Black Forest, White Flower
Title: Black Forest, White Flower
Characters/Pairings: Sirius, ‘Iris’.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU, Mentions of Violence/Violent Imagery, Crossover
Word Count: 7300
A/N: Written for Leanne / dory_the_fishie. Takes place during an AU-Marauder Era. Contains elements from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, though no characters.
Black Forest, White Flower
Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.
His life had been filled with sounds. The roaring cheers of a Quidditch Match, the bustling crowd of Diagon Alley, the energised din of the Great Hall, the hearty laughter of The Leaky Cauldron -- a beautiful symphony composed against the best parts of his life.
He relished in the sounds of life. He did not like the quiet. It reminded him of dark, cold places that were filled with bad memories and lingering fears. Silence was the unrelenting hush of his unforgiving family during his holidays from school; it was the eerie stillness of the streets in recent years as people hid from the terror of an evil wizard. Silence was loneliness.
In this town, there was nothing but the soft murmur of quiet, everyday life. He had opened his window so he could better hear the voices of the strangers as they passed by, so he could hear the jingle of the shop doors as people made their way in and out. He glanced at the red cuckoo clock that hung on the wall, it’s hour hand almost touching the three, and then glanced down at his watch as if hoping that would give him a different time.
A sound rose from the street - the happy giggle of a small boy, he could no have been older than two or three. Sirius’ heart twisted with mixed emotions of love and separation. How long had it been since he had seen his godson? Five months, six months, seven months? How big he must have grown in this time, he thought, how many words he must know by now. Sirius wondered where he was hidden away, and when he would see him again.
It’s how things were now. Everyone he knew was in hiding, they went out in public only when disguised by a potion or charm. Every moment was fear for your life.
It was how things were now. How they had been since Peter died.
Yes, it had been bad before. But it was so much worse now. Ever since Fidelius Charm plan had fallen to pieces. They’d succeeded for a short while: James, Lily and little Harry, safely tucked away in their home, and Peter with the secret. How Snape knew to go after Peter or how he got to him so quickly, nobody could tell. But it was he who had aimed the wand that murdered Peter. It had been a foolish mistake. He’d killed the man who could have led Voldemort to the Potters, and he’d done it without retrieving the information. He must have been desperate, Sirius imagined. And by now, Voldemort had surely punished him with death.
When Peter died, the charm shattered, delegating itself to those the secret had been entrusted to. Lily and James fled with Harry, due to the thinned magic of the charm and their heightened risk. Voldemort, in a rage, had sent his followers on a manhunt -- anyone with any connection to the Potters was to be captured, tortured and interrogated as to their whereabouts.
Frank and Alice had been their first victims, though they’d known nothing. Even if they did, Sirius knew Voldemort himself would have had to pour Veritaserum down their throats to get anything out of them. The Death Eaters hadn’t been merciless enough to kill the Longbottoms when their detainment had proved fruitless, and now the couple resided at St Mungo’s, driven incurably mad from torture.
Sirius gave a shaky sigh. He wanted to block it all out of his mind. But how could he? The reality of the corner he’d been pushed into existed all around him. He was sitting in a bedroom at an inn within a small town in the middle of the Black Forest. If he looked in the mirror, he would see an unfamiliar man with emotionless brown eyes, and a tediously inexpressive face. He could not remember the last time he’d seen his best friends or his godson, and he was hardly aware of who was alive or dead at this point.
The clock interrupted his ruminations, chirping ‘cuckoo’ once, twice, three times. Three o’clock. Sirius stood up and ran his fingers through his bristly russet hair. He had an appointment to keep.
The dining area of the inn was cosy and quaint. The tables were dotted with a good few people; both inn guests and townspeople were welcome to eat there throughout the day. Sirius stuck his hands into the deep pockets of the long jacket he wore and searched the room with his eyes.
‘Guten tag, Herr Charbonneau.’ He was greeted by one of the inn’s workers - a charming blonde woman who’d taken a bit of a liking to him. She was primarily a maid, but the inn’s staff was small, and so he’d often run into her as she was taking care of other duties. He did his best to give her a friendly smile. ‘Can I get you a seat?’ she asked in such effortless English that he might have wondered if she was really German at all (if not for the fact her German flowed just as smoothly).
‘Actually,’ Sirius replied, doing his best to affect his voice slightly with what he guessed to be a Belgian accent, ‘I was meeting someone.’
‘A lady friend?’ She asked teasingly. Sirius grinned, half out of amusement, and half out of sheer anxiety.
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ he told her. ‘A man I met in town yesterday. He had some interesting ideas. I wanted to chat with him some more, so I invited him to lunch.’
‘Ideas for your book?’ she inquired.
‘Yes,’ he replied shortly. She was very inquisitive for an inn employee, he thought with annoyance. Still, he found it impossible to just ignore her; her smile was just too charming.
He looked away from her and scanned the tables and the people seated on them. Then he saw it: three sugar cubes placed on a napkin at the edge of the table. He nodded a polite goodbye to the blonde maid and excused himself, before approaching the man at the table with the sugar cubes and sitting down in front of him.
‘Tell me, sir, what is your opinion of a man who frees himself of sin by resisting his desires?’ he asked conversationally.
‘Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained,’ the man replied carefully.
Sirius gave a grim smile. He slipped his hand into his trouser pocket to retrieve his wand and, sneaking it out from his long jacket, he quickly pointed it under the table where it was hidden by the red tablecloth. His lips hardly moved as he cast the spell.
‘As long as I keep my wand pointed at you, only you can hear what I am saying, and vice-versa,’ he explained. The gentleman nodded. ‘Now, what can you tell me about this family on the edge of town?’
‘The Heidrichs,’ the man began. ‘They are a family of six - three men, three women. They are very wealthy, and very charitable in their financial contributions to the town.’
‘And what’s so remarkable about them?’
‘As a solitary wizard living in a Muggle town, I’ve learnt a thing or two about what it’s like to have something to hide,’ he explained. ‘They’re odd. Different. I noticed.’
‘How are they different?’ Sirius inquired further.
‘They mix with the townspeople on occasion; feast days and holiday celebrations, though they never eat or drink. They’re strong and fast, too. They hide it well, mostly. But now and then they slip up. They break something, or they get somewhere sooner than they should be able to. And, most noticeably of all, they’re beautiful.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘All of them. They’re stunning, hauntingly so. Their beauty is inhuman. Their skin is smooth white stone; they are reminiscent of marble statues of Roman gods and goddesses. Though, unlike statues, they move, and with motions as fluid as if they were dancers. And their voices… they speak as if in song.’
‘How poetic of you,’ Sirius said wryly, though inwardly, his interest piqued. The first details the man had given him matched up to what he already knew: they wouldn’t eat or drink like normal humans do and they were physically superior. This, however, was new information. ‘Please forgive my ignorance, but I don’t understand the importance of their likeness to singing, dancing Roman statues.’
‘My curiosity became insatiable,’ the man continued. ‘I observed them constantly, trying to understand what they were. I knew they were not ordinary humans, if they were human at all. I tried to research, but had no luck. You can’t trust anything written by Muggles about things unknown to them. The nonsense they write about our world - wizards, magical creatures, spells, potions - nothing but fairy tales with one or two facts if you read carefully enough between the lines. I didn’t have luck with the wizarding libraries, either, because whatever these people are, they’ve kept their existence as secret from us as we’ve kept our existence secret from Muggles.’
‘Is that all you know, then?’
‘No, there is more. I was in the forest one night, searching for a flower I needed for a potion. I was Disillusioned, as a precaution. They were out, too. On the hunt.’
‘On the hunt?’ Sirius repeated, his interest gnawing at his insides hungrily now. The man nodded, then carried on.
‘One of them flashed by me. Nothing more than a white streak that shook the ground for a moment and caused the leaves to swirl into the air. A few moments later, somewhere off in the distance, I heard the cry of an animal. An animal being killed. It was taken down quickly. I found it’s body later, it had been let free of blood,’ he stopped for a moment, and let out a breath. He was nearing the end of his story. ‘I saw one of the males in town the next day. His eyes cut through me like knives. He knew I was in the forest, I’m sure of it. Even though it would have been highly unlikely for any human to see him when it was that dark and I was virtually invisible. And even if I was spotted, it would have been impossible to tell my identity. I imagine they picked up my scent.’
‘Picked up your scent,’ Sirius said quietly, turning his thoughts over in his mind. It all sounded about right. Five weeks, and it seemed he’d finally found what he had been sent to find. ‘And, you’re sure they don’t… drink humans?’
‘As sure as I can be,’ the man said. ‘There haven’t been any mysterious deaths or disappearances of the town’s inhabitants since they moved here, at least, and the only evidence I’ve ever witnessed of their feeding was animal, not human.’
Sirius maintained a neutral expression while he let the last of the new information settle in his thoughts. He gave a curt nod to his informant . ‘Thank you very much, sir. Your assistance is appreciated.’
Sirius tucked his wand back into his pocket. He stood up and shook the man’s hand before making his way out of the dining area and into the inn lobby. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the blonde maid surveying him with an inquisitive look, he peeked over at her and she smiled brightly. He nodded distractedly and hurried up to his room. He had to arrange to visit the Heidrichs straight away. He needed to collect as much information as he could and report back to the Order as soon as possible, so they knew what they might be up against if Voldemort succeeded in getting the vampires on his side.
Vampires.
The word sent a shiver through Sirius’ veins. It was as his informant had said: ‘nothing but fairy tales with one or two facts if you read carefully enough between the lines.‘ The vampires Sirius knew were nothing like the ones in Muggle myths.
They existed in the wizarding world, yes. Magical men and women who had been transformed by blood lust and who lived for the sole purpose of satisfying their thirst. They were the drug addicts of wizarding society and they preyed on the weak, because that was the only sort they were stronger than.
It was the blood that weakened them. If a vampire had any sense, or at least any choice in the matter, he wouldn’t touch the blood of a Muggle. Non-magical blood only diluted the magic of one’s blood, and it didn’t take much to turn a vampirical wizard into the equivalent of a Squib. The blood of non-magical animals had the same effect, only the dilution was even more detrimental to a wizard’s powers.
The blood of a witch or wizard wasn’t much better. While it didn’t weaken magical power, it did twist it, obscuring it and producing strange side effects. It turned the skin translucent, instilling phobias of things such as daylight and water blessed by priests. The fear was strong enough in some vampires that their skin would burn in warning, sometimes setting on fire, when they got too close to something they believed to be dangerous. The curses of drinking blood condemned them to darkness and made their magic temperamental and unreliable. They were tormented with the voices of their victims, whose ghosts ran through their veins, turning their bodies ice-cold, whispering to them constantly, and making them unable to sleep, stealing their energy and consciousness.
There was one other option for blood-drinkers, and that was the blood of magical non-humans. That, however, was a last resort, as it was incredibly dangerous. Magical creatures carried a wide array of magical properties in their blood and to drink the blood of the wrong creature could mean instant death. The blood of a unicorn carried the curse of a half-life, the blood of a dragon set one’s veins on fire, and the blood of a sphinx drove one into utter madness. It was considered by extremists to be the ultimate high for a vampire, and some had been known to take the punishment solely for the experience; it was often the last thing they ever did.
The stories of the horror that vampires experienced were the main source of the fear of them, because nobody wanted to suffer the misfortune of becoming one. It was unlikely for anyone to suffer that fate, though. Vampires were their own enemy, physically weak and tortured by their inner demons, all they could focus on was survival, which was in itself hard to come by. They weren’t much to fear.
These other vampires, though, sounded as if they were something to be afraid of. There was not much information available without an extensive amount of digging. They seemed to maintain a code similar to that of wizarding society, as their existence was secret from anyone that was not one of them. Dumbledore had been able to tell him a few things before sending him on his way: they were powerful, had no known weaknesses, were immune to natural death, and were virtually impossible to kill in combat.
Unlike the centaurs, the giants, the werewolves and so on, the Order had no hopes of recruiting vampires to their side of the war. After all, they were unlikely allies. Most of them killed humans remorselessly, seeing them mainly as a source of food, and often as a source as sport. The Order didn’t have anything to offer them, and it was improbably they would fight for the cause out of the kindness of their hearts.
Unlike the Order, Voldemort had something to offer the vampires. He could deliver them humans from every corner of the globe to suit their appetite. Kings, queens, priests, nuns, courtesans, soldiers, women, children - any fetish that struck their fancy, an assortment of flavours for their taking, and each time, one less Muggle or enemy for Voldemort to suffer the existence of.
Needless to say, the Order didn’t like the idea of Voldemort having an addition of near-invincible monsters to his army. And so, Dumbledore had uncovered a small group of vampires who lived in the village of Immergrun, amongst humans. They weren’t the only of their kind, though their kind was rare. They had retained enough of their human conscience that they chose not to drink the blood of humans, and instead satisfied their thirst with animal blood.
For the Order, these ‘friendly’ vampires were the only chance of uncovering some information about what they might be up against. Sirius simply hoped they would cooperate rather than devour him on the spot.
He reached his room, out of breath from excitement and anxiety. He opened the door, mentally planning the best way to approach the Heidrichs. Obviously they weren’t keen on letting any humans in on their secret existence, so it was definitely going to be tricky. Desperate times, though, called for desperate measures. Sirius was going to do whatever it took.
The door closed behind him. Yet, he had not touched it.
He heard a whisper. A moment later, everything went black.
When Sirius came to, he was pinned down on his back by the blonde maid who held a wand pointed directly at his neck.
‘I have to admit,’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘I had considered this, but in my version, circumstances were somewhat different.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded.
‘I might ask you the same question.’
‘You’re the one on your back with a wand pointed at you.’
‘Fair point.’
‘I checked your wrist. There’s no Dark Mark.’
‘Simple explanation: I’m not a Death Eater. Here’s hoping that you aren’t one either.’
‘You’re registered as Gaston Charbonneau,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘I checked up on the name. Belgian man, resides near the French border. A wife, three kids, and a boring job. Definitely Muggle, which you are definitely not.’
‘And I’m guessing you’re not really a maid.’
He gagged as she shoved the wand sharply at his throat. ‘Enough cheekiness,’ she hissed. ‘Now, I know that you’re here to find out about the Heidrichs. Why?’
‘…to find out about them.’
‘Why do you want to find out about them?’
‘I’m afraid that’s classified.’
‘By who? The Ministry of Magic?’
‘The identity of the people who classified it is also classified.’
‘I don’t think you realised the direness of your situation, Gaston.’
‘Are you going to kill me if I don’t tell you who I am?’
Something flickered in her pale blue eyes, and Sirius knew that the woman on top of him was no killer. She might cause him intense pain, yes, but he could count on keeping his life. That assumption reached, he opted to go with reasoning.
‘Listen. I imagine that, whoever you’re here on behalf of, we’re fighting against the same people,’ he said. ‘And if you’re here to find out about the Heidrichs, I’m assuming your reason is close to mine. Which means, both of us want to be prepared to fight a virtually indestructible army, and I think we are equally entitled to that right.’
The blonde maid looked at him carefully, he could see she was considering his logic.
‘The man that I met with, have you talked to him yourself?’ he pressed.
‘No,’ she admitted bitterly. ‘I hadn’t seen him before. Didn’t know there were any wizards in Immergrun.’
‘Then, I’m assuming I have a bit of information you don’t. Just as I’m assuming you know some things that I don’t.’
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘I’m suggesting you let me go, and we work together to find out what we can, then go our separate ways.’
‘And how am I supposed to trust you if I don’t know who you’re really working for.’
‘If I was working for the enemy, I would be off trying to bribe the human-thirsty vampires, not looking to chat over tea with the friendly ones.’
‘Alright,’ she said after a few moments, taking the pressure of her body weight off him but keeping her wand directed at him a bit longer. ‘But if you double-cross me I’ll make sure you regret it.’
‘Good to know,’ Sirius said with relief as she put her wand away.
She stood in his room, glancing about, her arms folded while he sat up and smoothed his ruffled clothing. ‘I forgive you, by the way.’
‘For what?’ she asked, her brow crinkled with distain.
‘For attacking me.’
The woman scoffed. ‘I hardly touched you.’
‘You knocked me unconscious and then pinned me to my back and pointed a wand at my throat. Last time I checked, that qualified as an attack.’
‘If you’re going to whine about a small scuffle I don’t think I’m very keen to work with you after all,’ the woman threathened.
‘Ah, I’m merely teasing,’ Sirius said, grinning at her. ‘Suppose you make it up to me by telling me your name.’
She looked at him uncertainly for a moment, and then sighed and told him.
‘My name is Iris.’
The lie flowed so easily from her lips, he might have mistaken it for the truth.
That evening, after Iris’ dinnertime duties at the inn, the two of them met in Sirius’ room to discuss what they knew so far.
Most of what Iris knew had come from a source she described only as an ‘old friend’, who’d somehow had close ties to Voldemort’s followers. Sirius had raised an eyebrow at this, but he allowed his suspicions to subside when Iris assured him with icy certainty that her friend was trustworthy. He had discovered that Voldemort knew about the vampires and that he was strategising a possible alliance. Unfortunately, afterwards, he’d been discovered and forced to flee for his life. He passed the information on to Iris, who’d discovered the Heidrichs on her own, and who had remained in the village since then. She’d picked up bits and pieces of information, but nothing solid enough to draw any conclusions or form a plan of action.
‘So, as far as we’ve learned the vampires are strict about keeping their existence secret from us, meaning they probably have some equivalent to the Statute of Secrecy. Correct?’
‘Yes, meaning the Heidrichs might not react too well to us ringing their doorbell and asking if we might nip in for a spot of tea and a small chat about how they prefer to take their blood.’
‘I figured that much out, thank you.’
‘You’re so sweet.’
‘Let’s hope the vampires don’t think so.’
‘Oh, a joke,’ Sirius said with a grin. ‘Why, here I was thinking that you were all business and no pleasure.’
‘No, I wouldn’t so far as to accuse me of having no interest in pleasure,’ Iris replied, casting a suggestive glance at Sirius that cut the blood flow to his brain for a few moments.
Fumbling for his senses, he cleared his throat and managed to splutter forward with the topic at hand.
‘But back to business, anyway,’ he said. ‘The only way to get information out of them is to get them to cooperate. How do you propose we go about that?’
Iris gave a mysterious smirk. ‘We pretend we’re one of them.’
Sirius began to laugh, but found himself lost in confusion as Iris pursued him with a look that suggested she had not been joking.
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘Utterly serious, yes.’
‘You’re mad.’
‘Not really.’
Sirius leaned forward and looked at her closely as if looking for signs of insanity. ‘How do you suggest we trick a half dozen vampires into believing we’re one of them?’
‘We can use magic to change our appearance, of course. We have a list of the basic physical traits they share.’
‘Have you considered the fact that they are most likely able to pick up the scent of human blood?’
Iris raised her eyebrow and smirked again. Sirius felt his stomach flip.
‘Please tell me you’re not planning on draining me of my blood or something else that I will most likely protest with good reason.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Iris said, sighing in exasperation, then looking at him seriously. Her eyes were filled with an excited delight. ‘I’ve been turning the plan over in my mind for a few weeks now - pretending to be a vampire, myself. And, as such, I’ve been experimenting with spellwork, seeing if there’s a way to mask the scent of blood.’
Sirius fell quite silent at this. He looked at her for a moment, and she continued looking at, full of that intense thrill that flowed through her.
‘Have you been successful?’ he asked her tentatively.
‘I believe so. I’ve performed the charm on myself without harm, and in theory it should work - but there’s no way for me to actually know for sure if it is effective.’
At this confession, she looked somewhat disheartened. Sirius contemplated the problem quietly. They could risk going in with the charm and assuming it worked. But, it would be better tested. He knew one way they could be more certain the charm had its intended effect. But it meant taking Iris further into his confidence.
‘A dog,’ he said quietly after a minute of frustrated silence between the two. ‘Dogs can pick up scents that humans can’t. There’s a strong possibility a dog would notice the difference between a person with blood and a person without blood.’
‘Are you suggesting we go around asking dogs for their opinion on the matter?’ Iris said, rolling her eyes slightly.
‘No,’ Sirius replied patiently. ‘I’m suggesting you let me do it.’
‘What-?’
She cast him a wary look, as he stood up and - with a deep breath - transformed into his great, black dog form. Iris was stunned, even more so than Sirius had expected her to be. He watched her dart her eyes away for a moment and take a deep breath, as if composing herself. The way someone composed themselves into a lie.
‘You’re an Animagus?’ she said, her voice both impressed and surprised.
Sirius nodded, still taking keen note of her reaction. He couldn’t decide if she was acting or not.
‘Well then, come here and pick up the scent of my blood.’
Sirius walked forward on his four heavy paws and began to sniff along her skin. He had never done this before. He’d picked up scents, yes, but from personal items and pieces of clothing. But he had never purposely taken in someone’s scent straight from the source of their pulsing veins, and he felt intoxicated by the sweet perfume of her blood.
If he had been in the form of a man, he would not have been able to restrain his desire. But he was a dog, and she was a human. His nature did not compel him to do what the man in him might like to. He pulled himself away dutifully and looked at her, unflustered, face hidden by black fur.
She pulled out her wand and ran it gently over areas of exposed skin, whispering a gentle but intricate incantation. Sirius was in awe had the talent of this mysterious witch. He knew of few others that would be able to create such a complex spell. After only a few weeks of work, nonetheless.
When she was done, she looked up at him again. And he padded forward again and touched his nose to her skin and tried, once again, to inhale that glorious scent. It was not there to be taken in. All traces of it had been swept away; the heat and fire and sweetness had been replaced with something pure but cold.
He looked up at her again from his dog form and wagged his tail happily. She had been successful as far as his canine senses could tell. She smiled at him, and he thought that she seemed to shake with some powerful emotion, though he had no idea what it could be.
After a moment or two, he turned around and retreated into the bathroom to transform back into himself, and then take a dose of Polyjuice Potion to return to the form of Gaston. When returned to the form of his alias, he left the bathroom and sat down on the bed.
‘Nice trick,’ Iris said.
‘Same to you.’ Sirius replied.
‘It works, then?’ she asked.
‘Did you not understand the tail wag, then?’ he said with a wink.
Iris smiled.
Sirius felt his heart flutter.
Time was important, and every day that went by was one day closer to the end. The end of what, nobody knew. The only thing anyone was sure of was that they had to be the ones to control what the happened in the end.
Sirius and Iris knew this. And so, the next day they put the plan into action. They each left the town alone and went into the forest to change their appearances. They each did this alone, because of an agreement to keep their identities secret from one another. They had to transfigure to another identity altogether, and to do that on top of Polyjuiced forms would have been much too complicated.
Once transfigured, they met in an agreed on spot so that Iris could perform the charm on Sirius to mask the scent of his blood, and so they could enter the village together, as a couple (Iris had noted the each of the Heidrichs was paired with another romantically, suggesting it might be common for all vampires to have a companion).
They entered the town and received some curious glances from those milling about in the late evening. They acted as if this was nothing unusual for them and headed straight for the edge of the village where the Heidrichs resided.
‘Ready?’ Sirius asked quietly as they approached what was a beautiful, large home hidden in the shade of tall, dark trees.
‘Always,’ Iris replied, letting out a deep calming breath.
The knocked politely on the door. A woman answered and Sirius instantly recognised what it was the man had meant by the vampires being beautiful. He was immediately entranced by the inhuman brilliance that emanated from her features.
‘Hello,’ she said, slowly, looking at them curiously. She recognised them as her kind, clearly.
‘Good Morning,’ Sirius greeted politely. ‘Mrs Heidrich, I presume?’
The beautiful woman bowed her head with acknowledgment.
‘My name is Lonán Wallace, and this is my wife Blodwen. We have journeyed far in search of your home.’
‘Do come in,’ the woman said with genuine warmth. She gestured for them to enter and then lead them to a living room. ‘Sit down. I will call my husband to come sit with us.’
She left them alone. Sirius could see that Iris was doing her best to control her fear as he was. There was certain terror of facing the unknown that was difficult to master. He took her hand and squeezed it gently, and she smiled at him. A smile from a mouth and a face that was not the same as the one he had looked upon yesterday.
Her hair was dark and flowed freely around her face, which was softer than before. Her lips had changed, too, he’d noticed. They were not Iris’s lips, yet they looked entrancingly familiar. Though not red, as they should have been, as he wished they were. Instead, they were pale, drained of the colour of blood, as were her white, marble cheeks. Her eyes were warm, not like honey, but like gold.
Yet, she was still his Iris. And though the lips were different, the smile was the same. And though her eyes had changed, the way she looked through them had not. It did not matter what she called herself or how she disguised herself, her spirit was no different and, however masked, her blood was true, too. He knew her.
And he loved her.
She noticed the solid emotion with which he was watching her, unblinkingly, and she smiled shyly. He opened his mouth to speak, but a moment later, Mrs Heidrich entered the room again, followed by her husband.
‘Hello,’ he said with happy enthusiasm, and Sirius gave the man a bemused look. He hadn’t quite expected the vampires to be so cheerful.
‘I am always quite pleased to find more of our kind,’ Mr Heidrich said.
‘My husband passionately advocates our lifestyle,’ Mrs Heidrich explained delicately. ‘It fills him with a great joy to know that there are others out there making the same choice.’
Sirius looked at the couple, now feeling perplexed. He cast Iris a sidelong glance to see if she understood. She was smiling politely and didn’t seem confused at all, though he knew that did not necessarily mean she knew what was going on. She was a talented actress, after all.
‘To be honest, I’ve never really been of the opinion that we have a choice in the matter,’ Iris said.
‘Ah, yes,’ Mr Heidrich responded emphatically. ‘Excellent point, excellent point!’
‘There are few among us who feel the same way,’ Mrs Heidrich noted, her voice filled with a bewitching grace; Sirius felt an utter calm wash over him with every word that flowed from her pale lips.
‘You’ll have to forgive us. We are not used to the company of others of our kind, and we know very little of those that do not share our opinions concerning this lifestyle.’
‘Oh,’ Mrs Heidrich said kindly. ‘Are you both very young, then?’
Sirius was stunned momentarily. He knew what the question implied. These creatures truly were immortal.
‘Quite fresh to this world, yes,’ Iris said with a light hearted smile, and the vampires gave soft, pleasant laughs.
‘And what about the vampire who made you into what you are?’ Mr Heidrich asked with genuine curiousity.
‘He disappeared shortly after our transformation,’ Sirius said gravely. He did not wish to leave the entire burden of deception on Iris. ‘We have lived by what he taught us in the short time we were with him, and have been greatly troubled by his departure ever since.’
Iris nodded. ‘Part of the purpose in our journey is to discover others like us, but perhaps learn something of what might have happened to him. We followed rumours, local legends, things of that nature, and eventually learned of a family of vampires that fed on animals, not humans; we immediately sought to meet with you.’
‘Well, it is good that you did!’ replied Mr Heidrich in distress. His face was stretched with worry for these two young, innocent vampires, lost without someone to educate them about the world. Sirius was sure he’d never met anyone quite as animated as this man.
‘What we are most interested in,’ Iris began, her tone something like an embarrassed student asking to have for help with a Transfiguration theory that couldn’t quite comprehend, ‘are these other vampires, those who feed on humans. And how it was that you knew we were like you.’
‘Have you never fed on a human before, not even once?’ Mrs Heidrich asked with gentle astonishment.
‘Never,’ Sirius replied, with a half-smile. ‘It was not how we were raised.’
At this, Mr Heidrich alarmed the pair of humans by clapping his hands together and looking at them with excited eyes. ‘That is simply marvellous, you know. Quite impressive.’
‘Is it?’ Iris asked with utmost purity. ‘We did not realise…’
‘Yes, well,’ Mr Heidrich began to explain, ‘We knew you because of the colour of your eyes. When a vampire feeds on human blood, their eyes become a burgundy colour, not topaz as with the two of you, as with myself and my family.’
‘Ah. We never knew that,’ Iris confessed with a hint of shame. Sirius repressed a grin; she was amazing.
‘And the other vampires, those who do feed on human blood,’ Mrs Heidrich explained, her voice again filled with that gentle nature that seemed to induce a sense of calm, ‘we have no real quarrel with them. They are the same kind as us, and they do what is natural to them. It can be difficult for a vampire to resist the beauty of human blood, as I’m sure the two of you must be aware. Most of them have not considered the choice, and it would be unjust to punish them for not seeing things as we do. We should count ourselves lucky, that we are able to restrain our natural desires in a way that they cannot.’
Sirius nodded solemnly at this.
‘We are one with other vampires, even in the difference in our choices,’ the woman continued. ‘Sometimes other clans pass through and we meet with them. They respect our territory and need to remain inconspicuous and thus do not hunt anywhere in or around this village. We are all subject to the same code of secrecy, among other things.’
Sirius heard Iris draw in a tentative breath and he gave her a sideward glance. There was a slight tension in her limbs and he could see that she was steeling herself for what she was about to say.
‘We heard rumours,’ she said, then dropped her eyes downwards, ‘perhaps they’re nothing…’
‘What did they tell of?’ Mrs Heidrich inquired politely.
‘Wizards.’
Both of the vampires gave her looks of confusion. ‘Wizards?’ Mr Heidrich repeated.
‘Yes. Rumours about the existence of a society of magical people. Also subject to rules of secrecy,’ Iris continued, sounding as if the information she was giving them perplexed her just as much as it did them. ‘And about some kind of war…’
‘They say there is a dark wizard, gathering power, who might seek the alliance of vampires,’ Sirius cut in, with urgent intrigue for the Heidrichs’ thoughts on this possible truth.
‘Why,’ Mrs Heidrich said, shocked but believing, ‘I’ve never heard any such thing.’ She looked to her husband for support.
‘It’s nothing to worry about, young ones,’ Mr Heidrich said kindly. ‘Vampires will never get involved in such an affair.’
‘Not even if the benefits are great? There is talk of mass killings. Human blood, without the need for secrecy.’
‘Secrecy is a requirement for anyone who hunts humans,’ Mr Heidrich explained. ‘If human-hunting vampires desired mass killings, they’d be well able to accomplish it on their own. No, vampire society is quite stable as it is. If this magical society and their war with this dark wizard truly exists, the Volturi would have nothing to do with it, and as such, most other vampires will be intelligent enough not to involve themselves.’
‘Most?’
‘Perhaps some will go over, foolishly. Ambitious, hungry, unsatisfied vampires, most of them young, I would imagine. Though, if they do not die in their dealings with these wizards, they are likely to die at the hands of the Volturi.’ Mr Heidrich stopped and gave a reassuring smile. ‘It will have little if any affect on us, I promise you.’
He looked at his watch, and then back to Sirius and Iris. ‘I had plans to go hunting with my sons for a few days, and I should probably prepare to leave very soon.’
‘Yes, we understand,’ Iris said. ‘Do you mind, then, one more question before we depart?’
‘Not at all, not at all.’
‘How do we die?’
The question hung hauntingly in the air. Mr Heidrich’s ever expressive face became serious, as if he’d just been asked by a naïve child about something insidious. He answered in a similar fashion, too: gravely, but gently. ‘We must be torn to shreds. Only another vampire, or else a werewolf, would be strong enough to do it. You do know about werewolves?’
Sirius thought instantly of Remus and felt a sadness for his friend who he had not seen in so long. He gave a sincere ‘Yes’, and heard Iris echo him exactly.
‘Once that is done, the remains must be destroyed with fire,’ Mr Heidrich finished.
Iris nodded quietly. ‘Thank you. And thank you for indulging us in our ignorance. We are eternally grateful.’
‘It is no problem. I do hope that you find some trace of the vampire that made you - what was his name?’
‘James,’ Sirius said quietly. Iris gazed sadly at him, and he saw her swallow hard.
‘Yes, I wish you the very best in your search and all your other endeavours,’ Mr Heidrich said warmly. ‘And now, I must be going. Irina, dear, could you find out where Miro and Michael are, and tell them that we will be departing shortly?’
‘Of course, Jürgen, darling,’ she said, and she kissed his cheek. She nodded gracefully to Iris and Sirius. ‘It was the greatest pleasure meeting with you. I do hope you visit us again. Perhaps we can hunt sometime?’
‘Certainly,’ Sirius said with a nod. He reached forward and took the lady’s hand and bent to kiss it.
Instantly, he knew it was a mistake. He was suddenly aware of his own body warmth and rapid pulse. Blood pounded more quickly through his all too human hand, and he and the vampire woman stared at one another in shock.
He stood, paralysed for a moment, before quickly stepping backwards and taking hold of Iris’ wrist. She looked at him with startled puzzlement, and in another instant, they disappeared with a crack from the Heidrich home and reappeared in the forest outside the village.
‘What happened?’ Iris asked breathlessly.
‘Her hand. Her hand was so cold, and her skin… it was hard, smooth. It was like marble. And - my hand, oh --- she knew the instant I touched her. I’m sorry, I revealed us. We had to get out.’
Iris gripped his hand. ‘It’s fine, though. We found out what we needed, right? We were leaving, as it was.’
Sirius let out a deep breath and nodded in agreement, still recovering from his shock. He looked up into Iris’ face, still in her vampire disguise, and rested his gaze there. She looked back at him, and something unspoken seemed to pass between them, strangers in disguise that they were.
Sirius leaned to kiss her, but Iris pulled away. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’
‘Oh.’ Sirius said, feeling emotionally winded. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…’
‘No, no, you didn’t know. It’s just… I have a husband. And - ’
She looked at him with teary eyes. He sensed there was something she simply could not say.
‘Iris, I understand.’
‘No, no, you don’t. Not really.’ There was something tragic in her gaze, something he truly could not comprehend. He pulled her close and embraced her, his heart pounding with the pain of unfulfilled desire.
‘I remember the protocol phrase you used to identify the man you met with at the inn,’ Iris said quietly.
‘When you were spying on me, I assume?’ Sirius asked, smiling in spite of everything.
Iris laughed faintly. ‘Yes. Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.’
‘And?’
‘And, I disagree.’ She pulled away and looked up to him. She was trembling.
‘Why do you disagree?’ he asked softly.
‘Sometimes you must resist desire, because you know in your heart that there is no real choice in the matter.’
Sirius drew a shuddery breath, and looked into the eyes of his unattainable desire, feeling as though he’d known her for years, and wondering what secrets she kept. Iris lifted her hands up to his face and held them there.
‘You wouldn’t want for me to hurt him. I know that.’
The moment was charged with hundreds of emotions that moved like electricity through his veins. In an instant, he felt that he understood entirely and yet not at all. He stared at the woman in front of him, and tried to discern how it was that he could feel her words so thoroughly, while on the surface they seemed to make no sense.
‘Auf Wiedersehen, mein Lieber,’ she murmured. ‘Du bist in meinem Herzen, immer.’
Her parting words resounded in his mind, and Sirius looked upon Iris for the last time before she Disapparated with a crack that seemed to sound like a breaking heart.
Characters/Pairings: Sirius, ‘Iris’.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU, Mentions of Violence/Violent Imagery, Crossover
Word Count: 7300
A/N: Written for Leanne / dory_the_fishie. Takes place during an AU-Marauder Era. Contains elements from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, though no characters.
Black Forest, White Flower
Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.
His life had been filled with sounds. The roaring cheers of a Quidditch Match, the bustling crowd of Diagon Alley, the energised din of the Great Hall, the hearty laughter of The Leaky Cauldron -- a beautiful symphony composed against the best parts of his life.
He relished in the sounds of life. He did not like the quiet. It reminded him of dark, cold places that were filled with bad memories and lingering fears. Silence was the unrelenting hush of his unforgiving family during his holidays from school; it was the eerie stillness of the streets in recent years as people hid from the terror of an evil wizard. Silence was loneliness.
In this town, there was nothing but the soft murmur of quiet, everyday life. He had opened his window so he could better hear the voices of the strangers as they passed by, so he could hear the jingle of the shop doors as people made their way in and out. He glanced at the red cuckoo clock that hung on the wall, it’s hour hand almost touching the three, and then glanced down at his watch as if hoping that would give him a different time.
A sound rose from the street - the happy giggle of a small boy, he could no have been older than two or three. Sirius’ heart twisted with mixed emotions of love and separation. How long had it been since he had seen his godson? Five months, six months, seven months? How big he must have grown in this time, he thought, how many words he must know by now. Sirius wondered where he was hidden away, and when he would see him again.
It’s how things were now. Everyone he knew was in hiding, they went out in public only when disguised by a potion or charm. Every moment was fear for your life.
It was how things were now. How they had been since Peter died.
Yes, it had been bad before. But it was so much worse now. Ever since Fidelius Charm plan had fallen to pieces. They’d succeeded for a short while: James, Lily and little Harry, safely tucked away in their home, and Peter with the secret. How Snape knew to go after Peter or how he got to him so quickly, nobody could tell. But it was he who had aimed the wand that murdered Peter. It had been a foolish mistake. He’d killed the man who could have led Voldemort to the Potters, and he’d done it without retrieving the information. He must have been desperate, Sirius imagined. And by now, Voldemort had surely punished him with death.
When Peter died, the charm shattered, delegating itself to those the secret had been entrusted to. Lily and James fled with Harry, due to the thinned magic of the charm and their heightened risk. Voldemort, in a rage, had sent his followers on a manhunt -- anyone with any connection to the Potters was to be captured, tortured and interrogated as to their whereabouts.
Frank and Alice had been their first victims, though they’d known nothing. Even if they did, Sirius knew Voldemort himself would have had to pour Veritaserum down their throats to get anything out of them. The Death Eaters hadn’t been merciless enough to kill the Longbottoms when their detainment had proved fruitless, and now the couple resided at St Mungo’s, driven incurably mad from torture.
Sirius gave a shaky sigh. He wanted to block it all out of his mind. But how could he? The reality of the corner he’d been pushed into existed all around him. He was sitting in a bedroom at an inn within a small town in the middle of the Black Forest. If he looked in the mirror, he would see an unfamiliar man with emotionless brown eyes, and a tediously inexpressive face. He could not remember the last time he’d seen his best friends or his godson, and he was hardly aware of who was alive or dead at this point.
The clock interrupted his ruminations, chirping ‘cuckoo’ once, twice, three times. Three o’clock. Sirius stood up and ran his fingers through his bristly russet hair. He had an appointment to keep.
The dining area of the inn was cosy and quaint. The tables were dotted with a good few people; both inn guests and townspeople were welcome to eat there throughout the day. Sirius stuck his hands into the deep pockets of the long jacket he wore and searched the room with his eyes.
‘Guten tag, Herr Charbonneau.’ He was greeted by one of the inn’s workers - a charming blonde woman who’d taken a bit of a liking to him. She was primarily a maid, but the inn’s staff was small, and so he’d often run into her as she was taking care of other duties. He did his best to give her a friendly smile. ‘Can I get you a seat?’ she asked in such effortless English that he might have wondered if she was really German at all (if not for the fact her German flowed just as smoothly).
‘Actually,’ Sirius replied, doing his best to affect his voice slightly with what he guessed to be a Belgian accent, ‘I was meeting someone.’
‘A lady friend?’ She asked teasingly. Sirius grinned, half out of amusement, and half out of sheer anxiety.
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ he told her. ‘A man I met in town yesterday. He had some interesting ideas. I wanted to chat with him some more, so I invited him to lunch.’
‘Ideas for your book?’ she inquired.
‘Yes,’ he replied shortly. She was very inquisitive for an inn employee, he thought with annoyance. Still, he found it impossible to just ignore her; her smile was just too charming.
He looked away from her and scanned the tables and the people seated on them. Then he saw it: three sugar cubes placed on a napkin at the edge of the table. He nodded a polite goodbye to the blonde maid and excused himself, before approaching the man at the table with the sugar cubes and sitting down in front of him.
‘Tell me, sir, what is your opinion of a man who frees himself of sin by resisting his desires?’ he asked conversationally.
‘Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained,’ the man replied carefully.
Sirius gave a grim smile. He slipped his hand into his trouser pocket to retrieve his wand and, sneaking it out from his long jacket, he quickly pointed it under the table where it was hidden by the red tablecloth. His lips hardly moved as he cast the spell.
‘As long as I keep my wand pointed at you, only you can hear what I am saying, and vice-versa,’ he explained. The gentleman nodded. ‘Now, what can you tell me about this family on the edge of town?’
‘The Heidrichs,’ the man began. ‘They are a family of six - three men, three women. They are very wealthy, and very charitable in their financial contributions to the town.’
‘And what’s so remarkable about them?’
‘As a solitary wizard living in a Muggle town, I’ve learnt a thing or two about what it’s like to have something to hide,’ he explained. ‘They’re odd. Different. I noticed.’
‘How are they different?’ Sirius inquired further.
‘They mix with the townspeople on occasion; feast days and holiday celebrations, though they never eat or drink. They’re strong and fast, too. They hide it well, mostly. But now and then they slip up. They break something, or they get somewhere sooner than they should be able to. And, most noticeably of all, they’re beautiful.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘All of them. They’re stunning, hauntingly so. Their beauty is inhuman. Their skin is smooth white stone; they are reminiscent of marble statues of Roman gods and goddesses. Though, unlike statues, they move, and with motions as fluid as if they were dancers. And their voices… they speak as if in song.’
‘How poetic of you,’ Sirius said wryly, though inwardly, his interest piqued. The first details the man had given him matched up to what he already knew: they wouldn’t eat or drink like normal humans do and they were physically superior. This, however, was new information. ‘Please forgive my ignorance, but I don’t understand the importance of their likeness to singing, dancing Roman statues.’
‘My curiosity became insatiable,’ the man continued. ‘I observed them constantly, trying to understand what they were. I knew they were not ordinary humans, if they were human at all. I tried to research, but had no luck. You can’t trust anything written by Muggles about things unknown to them. The nonsense they write about our world - wizards, magical creatures, spells, potions - nothing but fairy tales with one or two facts if you read carefully enough between the lines. I didn’t have luck with the wizarding libraries, either, because whatever these people are, they’ve kept their existence as secret from us as we’ve kept our existence secret from Muggles.’
‘Is that all you know, then?’
‘No, there is more. I was in the forest one night, searching for a flower I needed for a potion. I was Disillusioned, as a precaution. They were out, too. On the hunt.’
‘On the hunt?’ Sirius repeated, his interest gnawing at his insides hungrily now. The man nodded, then carried on.
‘One of them flashed by me. Nothing more than a white streak that shook the ground for a moment and caused the leaves to swirl into the air. A few moments later, somewhere off in the distance, I heard the cry of an animal. An animal being killed. It was taken down quickly. I found it’s body later, it had been let free of blood,’ he stopped for a moment, and let out a breath. He was nearing the end of his story. ‘I saw one of the males in town the next day. His eyes cut through me like knives. He knew I was in the forest, I’m sure of it. Even though it would have been highly unlikely for any human to see him when it was that dark and I was virtually invisible. And even if I was spotted, it would have been impossible to tell my identity. I imagine they picked up my scent.’
‘Picked up your scent,’ Sirius said quietly, turning his thoughts over in his mind. It all sounded about right. Five weeks, and it seemed he’d finally found what he had been sent to find. ‘And, you’re sure they don’t… drink humans?’
‘As sure as I can be,’ the man said. ‘There haven’t been any mysterious deaths or disappearances of the town’s inhabitants since they moved here, at least, and the only evidence I’ve ever witnessed of their feeding was animal, not human.’
Sirius maintained a neutral expression while he let the last of the new information settle in his thoughts. He gave a curt nod to his informant . ‘Thank you very much, sir. Your assistance is appreciated.’
Sirius tucked his wand back into his pocket. He stood up and shook the man’s hand before making his way out of the dining area and into the inn lobby. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the blonde maid surveying him with an inquisitive look, he peeked over at her and she smiled brightly. He nodded distractedly and hurried up to his room. He had to arrange to visit the Heidrichs straight away. He needed to collect as much information as he could and report back to the Order as soon as possible, so they knew what they might be up against if Voldemort succeeded in getting the vampires on his side.
Vampires.
The word sent a shiver through Sirius’ veins. It was as his informant had said: ‘nothing but fairy tales with one or two facts if you read carefully enough between the lines.‘ The vampires Sirius knew were nothing like the ones in Muggle myths.
They existed in the wizarding world, yes. Magical men and women who had been transformed by blood lust and who lived for the sole purpose of satisfying their thirst. They were the drug addicts of wizarding society and they preyed on the weak, because that was the only sort they were stronger than.
It was the blood that weakened them. If a vampire had any sense, or at least any choice in the matter, he wouldn’t touch the blood of a Muggle. Non-magical blood only diluted the magic of one’s blood, and it didn’t take much to turn a vampirical wizard into the equivalent of a Squib. The blood of non-magical animals had the same effect, only the dilution was even more detrimental to a wizard’s powers.
The blood of a witch or wizard wasn’t much better. While it didn’t weaken magical power, it did twist it, obscuring it and producing strange side effects. It turned the skin translucent, instilling phobias of things such as daylight and water blessed by priests. The fear was strong enough in some vampires that their skin would burn in warning, sometimes setting on fire, when they got too close to something they believed to be dangerous. The curses of drinking blood condemned them to darkness and made their magic temperamental and unreliable. They were tormented with the voices of their victims, whose ghosts ran through their veins, turning their bodies ice-cold, whispering to them constantly, and making them unable to sleep, stealing their energy and consciousness.
There was one other option for blood-drinkers, and that was the blood of magical non-humans. That, however, was a last resort, as it was incredibly dangerous. Magical creatures carried a wide array of magical properties in their blood and to drink the blood of the wrong creature could mean instant death. The blood of a unicorn carried the curse of a half-life, the blood of a dragon set one’s veins on fire, and the blood of a sphinx drove one into utter madness. It was considered by extremists to be the ultimate high for a vampire, and some had been known to take the punishment solely for the experience; it was often the last thing they ever did.
The stories of the horror that vampires experienced were the main source of the fear of them, because nobody wanted to suffer the misfortune of becoming one. It was unlikely for anyone to suffer that fate, though. Vampires were their own enemy, physically weak and tortured by their inner demons, all they could focus on was survival, which was in itself hard to come by. They weren’t much to fear.
These other vampires, though, sounded as if they were something to be afraid of. There was not much information available without an extensive amount of digging. They seemed to maintain a code similar to that of wizarding society, as their existence was secret from anyone that was not one of them. Dumbledore had been able to tell him a few things before sending him on his way: they were powerful, had no known weaknesses, were immune to natural death, and were virtually impossible to kill in combat.
Unlike the centaurs, the giants, the werewolves and so on, the Order had no hopes of recruiting vampires to their side of the war. After all, they were unlikely allies. Most of them killed humans remorselessly, seeing them mainly as a source of food, and often as a source as sport. The Order didn’t have anything to offer them, and it was improbably they would fight for the cause out of the kindness of their hearts.
Unlike the Order, Voldemort had something to offer the vampires. He could deliver them humans from every corner of the globe to suit their appetite. Kings, queens, priests, nuns, courtesans, soldiers, women, children - any fetish that struck their fancy, an assortment of flavours for their taking, and each time, one less Muggle or enemy for Voldemort to suffer the existence of.
Needless to say, the Order didn’t like the idea of Voldemort having an addition of near-invincible monsters to his army. And so, Dumbledore had uncovered a small group of vampires who lived in the village of Immergrun, amongst humans. They weren’t the only of their kind, though their kind was rare. They had retained enough of their human conscience that they chose not to drink the blood of humans, and instead satisfied their thirst with animal blood.
For the Order, these ‘friendly’ vampires were the only chance of uncovering some information about what they might be up against. Sirius simply hoped they would cooperate rather than devour him on the spot.
He reached his room, out of breath from excitement and anxiety. He opened the door, mentally planning the best way to approach the Heidrichs. Obviously they weren’t keen on letting any humans in on their secret existence, so it was definitely going to be tricky. Desperate times, though, called for desperate measures. Sirius was going to do whatever it took.
The door closed behind him. Yet, he had not touched it.
He heard a whisper. A moment later, everything went black.
When Sirius came to, he was pinned down on his back by the blonde maid who held a wand pointed directly at his neck.
‘I have to admit,’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘I had considered this, but in my version, circumstances were somewhat different.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded.
‘I might ask you the same question.’
‘You’re the one on your back with a wand pointed at you.’
‘Fair point.’
‘I checked your wrist. There’s no Dark Mark.’
‘Simple explanation: I’m not a Death Eater. Here’s hoping that you aren’t one either.’
‘You’re registered as Gaston Charbonneau,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘I checked up on the name. Belgian man, resides near the French border. A wife, three kids, and a boring job. Definitely Muggle, which you are definitely not.’
‘And I’m guessing you’re not really a maid.’
He gagged as she shoved the wand sharply at his throat. ‘Enough cheekiness,’ she hissed. ‘Now, I know that you’re here to find out about the Heidrichs. Why?’
‘…to find out about them.’
‘Why do you want to find out about them?’
‘I’m afraid that’s classified.’
‘By who? The Ministry of Magic?’
‘The identity of the people who classified it is also classified.’
‘I don’t think you realised the direness of your situation, Gaston.’
‘Are you going to kill me if I don’t tell you who I am?’
Something flickered in her pale blue eyes, and Sirius knew that the woman on top of him was no killer. She might cause him intense pain, yes, but he could count on keeping his life. That assumption reached, he opted to go with reasoning.
‘Listen. I imagine that, whoever you’re here on behalf of, we’re fighting against the same people,’ he said. ‘And if you’re here to find out about the Heidrichs, I’m assuming your reason is close to mine. Which means, both of us want to be prepared to fight a virtually indestructible army, and I think we are equally entitled to that right.’
The blonde maid looked at him carefully, he could see she was considering his logic.
‘The man that I met with, have you talked to him yourself?’ he pressed.
‘No,’ she admitted bitterly. ‘I hadn’t seen him before. Didn’t know there were any wizards in Immergrun.’
‘Then, I’m assuming I have a bit of information you don’t. Just as I’m assuming you know some things that I don’t.’
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘I’m suggesting you let me go, and we work together to find out what we can, then go our separate ways.’
‘And how am I supposed to trust you if I don’t know who you’re really working for.’
‘If I was working for the enemy, I would be off trying to bribe the human-thirsty vampires, not looking to chat over tea with the friendly ones.’
‘Alright,’ she said after a few moments, taking the pressure of her body weight off him but keeping her wand directed at him a bit longer. ‘But if you double-cross me I’ll make sure you regret it.’
‘Good to know,’ Sirius said with relief as she put her wand away.
She stood in his room, glancing about, her arms folded while he sat up and smoothed his ruffled clothing. ‘I forgive you, by the way.’
‘For what?’ she asked, her brow crinkled with distain.
‘For attacking me.’
The woman scoffed. ‘I hardly touched you.’
‘You knocked me unconscious and then pinned me to my back and pointed a wand at my throat. Last time I checked, that qualified as an attack.’
‘If you’re going to whine about a small scuffle I don’t think I’m very keen to work with you after all,’ the woman threathened.
‘Ah, I’m merely teasing,’ Sirius said, grinning at her. ‘Suppose you make it up to me by telling me your name.’
She looked at him uncertainly for a moment, and then sighed and told him.
‘My name is Iris.’
The lie flowed so easily from her lips, he might have mistaken it for the truth.
That evening, after Iris’ dinnertime duties at the inn, the two of them met in Sirius’ room to discuss what they knew so far.
Most of what Iris knew had come from a source she described only as an ‘old friend’, who’d somehow had close ties to Voldemort’s followers. Sirius had raised an eyebrow at this, but he allowed his suspicions to subside when Iris assured him with icy certainty that her friend was trustworthy. He had discovered that Voldemort knew about the vampires and that he was strategising a possible alliance. Unfortunately, afterwards, he’d been discovered and forced to flee for his life. He passed the information on to Iris, who’d discovered the Heidrichs on her own, and who had remained in the village since then. She’d picked up bits and pieces of information, but nothing solid enough to draw any conclusions or form a plan of action.
‘So, as far as we’ve learned the vampires are strict about keeping their existence secret from us, meaning they probably have some equivalent to the Statute of Secrecy. Correct?’
‘Yes, meaning the Heidrichs might not react too well to us ringing their doorbell and asking if we might nip in for a spot of tea and a small chat about how they prefer to take their blood.’
‘I figured that much out, thank you.’
‘You’re so sweet.’
‘Let’s hope the vampires don’t think so.’
‘Oh, a joke,’ Sirius said with a grin. ‘Why, here I was thinking that you were all business and no pleasure.’
‘No, I wouldn’t so far as to accuse me of having no interest in pleasure,’ Iris replied, casting a suggestive glance at Sirius that cut the blood flow to his brain for a few moments.
Fumbling for his senses, he cleared his throat and managed to splutter forward with the topic at hand.
‘But back to business, anyway,’ he said. ‘The only way to get information out of them is to get them to cooperate. How do you propose we go about that?’
Iris gave a mysterious smirk. ‘We pretend we’re one of them.’
Sirius began to laugh, but found himself lost in confusion as Iris pursued him with a look that suggested she had not been joking.
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘Utterly serious, yes.’
‘You’re mad.’
‘Not really.’
Sirius leaned forward and looked at her closely as if looking for signs of insanity. ‘How do you suggest we trick a half dozen vampires into believing we’re one of them?’
‘We can use magic to change our appearance, of course. We have a list of the basic physical traits they share.’
‘Have you considered the fact that they are most likely able to pick up the scent of human blood?’
Iris raised her eyebrow and smirked again. Sirius felt his stomach flip.
‘Please tell me you’re not planning on draining me of my blood or something else that I will most likely protest with good reason.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Iris said, sighing in exasperation, then looking at him seriously. Her eyes were filled with an excited delight. ‘I’ve been turning the plan over in my mind for a few weeks now - pretending to be a vampire, myself. And, as such, I’ve been experimenting with spellwork, seeing if there’s a way to mask the scent of blood.’
Sirius fell quite silent at this. He looked at her for a moment, and she continued looking at, full of that intense thrill that flowed through her.
‘Have you been successful?’ he asked her tentatively.
‘I believe so. I’ve performed the charm on myself without harm, and in theory it should work - but there’s no way for me to actually know for sure if it is effective.’
At this confession, she looked somewhat disheartened. Sirius contemplated the problem quietly. They could risk going in with the charm and assuming it worked. But, it would be better tested. He knew one way they could be more certain the charm had its intended effect. But it meant taking Iris further into his confidence.
‘A dog,’ he said quietly after a minute of frustrated silence between the two. ‘Dogs can pick up scents that humans can’t. There’s a strong possibility a dog would notice the difference between a person with blood and a person without blood.’
‘Are you suggesting we go around asking dogs for their opinion on the matter?’ Iris said, rolling her eyes slightly.
‘No,’ Sirius replied patiently. ‘I’m suggesting you let me do it.’
‘What-?’
She cast him a wary look, as he stood up and - with a deep breath - transformed into his great, black dog form. Iris was stunned, even more so than Sirius had expected her to be. He watched her dart her eyes away for a moment and take a deep breath, as if composing herself. The way someone composed themselves into a lie.
‘You’re an Animagus?’ she said, her voice both impressed and surprised.
Sirius nodded, still taking keen note of her reaction. He couldn’t decide if she was acting or not.
‘Well then, come here and pick up the scent of my blood.’
Sirius walked forward on his four heavy paws and began to sniff along her skin. He had never done this before. He’d picked up scents, yes, but from personal items and pieces of clothing. But he had never purposely taken in someone’s scent straight from the source of their pulsing veins, and he felt intoxicated by the sweet perfume of her blood.
If he had been in the form of a man, he would not have been able to restrain his desire. But he was a dog, and she was a human. His nature did not compel him to do what the man in him might like to. He pulled himself away dutifully and looked at her, unflustered, face hidden by black fur.
She pulled out her wand and ran it gently over areas of exposed skin, whispering a gentle but intricate incantation. Sirius was in awe had the talent of this mysterious witch. He knew of few others that would be able to create such a complex spell. After only a few weeks of work, nonetheless.
When she was done, she looked up at him again. And he padded forward again and touched his nose to her skin and tried, once again, to inhale that glorious scent. It was not there to be taken in. All traces of it had been swept away; the heat and fire and sweetness had been replaced with something pure but cold.
He looked up at her again from his dog form and wagged his tail happily. She had been successful as far as his canine senses could tell. She smiled at him, and he thought that she seemed to shake with some powerful emotion, though he had no idea what it could be.
After a moment or two, he turned around and retreated into the bathroom to transform back into himself, and then take a dose of Polyjuice Potion to return to the form of Gaston. When returned to the form of his alias, he left the bathroom and sat down on the bed.
‘Nice trick,’ Iris said.
‘Same to you.’ Sirius replied.
‘It works, then?’ she asked.
‘Did you not understand the tail wag, then?’ he said with a wink.
Iris smiled.
Sirius felt his heart flutter.
Time was important, and every day that went by was one day closer to the end. The end of what, nobody knew. The only thing anyone was sure of was that they had to be the ones to control what the happened in the end.
Sirius and Iris knew this. And so, the next day they put the plan into action. They each left the town alone and went into the forest to change their appearances. They each did this alone, because of an agreement to keep their identities secret from one another. They had to transfigure to another identity altogether, and to do that on top of Polyjuiced forms would have been much too complicated.
Once transfigured, they met in an agreed on spot so that Iris could perform the charm on Sirius to mask the scent of his blood, and so they could enter the village together, as a couple (Iris had noted the each of the Heidrichs was paired with another romantically, suggesting it might be common for all vampires to have a companion).
They entered the town and received some curious glances from those milling about in the late evening. They acted as if this was nothing unusual for them and headed straight for the edge of the village where the Heidrichs resided.
‘Ready?’ Sirius asked quietly as they approached what was a beautiful, large home hidden in the shade of tall, dark trees.
‘Always,’ Iris replied, letting out a deep calming breath.
The knocked politely on the door. A woman answered and Sirius instantly recognised what it was the man had meant by the vampires being beautiful. He was immediately entranced by the inhuman brilliance that emanated from her features.
‘Hello,’ she said, slowly, looking at them curiously. She recognised them as her kind, clearly.
‘Good Morning,’ Sirius greeted politely. ‘Mrs Heidrich, I presume?’
The beautiful woman bowed her head with acknowledgment.
‘My name is Lonán Wallace, and this is my wife Blodwen. We have journeyed far in search of your home.’
‘Do come in,’ the woman said with genuine warmth. She gestured for them to enter and then lead them to a living room. ‘Sit down. I will call my husband to come sit with us.’
She left them alone. Sirius could see that Iris was doing her best to control her fear as he was. There was certain terror of facing the unknown that was difficult to master. He took her hand and squeezed it gently, and she smiled at him. A smile from a mouth and a face that was not the same as the one he had looked upon yesterday.
Her hair was dark and flowed freely around her face, which was softer than before. Her lips had changed, too, he’d noticed. They were not Iris’s lips, yet they looked entrancingly familiar. Though not red, as they should have been, as he wished they were. Instead, they were pale, drained of the colour of blood, as were her white, marble cheeks. Her eyes were warm, not like honey, but like gold.
Yet, she was still his Iris. And though the lips were different, the smile was the same. And though her eyes had changed, the way she looked through them had not. It did not matter what she called herself or how she disguised herself, her spirit was no different and, however masked, her blood was true, too. He knew her.
And he loved her.
She noticed the solid emotion with which he was watching her, unblinkingly, and she smiled shyly. He opened his mouth to speak, but a moment later, Mrs Heidrich entered the room again, followed by her husband.
‘Hello,’ he said with happy enthusiasm, and Sirius gave the man a bemused look. He hadn’t quite expected the vampires to be so cheerful.
‘I am always quite pleased to find more of our kind,’ Mr Heidrich said.
‘My husband passionately advocates our lifestyle,’ Mrs Heidrich explained delicately. ‘It fills him with a great joy to know that there are others out there making the same choice.’
Sirius looked at the couple, now feeling perplexed. He cast Iris a sidelong glance to see if she understood. She was smiling politely and didn’t seem confused at all, though he knew that did not necessarily mean she knew what was going on. She was a talented actress, after all.
‘To be honest, I’ve never really been of the opinion that we have a choice in the matter,’ Iris said.
‘Ah, yes,’ Mr Heidrich responded emphatically. ‘Excellent point, excellent point!’
‘There are few among us who feel the same way,’ Mrs Heidrich noted, her voice filled with a bewitching grace; Sirius felt an utter calm wash over him with every word that flowed from her pale lips.
‘You’ll have to forgive us. We are not used to the company of others of our kind, and we know very little of those that do not share our opinions concerning this lifestyle.’
‘Oh,’ Mrs Heidrich said kindly. ‘Are you both very young, then?’
Sirius was stunned momentarily. He knew what the question implied. These creatures truly were immortal.
‘Quite fresh to this world, yes,’ Iris said with a light hearted smile, and the vampires gave soft, pleasant laughs.
‘And what about the vampire who made you into what you are?’ Mr Heidrich asked with genuine curiousity.
‘He disappeared shortly after our transformation,’ Sirius said gravely. He did not wish to leave the entire burden of deception on Iris. ‘We have lived by what he taught us in the short time we were with him, and have been greatly troubled by his departure ever since.’
Iris nodded. ‘Part of the purpose in our journey is to discover others like us, but perhaps learn something of what might have happened to him. We followed rumours, local legends, things of that nature, and eventually learned of a family of vampires that fed on animals, not humans; we immediately sought to meet with you.’
‘Well, it is good that you did!’ replied Mr Heidrich in distress. His face was stretched with worry for these two young, innocent vampires, lost without someone to educate them about the world. Sirius was sure he’d never met anyone quite as animated as this man.
‘What we are most interested in,’ Iris began, her tone something like an embarrassed student asking to have for help with a Transfiguration theory that couldn’t quite comprehend, ‘are these other vampires, those who feed on humans. And how it was that you knew we were like you.’
‘Have you never fed on a human before, not even once?’ Mrs Heidrich asked with gentle astonishment.
‘Never,’ Sirius replied, with a half-smile. ‘It was not how we were raised.’
At this, Mr Heidrich alarmed the pair of humans by clapping his hands together and looking at them with excited eyes. ‘That is simply marvellous, you know. Quite impressive.’
‘Is it?’ Iris asked with utmost purity. ‘We did not realise…’
‘Yes, well,’ Mr Heidrich began to explain, ‘We knew you because of the colour of your eyes. When a vampire feeds on human blood, their eyes become a burgundy colour, not topaz as with the two of you, as with myself and my family.’
‘Ah. We never knew that,’ Iris confessed with a hint of shame. Sirius repressed a grin; she was amazing.
‘And the other vampires, those who do feed on human blood,’ Mrs Heidrich explained, her voice again filled with that gentle nature that seemed to induce a sense of calm, ‘we have no real quarrel with them. They are the same kind as us, and they do what is natural to them. It can be difficult for a vampire to resist the beauty of human blood, as I’m sure the two of you must be aware. Most of them have not considered the choice, and it would be unjust to punish them for not seeing things as we do. We should count ourselves lucky, that we are able to restrain our natural desires in a way that they cannot.’
Sirius nodded solemnly at this.
‘We are one with other vampires, even in the difference in our choices,’ the woman continued. ‘Sometimes other clans pass through and we meet with them. They respect our territory and need to remain inconspicuous and thus do not hunt anywhere in or around this village. We are all subject to the same code of secrecy, among other things.’
Sirius heard Iris draw in a tentative breath and he gave her a sideward glance. There was a slight tension in her limbs and he could see that she was steeling herself for what she was about to say.
‘We heard rumours,’ she said, then dropped her eyes downwards, ‘perhaps they’re nothing…’
‘What did they tell of?’ Mrs Heidrich inquired politely.
‘Wizards.’
Both of the vampires gave her looks of confusion. ‘Wizards?’ Mr Heidrich repeated.
‘Yes. Rumours about the existence of a society of magical people. Also subject to rules of secrecy,’ Iris continued, sounding as if the information she was giving them perplexed her just as much as it did them. ‘And about some kind of war…’
‘They say there is a dark wizard, gathering power, who might seek the alliance of vampires,’ Sirius cut in, with urgent intrigue for the Heidrichs’ thoughts on this possible truth.
‘Why,’ Mrs Heidrich said, shocked but believing, ‘I’ve never heard any such thing.’ She looked to her husband for support.
‘It’s nothing to worry about, young ones,’ Mr Heidrich said kindly. ‘Vampires will never get involved in such an affair.’
‘Not even if the benefits are great? There is talk of mass killings. Human blood, without the need for secrecy.’
‘Secrecy is a requirement for anyone who hunts humans,’ Mr Heidrich explained. ‘If human-hunting vampires desired mass killings, they’d be well able to accomplish it on their own. No, vampire society is quite stable as it is. If this magical society and their war with this dark wizard truly exists, the Volturi would have nothing to do with it, and as such, most other vampires will be intelligent enough not to involve themselves.’
‘Most?’
‘Perhaps some will go over, foolishly. Ambitious, hungry, unsatisfied vampires, most of them young, I would imagine. Though, if they do not die in their dealings with these wizards, they are likely to die at the hands of the Volturi.’ Mr Heidrich stopped and gave a reassuring smile. ‘It will have little if any affect on us, I promise you.’
He looked at his watch, and then back to Sirius and Iris. ‘I had plans to go hunting with my sons for a few days, and I should probably prepare to leave very soon.’
‘Yes, we understand,’ Iris said. ‘Do you mind, then, one more question before we depart?’
‘Not at all, not at all.’
‘How do we die?’
The question hung hauntingly in the air. Mr Heidrich’s ever expressive face became serious, as if he’d just been asked by a naïve child about something insidious. He answered in a similar fashion, too: gravely, but gently. ‘We must be torn to shreds. Only another vampire, or else a werewolf, would be strong enough to do it. You do know about werewolves?’
Sirius thought instantly of Remus and felt a sadness for his friend who he had not seen in so long. He gave a sincere ‘Yes’, and heard Iris echo him exactly.
‘Once that is done, the remains must be destroyed with fire,’ Mr Heidrich finished.
Iris nodded quietly. ‘Thank you. And thank you for indulging us in our ignorance. We are eternally grateful.’
‘It is no problem. I do hope that you find some trace of the vampire that made you - what was his name?’
‘James,’ Sirius said quietly. Iris gazed sadly at him, and he saw her swallow hard.
‘Yes, I wish you the very best in your search and all your other endeavours,’ Mr Heidrich said warmly. ‘And now, I must be going. Irina, dear, could you find out where Miro and Michael are, and tell them that we will be departing shortly?’
‘Of course, Jürgen, darling,’ she said, and she kissed his cheek. She nodded gracefully to Iris and Sirius. ‘It was the greatest pleasure meeting with you. I do hope you visit us again. Perhaps we can hunt sometime?’
‘Certainly,’ Sirius said with a nod. He reached forward and took the lady’s hand and bent to kiss it.
Instantly, he knew it was a mistake. He was suddenly aware of his own body warmth and rapid pulse. Blood pounded more quickly through his all too human hand, and he and the vampire woman stared at one another in shock.
He stood, paralysed for a moment, before quickly stepping backwards and taking hold of Iris’ wrist. She looked at him with startled puzzlement, and in another instant, they disappeared with a crack from the Heidrich home and reappeared in the forest outside the village.
‘What happened?’ Iris asked breathlessly.
‘Her hand. Her hand was so cold, and her skin… it was hard, smooth. It was like marble. And - my hand, oh --- she knew the instant I touched her. I’m sorry, I revealed us. We had to get out.’
Iris gripped his hand. ‘It’s fine, though. We found out what we needed, right? We were leaving, as it was.’
Sirius let out a deep breath and nodded in agreement, still recovering from his shock. He looked up into Iris’ face, still in her vampire disguise, and rested his gaze there. She looked back at him, and something unspoken seemed to pass between them, strangers in disguise that they were.
Sirius leaned to kiss her, but Iris pulled away. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’
‘Oh.’ Sirius said, feeling emotionally winded. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…’
‘No, no, you didn’t know. It’s just… I have a husband. And - ’
She looked at him with teary eyes. He sensed there was something she simply could not say.
‘Iris, I understand.’
‘No, no, you don’t. Not really.’ There was something tragic in her gaze, something he truly could not comprehend. He pulled her close and embraced her, his heart pounding with the pain of unfulfilled desire.
‘I remember the protocol phrase you used to identify the man you met with at the inn,’ Iris said quietly.
‘When you were spying on me, I assume?’ Sirius asked, smiling in spite of everything.
Iris laughed faintly. ‘Yes. Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.’
‘And?’
‘And, I disagree.’ She pulled away and looked up to him. She was trembling.
‘Why do you disagree?’ he asked softly.
‘Sometimes you must resist desire, because you know in your heart that there is no real choice in the matter.’
Sirius drew a shuddery breath, and looked into the eyes of his unattainable desire, feeling as though he’d known her for years, and wondering what secrets she kept. Iris lifted her hands up to his face and held them there.
‘You wouldn’t want for me to hurt him. I know that.’
The moment was charged with hundreds of emotions that moved like electricity through his veins. In an instant, he felt that he understood entirely and yet not at all. He stared at the woman in front of him, and tried to discern how it was that he could feel her words so thoroughly, while on the surface they seemed to make no sense.
‘Auf Wiedersehen, mein Lieber,’ she murmured. ‘Du bist in meinem Herzen, immer.’
Her parting words resounded in his mind, and Sirius looked upon Iris for the last time before she Disapparated with a crack that seemed to sound like a breaking heart.