Chapter Nineteen: Enemies Defied and Conquered

**Reviewer Responses**

AnimeA55Kicker: I wasn't originally intending to have that much about Holly's background when writing the last chapter. Originally, Florin was a lot grouchier and cynical about everything, and Holly's introspective moments weren't part of the chapter. A burst of inspiration led to all the backstory. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Fast Frank: Thank you for letting me know about the error. Apparently, Microsoft and Grammarly aren't as great as I thought. To everyone else, feel free to let me know when there are grammatical/spelling/general mistakes; I try to catch them all before I post but mistakes will slip through the cracks.

The Shadows Mistress: I've never played Dnd; all I really know about it are the parts that Stranger Things borrows from it, but I'll take your word for its reliance on English/well-known monsters and fantasy elements. I'm happy you find the various magical bits interesting. There's a lot more of that to come with later chapters.

Galligar: I highly doubt you'll ever read this, but your review brings up an interesting point, so I'll talk about it. Hermione's soul is not consumed by Cresswell's magic or influence or anything like that. She is still entirely herself, and entirely in control of her own soul. Cresswell's essence is bound to her physical being and magic, not to her soul. She didn't trade her soul for his muscle.

"It sucks to be a vampire." –Cedric Diggory, probably.

Enjoy.

"Another cone, Holly?"

Hermione's head withdrew itself from her book's spine. "No thank you, Mister Fortescue," she smiled as the man approached from his parlor's entrance. "Truthfully, I only bought the first so I could have an excuse to visit your patio. Not that the ice cream isn't delicious," she added. "Mozu wanted some fresh air in the sun." The snake on her shoulders didn't so much as wiggle.

"Of course," Mr. Fortescue winked as he sat down in the wrought-iron chair beside her. "What are you reading about today?"

"Some personal knowledge on dinosaurs." She held in a sigh as the fourth cone of Pumpkin Marmalade emerged onto the table. The man checked on her every hour, a cone of whatever flavor she had selected for that day in hand. She must have been through fifty ice creams of varying flavors, including strawberry and peanut butter, honeycomb cola, peppermint moor, tropical habanero, tongue-turvey (a horrid mix of banana slices, chocolate, pistachios, and marshmallows), earl grey and lavender, salted caramel blondie, butter pecan, and 'fort builder', which was the most interesting visually as the peanuts would dig through the ice cream and build forts out of the pretzel sticks and chocolate chunks therein.

Mr. Fortescue's eyebrows scrunched together. "Dinosaurs?"

"They're a muggle explanation for dragon bones. It's funny, all the muggle legends of dragons are attributed to early discoveries of dinosaur bones." Mr. Fortescue's puzzlement turned to laughter as she resigned herself to her fate and began to lick at the offered cone. "In their own special way, they've found the truth without knowing."

"In their own quirky ways," agreed Mr. Fortescue as his chuckles faded. "Muggles have been inventive in ridding themselves of magic, have they?"

"They make up for it in some areas," replied Hermione. "You should ask about coffee. I'm sure it would be a great flavor to add to your pantheon."

"Cough-ee? Sounds like an illness." Mr. Fortescue rose. "Although if my chief taste-tester thinks it worthwhile, I'll give it a whirl."

"Thanks for the ice cream," Hermione called after him. He waved his arm as he stepped back into his shop.

She opened her robe and withdrew her flask as the parlor door closed. One disgusting sip later and she was good to go for another hour. On-time as always, Mr. Fortescue.

She swatted at Cress's claw as he tried to take her cone for himself. "Hang on, will you?"

"Come onnnn. You don't even enjoy all the extra food!"

"I don't enjoy their novelty, no, but I do enjoy their help removing Polyjuice aftertaste." She said in a low voice. She winced as she took a bite of the scoop. "Here."

"You took the whole center from it," Cress whined as he lowered himself to the table level. In an instant, the entire ice cream, scoop, cone, and paper foil were eaten.

Hermione rolled her eyes as the bite in her mouth slowly dissolved, the contrasting flavors washing away the taste of overcooked cabbage. Although Holly's original expedition took place in June, she needed to return just before St. Ignatius's Day so they could finish their strigoi extermination.

Holly had explained her adventure to Europe after returning directly onto Hermione's sleeping form at four o'clock in the morning. After a startled brawl that ended with a good kick in Holly's stomach, the redhead recounted her adventure in Romania for Hermione's curiosity. Hermione didn't relish the thought of fighting against what was essentially a vampire, but Holly assured her it wouldn't be any problem.

It's not her ability to handle it that I was concerned about. Hermione swallowed the blob ice cream in her mouth. The knowledge that certain monsters from muggle lore were real was unnerving. It was one thing to know about goblins and centaurs, two races who acted like humans, who worked as accountants and a very special mounted police force, respectively. Even Cress was extremely different from how the sisters of St. Agnes portrayed them to be. He was articulate and well-mannered on occasion (if incredibly self-centered and childish most other times).

It was another idea entirely to know vampires behaved exactly like vampires. Or at least, a percentage of them did.

Hermione returned to the book Holly had brought back with her. After leaving Romania, her friend chose to visit Turin and wormed her way into La Bibliotheca dei Demoni, the largest collection of demonic texts in Western Europe. Incredibly, Holly managed to pilfer a tome on the basics of demons for her. Even though the tome wasn't entirely accurate (Cress often read over her shoulder and pointed out mistakes) it was a thoughtful gift, one Hermione intended to pay back.

Unfortunately, that return would have to wait. Tom's attempts to restore her items from Dobby's attack mostly failed. Anything that incinerated, along with the trunk itself, was ruined. Her withdraw from this year's Hogwarts fund provided the same amount it gave the previous year, fifty galleons, and although she managed to snag a less-worn trunk from Cranville Quincy's, her replacement books and clothes left her with little pocket change for a present purchase.

Not to mention the amount needed for this year's slew of textbooks. Her book list for her second year was absurd, with seven books by a monster hunter named Gilderoy Lockhart, along with the Standard Book of Spells, grade two. The new DADA teacher must be a fan.

Holly will offer to buy the new books for me once she's back. Hermione stared at the page in front of her, adrift in her thoughts again. Too bad she won't. My eidetic memory will be enough; I only need to read her copies to pass. Her list of debts to Holly had already grown too long, with the separate rooms from last year and the two summers of free meals. It wasn't going to grow anymore. The redhead gave enough as it was.

At least her wand hadn't needed replacement. Ollivander's assessment essentially amounted to "I can use Grim tendon in future wands without it combusting". His enthusiasm for his breakthrough did not reach Hermione; she was rather put out that her wand could have combusted in her hand in the first place.

"Holly?" she ignored the initial call, used to the stares and confirmations of who she was by now. "Holly!" Her mind clicked at the second utterance.

She turned to her left to see that the one calling her was Daphne Greengrass.

Daphne forced herself to keep still, her feet planted to the floor and her neck and eyes aimlessly focused on an umbrella stand. Draco stood to her right, fiddling with the objects on the mantlepiece.

He straightened as the fireplace flared to life in green flames. Lucius stepped through; his brow low in a scowl. "Dobby!"

The elf appeared in an instant. The little creature was the least liked and worst treated of the elves in the Malfoy's household. His only cover, a musty, stained pillowcase, was the worst cleaned of all the elves' clothes, and Daphne suspected he was fed the least. On two occasions Astoria tried to slip him food, but as she was not a Malfoy, she was unable to call him and pass him any.

"Fetch the locked chest from my office. Drop it, and you will be forced to drink the spilled concoctions." Lucius ordered. Dobby bowed and vanished with a crack.

Lucius rubbed his temple. "Draco, Daphne. Why are you beside the fireplace?"

"We were going to purchase my broom today, Father," Draco said. "Did that protection bill end up passing today?" I'll need to ask Hannah about that. Surely, he doesn't mean the Muggle Protection Act the Weasley was scrounging support for last year.

"What do you think?" Lucius replied. Draco looked at the floor. "Daphne. Why are you here?"

"I have been meaning to visit Flourish and Blotts for some time, Mr. Malfoy. I was hoping to find a tome on runes, and I knew of your planned visit with Draco."

Lucius signaled for her to stop talking. She kept her face blank as her fist tightened.

"We can always go later in the week, Father," Draco suggested.

Before Lucius could speak, Dobby reappeared. A small wooden box, blackened with varnish, was clutched in his hands. Daphne refused to give it more than a glance. Curiosity was a frequent trap from her younger years.

Lucius took the box from Dobby's hands. "Inform my wife that Daphne and Draco will be accompanying me to Diagon."

"Yes sir," Dobby bowed and vanished.

Lucius eyed the pair of them. "We are visiting Borgin and Burkes before we reach Diagon. While we are in the shop. Do not. Touch. Anything." He warned.

"Yes, Father," Draco replied. Daphne settled for a nod.

Lucius threw a smatter of powder into the flames, the box under his arm. He stepped fearlessly into the green fire, "Borgin and Burkes" echoed on his tongue as he disappeared.

"Ladies first." Draco grinned as he held out the container.

"Shouldn't you be the one going then?" Daphne smirked at his affronted look as she tossed the powder and strode forward. "Borgin and Burkes."

She ignored the vertigo as she strode past flue after flue, her eyes trained on the path ahead. In less than five seconds she was through the flames, just able to see Lucius's arm extended for her.

"Thank you," she took his arm and took care to step over the grate as the ash on her clothing flaked away to return to the flue. She stepped aside and froze at the sight of a jar of five brown skulls suspended in liquid, their jaws absent. Next to the skulls lay a glittering opal necklace, the tag reading 'CAUTION – DO NOT TOUCH – CURSED – Has claimed the lives of nineteen muggles to date'.

The flames flickered behind her, their height casting shadows about the store as Draco came through, a pleased look on his face.

"Ah, Mister Malfoy," a seedy man emerged from the backroom to stand at the counter. "I thought I heard the floo. Anything from the back today?"

"Unfortunately, I'm here to sell, Borgin." Lucius smiled politely. "With the new muggle bill passing today, I found it prudent to remove various embarrassments from my manor."

"Wizard blood is counting for less everywhere," said Borgin as he opened the box. "Nothing I need to avoid touching in here, is there?"

Daphne tuned the duo out as she examined the store's inventory. Draco was busy scrutinizing a withered hand at rest on a cushion. Blobs of wax decorated the hand's wrist and palm, and the pinky finger itself was completely coated.

She stepped around a glass case that contained a bloodstained bridal veil (which turned and watched her pass) and examined a jumble of what looked like mummified ape hands hanging over a cabinet the size of a refrigerator. One of the cabinet doors was open, with what looked like a shrunken elephant fetus on the second shelf from the top. The tag by the preserved corpse read 'useful to dream up an imaginative solution'.

In the front window of the store lay several objects whose tags Daphne could not read, but the objects themselves were more delicate in their sensibilities than the deep stock. The spread provided an air more akin to a secondhand shop than a black market.

She shrunk back as a massive man stepped past, his beard and moleskin coat identifying him as the school's game warden.

"What do you suppose that fat oaf's doing down here?" Draco asked as he craned his neck around her. "Selling items pilfered from Hogwarts, you think?"

"I'd wager he's a trader for the giant clans." Draco chuckled, a satisfied smirk on his face. He moved back toward the counter to study his father's debate skills.

Daphne rolled her eyes. She felt no guilt over her statements. After the uproar from her heroics at the end of term, she desperately needed to pocket one member of the Malfoy family. Even if it was the slippery ponce.

"Come along," Lucius's voice called to her. She arched her head over her shoulder and followed Lucius and Draco out the door.

She kept a submissive pace behind the blonds as they reached the fork that bled into Diagon. The noise of the crowd grew at their approach, and she had to stop moving to adjust her eyes to the light. Gazing at the mass of shoppers, she caught a flash of red hair across the street.

Lucius observed the shuffles of the crowd with disinterest. "I trust you have no desire to tailgate us during our purchase."

"Not really," she tilted her chin low and blinked her eyes. "Would you prefer for me to meet you after my transaction is complete?"

"We will join you," Lucius decided. He strode into the street, his presence capturing a berth as wide as Hagrid's. Draco followed in his wake.

Daphne relaxed her shoulders and cracked her neck as she crossed the Alley toward Fortescue's. How Narcissa manages to spend her life poised at every moment is beyond me.

"Holly? Holly!" The redhead looked up at the second utterance of her name.

"Daphne?"

She glanced up and down the street and vaulted over the patio fence. "Hey. How's summer been?" The badger asked. She threw a glare at the teenagers staring at her, their shared knickerbocker glory forgotten at her sudden athleticism. They started and returned their attention to their dessert, right as their shared spoon dripped onto the girl's outfit.

Daphne snickered and focused her attention on Holly. "Fine," her friend replied, flashing an impeccable smile. "How has yours been?"

"Not too bad," she arched her neck to confirm the Malfoys had not checked for her among the throng. The last thing she needed was to be seen with their mortal enemy. "Were you able to purchase a burner?"

"Yes," Holly replied. "You don't need to lie, you know."

"What?"

"Your summer." Holly closed her book and tucked it into her schoolbag. "Did the Malfoys overreact about your involvement in the defense of the Philosopher's Stone?"

Daphne's lips parted in a minute 'o' at her words. She stared at Holly as her face froze into a mask of neutrality. Holly stared back.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of. Hermione and I figured you'd catch some hell from them and their high standards." Holly pulled out her wand as she pulled a napkin free from the dispenser on the table. "Fluxus Atramento."

Daphne took in a silent breath as Holly wrote letters onto the paper. The wind blew cool against her neck and scattered the pile of napkins the couple used to clean at the girl's top. The napkin in front of her didn't so much as ruffle.

"So," Holly stowed her wand and looked Daphne in the eyes as she flipped the napkin around. Daphne broke contact to read the message. Her exhale shook.

"Not Holly. Hermione. Polyjuice."

Her eyes rose from the paper to look at 'Holly'. The redhead's face bore an intense gaze. "How do you really feel?"

Daphne stared at Hermione. Goddamnit. She fooled me. Goddamnit.

"Am I truly so easily read?" she asked.

Hermione ignored her. Her wand flicked out and she directed it at the napkin. A mumbled curse spit a small flame at the paper. In seconds, it was ash.

Daphne watched the dust vanish in the breeze. "I would rather focus on other things."

"Such as?" Hermione asked.

"Runes." Daphne inclined her head towards the entrance of Flourish and Blotts. "Books about runes."

Hermione shrugged. "After you."

Daphne led the way back out to the street, through Fortescue's storefront. Her mind circled Hermione's words, her breathing in line with her footsteps. Focus on other things.

"Am I going to get a hello?" a voice rasped from above them. Daphne paused to look at the blank space above Hermione's head.

"Hello Cresswell," she looked down and her eye caught at Hermione's shoulders. "Hello, Mozu."

The snake did not move in the slightest. Cresswell grumbled about 'mortals without respect'.

"Where is Holly at?" Hermione shrugged as they crossed the alley. The shade of the buildings forced Daphne to involuntarily shiver.

"In a different place," Hermione replied. "I'll make sure she tells you once she is back."

Daphne glared at her. Holly's mask did not flinch.

Flourish and Blotts was as disorganized as it was the previous year. Bookcases adorned the walls in a wallpaper of warm red, green, blue, brown, and grey spines. Several books were left to hover in conic spirals haphazardly arranged around the rows. A bored clerk sat on a metal chair that looked incredibly uncomfortable, and a stairwell led up to a first-floor landing with more bookshelves and plush chairs. A wizard camera stood in front of a table in the very back of the ground floor's area, with piles of books stacked beside it. Daphne vaguely recognized the man sat in a mustard-yellow chair as Lenny, the photographer who took photos of her and the Malfoys when the story of her return first broke.

In addition to the books, the store's foyer was full to burst with magicians. Even with all the hustle from last year, Daphne had never seen the bookshop this packed. Everyone must be trying to grab their schoolbooks at once.

"Here for the Gilderoy Lockhart book signing? It's about to start, so please come back later if you are here for..." The clerk's eyes looked them over before his eyes popped open, fixated on Hermione's face. He scrambled to attention, and the chair shifted forward with his weight to jostle him against the counter. "Holly Potter!"

Daphne scoffed at his change in demeanor and glanced at Hermione to see she was in full 'Holly Potter' mode, complete with a slouch, rolled up sleeves, and a cocky grin on her face. "We're just browsing for now. Though, we don't want to take up space for when Lockhart arrives…"

"Of course, of course!" The clerk said, nodding enthusiastically. "Take all the time you would like!"

'Holly' grinned at him and pulled Daphne past the counter and to the right of the front door. "What area did you want to look at again?"

"Runes."

"Any particular titles?"

"Are people always like that with her?" Daphne questioned as she bent down to examine the tomes on the shelf. A flash of anger, a single matchstick, flickered within her. "She flashes a grin; they remember she's the Girl-Who-Lived and they swoon?"

Hermione tilted her head to the right. "Oftentimes, yes."

Must be nice to be handed everything. Daphne craned her neck and scanned the titles and authors. Anything to free her mind from the track it was on.

She chose one with the title The Art of Inscription as a male voice sounded behind her. "What are you doing here?"

Daphne glanced upward. To her left was the horrified face of Ronald Weasley staring down at her. To her right, Hermione had dropped her 'Holly' persona. Her back stood ramrod straight, her hands were arranged in a feigned nonchalance, her muscles prepared to react.

"Ronald," Daphne said as she rose from the bottom shelf. She faced Hermione, mouthed 'Holly, remember', and turned back to the ginger Gryffindor.

"It's Ron," he said, his jaw set. "What are you doing out here with Holly, Greengrass?"

"Well, Weasley," she smirked at his wince. If you don't want to play first names, that's fine with me. The bonfire in her lessened now that she had a target. "If you must know, Holly and I are…"

"Yes?!" Ron gestured with his hands as she threw her head back.

"Shopping." The corner of her mouth turned up at Ron's frustration with her actions. "Why are you in here, Weasley? Purchasing your set of Lockhart's books too?"

Weasley blinked. "Yea… yeah." He admitted. A rationale to throw him off balance. It's almost too easy. "But still! Someone like her shouldn't be hanging out with a… with you."

Daphne smiled, only a hint of her teeth visible. "And what do you mean by that? It seems you've forgotten which House I am in at Hogwarts. Strange, given how much of a splash I made at the Leaving Feast." She recognized the sound of applause from the wizards around her. Perfect. Another bait should do it. "I have to wonder if all Gryffindor's are so slow-witted they instinctively believe anyone that isn't Gryffindor to be a Slytherin."

Weasley's ears were now the same color as his robe's Gryffindor emblem. "I meant Holly Potter shouldn't be running around with a Malfoy!" He snapped. "Who knows what kind of twisted path you might lead her on?!"

Daphne's teeth glittered in the imposing silence. Weasley's brain seemed to switch on. He turned to witness the baleful glare of his mother near the front of the line, and the dreadful quiet that was louder than the previous applause.

"Holly Potter?" Demanded the man of the hour. Gilderoy Lockhart rose and strode around the table, the crowd parting to permit access to his fellow celebrity. "As we live and breathe!" He exclaimed, his wavy poof of hair trembling as he seized 'Holly' around her shoulders, dragging her to the front of the queue to a smatter of applause.

Lockhart situated Holly beside him and straightened his disgustingly innocent-blue robes as 'Holly' slipped her right hand into her pocket, a sheepish grin on her face. Lockhart took Hermione's left hand and shook it as Lenny's camera went off in a puff of purple smoke.

As Lockhart began babbling about "the extraordinary moment" Daphne felt a hand fall onto her shoulder. She straightened and turned to see Lucius. "Your purchase?" Lucius inquired.

"I still need to pay for it," she gestured to the back of the foyer. "A show has the store a little preoccupied." Her heart laughed at the image of Weasley being taken to task by his parents as the camera flashed.

Lucius's lip curled in distaste as Lockhart continued. "I have great pleasure and pride in announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"

Daphne snorted as the assemblage began to cheer. "He is going to be a professor?"

"Another inane idea of Dumbledore's, no doubt," Lucius grumbled. "See that you make it out of here in five—" His sentence trailed away as the Weasley family bustled through the throng. Mrs. Weasley was still digging into Ronald, with Mr. Weasley and the twins behind them.

Last in line was a young girl with long red hair, who, as she passed, turned to glare at Daphne. Her lack of visual communication with her feet saw the bagged stack of secondhand books in her arms brush against a witch waiting in line to see Lockhart; whose indignant "HEY!" caused the young girl to overcorrect, speed up, and plow straight into Lucius's side with some force.

Lucius fell against the countertop as the girl fell to the ground, her books tumbling from her paper bag to scatter along the floor. "Father!" Draco said as he moved forward, rounding on the girl as she began to cry.

"Button it," Daphne whispered into his ear as she set to gather the books, slipping them into the girl's bag.

"What have you done to my daughter, Malfoy!?" Mr. Weasley shouted as he emerged through the doorframe. "Move aside, my daughter is hurt!"

"Calm yourself, Weasley." Lucius retorted as the crowd surged up the stairwell to make room. "Your daughter tripped and ran me into the countertop, there's no severe harm." His eyes shone with malice as one of the twins helped his sister to her feet.

"Here," Lucius picked the last two books from the ground and dropped them into the girl's bag. "No harm was done," he presented a tight-lipped smile, not dissimilar from the one he used with Borgin.

"Sorry," Ginny sputtered as Mr. Weasley ushered her out the door. The three redheads joined the others and began a swift walk up the Alley towards the Leaky Cauldron.

Lucius straightened his robes as Daphne stepped up to the counter. "Thanks for all the help with that," 'Holly' said as she slipped into the line after her, a stack of Lockhart's books with her. "It was nice of you to shove me to the gossip hounds."

"Better you than me," Daphne said as the clerk rang up her total. She ignored the steely frown Lucius was giving her and the surprised expression on Draco's face. She coughed. "Holly, this is my benefactor, Lucius Malfoy. Mister Malfoy, this is my schoolmate, Holly Potter."

She counted out the galleons, ignoring the troubled look on the clerk's face as 'Holly' spoke. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance Lord Malfoy. I cannot wait for the day we will be trading messages in the Wizengamot to further our strong nation."

As the whispers from the other wizards in the queue grew, Daphne had to snap her fingers to reclaim the clerk's attention. He nodded and slid the tome to her, his eyes playing ping-pong with the magicians by her sides.

She chanced a look at the Malfoys. Draco's mouth hung open, while his father's face conveyed an equal amount of shock without the embarrassing performance as a human flycatcher. "The same to you, Lady Potter." He turned to her with upturned eyelids. "Daphne, Draco. Follow me."

Mercifully, 'Holly' didn't speak again as the trio left the bookshop.

They walked in silence towards Twilfitt and Tattings. My placation of the Weasley's should balance out with me being friendly with a halfblood. Her heart thudded against her ribcage. Shouldn't it?

The silence lingered. Daphne leaned toward Draco.

"So, what kind of broom did you decide on?"

Holly hummed the lyrics of Made of Stone as she slid off Ioana's back. The parking lot for Poenari Citadel was empty of customers, the tours temporarily shut down for renovations. Her eyes rose to search for the murky blotch of battlement against the night sky. "You think he's out hunting?"

"It ought to have returned home by now," Florin said as he double-checked the ingredients inside of Ioana's saddlebags. "It would not do it good to stray far on the eve of easy death."

Holly bit her lip. Florin's tomes on strigoi provided an extensive process for their elimination. Capture it. Remove the heart, carve it in two, and soak it in the fat of a pig killed on St. Ignatius's Day. Suture the heart back together with iron needles, return it to the strigoi's chest, and bury the corpse face down to send it to a permanent afterlife. Alexandra was disgusted by their nonchalance and ran from the trailer to vomit in peace. She rejected the offer to attend their mission and instead chose to remain with Florin's RV.

Holly was surprised Florin had allowed her to stay with him, but her lack of magical knowledge, fragmented memories, and half-vampiric qualities left her without any real options. Her last name was still a mystery, her only memories those she made under the domination of the strigoi. She only thought her name was Alexandra from the strigoi's address of her, and fear of the unknown caused her to curl into a ball and refuse interaction.

Florin's examinations from the past month revealed that although her scent and mind were human, her body was far from it. The tiny blip of magic that flourished within muggles could barely sustain her vampiric alterations, leaving her sluggish and sickly if she was not kept close to a wizard's magical core. Florin theorized that blood could prevent her deterioration, but Alexandra refused to drink it. Without a home in either world, she was stuck with Florin until a better solution could be arranged.

Holly squinted at the large catwalk leading up to the crumbling ruins. "Stairmaster 5000," She grumbled.

"Whistle once you are at the foot of the stairs and send the missive," Florin instructed as he pulled the whistle from his neck and passed it to her. She slipped it on as he pulled a parchment from his pocket. "Cast a loud spell once he's routed and I will move into the battlement."

Holly slipped the missive it into her pants as he apparated to the castle's ravine without a sound. She gave the structure a final look and started up the path.

Frogs croaked as she crept along the path to the ruins. The citadel that once towered over the mountain was now a scrap of its former glory. A solitary battlement loomed over what must have been an outer wall, the rest of the castle lost to time.

She glanced at her watch. Quarter till midnight.

She quickened her pace, the Ranft stones in her leg clacking with every stride. She winced at the sound as Made of Stone's chorus looped inside her head.

Five minutes later her whistle sounded. It bounced on her chest as she exhaled and released the missive. The letter took flight, soaring up to the citadel. Her eyes trained on it as she started up the stairs.

Her bangles rotated as her mouth uttered the spell she needed. "Homenum revelio."

A black pulse spawned from her person. It fluttered over the ground, fleeing her like a ripple from a drop of water, and scaled the castle's outer edge. A red line pierced the battlement to return to her. Exactly where we thought he would be.

Her bangles glowed with light as she made her way up the scaffolding, the pace of the river gentle in the night air.

The rush of the river grew her ears as she neared the top. She gagged.

The smell of death overpowered the sound of the river. Corpses, both animal and human, littered the cramped hallway. A few bodies hung on chains thrown over the wall. Some were pale, their bodies intact, with pale flesh and yellow eyes. Others were emancipated from their limbs and torsos. A pile of what looked like kidneys rotted in a corner; the back half of what may have been a deer lay against the wall. Blood soaked the walkway, the tang of iron nearly palpable.

Holly tried her best not to breathe in as she stepped through the passageway. Her legs brushed against pieces of the dead, and she shuddered as she broke from the wall's shadow.

She took the shortcut that bypassed the length of the ruin and walked to the battlement. Candles lit the doorway, with the inner battlement lit similarly. In the dim light, she could make out a wooden table covered in gore and the strigoi.

"You are a Solomonari?" The strigoi asked as she stepped through the doorway. "Surely you are too young?" He laughed as he crumpled the missive in his hand and cast it aside.

"The standards of a dying organization tend to lower." She replied as he examined her. "I must ask you to desist your reckless course of action. The Statute of Secrecy must be upheld, and if you are unwilling to abide by the wizarding programs in place for your kind, we will have no choice but to dispose of you."

"Ha! Too bad I cannot recognize your authority. Your secret world of magic can fuck itself."

The strigoi flashed a wide smile. "There is no world I know but this. Why should I submit when the world prevented my death?"

"You are a muggle?"

The strigoi shrugged. "I was a normal citizen. Nice parents. Six brothers. I put a gun in my mouth, blew off my head, and found myself awake. I clawed from my grave to discover power I never possessed before." He threw his hands wide, his nails glinting in the candlelight. "If you are here to avenge the man with the stick, I cannot fault your actions. But I will not relinquish my new leash so easily!" It grinned at her; its mouth unhinged.

Holly cast a shield charm as a magnified scream burst from the strigoi's throat. Organs and flesh landed on the floor and on her shield with wet, splattering sounds.

The table lifted to fly at her as she backed under the archway. Her shield dropped and she raised her left arm, her bangles swirling admiral blue. "Reducto."

The table splintered in half, each chunk diverting toward the battlement walls. The strigoi had leaped toward her, its maw stretching for another screech…

"Aceasta în gura strigoiului!" A Ranft stone flew from her leg bag. It widened in midair and flattened over the strigoi's mouth, forming a muzzle in the shape of two isosceles triangles.

She blasted herself backward as the strigoi lost his focus and crashed to the ground. She turned and ran, intent on taking the longer path, her heartbeat racing in her ears.

A glance over her shoulder revealed a great gray owl bearing down on her, its beak twisted in bloodlust and feathers saturated in blood. The talons extended, glittering in the light from the battlement, closing in as her bangles flashed with multicolored light. "Parva pompa."

The strigoi shrieked as an explosion of firecrackers exploded from Holly's arm. Her teeth ground at the sharp stings exploding down her arm as her sleeve incinerated. She seized the bird by the leg and pulled. It gave an indignant screech as she bashed the owl into the ground, stepping through the shortcut as it twittered in a daze.

"Lumos." The gore tunnel lit up as she raced down it, hyper-focused on her balance. A slosh sent fluid spilling over her boot as she stepped on what may have been a liver, squashing it in her hurry to the staircase.

A glance over her shoulder revealed the strigoi was upright again. Another scream pierced her ears, the pain hard enough to make her teeth rattle as she reached the causeway. A bolt of cognition told her to turn and leap to the river, but she steadied her course as another Ranft stone silenced the excruciating volume.

Blood trickled from her earlobes as she leapt forward, blasting curses promoting her height over the crumbling entranceway. Holly stared at the darkened valley, the rush of inertia in her air as she looked out over the forest.

Her mind dropped to the present and she steadied her landing, her feet connecting with the level platform. She kept up her momentum, racing to the next flight, holding her glance until she was clear of the edge.

Her head turned to see the great grey behind her. She pivoted, her lightning curse releasing and missing as the strigoi turned at the last moment. Its weight shifted and it spun around the curse, the pullback forcing it to circle in the air. Holly turned to face the rapidly approaching concrete.

She landed harder than she intended to, her ankle yelping. The poor angle sent an ache up her leg, but Holly ignored it to keep running as a weight crashed into her from behind. Gotcha.

Her bangles whirled and she apparated back to the battlement interior. As they fell, she twisted, pressing her weight against the strigoi's back. He slammed to the floor, just shy of the room's center. Holly rolled away.

Florin's stave stuck the ground. "Activate."

Bricks on the walls shone with a dull grey aura. They launched themselves from their placements like bullets, clinking as they coalesced into a slick liquid over the strigoi's skin. Holly fired off another Ranft stone as he tried to scream, the muzzle snapping around his jaws as the transfiguration reeled the strigoi into a kneel, his shoulders thrown back, with only his head free of the caulking. His eyes promised suffering as he struggled to thrash in his bonds.

Florin poked his staff at the strigoi's chest region. The caulking fell away, and Holly heard the slip of his blade. "Hold on," she said.

Florin halted. "He said he was a muggle before he died," Holly hesitated. "Do you think we could try to purify him first?"

As Florin opened his mouth to answer the caulking cracked open. Returned to an owl, the strigoi's talons grasped the left arm of his cast. Florin swore.

The Ranft stone landed on the ground as the arm shattered away with a crackling noise like broken papier mâché. Shifting into human form, the strigoi hurled the arm at Holly. The weight threw her into the wall, her head nearly connecting with it, her legs scratched by the shards of the table. Her cushioning charm helped precious little, her mind still in a daze as she watched a jet of green miss its target and clip the edge of the battement's bricks.

She blinked and turned to see Florin pinned to the floor, the strigoi's neck moving low.

It froze. Then it began to laugh.

"A crucifix will not save you, old man," the strigoi jeered. "Even if I cannot drink from your blood, I will butcher you alive and swallow your organs!"

"Florin!" Holly screamed as brown nails plunged into Florin's chest. Blood welled to his shirt, staining it red. The strigoi licked its lips and pushed in harder.

"Incendio!" The strigoi turned to her and leapt backward from Florin as her pillar of fire incinerated where its head had been seconds prior.

"Nebulus!" A sea of fog washed from the sweep of her arm. It filled the room, creating a dense swirl that she rushed through, the spell still emanating from her bangles.

"By scent, then!" The strigoi's voice sounded. With another cast, a fifth Ranft stone cut through the air. She followed the stone, transfiguring the remains of his cast into two massive shapes on her arms.

She pulled her shoulders and arms back, ripping the fog away to see the stone latch onto the strigoi's lips. It started; eyes wide to see her arms closing in around it.

Skruncth.

Blood seeped through her rock fists as the body stiffened. The headless cadaver fell to join its victims on the floor, no longer able to possess cognitive thought. Holly dropped the transfiguration on the bricks, their solitary forms hardening from the mass as she closed off her magic and limped to her mentor's side. "Florin?"

"Call Ioana," he coughed. "Whistle twice." She nodded and stepped onto the deck of the ruins, the small glint of metal on her lips.

As Ioana landed she heard shuffling behind her. Holly whirled around to see Florin stagger out of the tower, his hand pressed over his wound. "Will you do the ritual?" he panted.

Always the mission first. "Yes," she said as she unloaded the bags from Ioana as Florin dug into his medicine satchel. Ioana whined.

"I know, I know…" he said to her as she returned to the strigoi's corpse.

She summoned Florin's knife from the cobblestones and dug into the monster's chest, her anger and fear driving the blade. She hacked apart his breastbone, tearing at its chest as its blood spattered her face and t-shirt.

With terrible care, she severed the organ's arteries and pulled it into the light. The heart had not beaten since she laid eyes on it. I doubt it ever did.

She laid the heart on the dust and gore-caked floor and lined up the knife. A sharp depression and the organ split in two.

Holly tossed Florin's knife aside and pulled the largest bag closer. A clean knife emerged from the side pocket of the satchel. From the main pocket came a piglet, frozen in stasis from the bag's inner depth.

Her watch read twelve fourteen.

The piglet squealed as she butchered it. Her mind did not revel in her actions as it had when taking it apart. The piglet was only a piglet.

The fat of the beast removed, she turned over the second bag. A paintbrush and a plastic bowl thocked on the ground.

She squeezed the fat in her palm. The spongy tissue refused to pop as its nectar dripped into the bowl. She stirred aimlessly with the paintbrush as the bowl flourished. She did not stop until more than enough grease had accumulated. Her fingers glistened.

Holly wiped her hand on her ruined shirt and picked up one side of the strigoi's heart. The paintbrush bristles rose to tickle it, coat it, stain it with piglet fat along her incision. The opposite side received symmetrical treatment.

In the third bag lay the most crucial piece. Six iron needles, each as thick as a dandelion stalk, were levitated from the satchel's confines to lay in line on the bag's clasp. Each one slipped from the right side of the heart, through the left's inner wall and out the front. Three in the front, three in the back, until the heart was sutured back to one.

Gingerly, Holly lay the heart inside the hole she wrenched it from. She rose to her feet and mumbled "Mobilicorpus".

The body bobbed in the air like a pull-toy as she made the journey down the long, long stairwell. She levitated it to the ground by the tree line and ignored the numbness growing in her arms "Moventur lutum".

A skin of dirt pulled itself from the ground. The dirt rose into the air in a single, uneven block and burst as it hit the firm earth beside it. The strigoi fluttered as she dragged the corpse to its final resting place.

She levitated it in, its arms dangling like garlands, its face to the Earth's core. The dirt ripped from the ground fell over him, sealing the dead with no hint a hole ever existed. The soil smoothed over, the original skim of grass still in place.

She apparated to Ioana's side and saw the materials were already collected. The bricks Florin had enchanted to flow at their will were restored. A bandage covered Florin's wound. His arm extended to offer a bottle of potion.

"What are we going to do about the bodies?" She asked and knocked the potion back. Pepper-Up.

"Leave them. Let the families have some peace of mind. Even if a killer is never captured, a body to bury lets people move forward."

She mounted Ioana, the ache of tiresome energy rejuvenating her core. Ioana brayed and galloped forward, taking flight into the midnight sky.

An hour later Holly sat on the roof of the RV. Her shower rinsed the blood and filth from her body, though the smell of the muck was still in her nose. She had left her ruined shirt on the bathroom floor.

Her clean clothes clung to her in the morning air. Tears slipped over her eyelid and down her cheek as that moment played itself in her mind again and again.

"Holly?" Florin called from the doorway.

"M' up here," she called back. Her voice was lost in her low tone.

Florin grunted as he pulled himself onto the roof. His footsteps thrummed on the metal as he walked to her side. He inhaled.

How can I face him after this?

"I'm sorry," he said. The words were like a blow to her stomach.

"I should have given you role of the enchanter rather than the bait. I shouldn't have asked you to help take actions you oppose." Her tears fell harder. "I should not have put that weight on your shoulders, and I'm sorry I didn't try to save—"

"That isn't it," she rushed out. Florin stopped talking. "I put you in danger." The strigoi's fangs flashed as it bent down. "My hesitation almost led to your death. All because I'm too stupid to see the black and white." Her throat was clogged. She took in a shuddering gasp. "I could've killed you."

She scrambled into his arms, clinging to his neck, adrift in her tears. "You could have died! And all because of me!" Her face buried into his shoulder, her body shaking from that fear, the fear of losing her father.

Florin didn't provide an answer. He held his daughter in his arms as she needed him to, warm and silent and strong as Made of Stone swam within his daughter's mind.

Sometimes I, fantasize

When the streets are cold and lonely

And the cars they burn below me

Don't these times, fill your eyes

When the streets are cold and lonely

And the cars they burn below me

Are you all alone?

Is anybody home?

Made of Stone is a rock song created by the band The Stone Roses, a British rock band that I recently discovered and highly recommend.

Boredguy's Grimoire:

Aceasta în gura strigoiului: Into the mouth of the strigoi, Romanian form of a German spell. Magics Ranft stones (which must be prepared beforehand through a ritual) to fly and adhere themselves over the mouths of a strigoi within fifteen meters of the caster. The stone serves as a muzzle to prevent the mouth from opening. It stops working after the strigoi transforms into an animal and are one use only.

Parva Pompa: Small fireworks; fires off multicolored, localized fireworks from the caster's wand. The fireworks are no larger than an orange.

Movetur Lutum: Move dirt; removes dirt from an area designed around the caster's intentions. It can also transport dirt from place to place.