Lucas Searoby
Ravenclaw / 17 / Male / Half-Vampire
Tags: Open Location: The Hospital Wing ---> The Great Hall
The rest of the train ride had been dreadfully awkward. Lucas did his best to ignore his company, and took a few notes from his book. He was more than relieved when the train finally came to a halt. Outside of the train, the sun had set, and the soft glow from the windows of Hogwarts illuminated the mountain on which it sat. Lucas looked up at it as he stepped off of the train, feeling for the first time all summer that he was finally home.
He tucked his book under his arm and walked silently towards the self drawn carriages that would take the older students up the hill to the castle. The ride was uneventful, and as soon as Lucas arrived at the Great Hall with the rest of his cohorts, he sought out Madam Pomfrey. She greeted him with a warm, familiar smile. The woman was notoriously severe, her bedside manner certainly lacking, but after years of regular visits, she had grown a soft spot for the silent boy. Lucas's cheeks rose, his eyes pinching slightly in a way that suggested a smile upon his mouthless, half obscured face. The pair made their way off down the empty halls of the castle towards the hospital wing, so that Lucas could receive his first dose of blood after months of wasting away.
"You look dreadful, dear," Said Madam Pomfrey, "It's cruel what that home does. You shouldn't be deprived of nutrition like this. It's not as though you
chose who your father was."
Lucas was silent as always. He clutched his hands together in front of him and diverted his eyes towards the ground. Any mention of his father was shameful. Lucas was used to being mercilessly reminded just how close to evil he was, that his father had killed countless innocent humans, and that he was two fangs short of following in his footsteps.
Madam Pomfrey looked back at him, her expression soft. "It's okay. We'll get you fixed up in no time." The woman, old as dirt, shuffled him down the hall and to the door of the hospital wing. She was probably one of the first Hogwarts faculty that he had learned to trust. Honestly, probably one of the first adults he trusted, period. She never faulted him for his need of blood, when so many others had insinuated disgust at the very idea. She unlocked a cold storage cabinet against the wall and levitated two small bags of blood out, setting them on a tabletop nearby. The witch opened them and emptied the contents into a bowl.
Lucas sat down on the edge of a nearby cot and set his book beside him as he waited. He looked up as the bowl was brought to him and set into his lap.
"Here you go. Let me know if you need anything else." With that, Pomfrey hobbled off to her desk to make changes to the inventory list. Lucas looked down at the gleaming red contents of the bowl. He remembered the first time he'd been given blood. He was a first year student, eleven years old. He had been sickly his whole life, pale, and waifish. When injured, he healed slowly. When sick, he would wheeze and sneeze for months. When a nasty encounter with a brutish second year had landed him down a flight of stairs, breaking his arm, he had been sent to the hospital wing to be fixed up. His bones were brittle and so slow to mend that Madam Pomfrey voiced concern. It wasn't normal. That was when she decided that he just couldn't be deprived of blood any longer; he was half vampire after all! While he could survive of human food alone, it had the same effect of only eating junk food. He would survive, but he would suffer.
Lucas hovered a hand over the bowl and recited an incantation in his mind. While many students still required their voice to verbally spew spells, Lucas had been proficient at silent spell casting since his first year. He had to be, after all. As of last year, he had discarded his wand for certain spells, using only his hands. Wandless magic was notoriously difficult, but Lucas was determined to master it. Why should he rely on his excess to a stick when he himself held all the magic he needed?
The blood began to slowly disappear from the bowl. This charm had been written to give nourishment to severely injured wizards in hospital, who were unable to eat on their own. Lucas was probably one of the only wizards in the existence that performed it on
himself. He would never know the taste of pumpkin juice or sweet pastries.
When the bowl was empty, he stood and set it down on the table across from him. He already felt much better. His skin looked less like pale, dry paper, and his black hair had regained some shine. He turned to look at Madam Pomfrey across the room, then waved farewell to her.
"Done already, dear?" She asked, lifting her own arm to wave. "I'll see you next week. Stay out of trouble." Lucas nodded and let himself out. The thunderous sound of the Great Hall told him that he'd missed the sorting, as he typically did. The students were chatting amongst themselves when he entered and took a seat at the Ravenclaw table. He set his book down beside him and crossed his arms in his lap. His plate remained empty. Lucas always waited until he was back at his dorm to eat; he'd learned the hard way that he tended to draw stares when he performed his consumption spell in public. Having been teased for it most of his life, Lucas had never overcome the anxiety that eating around other people caused him. Perhaps that was why he always remained so thin.
Lucas didn't dare open his disguised book where other students could read over his shoulder, so to pass the time, he withdrew a tiny book from his pocket. With a simple enlargement spell and a wave of his wand, he returned the book back to it's original size.
The Secrets of Spellcrafting was written on the front in gold letters. Lucas was very interested in the art of writing spells, and had a few on his mind that he would like to invent.
