Harry, Draco and Ron: Vampire Hunters

He finished weeding the garden and got up, stretching his aching back. There were two bad sides to this job, and two good: the bad were that he had to sit on his knees for a long time, weeding or replanting or repotting something, and the fact that it was awfully hot this year, the good ones were that he got a bit of a tan this way and his hands got a bit of muscle build-up, which meant he wouldn't be looking like a totally physically undeveloped boy. But the latter was not of large importance for he was a wizard, not a bodybuilder.

Getting up, he gathered all the gardening tools and carried them to the house. The evening went on rather uneventful (he already got used to his aunt Petunia complaining about how bad the results of his work were, but he knew that even if she would stand with a whip over him he could not do better) and he finally got to go to his room.

As the darkness fell onto the town of Little Whinging, Surrey, the only unwelcome inhabitant of the house on Privet Drive, 4, started doing his Potions homework. It was not much hard, somehow Harry got used to all the quirks and tricks of his Potions professor, Severus Snape, trying to make the tasks more difficult. He had to do his homework at night since his aunt and uncle would not be very happy to find out WHAT Harry was doing. Their idea of education obviously did not include studying poisons that left you only fifteen minutes to identify them and whip up an antidote for yourself before they killed you. Harry stopped scribbling every once in a while to listen if any of the Dursleys woke up from the noise his quill made and if his owl, Hedwig, arrived with any mail. On the third time he checked, he heard some scraping on the window.

It, indeed, was Hedwig, a snowy-white female, along with three other owls - the minute owl of his friend Ron Weasley, named Pigwidgeon, and two owls Harry did not recognize. One of them, he thought, was a Hogwarts owl, as it carried the unmistakable envelope signed in emerald-green ink. The third owl carried Hermione's letter.

Harry started with the letter Hedwig brought. It turned out to be a letter from Harry's godfather, Sirius Black. Sirius was on the run since he was wanted for escape from Azkaban, the wizarding prison, where he was supposed to be incarcerated for murder of twelve Muggles along with a wizard by the name of Peter Pettigrew. This was not the truth, however, as Pettigrew, being a Death Eater (a supporter and follower of Lord Voldemort), faked his own death and was the one who REALLY killed those Muggles.

"Dear Harry!" it started,

"Your last letter had me worried; something must be amiss if your scar hurts in your sleep again. I'm currently staying over at Moony's - Harry smiled, for "Moony" was the school-time nickname Remus Lupin, a friend of Sirius' and Harry's father, James, had - and he's sending his best wishes to you about your birthday. Write if anything out of ordinary happens, and I do mean ANYTHING!

I hope the enclosed present will be enough to compensate for my absence.

Have a nice birthday, Harry!

Padfoot and Moony."

The enclosed package Hedwig was also carrying, contained a set of stylish and, as far as Harry was concerned, super-cool Quidditch gear - nothing very expensive, but more advanced than the one he used at school - a set of protective gear, fingerless gloves and the thing Harry found himself needing more and more lately - a rubber band to prevent his glasses from falling off at tough times. Even though wizarding medicine was quite advanced to heal any wound Harry might receive while playing, it could not fix his sight, so Harry depended on his glasses as a life-important item (as they, indeed, were a life important item for anyone who had a need in them, especially if you were sitting on a broom on a large height with other broom-riders and magical balls zooming all over the place, trying to knock you off).

The letter Pig (as Ron called his owl whenever he was annoyed with the minute owl's enthusiasm, which acted as if it was constantly overcaffeinated) carried Harry opened next.

"Hi there, Harry! Hope this gets to you in time! Happy birthday, mate!

Are you Muggles annoying you much? I've been bugging mum and dad to let you stay over at our house for the rest of the summer, but they're still resisting. I hope they won't get on you very much. Ginny included a bit from herself, so I bear no responsibility for it! It's written on the back.

Wishing you were here,

Ron."

Harry turned the letter over and read the other side.

"Dear Harry! It's Ginny Weasley, and I want to wish you a very happy birthday!

Ron says those Muggles you live with are horrible, is it true? I hope Pigwidgeon won't lose the present I'm sending you! Mine is in the lesser box.

Happy Birthday!

Ginny."

Harry grinned. Ginny had somewhat of a crush on Harry since her first year (it was Harry's second), but chilled off a bit on it by now. He separated the happily hooting minute Pig from the two small boxes he carried and opened the larger one. Inside was a flashlight, at least it looked like an ordinary one. The note inside the box said

"Dad and I fixed this for you. It works as a usual Muggle flashlight, but it no more needs those bat-terrys Dad collects, so you can use the space for them for something else.

Ron."

Harry opened the battery cover on the flashlight and, to his surprise, found out that it, indeed, was empty. He flicked the switch as the flashlight turned on, creating a ray of light much like his wand produced with the Lumos spell. As a moment's inspiration, Harry reached into his secret stash under the loose floorboard and pulled his wand out, finding out, to his delight, that his wand could be concealed within the flashlight's battery pack without any problems. He hid his wand in the stash again and, after closing the battery cover on the flashlight, did the same thing with it. The smaller box contained a most interesting thing - a ring with a stone that was, unmistakeably, of the same colour as Harry's eyes. "Ginny. Go figure." Harry thought.

He then proceeded to open the other letters. Hermione's read:

"Happy Birthday, Harry!

I have had a most interesting summer here in Bulgaria. Is it me or Ron's got something bad associated with Viktor's attitude towards me? He is acting like his usual stubborn self - saying bad things about "hanging around with Durmstrang students" and as if he had wanted to restrict my freedom of movement to being around him. Can you speak to him about it, please, Harry?

Anyway, I am sending you something rather interesting I found while on vacation here, hope you like it.

Hugs and kisses,

Hermione."

Harry grinned once again as he opened Hermione's pack. It, once again, was a book, though this time it sounded like something remotely interesting - "History of Dark Magic in Eastern Europe" was its name, the letters written in some kind of eerie manner. Making a mental note to read it sometime later on, Harry moved to the Hogwarts letters. The first one was an official letter from professor McGonagall, deputy headmistress and Head of Gryffindor House, and it contained the standard list of books he would need this year, along with an extra note informing him of the fact that he was made a prefect for Gryffindor. The latter was the reason for Harry to feel some kind of an extra burden of responsibility to come down onto his shoulders - in addition to Quidditch, saving his life from Voldemort and just surviving Divination and Potions lessons he now had a responsibility to watch out for rule-breakers, which was all fine with him until he remembered that one of the things he inherited from his father was a thirst for rule-breaking.

"Oh, well, I think it was time to drop Divination anyway," he told himself. He grabbed a stack of parchments, intending to write answers right now.

"Dear Padfoot and Moony!

Thank you very much for the gear, it awesome! How's life of my favourite wolf and dog? Oh, and, by the way, how's Buckbeak?

Thanks again,

Harry."

That letter he sent off with Hedwig this instant, she nipped his finger as a good-bye and flew off.

"Hey Ron! Thanks for the flashlight; the battery recess is just the right size to fit my wand! I don't envy Filch's fate now!

It's a bit depressing, of course, that I can't leave, the Muggles make me work in the garden daily, and that is getting on me very much. Though there is a good side to it - a bit of a workout is never bad.

Harry."

He folded that one and took another piece of parchment.

"Ginny, thank you for the ring, the colour of the stone is just like that of my eyes! Is there any hidden meaning to this?

Thanks again,

Harry."

He then took both parchments, tied them to Pig's leg and the minute owl took off, hooting happily.

Another parchment, this time the last.

"Dear Professor McGonagall!

I've just received your letter, and I have to say that I am deeply honoured to be selected to be this year's prefect. However, I must refuse to accept this, as I think that adding being a prefect to my current state as a Quidditch player AND the person most wanted to be dead among all of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's enemies would leave me with no space to be doing homework.

I would also like to exchange my Divination lessons for Arithmancy, if that is possible.

Yours truly,

Harry Potter."

Two more loads off of his chest, Harry tied this parchment to the Hogwarts' owl and it set off as well. Harry watched it fly off into the night and then turned back to his presents. After hiding the flashlight, his Potions work and Ginny's ring under the loose floorboard, Harry opened Hermione's book to see what it had to say. He was, however, wrought from his reading rather rudely as one more owl arrived, which came as a surprise to Harry, as he expected no one else to write him.

His heart started pounding a bit more fast than usual as he looked at the return address. He got a letter from Cho Chang! She was a Ravenclaw, in the year above his, a very pretty girl that played the same position on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team as Harry did on the Gryffindor team - Seeker.

"Dear Harry, I hope my letter does not put you into much shock - "Right she is!" Harry thought - but I thought that I should write you.

Whatever you might be thinking, I'm not blaming you for Cedric's death, I mean, it's hard, but I don't think you're responsible. That, and also a "Happy Birthday!" was all I wanted to say.

Yours truly,

Cho Chang."

Harry could not help but grin once again. The girl he liked said she didn't think he was responsible for her boyfriend's death (as that what Cedric was to her before... well, before his death at the Third Task), though Harry himself was yet unsure of the answer to the question - Was he responsible or not? It was HIS idea to take the cup together, and if he wouldn't've... Well, it would have meant that if only one of them took it, then the one to do it would have died, and now, since they took it together, Cedric was dead and Harry here, reading a letter from Cedric's girlfriend that she did not blame Harry for it. It certainly was another load off of his chest.

And that wasn't all, she also knew his birthday, and sent him a letter about it! He thought that if he'd run across a Dementor now, he would be able to produce the world's best Patronus! He grabbed his quill and parchment again, sitting down to write an answer.

"Dear Cho!

Thank you very much for your letter, it's good to know that you don't hold a grudge against me or something. I just want you to know - I'm extremely grateful to you for your letter.

Thanks a lot!

Harry."

He tied his reply to the owl's leg and it set off at once to deliver it, as The Boy Who Was The Happiest Boy On Earth fell into his bed and drifted off into a deep sleep...

Little did he know of the horrible things that were about to occur...

*****

"I am here my Lord," the hooded figure said as it approached the man it came to meet in this graveyard, "I have received your letter."

"Very well, Reilak," the man replied. His face was not quite human - scarlet eyes, a nose as flat as a snake's with nostrils like slits - it was him, Lord Voldemort himself, "What is your answer then?" he asked in a manner of a person who needed not to hurry, but should his underlings be too slow, the punishment would be brutal.

"There is only one question, my Lord..." the man under the hood said.

"And that is?" Voldemort asked.

"Why do you need that boy, Harry Potter?"

"He is my blood enemy, but since this June, my blood brother as well..."

"Ah, I did not know you were into our trade, my Lord..." the man said with a tone of appreciation in his voice.

"I am not into your trade, vampire! His blood was used as an ingredient in the potion and the ritual to give me back a body. Which I lost, because of him, fourteen years ago."

"Ah, revenge it is then... A fine and almost noble cause, and surely for so much blood one boy's life is a thing we can get you easily," Reilak said after a bit of a thought, "Consider this a done deal."

"So be it." Voldemort said.

*****

A/N Hope you don't judge this one too hard!

It's supposed to be rather dark a bit later on... Be warned.

P.S. This is the corrected and updated version.