Title - "Bloodwitch"

Deep under the surface of the Earth, in the darkest bowels of London, was a sanctuary like none other. It was unassuming, at first glance. A genuine time capsule of various eras over the last thousand years. A museum, or perhaps a mausoleum.

On one side of the large spanning room was an ancient clock, one of the finest made in Italy during the 1700’s. It ticked softly, but unobtrusively, keeping perfect time. Nearby was a sleek modern couch, made of leather with several unassuming throw pillows on it. And next to that, was a display stand holding a set of ancient Mayan ceremonial garb. Three different time periods, three different lives, and that was just a small cross-section of what was in the room.

Throughout the room, as large as it was, there was one distinct absence, and that was of anything remotely electronic. There was no television, no radio, no electric lights. Nor was there any modern kitchen appliances. Someone might actually mistake the room for a museum, for how varied the various sections of it were.

There was no natural light source in the room, just an ambient magical glow, and it was deathly quiet and still, save for the gentle beating of the clock. Yet there was a bed, a massive, sprawling bed, luxurious appointed with the finest egyptian silks. There was an occupant as well. Black of hair and generous of chest, she was quite beautiful. Often, she had been called the most beautiful witch of her generation, but that was not her lasting legacy. Hers was of tragedy.

She was covered with a silk sheet, and there was a nightmask over her eyes. But, she was not moving. She did not breathe, did not twitch in her sleep. One might mistake her as a prop, little more than a piece of furniture in an abandoned room, covered with a sheet to keep the dust off. That was not far from the truth.

In a flash, the figure was sitting upright in her bed. It was like a switch going from on to off. As soon as the sun dipped below the horizon, she was alive.

Sparing only a fraction of a second to glance at the click, which said twelve past nine, she stood in front of her mirror. Made of pure gold, it was nearly as old as she was, dating back a millenia. Magic had kept it in the pristine condition that it was in As was tradition, she always inspected her body for damage. She slept with a light blanket as well as a face mask, to keep the dust off her while she slept. She did not sweat, and her skin lacked the natural oils of living flesh. Dust was an inconvenient irritant that magic could not completely eradicate.

Taking in her own image, a small smile crossed her face, her fangs extending slightly. Her hands traced down from her collar bone, stopping at her large, pale breasts, tipped with ghostly pink nipples, before continuing down between her legs. In life, she had been considered the most beautiful witch in all the land. And in death, she’d only become more exquisite.

Turning away from the mirror, the black-haired witch entered the room of cleansing. There was a ritual circle, used to purify her mind, and a swimming-pool sized bath, to purify her body. As for her soul… that was a lost cause.

Once her daily ritual was done, she checked her itenary for the day. She was an eternal slave to the grind. The major issue is that during the summer, her active period was just around eight hours. Not nearly enough, but there was little she could do about it, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Her itenary said there was a midnight benefit ball being hosted for the Wiltshire Company.

She’d have to dress appropriately.

She walked over to her gigantic wardrobe closet in one smooth motion. She had hundreds of robes for every occasion, dozens of muggle outfits, including some nearly as old as she was. The Wiltshire Company manufactured parchment and produced the textbooks used at Hogwarts, and would be raising tuition funds for the less fortunate. It was a cause near and dear to her unbeating heart.

While most would think she had too many options, she was the opinion that she could never have too much. Even with having as many options as she did, picking out the correct one was easy. It was a formal event, it was a charity fundraiser, she was going alone, but she was not looking to get lucky. There was just not enough time in the night to waste it on frivolities.

She chose a little blue dress that showed off more or her pale legs than her cleavage, but still enough to draw eyes. There were a multitude of accessories to go with it as well, the most pertinent being one of her pieces of headgear.

In the back of her wardrobe, there was a dozen of them. Each finely made and carefully enchanted over a period of years, even decades, they were beautiful, and powerful. There was the Diadem of Defense casually hanging from a wooden peg, a large golden ring of power that could protect her in combat. Underneath it sitting on a purple velvet cushion was the Coronet of Cursing. It embodied all of her extensive knowledge of curses, allowing the wearer to access spells they had no training in. Similarly was the crown of charming, a wrought steel piece with several crude gems in it. It was one of her earlier works, but one of her most powerful. To the right of it was the Tiara of Transfiguration, a slender band of pure platinum with the power to enhance someone’s transfiguration abilities fivefold.

The most curious piece was the Hat of Hexing. It was a cowboy hat, made back when she was going through an interesting period in her life. She was glad that period was over, though she had fond memories of it. Unfortunately, that hat was a bit too bulky and inconspicuous to wear to casual events.

She settled for the Diadem of Defense, carefully plucking it off of its peg and sliding onto her head. It was thin enough that she covered it up completely with her thick black hair.

Near the rack of diadems, hanging just above them, were four medium-sized portraits. Each on had a similar frame, handcrafted of gold, but far more valuable than their material components. One frame held the portrait of a grey-bearded man, cowled in a blood-red robe, and perpetually scowling. Another held a red-haired man, heavily scared, but with an easy smile on his face. The third was of a pretty blonde, with blue eyes and rosy cheeks. The fourth… was empty. She should be there, next to her friends. But, the portraits traditionally only activated upon death, and Rowena Ravenclaw had not yet met the true death. Her magic lingered yet in her body, and had only grown much stronger in her thousand years of existence.

Turning away from the portraits and now ready for the day, Rowena checked her clock one more time. The clock itself was a heavy piece of furniture made in Italy centuries ago, to her exact specifications. The wood was carved with depictions of witches and wizards in battle, some of the scenes so small that a human couldn’t see them with the naked eye… but her eyesight was much better than a mere humans. The events were snippets of events she had personally experienced in her long life.

With a bit over an hour to spare, Rowena decided to check on some of her experiments. Her apartments were not that far from her office, though the exact location of them was a secret to everyone except her. After all, the only way to ensure that she woke up the next morning was to keep her resting place a secret. Her unlife depended on it.

The hallways she walked down to work were completely dark, with no torches at all, yet she could see perfectly. Such was one of the boons of being cursed to a lifetime of nighttime.

Rowena walked down the hallway at what would be a blistering pace for humans, but was a fairly sedate pace for her, not making any sounds as she walked at all. Her heels were quiet, and her breathing… well, she didn’t breath. After a couple miles of dark stone hallways, she arrived at her workplace. Here, there was lighting, since she actually had to work with other humans, though at this time of the night there weren’t many.

Her office wasn’t anything special. It was about as plain as it could be, to hide her true identity. She did not advertise that she was a vampire, nor did she hide it. Any of her employees worth their title would be able to figure it out quite easily, and their training would compel them to say nothing. But there was nothing on or in her desk to imply that she was a vampire at all. No blood bags, no bottles of “red” wine. No suspiciously blood towels. Yet, there were no traces of food at all, nor were there any pictures, since she wouldn’t show up in them anyways. Magical portraits were finicky like that. There was nothing at all to suggest that the Head of the Department of Mysteries was over a thousand years old, and one of the Four Founders of Hogwarts, Rowena Ravenclaw.


as it would not due to give away her treasured identity, or that of her condition. So far, in the seven hundred years since she had founded it, it had worked out well. There was nothing on or in her desk to imply that she was a vampire at all. No blood bags, no bottles of “red” wine. No suspiciously blood towels. Yet, there were no traces of food at all, nor were there any pictures, since she wouldn’t show up in most of them anyways, as even most magical processes to develop film used silver in some form as a developing agent. There was nothing at all to suggest that the Head of the Department of Mysteries was over a thousand years old, and one of the Four Founders of Hogwarts, Rowena Ravenclaw.

And that was just the way she liked it.

On one wall of her office, sitting on an elaborate steel latticework, were dozens of scrying orbs, each one about the size of a quaffle. Silvery and handmade, it took quite a bit of effort to make each one, and even more effort to bind each one to a specific room within the department.

One by one, Rowena Ravenclaw scryed into each room, making sure nothing was out of place. She could zoom in and rotate the view as much as she wanted, though a quick glance was often enough. It was a crucial part of her job, as some of those experiments had been running for decades, if not centuries, and for one of them to fail now could be a setback for the advancement of the knowledge of magic.

The Space Room was operating normally, that was good. It wasn’t so much an experiment as it was a resource to be studied, but it was one of her favorite creations. Just standing there put the whole world into perspective. She was over a thousand years old, but that was nothing in comparison to the age and size of the universe.

Glancing over at the next scrying orb, she watched as the buzzing instruments of the Energy Room puttered away. There were hundreds of micro-experiments going on in there at any one particular time, each one attuned to a different frequency of spell. The room’s original purpose was to study the appearance of so-called accidental magic, but had slowly warped over time to simply record ongoing magical activity at various sites.

As she observed the next room, the Time Room, her eyes widened slightly. Several of the experiments were broken. Had there been a malfunction? No, if there had been, the scrying into that room wouldn’t work at all. Perhaps some sort of explosion. As she zoomed into the room to get a better look, something out of the corner of her eye got her attention.

There were people in the Death Room. Ignoring the damage to the Time Room for a moment, Rowena focused all of her attention on the Death Room. There were a dozen people in there, maybe more, and they were fighting! If she had any air in her lungs, she would have screamed at them. They had no idea the danger they were in!

Instead, Rowena composed herself, and grabbed her wand. Clearly, the security on the Department of Mysteries had already been breached. Sabotaged, most likely. Otherwise, an alarm would have gone off.

As she practically flew out of her office and down the hallway, she went over what she saw. Children, likely Hogwarts students. How had they got there? Why were they there? Then, there were the Death Eaters, dressed in gloomy black robes and facemasks. And on the other side of the spectrum, was the Order of the Phoenix. She knew the Order were trying to “guard” the entrance to the Department for nearly a year now, but for what, she did not know.

Rowena hated not knowing, but since they weren’t physically coming into the Department of Mysteries, she let them be. There was a lot of dangerous magic in the Department, but none really specific enough to help either Dumbledore or Voldemort in that little war of theirs.

Taking a right, Rowena prowled through a shortcut into the Hall of Prophecies, idling noting that it was utterly destroyed. How long had the been intruders been there? For as much damage as there was done, it had to have started before she had even woken up. Hours, perhaps.

Even with her heightened senses, she practically stumbled across the first Death Eater, hiding in the shadows. He wore a silver mask denoting his position within that society, and without even waiting, he was weaving his wand in a familiar pattern.

The green light of the Killing Curse missed her by several feet as she moved. Rowena darted forward, not even bothering to draw her own wand. The Death Eater tried to duck out of the way, but her hands found his throat, and she squeezed, crushing the windpipe. The Death Eater gurgled, dropped their wand, and clutched at her hands. With minimal effort, she lifted him completely off the ground against against the wall.

Finally, Rowena drew her wand and pointed it at his head. “You are going to tell me why you are here,” she said. “If you resist, I will make this more painful than it has to be.”

Rowene disintegrated the man’s mask with a simple tap of her wand, turning it to dust and revealing the face beneath. He was an older man, but not old. Black hair, a weathered face, and brown eyes, he wasn’t a very charming looking man, but it was a face she recognized.

Mulciber.

With a panicked look, the man looked anywhere but at Rowena’s eyes. The escaped convict had the right idea, but the wrong answer, as Rowena’s smiled, showing off her fangs, and suddenly she was on his neck, ripping into it and guzzling down his blood.

Mulciber screamed as much as he could with his crushed windpipe, but for all the good it did, no one was there to rescue him. Rowena drank deeply and messily, getting blood all over her blue dress, but uncaring in the process. All she cared about was the blood, and Mulciber was full of it.

For all that pureblood prattled on about the importance and purity of blood, there was some truth to it. There was power in blood. And, by consuming it, part of that power was now hers. Mulciber was no Dumbledore, but he wasn’t a squib either, and his blood was refreshing. There was nothing quite like a wizard’s blood.

Rowena’s pale face took on a healthy looking glow. Her skin darkened, and her cheeks flushed. Her nipples hardened and stood erect, poking into the thin material of her dress. But even as she soaked in the feeling of power, the feeling of euphoria, her mind raced with the other sensations she was processing.

Memories flickered through her mind. Mulciber’s memories. Snippets of dialogue. Impressions. Emotions. Fear, anger, sadness. Loneliness. He had gone to Azkaban as a conquering hero, and had escaped a broken man. A broken man with the only option to follow Voldemort once more, or be cast aside, forgotten.

She learned one thing of importance, and this whole setup was a trap to lure Harry Potter. He needed to come to the Department of Mysteries to unlock one of the prophecy spheres relating to him and Voldemort. And, judging by the state of the Hall of Prophecies, it had been successful.

Rowena let go of the Death Eater, who weakly clutched at his torn apart neck. He collapsed on the floor, and a few seconds later, stopped moving entirely. He was quite dead. The whole sequence of actions hadn’t lasted longer than thirty seconds.

With a smile and a confident gait fueled by fresh blood, Rowena made her way further into her Department. At least she knew now why the Death Eaters were there. Though, she didn’t much care for prophecies herself. Most of them were of the self-fulfilling nature. There were hundreds of thousands of prophecies in the Hall, and most of them get fulfilled without the recipient ever knowing they existed. In truth, she didn’t put too much stock in them. Knowledge of the future could be a powerful thing, but so was knowledge from the past. It was all about perspective, and a thousands years of existence has not lead her to have much faith in the usefulness of prophecies, or divination in general. In her experience, such knowledge often did more harm than good.

Stalking down the hallway out of the Hall of Prophecies, Rowena only had to follow the trail of carnage to find where the action had gone. It let to an old black door, which was firmly locked with an unfriendly spell. It was no matter, as no one could lock her out of a room in her Department. With a swish of her wand, the door clicked, and with a heave, it opened in front of her.

There was a long staircase leading downwards to the Department’s first room. The entire Department, and later on the Ministry, had been been built around this very room, though it was so long ago that no one in living memory had that knowledge. When she had constructed the room, she had still been amongst the living.

The room was circular, and poorly lit, with only a handful of magical sconces lining the outside. The room held a single experiment, and it was raised upon a plinth in the center of the room. It was a black onyx arch, twelve feet tall and four wide, with intricately carved runes lining the surface. The onyx itself had been specially prepared using ritual magic, and now served as a visual representation that of the barrier that separated the living world from the Beyond.

A curious thing, death. One that she had studied for a millenium. As a concept, it was easy to understand. The reality was much stranger.

In truth, the room scared her a bit. Always had. As a vampire, she had no idea what would happen if she would cross over. By all accounts, she was already dead. Homunum Revelio would not reveal her. She existed at the cost of her soul. A parasite, made of magic and sustained by blood. The Beyond was a place where everything existed… and nothing existed. It was a place of magic, as magic was the primal force of the universe.

Part of her thought that if she stepped through the arch, nothing would happen. She would walk straight out of the other side. Or maybe she’d end up in the unending vastness of space, slowly floating away from the portal and unable to return, eventually driven mad by her own cursed existence. Maybe she’d even be reunited with her soul, human once more and finally free of the eternal shackles of her vampiric thirst, finally at peace with a true death.

Rowena tried to not dwell on flights of fancy like that. Simply believing for something to be true did not make it so. There would be no eternal rest for her. No heaven, no hell. Every waking moment was her hell.

Turning away from the arch, Rowena took in the signs of battle. A quick spell showed faint traces of spellfire lingering in the air, shadows of figures running around fighting. It was not a pretty picture. Whatever battle had happened here, it had been recent, only minutes ago, but all the participants were gone, deeper into the Department perhaps.

Rowena bolted up the stairs on the opposite side of the room, firmly sealing the door behind her as she entered another hallway. Unless the intruders demolished the wall itself, her magic would stick. She built this place, and not even Merlin himself would get through a door she locked.

Running down the hallway, Rowena heard the ever-so-faint sound of fighting, far in the distance. With her advanced hearing, it was likely hundreds of feet away. She changed her direction and took a shortcut through an untouched storage area and out into another hallway.

She made it a dozen feet before her instincts screamed at her to duck, which she did, narrowly avoiding a bisecting hex as well as another Killing Curse. She rolled through with her momentum and spun out of it to observe her attackers. Two death eaters, both with silver masks.

Quickly, Rowena formed a yellowish icosahedral shield which absorbed another dark curse and flung it back at her attacker, even as she dodged another Killing Curse from the second man. Her shield burst when it deflected a second spell, but she was already ten feet further away. Her eyes shone with dark power as she pulled forth an black-bladed dagger, and ran it across her hand. Blood dribbled onto her outstretched fingers, and with a flick, she sprayed her blood outwards.

With a silent command, the blood ignited and splashed onto the left man, sticking to him even as he quickly tried to dispel it, to no avail. The hellishly dark-purple flames clung to the man, burning through the robes and roasting the flesh, largely unaffected by the water the second man conjured in haste.

Realizing it was futile, both Death Eater’s turned back on their attacker, in hopes that dispatching her would end the spell. They started firing of blasting hexes, which smashed into the fortified walls behind her, knocking off chunks of stone and creating a ton of dust to hide their follow-up spells, but Rowena never got hit.

Vision impeded, the first man, still on fire, started streaming down Killing Curses while the second man transfigured a thick bulwark using the rubble, and then began spraying acid down the hallway. Rowena duck and dodged, using her inhuman speed to her advantage, jumping up onto the ceiling and clinging to it. Only when the first Death Eater stopped casting the Killing Curse and began screaming in uncontrolled pain, did she leap back into the fray.

Rowena swifting dispatched the second man’s shield with a pulverizing hex, and immediately flicked her wand, gathering up the transfigured fragments with a gust of wind. A moment later, a small cyclone formed, forcefully sending the fragments into the burning man’s mouth, silencing him as he choked on it.

The second Death Eater looked on in horror as the other exploded as the shield fragments forcefully reverted back into their true form, that of the shattered stonework. Bits of gore rained down on them, and blood and muscle splashed all across Rowena, dripping across her face and pooling in her cleavage. Bits of bone stuck to her glistening hair as she licked the blood off of her lips.

Seeing his sudden reversal of fortune, the second Death Eater ran as quickly as he could. He made it about twenty feet before Rowena was abruptly on him, ramming her black-bladed dagger straight into the back. The blade was long enough that it popped out of the man’s chest a few inches, and the Death Eater stared in horror at his impending death.

Rowena snatched the man’s wand away and pulled the knife out in one smooth motion. He collapsed onto the ground, but Rowena quickly hit him with a stasis spell, preventing him from bleeding out too fast. Then, she lifted him on one should and made her way back through the storage room she had briefly walked through.

As she made her way to the storage room, she noted the damage that had been done to the hallway. It was more than she would have liked, but the walls had held fairly well under the barrage of spells. It was nothing that couldn’t be fixed, but she was glad the damage hadn’t been more serious, unlike some of her experiments.

That particular storage room did not hold too much of vital importance, but she was still careful of where she dripped blood. In the back was another door with a small, climate controlled storage area, where she kept more delicate ingredients. It was freezing inside, cold enough to kill someone of hypothermia in a few minutes, but not immediately threatening to a vampire like her. If she had been stuck in there for a day, then maybe.

With a careless gesture, Rowena conjured both a stainless steel hook, as well as a bucket. She fastened the hook to the ceiling, and placed the bucket more-or-less right underneath it. And then, with a sickening groan, she took the Death Eater and jammed him onto the meathook, and let go.

Blood poured down the man’s body, dripping down his legs and into the bucket below. She idly noted the identity of the Death Eater, Hugh Jugson, another of the escaped Azkaban inmates. She wasn’t too hungry right now, but by the time the night was over, she’d probably need a bit of a snack, and it was Jugson’s unlucky day. He’d live just long enough to satiate her hunger.

With two more Death Eater’s out of the way, Rowena headed back deeper into the Department of Mysteries, clearing each room and permanently locking it behind her. When the situation was over with, she’d override them all, but for now, she wanted the incursion finished. There was too much at stake here, far more than the Dark Lord’s conflict with the Boy-Who-Lived was worth.

Rowena prowled the halls, listening for the sound of battle. Room by room, it was clear the battle had more-or-less evolved to outside of the Department of Mysteries. The damage was already done, but she would fully evaluate later, once the trespassers were apprehended. Slowly and carefully, she found herself near the entrance to the Department, and not long after, the sound of fighting reached her.

It was strange how she hadn’t come across any non-Death Eaters. None of Dumbledore’s people either. Even stranger still were the lack of Aurors and other Unspeakables. The Ministry wasn’t a mere 9-5 workplace. Crime didn’t wait for anyone, so there should have been something by now. Rowena cursed her own lack of foresight in failing to send out an alert. It wasn’t the first time her bloodlust has gotten a hold of her, but she rectified that by sending out a quick alarm with her wand. She really hoped it was redundant, or else the Ministry was showing an ineptitude beyond that which she had already known. It’s one of the reason’s she didn’t insert herself into politics at all. She didn’t think she’d have the patience for such things without feasting upon every dissenter, and that was as a thousand year old vampire with near-infinite patience.

Rowena walked in dead silence for several minutes as she stealthily made her way into the main Ministry proper. Even out here, there were signs of battle, some more fresh than the others. No bodies and no blood, but that could mean anything.

It was several more minutes before she locate the sound of fighting. A scream sundered the air, and Rowena found herself moving in that direction. “Crucio!” A voice had shouted, followed by another scream. It wasn’t ear piercing, but it was female.

“You have to mean it, boy!” the female voice shouted, slightly out of breath. If it was a Death Eater… that could only mean one person.

Rowena grinned, baring her fangs.

She charged forward, rushing into the battle before it was too late. She only vaguely noted the destruction of the grand golden fountain that was the centerpiece of the Atrium. Near it was the dark witch Bellatrix Lestrange, who seemed to be in a one sided battle of both spells and insults with none other than Harry Potter.

How Harry Potter got to the Ministry of Magic from Hogwarts, Rowena had no idea. She could guess, but the only thing that mattered that he was there, and losing a battle against one of the most dangerous people in the world.

Acting fast, Rowena threw herself into the fray, jumping in front of Harry and knocking a disemboweling hex away with a twirl of her wand.

“Oh, what do we have here?” Bellatrix taunted. “Another blood traitor to die protecting wee little Harry?”

Rowena stretched her arms to her side widely and held her wand at an angle, ready to duel. Bellatrix’s eyes narrowed when she saw all the blood and gore that Rowena was still covered with, as well as the beautiful blue dressed that was now laced with crimson. There was a finger tangled up in her hair.

“Bring it, bitch,” Bellatrix said coldly.

The end of Rowena’s wand tip glowed darkly, and suddenly the entire room lit up in a flash of light. Rowena disappeared, leaving only an shadowy after image behind as Bellatrix struggled to clear her vision. But, sensing that she was coming, she launched herself backwards with a charm and covered herself with a hastily conjured shield as she quickly regained her bearings.

Rowena was fast, but instead of trying to close to distance, she followed up with more spells, hastily pulling stone spears out of the ground in an attempt to impale Bellatrix. When that failed, she ripped the stone spears out of the ground with a wave of her wand and launched them at the dark witch, who somehow managed to pulled a stone slab out of the wall to take the brunt of the impact before shattering, and the ducking off to the side to avoid the remaining pair.

Keeping up the pace, Rowena reformed the shattered stone spears into a cyclone of debris, but Bellatrix was quick to counter with an encapsulating sphere around them, and launched the sphere away from the battle. Bellatrix was still on the back foot and tried to create some distance as streaks of electric blue light threatened to disembowel her, and it was then that Bellatrix knew she was in a fight. She smiled at the challenge.

A sticky net dropped from the ceiling, and Bellatrix only just barely managed to incinerate it and then avoid the burning net while simultaneously dodging a whip of flame that sought to take her head off in one messy strike.

Rowena was being quite clever, alternating between one slow acting spell and a bunch of fast cantrips, setting them up in such a way as to have both strike at the same time. She was mindful of Harry’s location, as he was huddling in the far corner of the room as far away as he could get, while still watching the action. He seemed to be waiting for something, which Rowena assumed to be reinforcements of such.

“What are you?” Bellatrix called out as she got hurled by an exceptionally violent breaker charm which thundered through the entire Atrium.

“An Unspeakable,” Rowena said, throwing out a truly gigantic fireball. Bellatrix only just managed a counter before catastrophe would have struck. “You destroyed my Department, and I take exception to that. Many of those experiments have been in progress since before you were born.”

“Ministry scum,” Bellatrix growled. She flicked her wand, righting herself and straightening her clothing. Her own assault was fierce, but short lived.

With and uppercut and a jab, the stone at Bellatrix’s feet reformed into a wicked looking scythe, and immediately began to spin. Slow at first, but then quickly it became a blur to the human eye.

Rowena wasn’t human though, and was actually slightly amused by Bellatrix’s hasty attempt to decapitate her. The blade soared by, missing her by several feet, though the autonomous follow up while Bellatrix tried to blast her back into the spinning death was slightly clever.

Following up, Bellatrix began to duel in earnest, spitting out as many spells as she could, as fast as she could. A mind-numbing hex was deflected away, a burning pitch spell was absorbed with a ball of darkness, and a raw sundering spell was simply squelched before it could do any damage. A further cleaving attack which left a lingering puddle of darkness was subsequently dodged, while a disemboweling hex was so far off target that Rowena wasn’t sure what she was aiming at, though perhaps it was to distract her from the Killing Curse which missed her by only a foot.

Nonplussed, Bellatrix pushed even harder, sending a barrage of devastating disintegrating hexes and not even waiting to see the damage before lighting up the area with a cloud of acid rain, which Rowena quickly turned on it’s maker, forcing her to dispel it just as quickly as it appeared. The assortment of various unforgivables interwoven with the rest of the spells was easy enough to dodge with her enhanced reflexes. She really only had to worry about Bellatrix attempting to be creative.

“Fifteen years in Azkaban has not been kind to you, has it?” Rowena called out. “You were once called the most dangerous witch of the age, but I see nothing but a shallow husk before me. I find myself disappointed.”

Rowena emphasized the last part, which seemed to enrage Bellatrix. She wantonly showered to room with another bombardment, causing the entire floor to shake. Glass began to break, raining down onto them, and stones fell from the ceiling, threatening a further cave-in. Rowena wasn’t worried, as she knew the overall structural integrity of the building could handle more than what one witch or wizard could throw out, although Bellatrix was quite powerful.

Amidst the rumbling, Bellatrix quickly switched into a more devastation evocation, conjuring a hellish construct of pure darkness, which seemed to pulse in time to her own heartbeat. With every step it took, the light in the room dimmed, until it was near pitch black. But, unbeknownst to Bellatrix, that only served to help Rowena, who could see in absolute darkness.

A quick battle took place in the darkness, one which an onlooker like Harry could only see as several flashes of green and red light, before there was a sudden gasping sound. The lightly slowly returned to the room, and Rowena was standing over Bellatrix, with her black-bladed knife buried deep into her chest.

Rowena pulled the knife out with a sickening squelch. Blood poured of the wound as Bellatrix collapsed onto the ground, clutching feebly at it. She squirmed in agony as she tried to heal herself, to no avail. Rowena’s knife seemed to glow with dark power, and she quickly brought the blade to her lips and licked off the dripping blood. She savored it for a few seconds and shuddered. There was power in blood, and Bellatrix’s blood was quite rejuvenating.

Turning her eyes back on Bellatrix, Rowena only just noticed in time that Bellatrix’s wand was raised in her direction. She darted out of the way of a inky curse, only to see that it hadn’t been targeted at her, it had been targeted at Harry, who was still at the back of the Atrium, and more-or-less directly behind her. The spell hit him, and he screamed out in terror. Dark tendrils seemed to wrap around and writhe, and every movement caused him to experience a waking nightmare.

“Heal me, or I will make it so Potter will wish he had never been born,” Bellatrix said weakly. She was grasping her wound with one hand, but blood still poured out between her fingers, and she likely had a punctured lung. Her wand shook in her hand, but she held onto the spell with all of her might.

Rowena spared only a momentary look at Harry before turning back to Bellatrix. “You assume that I care about Potter at all,” she said. “I’m not here because of him.”

Suddenly, the fireplaces that lined the entirety of the room flared green and sent out a massive gust of wind that stirred up all the dust and debris in the room. A few moments later, the air stilled, and standing there was a pale-faced man with slits for where his nose should have been, and dark, red eyes.

“So, this is the woman that has stirred up the heart of fear in my soldiers,” he said in a bored tone. “However, I must say that I am... “

Whatever he meant to say, it was cut off, as he forcefully sweeped his wand, knocking Rowena on her back and dispelling the tendrils of agony that had been assaulting Harry. A further spell impacted against Bellatrix’s chest, which seemed to glow gold and pulse for a moment, before disappearing. A second spell encased her entirely, and she seemed to freeze where she was, suspended in a stasis.

“Disappointed,” he finished.

“In who, me or your rabid attack dog?” Rowena said. “Voldemort, is it not? You’ve hidden yourself for many years, and this is the place you chose to reveal yourself? In the administrative heart of our nation? I can feel the disapparition jinx, keeping the aurors out, but it won’t hold forever, not even one made by you.”

“It doesn’t have to hold forever,” Voldemort said lazily. “Just long enough to kill you, and then Potter and whoever else Dumbledore sends my way. I don’t take pleasure from many things in life, but I will enjoy every second of this.”

Rowena sprung back onto her feet just in time to deflect an incineration spear with her wand as well as to duck a Killing Curse which was surprisingly well-aimed. Without her inhuman reflexes, she would have been hit dead center.

Chaining together several curses, Rowena only just barely dodged a reciprocated desiccation hex before getting hit with what she called a meat grinder. Her left arm got pulped in a split second, sending stringy bits of undead flesh and muscle all over the Atrium.
Yet, she did not scream. She actually looked at it in morbid fascination, before pulling herself behind what remained of the fountain in the center of the room.

Rowena only stayed there for a few seconds to collect herself and formulate a strategy. Bellatrix had been very powerful, and perhaps at one point she had been the most feared witch, but Azkaban had taken its toll on her, and such a thing was not so easily washed away, even with rituals and rejuvenating elixirs. Voldemort was on an entirely different level. His spells were so powerful that she could almost see the rippling fabric of space around them. He was much stronger than Salazar Slytherin had ever been.

Darting out from behind the fountain, her wand spat forth a dark helical column of pale light, nearly bisecting Voldemort who only just barely managed to float over the beam and duck under a buckshot slice’n’dicer, before neatly deflecting a thunderous hammer which would have pulped him in much the same way her arm had been.

Voldemort hurried up in his defense, as Rowena’s spells got darker and darker, threatening to impale him, or turn him inside out. She even used a spell that would have turned him into a female, and the absurdity of such a spell made him pause momentarily, though it wouldn’t really have affected him. However, what he did note was that Rowena did not use any unforgivables. Whether that was by choice or by tactic, he did not know, even as he blocked a splintering hex that would have shattered half the bones in his body. It wasn’t an unforgivable, but killing someone with that spell would have been messy, and painful.

There was a brief lull in the battle as Voldemort sized Rowena up, before he launched his own attacks Rowena was still very nimble, even with a useless arm, and what spells she couldn’t block, she dodged, and what spells she couldn’t dodge, she blocked.

Just as she shunted herself sideways with a charm, Voldemort took a step forward and snapped out a his favored spell. “Avada Kedavra!” he yelled, just as she was in mid-jump. She was moving fast, yet still, the spell seemed to almost curve and follow her trajectory, and with a moment of triumph, it slammed into her.

With a grunt, Rowena was slammed backwards and onto the ground, tumbling ass-over-teakettle, having taken the full brunt of the spell with her chest. It was in ruin. Nothing but meat and gore, with her ribs sticking out, and her perfect breasts disintegrated. Gingerly, she pulled herself off the ground, and wiped the chucks of meat off of her face.

For the first time in his life, Voldemort was stunned. It wasn’t the first time someone had survived his Killing Curse, which in itself shouldn’t have been possible, but this time his spell had not rebounded. It had wrecked her, making her nearly unidentifiable, but she stood up from it.

“What are you!” Voldemort hissed in anger, ready to strike again.

“Bloodwitch,” Rowena replied simply, and a second later, she disappeared in a puff of smoke. Several terse seconds went by, before she reappeared. She was clutching Bellatrix’s form in her hands, and with a casual muttering of a spell, dispelled the stasis on her. With it gone, she fed, and fed ravenously. She slurped down the blood, guzzling liters of it in record time.

Bellatrix gasped in surprise and tried to struggle, but the life quickly faded from her. She was completely drained in under fifteen seconds.

Now rejuvenated, she clamped down on Bellatrix’s neck, tearing through it as if it were simply air. She kicked the decapitated head away and let the corpse fall to the ground.

Already, Rowena’s body was repairing itself. Her arm reformed piece my piece, and her ribs popped back together, then her heart, lungs and every other organ found their way back to their homes. Last, but certainly not least, were her breasts, no longer gore covered, but quickly covered back up with a repair charm on her clothes.

With a careless whisper, a shield emerged around Rowena, made of blood, and entirely encapsulating her. Empowered by the recent feeding of a powerful witch, Rowena was fast now, much faster, and easily dodged Voldemort’s Killing Curse.

Her blood shield hid her wand movements from view, allowing her to quickly get the upper hand with her speed. An orange piercing spell lanced straight through Voldemort’s shoulder, pinning him in place, though he quickly tossed himself sideways, tearing it out of his body, though seemingly unhindered. Even when his feet sank into the floor below him and acid ate at his body, he did not panic. He was clearly very durable.

With a pointed gesture, globules of blood began to separate from her blood shield, and with another motion, they the turned into flaming daggers. Voldemort only just freed himself from the groundtrap and used a silver shield to deflect the spell. He was clearly still capable, if he was able to conjure silver like that on a whim. He even took the time to break the shield down into his own daggers to launch at Rowena, though he nearly got disemboweled when a thorned whip made of blood latched onto him. It was only his quick thinking to spin with the spell that allowed it to do relatively minor damage, though on an objective level, he knew the thorns had pierced most of what others would consider his vital organs.

Rowena tried again with the bloodwhip, even conjuring a second bloodwhip, but Voldemort quickly put himself out of range, all while casting his own spells, so Rowena opted for the rain of death. Her shield unwrapped itself from her and spread outwards like a fine mist, easily expanding to fill the hall, and with a single point of her wand, the mist shot forward, consuming Voldemort. There was a shrill scream as the mist permeated all around him, the first he had heard from him, despite the several mortals wounds he had casually shrugged off.

Voldemort’s body disappeared entirely after a moment, and suddenly, she saw a dark cloud shoot for her, emerging from the mist with astonishing speed. Even as it struck her, penetrating her body, the blood mist washed over her, purging the shadow out as quickly as it came. She was surprised that Voldemort had attempted a possession like that, considering she was dead. It just wouldn’t work on a vampire.

With a quick flick of her wand, the blood began to form a hollow sphere, intent on entrapping Voldemort, but as soon as the shadow had finished pouring out of her body, he suddenly reappeared in human form, wooden stake in hand. He plunged it forward with inhuman speed, but Rowena caught him by the wrist. For the second time that fight, Voldemort was surprised. Even more surprised when Rowena lopped that hand clean off with her black-bladed dagger.

Frantically, Voldemort used a rebounding hex on himself, sending him across the room and creating a fair amount of distance between the two. He was casting faster than ever now, seemingly with a bottomless well of strength, hoping to hit her with something that would stick.

Rowena reformed the blood around her into the shield once more. Voldemort’s attempted Cruciatus Curses turned into blood-draining hexes, and his Killing Curses were replaced with entropic fields. He even tried a rage-inducing ensnarement, rather than the Imperius Curse. Perhaps most interestingly were the stakes and spears the Voldemort transfigured and conjured at a rapid pace. His wand was practically a blur, spitting out several spells a second.

While Voldemort seemed to speed up even faster somehow, Rowena spared only a second for a single offensive spell, and that was when Voldemort approached too close to Bellatrix’s body, which immediately exploded, sending out a spray of bone shards which had embedded themselves deeply into Voldemort’s pale flesh. By this point, he was more or less naked from the variety of spells, both his own, and Rowena’s.

Now that Voldemort was temporarily distracted, Rowena began dismantling all the entrapment jinxes that had been set up around the building. Voldemort had set up several devilishly tricky jinxes, but she was Rowena Ravenclaw, and she had a thousands years of practice with such things, and within a minute, they were completely gone.

As soon as Voldemort’s carefully laid magical trap was dismantled, the Floo fireplaces all around the atrium began to light up, and immediately, Aurors began to flood out. Rowena paid them no mind, as they, for the most part, had to take cover from the barrage of spells that was still incoming. Despite the Death Eaters and Voldemort himself being mostly known for being brutes who relied too-heavily on the Unforgivables, Voldemort had a seemingly unending supply of tricks and sequences, as well as knowledge.

She even saw the look of satisfaction on Voldemort’s face as a buzzing black-and-grey orb seemed bypass all of her protections. It hissed and seemed to sap the colour out of the air as it moved, and it was just wrong. But, the look of satisfaction turned into horror as the orb miraculously rebounded from where she was and slammed into Voldemort.

“Impossible,” he muttered, grasping at his chest. His entire body turned as white as marble as he stumbled backwards in surprise.

“You dare use my own spell against me?” Rowena muttered angrily. “You dare!”

“You?” Voldemort said in astonishment, for the third time that night. “No one has cast this spell in a thousands years, not since Rowena Ravenclaw -”

Voldemort’s surprise turned into full blown shock as the truth dawned on him.

Waving her wand once more, she flourished it right at Voldemort. His body practically exploded, now devoid of all magic. The flesh sloughed off into a messy pile, and his skeleton burst through the back of his body, clattering onto the wall behind him and scattering across the floor.

Yet even so, Voldemort managed to move the muscle in his right arm and activate the portkey that he had somehow managed to hold onto. In a flash, he was gone, leaving the room in complete silence.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Rowena said, turning to inspect the damage that had been done to the Atrium. There was absolute destruction, and at some point in time, the entire floor had collapsed onto the one below it, leaving it looking sort of like a crater. The walls were barely recognizable, and the ceiling was threatening to fail altogether. Perhaps most shocking was the sheer amount of blood and gore that coated every surface. Even Harry Potter, who still stood there shocked in the back of the room, was covered from head to foot in a fine red mist.

The Aurors and other members of the DMLE still continued to arrive, including the Minister, who was one of the last. Dumbledore arrived at some point as well, grabbing Harry and quickly sequestering themselves away. What the Order had been doing in the entire time she had been fighting, she had no idea. Perhaps fighting the other Death Eater’s still. For as much damage that had been done in the Department, there had to have been a dozen Death Eaters, and she hadn’t run into that many.

Rowena let the blood around soak into the ruined floor as she turned her attention on the Aurors around her, who all had their wands pointing at her. She slowly lowered her own wand.

“Is that how you treat someone who just defended the Ministry from Lord Voldemort?” Rowena asked. She ran her tongue along her lips, wiping some of the blood that had gathered there. “Did you not see what just happened? Do you want to try me?”

“There’s fifty of us, miss,” one of the Aurors said.

“You realize I work here, right?” Rowena said with a roll of her eyes. “I built this place. I can rebuild it too.”

Rowena waved her wand, startling all of the aurors in the process.. Blood seemed to seep out of it as she pointed it at the ceiling. Stone by stone, the ceiling seemed to repair itself, albeit slowly.

“Is it true?” One auror said. “You’re Rowena Ravenclaw?”

“She’s a vampire,” another said.

“She found Voldemort!” A third said.

“But she’s a vampire!”

Rowena let out an exaggerated sigh and ignored the people trying to swarm her for information. Reporters and such started showing up, and Minister Fudge was quickly trying to work damage control. Voldemort had been back all along, and he had tried to cover it up.

She walked over to where Harry stood, next to Dumbledore. Dumbledore simply gave her an inquisitive look. She ignored the headmaster, and instead ruffled Harry’s hair.

“Next time, he won’t escape,” she said. “Though, I wish you had been more careful. Many of those experiments had been older than your headmaster. Though, I guess I should go see exactly what had been damaged… you’d be surprised at how hard bloodstains can be to get out, even with magic.”

Harry just stood there, trying desperately hard to reconcile what he had just witnessed, with the cleavage that was now in front of his face. Dumbledore meant to speak, but Rowena simply walked passed him, and back towards the Department of Mysteries. She still had twenty minutes to make it to the benefit ball. Plenty of time to wash the blood out of her hair.

 

The beginning really kills this for me. It just takes forever to set itself up, and for no real benefit I feel. There's a lot said about Rowena's routine, her waking up, her looks, but it just comes across to me as heavy handed. Too much telling us things, trying to hammer certain key points home (We get it, Rowena's tits are out of this world, can you please stop shoving it in our faces?).

I want to be seduced and teased by things rather than shown everything right away.

The pacing to me also felt inconsistent. You have the entire first half of this story in a slow, meandering, atmospheric setup, which we're quickly jolted out of by chaos and conflict in the Ministry.

Once the action actually starts, I felt the story began to redeem itself. It flowed pretty well, and the culminating fight between Voldemort and Rowena was handled nicely (although could use improvement). It lacked context within the environment, and if read alone doesn't actually let me picture where they are and what's around them rather than just an empty arena surrounded on all sides by high walls? The fight exists in a vacuum of reality.

There's some potential here, but I think the opening smothers it in its crib before the baby bird can take flight. If I were to suggest edits, tone down the sexuality in Rowena by like 90%, streamline the opening, and talk to us more about Rowena's character, her motivations. We get a sense of it, but only as a glimpse and never really transcends the archetype of "genius who is touchy about his/her experiments". More depth to her would have been nice, whereas she's just dangerously close to Mary Sue here.

 

I'll be blunt. I didn't like this. At all. I don't get why Rowena is a vampire, I don't why she's the main character, I don't get why her wardrobe is so important. This was very cut and dry and you took what could have been an interesting premise and turned it into this. It was probably 4k words longer than it needed to be, there was no concept and there was no feeling. I didn't feel anything for Rowena, and I didn't feel anything for the other members of your cast. I dont' get why it took a vampire Rowena Ravenclaw to find Voldemort. I fell like this story missed all kind of marks. Where comparatively there was a story told in in the previous two entries, there's nothing here.

I don't have much more to say than that, I just felt very unsatisfied.

 

I like the start of this one. Sets a nice tone, with the ancient clock and modern leather couch. Flows naturally into introducing us to vampire of this story who is described excellently. I was particularly fond of the line about how it wasn't far from the truth, that she was covered with a sheet to keep the dust off. That, the description of her not breathing, her jumping up just as the sun went down...

All in all a great start to a story, imo. Really set me up to want to read more.

But from there it went a little downhill for me, because you keep describing her. We already know she's pretty and I don't care about her clothes beyond a mention that, of course, she's got things from every era and some of it is magical. I started to skim but then I got to the portraits, which grabbed my interest back.

Rowena Ravenclaw. Nice idea! Very clever, original, and not something I would have guessed. Good choice too, since it means that we aren't dealing with a complete OC.

Rowena walked down the hallway at what would be a blistering pace for humans, but was a fairly sedate pace for her, not making any sounds as she walked at all. Her heels were quiet, and her breathing… well, she didn’t breath. After a couple miles of dark stone hallways, she arrived at her workplace. Here, there was lighting, since she actually had to work with other humans, though at this time of the night there weren’t many.​

I liked the paragraph above, not sure why. Part of it is that description of how she walks, but in general it's just a solid description that provides useful information and hints of plot at the same time. Kudos. Same with the bit earlier about how she's only active for like 8 hours a day, or something? That was great description that also provided information I cared about, that informed the plot, etc.

I started getting slightly bored again with all the talk about her identity and the stuff in her office and scrying into the rooms. It's interesting, but it's... it's sort of empty description. You're describing it to describe it, not because it's truly relevent to the plot at the moment. I think it would work better if you condensed that part a lot, for instance.. she scryed into the X, Y, Z rooms, finding nothing of note until something caught the corner of her eye in the Time Room. Someone was in the Death Room.

Rowene - you mean Rowena, I think. I only saw this happen once, but just in case you wanted to polish up.

Also, for the record... I love the idea that Rowena is associated with the Department of Mysteries like this. It seems like something that the founder of Ravenclaw house might spend eternity doing. It's neat that she has access and is invested, and I like that she rushes to investigate WTF is going on.

But the fight didn't hold my interest... and why does she recognize Mulciber again? I admit I might well have missed that part, because I did skim off and on for small parts, but that was odd.

But neat effects from drinking a wizard's blood - I like that, from a storytelling POV. It gives Vampires a reason to drink from living people rather than donated blood or animals, if they can get power and memories, etc. Kudos on that.

But I'm not super interested in the action or plot here, and I don't know why. Same for the action in general, whether it's a fight or Rowena trying to sort out WTF is going on.

In truth, the room scared her a bit. Always had. As a vampire, she had no idea what would happen if she would cross over. By all accounts, she was already dead. Homunum Revelio would not reveal her. She existed at the cost of her soul. A parasite, made of magic and sustained by blood. The Beyond was a place where everything existed… and nothing existed. It was a place of magic, as magic was the primal force of the universe.​

Quite liked that paragraph, very nice concept/description.

“Oh, what do we have here?” Bellatrix taunted. “Another blood traitor to die protecting wee little Harry?”

Rowena stretched her arms to her side widely and held her wand at an angle, ready to duel. Bellatrix’s eyes narrowed when she saw all the blood and gore that Rowena was still covered with, as well as the beautiful blue dressed that was now laced with crimson. There was a fingertangled up in her hair.

“Bring it, bitch,” Bellatrix said coldly.​

Also really liked the above... but the part between those two bits that I just said I liked? Had trouble getting into them, more than normal, and I have no idea why.

“Fifteen years in Azkaban has not been kind to you, has it?” Rowena called out. “You were once called the most dangerous witch of the age, but I see nothing but a shallow husk before me. I find myself disappointed.”​

I find it odd that Rowena knows or cares who Bellatrix is. Rowena is really old and has seen a great deal, and I think it would take... more, to keep her interest. I can see her being interested in the truly powerful, like Dumbledore/Grindelwald/Voldemort, and in anything unprecendented, like Harry's survival of the Killing Curse, but... Bellatrix is just a moderately powerful witch who also happens to be a psychopathic criminal. Those might not be a dime a dozen but I see no reason for her to have drawn Rowena's attention enough that Rowena would know who she was and that she just got out of prison.

Bits of the Voldemort fight did it for me - I liked how she said "Bloodwitch" and then drank Bellatrix and conjured a shield made of blood. But something about the pacing kept me from being engaged in the entire fight.

Overall?

I have to admit that I liked it. I love the concept of Rowena being a badass vampire who both works for and is protective of the Department of Mysteries. But at the same time, I found myself skimming off and on throughout.

Another awesome concept that I think could be top notch with some editing, but it's not quite there yet for me.