expression twisted his face.

“You!” he spat in sudden recognition. Anything else he might’ve said was cut off, as Pomfrey seized him by an arm as she went by and dragged him bodily back down the stairs he had just come up. In the lower dungeon, they found Lorelei Zephyr convulsed on the floor. Madame Pomfrey released Snape and ran to the woman’s side, just as her body twisted in an arc that should have broken her back. Lorelei’s face opened in a silent scream and black blood gushed from her eyes, nose, and mouth.

Madame Pomfrey gasped, but held a suddenly produced bucket up under Lorelei’s chin. She moved to hold the woman’s white hair back, acting as if this was no worse than the stomach flu.

“That’s it,” she crooned gently. “Get it all out. It’ll be all right.”

“What happened?” Dumbledore asked. Snape pulled his eyes from Lorelei, shot Sirius a half-second’s worth of a glare, and forced himself to look at Dumbledore.

“She drank the potion we made for her,” he said. Sirius was surprised to see the dour professor was putting on a convincing show of worry. “Just like always. “

“Uh-oh,” Sirius said aloud, remembering the day before. “Esme! I saw her by that distillery you were using.” He saw Snape’s features go from concerned to bloodthirsty, but before the Potionmaster could respond, he was interrupted again.

“ESME!??!” shrieked Lorelei from the floor. “ESME IS HERE????” They all turned to stare at her. She was heaving from the effort of breathing and her face was streaked black and red, but it looked angry. Sirius was struck suddenly by the thought that under the wept blood, she looked like Esme. A statue of Esme, he corrected mentally, carved from white marble by someone who’d only seen her angry. He shook that thought away. The crazy woman didn’t even have to be there to distract him! It was just that Lorelei looked to be the same age and size, he decided.

“She’s here for you, isn’t she?” he asked her. Lorelei seemed to choke. Madame Pomfrey held the bucket up again quickly, but was shrugged off. The pale woman slowly pulled herself up to a sitting position. Her eyes had leaped into flame and bored straight into his own. Snape was looking a bit envious of the eye contact they had blistering between them, but then he gasped.

“They aren’t red any more!” he said, kneeling quickly beside Lorelei. She stared at him and he lifted her chin in his hand to peer into her face. “Lorelei, your eyes are violet!“

“W-what?” she raised a hand to her face, but was of course unable to see them. Madame Pomfrey leaned over to see and gasped as well.

“They are, dear!” she cried and went fumbling in her pocket to pull out a compact shaped like a frog’s head. She snapped it open and held it up in front of Lorelei’s face. “Look!” She seemed to recoil from it for a moment, but then blinked at hr own reflection. Sirius and Dumbledore had crowded close to see too, and sure enough, the once-crimson eyes were now a dark purple.

“They…they’re supposed to be blue,” Lorelei said weakly. “Why would they…?”

“Whatever Esme did to the potion changed it,” Sirius said and she looked back at him. The chill was gone. Maybe her anger had been all that gave her strength. Without it, she seemed dazed and feeble. She swayed and Snape lowered her down to lay on the floor. Madame Pomfrey went back to wiping away the last of the blood.

“What could Esme have done to the potion?” she wondered softly. Snape glares back at Sirius.

“What do you know about this?” he asked, accusation plain in his voice.

“I met Esme in the woods,” Sirius said. He was looking at Lorelei. “How does she know you?”

Lorelei began to laugh softly. It was awful to listen to. She sounded closer to tears than to laughter. She tilted her head to look back at him. The anger flared back again in her face, but this time there was sadness too.

“She did this to me,” she said, touching the small scar on her throat. “It’s her fault.” For nearly an entire second, the thought that it made sense that Esme was a vampire shot through Sirius’ brain. But vampires didn’t eat peanut butter or pretzels and when they had first met, it had been outside in broad daylight.

“Well, what did she do to you with the potion?” he asked next, beginning to get tired of Lorelei’s misery. “It didn’t kill you, obviously.” Both she and Snape looked at him angrily, but then Dumbledore cut in.

“If anything, madam,” the headmaster said kindly. “You are looking better than I’ve ever seen you.” That brought them all up short.

“Who IS this Esme person?” Snape finally asked. Sirius told him and the Potionmaster’s eyebrows raised. “That delivery witch? I remember seeing her. I thought that she looked very much like you, Lorelei.” Sirius felt a moment’s surprise that Esme’s resemblance to Lorelei wasn’t just in his own mind, but the pale woman sputtered again.

“I am NOTHING like that-that—“ Unable to find a word that properly expressed her emotion, or perhaps just one that could be said aloud in company, Lorelei fell silent.

“But you do know her,” Sirius pressed. “Who is she? What does she want with you?” Lorelei only shook her head. Madame Pomfrey patted her shoulder in a comforting manner. Sirius wanted to shake her. He might have if the nurse and Snape hadn’t both been giving him dark looks. He hoped his hands weren’t trembling. All his questions could be answered, if she knew who Esme was and what she was trying to deliver. Why did people insist on being difficult??

“She was bringing you something,” he said through his clenched teeth. “Do you know what it was?”

“I haven’t seen her in years,” Lorelei gestured at her throat. “Not since this happened. Ten years ago, almost. I have no idea what she wants.”

“But whatever she put in your potion seems to have done you good,” Snape interrupted. “Could she…have found a cure?” Lorelei whipped around as if he’d slapped her. Her jaw dropped for a moment as if considering this. Sirius felt a headache coming on. He found himself annoyed that Snape had thought of it first. He didn’t know Esme well enough to know if she was the sort who’d spend 10 years looking for a cure for a condition she been the cause of. He wanted to think so. He was developing a liking for her.

Ah, but you liked Peter too, a suspicious voice in his head said. And you knew him for a lot longer and had much more reason to trust him. He still betrayed you. So, he tried to harden his heart again. There was still the ichling to think of, and that unknown master of hers. He wasn’t sure what am ichling really was, but if it troubled Dumbledore, it couldn’t be good. In the floor, Lorelei had begun to cry. It was horrible, somehow, to see the proud, cold woman sobbing pitifully.

“The only thing for it is to locate Esme and find out for ourselves,” sighed Dumbledore. “But I doubt she’s still at Hogwarts.” Snape had stood back up and was giving Sirius a looking over.

“Is that your blood on your sleeve?” he asked suddenly. Sirius glanced down at his robe and saw that there was a dried splatter of rusty blood on his cuff.

“No,” he said. “That’s from Esme, when we fought in the bath room.” Snape raised an oily eyebrow at that and the corner of his lips curled up as well.

“Then we can find her,” the Potionmaster almost purred. He spun around and walked over to a shelf filled with bottles.

“You have a plan then, Severus?” Dumbledore asked. Snape made a vaguely affirmative noise and began mixing things. There was a soft puffing noise and then the dungeon was filled with the strong smell of scorched grease. Madame Pomfrey rose to her feet and nodded towards Lorelei.

“I’ve put her to sleep,” she said in a whisper. “I’ll just take her back to the infirmary and let her rest off the shock.” Dumbledore nodded and held the door open as Madame Pomfrey magicked up a floating stretcher and levitated Lorelei gently out. Snape didn’t seem to notice their going and only minute or two later, carried over a steaming beaker of something green. Sirius blanched from him, as much from the smell of the potion as from the sharp-looking pair of tweezers that were suddenly jabbed toward his arm.

“Oh, please,” Snape sneered, plucking at the blood stain with the tweezers. “If I was going to stab you, it would be somewhere vital.” He extracted a fleck of dried blood and dropped it into the potion. Sirius didn’t reply to that, mainly because Dumbledore was watching them. They traded glares though, and both stepped away from each other quickly. Dumbledore sighed softly, but sounded more amused than upset. The potion turned red and began to bubble.

Snape waved his wand over it, chanting a spell Sirius had never heard of. The potion bubbled even more fiercely and began to climb out of the beaker like a living thing. Sirius and Dumbledore quickly got out of its way as it slithered around the floor. It divided into two caterpillar-like puddles, one set off under the door and out into the hall. The other followed Snape, no matter how he moved.

“That’s odd,” he muttered, but then shooed them off after the escaping puddle. “It’s heading back toward its source. Follow it to the woman.” He had to sidestep quickly to avoid the other one pooling under his feet. Sirius took off after the active one. It was halfway up the stairs. He quickly became Padfoot so he wouldn’t have to be caught without Dumbledore, who had stayed behind with Snape. To his relief, the oozing puddle picked up speed once it reached the top of the stairs and went spilling down the hall.

He followed it at a trot. He found himself wondering why the other half of it was after Snape. Unless the Potionmaster had some of Esme’s blood on him too, it didn’t make much sense. But how could that be if he hadn’t encountered her before? And why wouldn’t Lorelei tell them what she knew?? Granted the woman had been through something traumatic with the altered potion, but it shouldn’t have kept her from being more helpful. His train of thought was cut off as the puddle ducked under another door. He nosed it open quickly and followed into a drafty hallway. There was a single door at the very end.

Sirius grumbled to himself. He was getting angry because it was better than being worried. His one consolation was that none of this seemed to have anything to do with Harry. It all seemed to revolve around the Elmskill newcomers. And Esme, where or whatever she was. He was worried for her too, he realized. And why is that? he asked himself. Because I never could resist trouble. And if that woman is anything, it’s T-R-O-U-B-L-E. She needs a shirt that says that across the front.

The puddle led him to the door, and he opened it, expecting another room. It was actually a small coat closet. Esme’s scent was there, but she certainly wasn’t. The puddle flowed to the back wall and seemed puzzled. It paced back and forth and then began to spread up the wall, as if feeling for a secret door. After a moment, it seemed to give up and sank back down into a pool at the bottom. Sirius looked around and listened carefully for anyone nearby and then shifted back to his human self. He tested the back wall too, even casting a magic revealing spell to look for an enchanted passageway, but nothing showed itself.

Trust Esme to leave a riddle behind, he thought, looking around for any clue in the closet. The only thing in there at all was a very old leather riding robe. It was the kind of thing one’s grandmother would have worn broom-riding in the fall. It was dull green under the thin layer of mold growing over it. Sirius carefully took it down, feeling the ancient seams crumble a bit. One of the sleeves had something stuffed into it.

He peeked in carefully, giving it a slight shake to see if it would move. It could be anything after all, an infant boggart, a nest of mice, one of the Weasely twins’ magical bombs. Nothing happened though, so he reached in even more carefully and pulled out a box. It was the package for Lorelei that Esme had been trying to deliver. The only thing different about it was that the magic seal on the front was broken. He looked at it for a long moment, then opened it.

Inside were five lead vials like she has shown him before, and a folded sheet of paper. The seal on the first vial was also broken. Each of the vials had a name written on them, just below the stopper. The empty one said GASTON. The others were VANESSA, OPAL, NATHIEL, and BROHM. It didn’t make any sense to Sirius. He took the paper next and unfolded it. It appeared to have been ripped from a book. There was a picture of a man with bat wings suspended by ropes in the middle of a large room. The man was held upside down and spread out by his wrists, ankles, and wings.

As Sirius watched, the image thrashed and bared its fangs. Illustrated wizards with spears were draining blood from its chest. It was a gruesome picture, made worse by the barely audible shrieks of the drawn vampire, if that’s what it was. He pulled his eyes from it to read the words below the image. They said: “The taint of the vampire is carried in its blood. A victim may be altered by the creature’s bite, but will not become a true vampire itself until it has been given or forced to take some of the original monster’s blood. So, each new vampire carries in its undead veins a trace of the original vampire in its particular bloodline.

“This cannot be eradicated, unless the victim can absorb the living blood of each of its ‘ancestors’, thereby cleansing the world of that ‘family’ and itself of the taint. Not surprisingly, this is difficult, as the original’s blood gets weaker the more generations that are ‘born’ from it. This means that each vampire will be weaker than their maker, and therefore unable to defeat their makers for the lifeblood that will release them.”

He stared at it, feeling things fall into place in his head. He folded the paper back up and closed the box with a snap. He turned to head back and froze when he realized Snape was standing silently at the other end of the hall. They glared at each other, more than twenty years of bad blood simmering below the surface. Snape was holding a wand. They could very well have a wizard’s battle on the spot, Sirius thought. Surely the Potionmaster had more sense than that, though. Still, the silence was frigid.

“You were right,” Sirius said to distract him from any thoughts of violence. Indeed, he blinked in surprise for nearly a whole second before getting control of himself.

“Oh?” Snape asked coldly, beginning to walk towards him. Sirius held up the box. Snape recognized it too and his dark eyes narrowed.

“It’s her cure,” Sirius went on. “The blood of the vampires who attacked her.” Snape looked at him sharply.

“What would you know about it?” he sneered, but his eyes returned to the box. The gleam in them had suddenly turned fierce. Sirius put it in his own pocket with a snort and walked past the Potionmaster to head back to Dumbledore.

“I may not be the expert you are on Dark Magic,” he growled. The corner of Snape’s eye twitched, interpreting that as the insult it was. “But I didn’t spend ALL my time in Defense class passing notes with your name on them to Brenda Berryball.”

The expression that crossed Snape’s face when he heard that would have been well worth any battle that they might have had. Sirius hurried out the door and down the steps with a grin on his face.

“WHAT???” he heard Snape scream and bit his lip to keep from laughing. The Potionmaster’s footsteps came running after him, but he refused to turn around. Brenda had been a timid little witch, from a Muggle family. She had her share of magical ability, but none of the stomach for it. She wept all through Potions class when she had to cut up newt livers. She had fallen apart completely when confronted with the task of feeding whole chickens to an orphaned baby griffin in Care of Magical Creatures. She lived in fear of her Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

The constant onslaught of love notes from such a grim and dark wizard as young Snape was had very nearly sent the poor girl to pieces. Snape had never shown so much as a flicker of interest in her or any other witch that Sirius knew of. That was why it had been so hilarious. Lupin had finally made him stop when he had found Brenda crying her eyes out in Herbology.

“-immature and asinine!” Snape’s hissing had come into hearing range behind him. He could practically feel the Potionmaster’s eyes singeing the back of his head. The second puddle of blood was still tagging along behind him.

“I thought you two would have made a cute pair,” Sirius added, just to stir him up more. Snape made a strangled noise of outrage.

“She killed herself, you know,” he snapped. “Or perhaps Azkaban didn’t forward you the obituary.” Sirius glanced back at him quickly, his good humor vanishing. Snape gave him back a look of pure venom. “It’s true. She dressed herself for her funeral, drank enough poison to wipe out all of Hogsmead, and lay down on her bed to die. Seems she’d been miserable most of her life. Isn’t that just a laugh riot?”

The last few words carried enough angry contempt to blister skin. A pang of guilt twisted in Sirius’ stomach. He quelled it as quickly as possible. Snape was still giving him the basilisk treatment.

“I hadn’t heard,” he admitted. “Poor woman. I knew she was squeamish, but I never thought she was truly that unhappy.” It was Snape’s turn to snort and then they had arrived back at the dungeon. Dumbledore was still there, as was McGonagall. Sirius braced himself for any comment from her, but she only nodded briskly at him. No one had informed her that he wasn’t Cyrus, the Headmaster’s nephew yet then. Good.

“Did you find her?” she asked and he explained about the blood being thwarted at the back of the closet. “But how can that be? Are you sure there was no secret door?”

“I cast a reveal spell and didn’t see one,” he shrugged.

“You should have let me look,” grumbled Snape. McGonagall looked to Dumbledore, who was tapping his chin and looking at the ceiling. After a moment, he sighed and looked at them all.

“The only way for powerful teleportation spells to be cast inside Hogwarts, considering the wards we have against such things,” he said. “Would be to cancel out the enchantments used in the first place.”

“But!” gasped McGonagall. “Those enchantments are ancient and are reinforced all the time! How could that happen??”

“The Morthahg,” Sirius said, wondering again if Esme was host to the thing.

“No!” she snapped. “If the Morthahg was here it would spread like wildfire and destroy every enchantment! Not just a certain patch of one!”

“What if it was being controlled?” he countered. “If someone could contain it-“

“You can’t contain a Morthahg!” she threw her hands into the air. “It’s hate and fear in a tangible form! It isn’t a ghost. It doesn’t have anything like a mind to be controlled!” They might have argued it further, but Snape stepped back into the conversation.

“Take Lorelei’s box to her,” he told Sirius. “She knows this more about this than the rest of us right now, and might be able to tell us something.” This was agreed upon and they all begin to walk towards the infirmary. McGonagall crept to Sirius’ side.

“Don’t you worry,” she whispered. “Your fiancee will be just fine.” She patted his arm comfortingly and picked up her pace to move up beside Dumbledore. Sirius rolled his eyes behind her back, but was glad that she was still in the dark. They went into the infirmary and found Madame Pomfrey fussing over Lorelei’s pillows. Lorelei, herself, was looking annoyed at being mothered over.

“I know what happened to the potion,” Sirius told her immediately. He pulled the box out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Some vampire blood was added to it.” Lorelei looked baffled, but took the box and opened it. She pulled aside the piece of paper and stared in disbelief at the labeled vials. Her hands trembled as she picked up the empty one.

“Gaston…” she said softly. There was no emotion in her tone. She might have been commenting on the time. Still holding it, she shook the paper open and read it over quickly. Her hands begin to shake harder. Snape stepped to her side and took the paper from her to read it himself. Lorelei didn’t seem to notice he was there. Her weird eyes seemed unfocused. “She killed Gaston.”

“And Vanessa and Opal and Nathiel and Brohm,” cut in Sirius, nodding at the other vials. “What is this all about Ms. Zephyr? Enlighten us, if you will.”

“This is a page from The Mayhem Manual,” Snape said suddenly, interrupting.

“Youwould know that,” snapped Sirius uneasily. “So what?” The Mayhem Manual was a guide to all the worst-case scenarios in the magical world. Unfortunately, it was widely studied by Dark Wizards for inspiration. Legend had it that its author was a warlock who had gone around capturing all sorts of creatures, centaurs, vampires, werewolves, as well as human wizards and witches to perform experiments on. The results were documented in the manual.

“So there’s a copy in the Library’s private section,” the Potionmaster snarled back. “Who knows what this fiancee of yours actually did to the potion? If it is a cure, it is best to know exactly how to go about it before we do anything. It wouldn’t be in the manual at all if it couldn’t go horribly wrong!” That was a good point and Sirius had to admit it. Snape hurried off to fetch the book, still clutching the torn page. The little puddle glided along after him, forgotten. The click of the door closing behind him made Lorelei jump.

“But…I thought the girl was a Muggle,” McGonagall said, puzzled. “What would she be doing tinkering with potions and, and vampires?”

“There’s more to this than we told you,” Sirius told her quickly to keep Dumbledore from explaining. McGonagall fixed her best professor glare on him and he managed a weak smile. “I don’t know how much to tell you that won’t compromise her situation further,” he added. Her eyes narrowed and for a moment, she looked very much like her cat form.

“Very well,” she said, a hint of ice in her voice. “But I do expect an explanation, and it seems the sooner we find this Esme the better.”

“Esme!” Lorelei gasped, snapping back into focus. ‘Where is she?” She looked wildly around the room, as if expecting to see the other woman lurking in a corner.

“The thump and click man has taken her,” Sirius said. That didn’t make sense to Lorelei either, judging by the confused look on her face. But then the pale professor shook her head and tried to climb out of bed.

“I need to find her,” she said, more to herself than to them. She shrugged off Madame Pomfrey and took her wand from a nearby table. “I need to know…” With a flick and word, she summoned up a black robe over the gown she was in.

“You should wait for Professor Snape!” Pomfrey cautioned. “He’s going to make your cure as soon as we’re sure how!”

“I’m sick of waiting!” Sirius snapped. “I’ll go find her.”

“Not by yourself!” cried McGonagall.

“Yes, by myself!” he nearly shouted. “Get her cured, and figure out the Morthahg if you want to do something!” And with that he tore out of the infirmary. His patience was gone and with it his caution. He transformed into Padfoot and ran out to Hagrid’s rabbit hutch. Fang loped out to challenge him, barking madly. Sirius bared his teeth and the boarhound fell over himself getting back to the porch. That done, Sirius searched the rabbit hutch for any of the ichling’s scent. It was there, cold and greasy among the warm, fuzzy scents of the surviving rabbits.

If the unnamed master and the thump and click man were the same, then the ichling would have returned to him after feeding. Since the beast could fly for a small distance with its shaggy wings, tracking it would be difficult, but anything was better than waiting around any longer. He followed the trail for a short stretch and then it stopped. Sirius looked around, imagining the ichling taking to the air and flapping to where? He sniffed the garden fence and found nothing. Raising on his hind legs, he caught a whiff of the creature on Hagrid’s gutter.

This would take awhile, he thought, but it was activity. There was a scent trail on the ground for about three feet before it vanished again. He searched in a ten foot radius of the spot and found the scent again. The hunt was on again.