As dawn approached over Hogwarts Castle, the night sky gradually faded. The starlight dimmed, and a sliver of sunlight quietly pierced through the clouds, casting its first weak glow on the dense, ancient trees of the Forbidden Forest.
However, the Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts was not as peaceful as it seemed on the surface; deep within, the atmosphere was extremely tense, like a drawn bowstring.
'Hagrid, lower your head and look at your friend! Look at Ronan's suffering!' Bane stared intently at Hagrid's stubble-covered face, his voice a stern, questioning growl. 'Do you still think such a cruel being is just a harmless Hogwarts professor?'
Hagrid hesitated for a moment, but then his loyalty solidified. He remembered that Dracula was the one trusted by Dumbledore—one of their own—while the centaurs, for all their wisdom, were ultimately outsiders. His gaze hardened as he prepared to defend the vampire.
He argued passionately with Bane but struggled with his clumsy tongue. His neck flushed a deep red as he failed to out-argue the stubborn centaur. In the end, he helplessly gave up trying to communicate with words, rolled up his sleeves, and prepared to fight Bane with his bare hands.
Just then, the centaur encirclement silently parted, creating a path.
'Enough, Bane!'
A centaur with exceptionally outstanding features walked through the passage, his voice gentle yet suppressed with a simmering anger. His hair was a shimmering platinum blonde, and from the waist down, he had the powerful body of a silver-maned horse.
'Why did you come, Firenze?' Bane looked at the newcomer, his voice filled with confusion.
'We were the ones who struck first, Bane. If we are not skilled enough, there is no need to stubbornly persist,' the platinum-haired centaur named Firenze said, not answering Bane's question but cutting directly to the heart of the matter. 'War is coming, and we cannot impose crimes that do not belong to others just because of long-standing prejudices. That will only benefit our true enemies!'
'Do you know what you are saying, Firenze?' Bane said angrily, his voice rising. 'Remember, Firenze, we swore an oath—never to defy what is foretold in the stars! Do you think I have not seen the omens revealed by the planetary movements?'
Hearing this, Ronan, still lying on the ground, glanced fearfully at Dracula, his face becoming uneasy as he pawed nervously at the snow-covered ground with his hooves.
As if Bane's words had triggered something, Firenze's face instantly darkened. He reared up angrily on his hind legs, his own hooves flashing in the dim light.
'Did you not see the unicorn?' he changed his previous gentle tone, roaring at Bane. 'Do you not understand why it was killed? Now I truly suspect you are too foolish to see the secrets revealed in the planetary trajectories!'
'I must resist the evil that lurks in our forest, Bane. Yes, if necessary, I will stand with any group that can be allied!'
After speaking, Firenze ignored the fuming Bane and walked straight towards Dracula, who was still calmly standing in the centre of the centaur encirclement.
'Professor, please spare Ronan this time. I will personally guarantee your safe departure from the Forbidden Forest.' He gave Dracula a slight, respectful bow, then looked thoughtfully into Dracula's eyes.
'Firenze, you had better know what you are doing!' Bane, seeing this scene, continued to warn sternly. 'What does that matter have to do with us? The centaurs have always been neutral, concerned only with the prophecies of the stars! We do not need to ally with evil creatures just to go against the enemies of wizards, violating the sacred principles of our tribe!'
However, Firenze was too lazy to pay any more attention to him. He only stared straight into Dracula's wine-red pupils with his startlingly blue eyes, which were like pale, luminous sapphires.
Looking at the unusual centaur before him, Dracula chuckled softly.
'I did not expect that in this stubborn old tribe, there would be an interesting centaur like you.' He glanced around at the tense centaurs, chuckling as he said to Firenze, 'For your sake, let us leave it at that for today. Of course, if there is a next time, I will not show any mercy.'
As he said the last sentence, Dracula's tone became extremely cold, a chill that had nothing to do with the winter air.
Bane angrily opened his mouth, wanting to retort with a few more scolding, mocking words, but he suddenly noticed a small, sharp-toothed bat flapping its wings near his ear. It flew silently towards the sky above the Forbidden Forest.
He sensed an extremely dark and dangerous aura from the bat's tiny teeth, but had previously been completely unaware of its presence.
As the first tiny bat flew away, the sound of flapping wings became incessant. Countless smiling bats flew towards the Forbidden Forest sky, faintly revealing a sliver of the dawning sunlight. They dissolved into clouds of fine powder under the sun, disappearing without a trace.
Bane noticed that each bat had flown out from near a centaur's ear. Not a single centaur was left out; each had a corresponding bat… He looked at the bats' sharp, gleaming teeth, felt their dark aura, and was startled. He subconsciously looked with questioning eyes at Ronan, who was still lying on the ground.
Ronan, with a solemn expression, simply shook his head at him.
Bane raised his hand, stopping the centaur tribe's desire to pursue. He watched as Firenze led Dracula and Hagrid away, their figures disappearing into the shadows obscured by the trees in the distance.
'Ronan, did you stop me from acting rashly just now because you recognised those evil bats?' Bane stared at the receding backs of a centaur, a vampire, and a half-giant. The moment their figures disappeared, he quickly walked to Ronan's side, bending down to ask.
'Yes. If my judgment is correct, those small bats are the same kind that the vampire lord used on our two chieftains over a hundred years ago,' Ronan said with difficulty, his voice raspy. 'If Firenze had not appeared, he would have turned all of us centaurs into vampires.'
At the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Dracula bid farewell to Firenze and Hagrid, opened a parasol, and strolled through the Hogwarts grounds under the faint spring sunlight.
It was Wednesday, and he had a class in the afternoon: Defence Against the Dark Arts for first-year Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students.
When Dracula arrived at the classroom, the first-year students had all arrived, sitting upright and neatly offering their full attention to their Defence Against the Dark Arts professor.
Dracula nodded in satisfaction. He picked up the lesson plan and textbook that Quirrell had diligently prepared from the lectern. He rarely followed the teaching schedule, but today he turned to the position that should be taught in this particular class.
At this moment, Harry, sitting below the stage, suddenly raised his hand.
'Mr Potter?' Dracula looked at him with some confusion.
'Professor, Hagrid told us at noon today that some animal corpses with drained blood have appeared in the Forbidden Forest and warned us to stay away,' Harry said, his voice earnest. 'Hermione said that this kind of death can only be done by vampires. We want to know if there are really vampires in the Forbidden Forest.'
Hearing Harry's question, the corner of Dracula's mouth twitched. He really had not expected that the "tight-lipped" Hagrid could not even last half a day before directly telling Harry and the three little wizards about the situation in the Forbidden Forest. Of course, Hagrid's intention was likely good; he did not want the three less-than-honest young wizards to get close to the dangerous Forbidden Forest, so he had revealed some of the situation, hoping they would be afraid.
But what he had not considered was that perhaps this level of danger would not stop the Gryffindor spirit among the three from wanting to investigate further. It was even more likely that it would only serve to arouse their curiosity.
In addition, the innocent vampires were once again being blamed. Count Dracula was not satisfied with this—very dissatisfied, in fact.
So he motioned for Harry to sit down and once again disrupted the teaching plan. He threw Quirrell's lesson plan aside and then flipped the Dark Arts: Self-Defence Guide on the lectern to a position near the very end.
'Since Mr Potter has mentioned vampires, then today we will talk about our knowledge of vampires,' he said to the young wizards below. 'Turn your textbooks to the second-to-last chapter.'
The students below were already accustomed to Dracula's unconventional teaching methods and quickly opened their books. A rustling sound of flipping pages echoed in the classroom.
'Before starting the lecture, can any student who has previewed this lesson tell me how the wizarding world defines vampires?'
Since Dracula himself had never read this lesson's textbook, he temporarily came up with a good idea to quickly understand the content of the book. He turned his gaze to the messy-haired little witch in the first row.
Hermione, as expected, did not disappoint Dracula's expectations. Having already previewed the content of this chapter more than once, she quickly raised her hand.
'Vampires are dark creatures that feed on the blood of living beings. They fear sunlight and cannot go out during the day, so they often roam and hunt at night, piercing the throats of their victims with their fangs in an extremely evil manner…'
Dracula was originally listening with interest to the wizard who had compiled the textbook's view of vampires, but as he listened, he felt more and more that something was wrong. His face gradually darkened. He quickly browsed through the textbook, seeing the words printed above—
Vampires are dark magical humanoid creatures, known for biting humans' necks and sucking blood. They and zombies both belong to the category of undead creatures, with strong infectivity and high danger…
Dracula exhaled slowly, suppressing his rising irritation. 'The definition is very good. Gryffindor gets one point,' he interrupted Hermione's incessant recitation, his voice flat and perfunctory.
Hermione was in the middle of reciting enthusiastically and was a little disappointed after being interrupted. And this time, the extra point seemed too stingy; she felt as if she were a beggar being sent away. However, Dracula's usual deterrence made her dare not refute, so she could only pout and sit back on her stool.
'Okay, everyone close your textbooks now,' Dracula said suddenly after a moment of silence.
Hearing this instruction, the students, who had just opened their books, all raised their heads in astonishment.
***********
✨ 300 gems = 1 bonus chapter
✨ 500 gems = another bonus chapter
Get access to advanced chapters at my P@treon.
[email protected]/meowthtl