One day seemingly going as usual, Luca woke up in the arms of Catherine, both wearing fluffy two-piece yellow pajamas covered with Batman emblems. He then struggled to free himself of her clutches, and went to wash up and dress, the vampire still in bed. He fed Razor sleeping in a cage some prepared blood, left the bedroom, and went to eat milk and eggs to have strength to hit the sandbag in the basement with Pablo.
Practice under someone with hundreds years of experience and capable of intuitively catching every flaw of his posture, every misplaced muscle preventing the boy from concentrating his strength to the maximum, felt rewarding each session. Time flew, and at noon, the basement suddenly shook, horrible noises of things breaking reaching the pair from upstairs.
“Earthquake?” asked panting Luca.
“No. Stay here.” frowning Pablo unsheathed his sword and turned into a grey monster, heading to check the disturbance. Luca stood at the door looking curiously towards the staircase.
“Reducto!” in time for Luca to hear such shout, another sound of breaking followed from above, the dimly lit by everlasting magical candles staircase brightened with a ray of sunshine. Pablo changed his face, now trapped alone, he didn’t have the authority to open the emergency escape or the vault hiding items useful in such a situation. Blanco family never thought someone could attack them unnoticed and the two most important members absent, escape route was prepared more because their previous castle back in Spain had one, and Isabel loved to read ‘The Count of Monte Christo’, so she had contractors build a secret room and ‘spy passages’ into some walls to feel the thrill of peeping.
“Clear! Clear! Clear!” could be heard one after another said in different, male and female voices coming from upstairs. Pablo frozen on the spot, couldn’t think of a way to break the game for a while, so he decided to entertain guests peacefully, he reverted back to human and awaited them smiling suavely in the middle of the corridor.
“Gather before going down, teams three and four stand by.” powerful male baritone could be heard clearly, its owner most likely standing at the top of the stairs.
“Cast barrier, three, two, one, protego maxima!” a choir of voices and a flash of white light illuminated the basement. Anticipation was killing Luca, now sure that attackers were wizards like him, he got his hopes up for possible freedom if they decide to help him. Soon, the boy could see a half-transparent white film wrapped around a group of people pointing wands in the same elbow bend 90 degrees position descending down the stairs, one step at a time, led by an imposing, burly, black-haired man, his arm of the hand not wielding the wand clearly made out of metal all the way to fingertips, yet he could apparently move it just fine. Crowded together and uniformed in black robes embellished only by a golden circle surrounding a blue eagle spreading its wings over their left and right breasts, its torso and head imitating the United States flag, inscribed on the outer rim with capitalized ‘MAGICAL CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’, they exuded an aura of a professional military unit.
“Good morning friends, I think…” smiling Pablo started talking, rudely interrupted by a red beam coming from the leading man’s wand, which he managed to dodge by a hair’s width. Barrier collapsed as the leader decided there is no immediate danger, trained wizards knew what to do.
“Stupefy!” wizards with a clear visual of the target moved their wands to shoot a barrage of spells toward Pablo, who reluctantly managed to yank his enchanted sword out to deflect the beams into the walls.
“Hey, we can talk about it, no need for violence!” shouted Pablo jumping hurriedly into a storage room.
“No need to waste saliva on a vampire, confringo!” the leading man sneered, his spell blowing up the door along with a chunk of the wall above and besides it. An Asian man on his left and a black woman on his right started blasting the walls according to their positions, purpose to make the interior of the room open. Luca’s head curiously peeking to see the action, returned frightened inside the training room. Pablo firmed his mind to resist, his fate if caught likely not enviable. He took a breath and turned gray sticking to the wall partitioning this room from the others. Wall in the direction of the corridor reduced to rubble, wizard group had to move closer to attack him, his only chance to even touch them. They spread having moved down from the rather narrow stairs, prompted by a signal of the metal hand of the leading man.
“Dimitri, patronus.” he grinned maliciously, not inexperienced enough to pursue rashly. Maybe there were accomplices or a trap inside.
“Expecto patronum!” one of his subordinates conjured a big Ussuri bear from his wand and sent it in, Pablo enveloped by the bear’s aura felt uncomfortable at first, in pain after a minute of wizards patiently waiting around the corner. He decided this is not a way to go, bent over, and stepped heavily on one foot to gather energy for a desperate jump. Sadly, as he flew over with a sword in both hands heroically above his head, all ten of the wizards managed to hit him all over the body, grey monstrosity slamming its head on the floor between two wizards.
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“Zuri stays, rest barrier, and forward.” calm command reorganized the team ready to search the basement. Luca chose this moment to come out with his hands up and yell,
“I’m a wizard, I’m a wizard too! Help, they made me a bloodslave!” in a bit of fear being pointed by ten wands after witnessing their power equal to a grenade at least as Luca estimated with his little knowledge, he stood on the spot.
“Luca Granger?” still alert the leading man asked.
“Ye-yes, that’s me, S-sir.” bit his tongue in surprise Luca, not expecting his name to be known.
“Any vampires left here, what do you know about the area? Come closer.” man lowered his wand and pointed the metal fingers beside Zuri.
“No, this is Blanco family, two high vampire women should come back at night is all that I met besides a hired human chef and gardeners. How can you know my name?” Luca talked as he walked with his hands still up, the team relaxed their vigilance waiting in formation for the next orders.
“You are the reason we are here, breach of Rappaport’s Law. Your father spread in bars that his son turned out to be a demon, Obliviators had to remove memories of a couple dozen no-maj alcoholics he managed to convince as the story spread. Those reject enforcers then couldn’t find you after the kidnapping so Auror Bureau had to pick it up. Long story short, here we are to bring you into the wizarding world and exterminate some vermin, rennervate.” he said impatiently, busy transforming pieces of stone littering the corridor into a chair, then tying unconscious Pablo tightly with a rope taken out from his pocket, he chanted a spell upon which Pablo’s eyes opened.
“Wait, I can die any moment, look! Please, can you unseal this?” Luca remembered that his life beholden to the whim of Catherine could end if he left her captivity, he freaked out instead of being happy that they came to take him away. He opened his buttoned shirt with force, buttons flying, the attention of everyone gathered on his chiseled body in perfect proportion denied to be utterly immaculate by three rings surrounding his heart.
“Blood magic, but I don’t know the exact ritual. Can’t remove rashly, I have to take you to hospital.” Zuri stepped in as the designed field medic of their team, she bent down and looked intently at the tattoo. Luca got a good sight of her black hair gathered on a side bun hanging over her neck on the left side and soft, middle-aged features of her face.
“Okay, then you are in charge of that brat now. Take him to Iverstead and explain things, dismissed. Now you trash, know what is in this bottle?” the man decided, smiling with a murderous intent in his eyes directed towards Pablo as he took out a vial of a transparent liquid and shook it, the only letter from the label Luca could read being V.
“Yes, Captain Arthur.” Zuri took Luca’s hand and pulled just as his eyes locked with Pablo’s. The vampire smiled wryly having just learned about Catherine’s seal now, he nodded goodbye to Luca. Complicated emotions hidden behind both pairs of eyes, ruby-red and black, Luca nodded back and left.
“So where do you sleep, you should have some clothes? Watch out to not cut your feet.” Zuri asked after they emerged, broken shards of glass painted black stuck everywhere, impaling the walls, floors, and ceilings. Besides that, daylight shining upon this den did make it more cheerful looking, at least Luca for a long time hated the half-dark house filled with rustic or morbid decorations. Still in silence, he took the lead to his room.
“Don’t worry, Captain will kill those vampires before they activate your seal. It dissipates safely.” she encouraged the boy.
“Mhm.” Luca hummed to acknowledge her words, stepping into his bedroom shared with Cathrine, first thing that caught his eye was the corpse of Razor, its head cut off by a piece of glass.
“What ugly creature, vampires like it? Unbelievable.” Zuri commented wrinkling her nose in disgust at seeing insect-like yellowish pool of blood dripping from the nightstand. Petrified at the entrance Luca flashed a series of pictures of him playing with Razor, admittedly most of them the Chupacabra tried to bite a piece of his flesh off, yet still, he had to rub his eyes that involuntarily filled with tears to see clearly what to pack.
“Take the books, they are just what is needed for Ilvermony’s curriculum.” she helped him by casting a temporary stretching charm on the suitcase taken from the dressing room and folding the clothes he had thrown inside to keep it neat and efficiently use space. All ready, the boy stood there in a daze, this time reminiscing about Catherine, and sometimes Isabel also coming for a sleepover hugging him like a bodypillow through the last half a year, talking about new fashion, laughing off the disgusting oily German food they ate from a street vendor, and encouraging him to read about magic more and don’t give up, as they heard that wizards are admitted to school at age 11, casting spells before might be impossible as they assumed.
“Hold the suitcase and grab my arm tight.” Zuri told Luca, he did it and she waved her wand. Luca felt Zuri's arm twist away from him and redoubled his grip, the next thing he knew everything went black, he was pressed very hard from all directions, he could not breathe, there were iron bands tightening around his chest, his eyeballs were being forced back into his head, his eardrums were being pushed deeper into his skull, and then a new landscape appeared before his eyes as he vomited his breakfast on his shoes.