Title: Bloodletting
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R
Length: 964 words
Content notes: Severus Snape/a vampire, implied dubcon, non-explicit vampirism
Author notes: There are a bunch at the end, but this is meant as crackfic, and therefore should be taken lightly. ^///^;
Summary: Don't talk to strange men in Knockturn Alley.




      He didn't remember exactly how he had come to be sprawled across a bed in what appeared to be a very shabby motel room. Moaning at the effort, Severus Snape tried to sit up, but it felt like a sort of terrible lethargy had crept into every limb. He could turn his head, though, and immediately wished he hadn't. There was a still-vivid splatter of blood near his head, and its position suggested that it had come from him. How badly was he hurt? What on earth had happened?

     Fighting down panic, Severus searched his memory for what happened. He'd come to London to do a bit of shopping in Diagon Alley, and had taken a side trip down Knockturn Alley. He'd gone into the usual shops, looking for books on the Dark Arts for his personal collection, picking up some of the less pleasant potions ingredients that the standard apothecaries refused to keep in stock. He'd been coming out of the Knockturn apothecary's shop when he had nearly run into a tall, handsome man, and it was here that things began to become hazy. They had talked, the strange man showing a surprisingly deep knowledge of Dark Arts, and had gone to have a drink.

     Things faded to gray, and the next thing he remembered was waking in this shabby room. He struggled to sit again, and managed to make it as far as being propped on his elbows. He was shocked to see that he was naked, and more shocked that he didn't seem to be aware of how warm or cool the room might be. He wasn't alone, either. There was a cheerful sort of singing coming from the bathroom, a deep, sonorous male voice that made his spine tingle in the most delicious way. It wasn't just his spine that tingled, either. Apparently, whoever this handsome fellow was, he had done something that Severus had greatly enjoyed.

     "Ah, are you awake in there, darling?" the deep voice asked with an amused note in the tone. He came out of the bathroom, his dark hair hanging in thick tendrils to his hips. His wide mouth was very red against his pale skin, and his eyes were a deep shade of black. He paused to look down at Severus. "My beauty, surely you are in need of more...recovery?" Severus stared, deeply distraught. No one had ever called him a beauty before, but that wasn't the source of his dismay. The fact that the cracked and dingy mirror reflected nothing back but a dim shadow of the stranger's broad back and muscular legs, that was what disturbed him. The stranger followed Severus's stare, then laughed.

     "I knew you were clever, my darling Severus, but this is remarkable. I don't think anyone has ever caught on quite this quickly." The stranger stretched out on the bed next to Severus, nuzzling his neck affectionately. "You told me that you didn't care what I was, that you needed me, and you wanted me."

     "I meant it," Severus mumbled thickly. "My god, did you turn me?" The thought didn't terrify him as much as it might have first thing that morning. "Did you make me a vampire?" He really wished that the stranger's hand wasn't tracing down his belly in such an arousing fashion. "Am I your thrall now?"

     "Not if you don't want to be, my beauty." The stranger looked a bit crestfallen. "It has been a long, lonely lifetime for Vlad, though, and I have never met such a keen mind and fierce spirit in one body before." A smirk played at the corners of his mouth. "Such an appealing body, too, I might add."

     Vlad. Yes, that was his name. Memory started creeping back. Severus had eagerly begged to be taken, to be loved, to be wanted. He had apparently miscalculated the price he would pay. He let Vlad kiss him, tasted blood and sex and pure desire on those vivid red lips. He broke away from the embrace, searching those dark eyes.

     "What do you want from me? Aside from the obvious, I mean." Oh, how he was eager to get back to the obvious. Vlad gave him a funny little smile.

     "Aside from the obvious, and your companionship, for I do find you engaging, I have a task for you. A serious task, and one in which I needed your full cooperation. I didn't want to turn you, you know." Vlad looked very serious suddenly. "You have skills both in Potion-making and in the Dark Arts. What I need from you is both simple and monumental. You're going to find a treatment for vampirism, both for your own sake and mine, so that we may take our rightful place alongside wizardkind. For too long, we've been forced into the shadows. With a good magical treatment, to provide nourishment and to curb our desire for fresh blood, we can be accepted into mainstream magical society."

     "I can't teach if I'm a vampire!" Severus protested. "The threat to the students is incalculable!"

     "Nonsense," Vlad said calmly. "Your Albus Dumbledore, he is a very kind, very wise, and very cunning man. Go to him, explain your case, and I am sure he will be more than glad to let you stay on in your position. I would think that this would drive you to develop a treatment more quickly. And it will help the vampire cause greatly if we have someone to show as a poster child for vampire integration into wizarding society."

     "I could say no," Severus muttered, trying to sound more disagreeable than he felt. Vlad's hand was continuing to explore his body in the most electrifying way.

     "You could," Vlad agreed, "but you won't. Very few people say no to Lord Dracula."


Author's notes: Oh wow, where to begin? The jumping-off point was the song Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) by Concrete Blonde. The first verse with its line of "There's a crack in the mirror and a bloodstain on the bed..." stuck. It dragged up to the front of my mind a very early Harry Potter fan theory that Snape was a vampire, spurred on perhaps by JK Rowling's initial plans to have a vampire teaching at Hogwarts. Dracula is still the best vampire in my book, so he got to come along too.