Harry Potter and the Bucket List

Year 2 - 1

Beta: Cloudy

(≖‿‿≖)ノ⌒●~*

The first weekend of my summer I snuck out to Lunar's Orchid to meet with the vampire.

Fenrir set it up for me. I had introduced myself to Fenrir in person first specifically so he could be with me when I met the vampire. I had no way of knowing how the vampire would treat me and I wanted someone I could trust beside me. Fenrir was dear to me and I had faith in him.

In Lunar's Orchid I owned a decently sized building. It had a privacy fence and a lot more security wards than the other homes, but that was because I intended it to be used as my laboratory. I needed it to be secure for the kind of tests I had planned out. Only Fenrir, Kreacher, and Sil could access it after the security was put into place.

I didn't have a good mind for decorating so I hired a witch who took care of it for me. She seemed to go with a night/plant themed witchy aesthetic that I oddly liked very much.

At eleven o'clock at night Fenrir guided the vampire into the backyard of that home, where I waited.

Under the waning moon, I sat on a stone bench in my black rose, black iris, and black hellebore garden. I had a fair few stone fountains around the area so it was calming to listen to the sound of running water. I wanted it to be relaxing—a place for me to step out and catch my breath in between research times.

Iris was at her full length—thirty feet long, and three feet in diameter—as she stretched out in the garden. She still had more growing left to do, but it was nice to see how big she was already getting. She lifted her head and flicked her tongue in the air when Fenrir and the vampire Anyo approached.

Anyo was maybe five foot seven inches. At a glance, he—she?—did not appear to be something as dangerous as a vampire. They were lithe, light on their feet as they moved closer to me. He—she??—wore a loose white blouse and tight black leather pants with knee-high black boots to go with. They had a pristine white porcelain mask over their face so I couldn't see anything apart from silvery eyes gleaming underneath. Their white hair was feathery soft hair and gleamed under the moonlight.

As soon as Anyo reached me I couldn't help but blurt out, "Do I call you they, he, or she? I'm sorry, if that offended you."

"Any," Anyo said, which did not help me decide. Everything about them was androgynous. Their figure could have been that of a pretty boy, or a boyish girl. Even their voice was too velvety soft to make me figure it out.

Anyo seemed amused by my mental struggle because they laughed and said, "Due to the patriarchal society of the European Wizarding world, perhaps he would be best."

"Okay, thank you," I sighed with relief. Fenrir's face screwed up at that. He shuffled closer to me so he could stand behind me while Anyo took a seat on the stone bench next to me.

Anyo cocked his head at me. "You're not quite what I imagined."

"You're so much prettier than I imagined," I sighed.

"You can't see my face?"

"In my head you're even prettier."

He laughed, the sound sweet and melodic.

Anyo shifted his weight to turn to me. "Fenrir mentioned you want to... perfect the lycanthrope curse?"

"Mm-hmm. I don't suppose you've already studied it?"

"Vampire magic is very different from what a witch can do," he answered. My eyes widened as he said that. The books I had read had very little information on what vampires could do. He must have noticed my interest because I felt him smile at me behind the mask. "Vampire magic is more illusionary. We do not affect the world around us like witches."