Dark Deals: The Vampire Who Owns Hogwarts

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Hearing Dracula's voice close to his ear, Voldemort froze. A rare shiver ran down his spine as he turned his head sharply, his crimson eyes widening in disbelief.

The silver-haired figure chuckled, appearing beside him as if he had materialized from thin air, utterly unaffected by the Basilisk's lethal gaze.

Voldemort whipped around, his breath shallow. His serpent, a monstrous being with emerald-green scales as thick as an oak's trunk, lay curled in the corner—silent, unmoving. Its eyes were shut tight, its massive body trembling.

Something was wrong.

The Basilisk—his most powerful weapon, a creature born to kill with a mere glance—was cowering like a frightened pet.

A furious hiss escaped Voldemort's lips, Parseltongue flowing urgently from his mouth. Attack! Bite him! Use your venom!

But the Basilisk didn't move. Instead, it recoiled further, pressing itself against the wall, its forked tongue flickering out in distress.

"How can this be..." Voldemort's voice trembled with rage.

"Nothing is impossible," Dracula replied smoothly, walking toward the great serpent. A knowing smirk played on his lips. "But I must say, Mr. Voldemort… for someone who claims to be a Dark Lord, your ignorance is rather embarrassing."

He reached out casually, patting the Basilisk's smooth, cold head as if it were a mere garden snake. The creature remained perfectly still, as if paralyzed by an invisible force.

"You—you are neither the Heir of Slytherin nor a Parselmouth!" Voldemort spat, his disbelief bordering on hysteria. "Why does it listen to you?"

Dracula merely chuckled. With a nudge, he shifted the serpent's massive body into a coiled shape, then draped himself across it like a lounging king. The Basilisk did not resist. It did not even flinch.

Voldemort's stomach twisted into knots.

A horrifying realization clawed its way into his mind.

Dracula wasn't controlling the Basilisk. The creature was terrified of him.

A thousand years ago, before Slytherin parted ways with the other founders, he had secretly bred this Basilisk using dark magic. It was meant to be the pinnacle of deadly creatures. And yet, before Slytherin could fully harness its potential, another had interfered—

Dracula.

A reckless, death-seeking vampire had entered the hidden chamber, not to slay the beast, but to challenge it. To stare into its eyes and experience its lethal magic firsthand.

But Dracula had not died.

The basilisk's gaze was indeed among the deadliest of natural magics, but it was not an absolute force. Slytherin's own research had revealed its limitations—should a basilisk's eyes be viewed through a reflection, glass, or any obstruction, its lethality would be diminished. Even more crucially, its magic was not an omnipotent death sentence.

A being of formidable magical power could resist immediate death.

A being who was not truly alive—such as a vampire—could resist altogether.

Dracula met both conditions.

The Basilisk's deadly gaze, a force strong enough to kill in an instant, failed against him. Again. And again.

Time after time, Dracula had forced the serpent to meet his eyes, draining it of its magic, rendering it helpless. To the Basilisk, he wasn't prey. He wasn't even a predator.

He was an unstoppable nightmare.

When it saw him again today, its ancient memories had resurfaced. The torment. The exhaustion. The futility.

There was no need for Dracula to command it. The Basilisk had made its choice the moment it recognized him.

And Voldemort—despite all his power, all his ambitions—was nothing compared to that terror.

Desperation flared in his chest. His grip on Quirrell's wand tightened.

If the Basilisk was useless… he would use something else.

In a blur of movement, Voldemort lunged. He drove the wand downward, aiming for the unconscious boy sprawled on the ground—Harry Potter.

"Let me go, Dracula!" he snarled. "Or I'll kill your precious student!"

Dracula sighed, rising from his comfortable perch on the Basilisk's coils. He stepped forward, his silver eyes gleaming under the dim torchlight.

"Disappointing," he murmured.

Voldemort stiffened.

"If you had raised your wand against me," Dracula continued, "I might have granted you the respect of calling you the Dark Lord." His voice remained calm, almost amused. "But this? Resorting to taking hostages? It's pathetic."

"Shut up, Dracula!" Voldemort snapped. "Let me go, or Potter dies! Make your choice!"

Dracula tilted his head, regarding him with an expression that sent ice through Voldemort's veins.

Then, the vampire's lips curled into a slow, wicked grin.

"Do you truly believe," Dracula whispered, "that I possess such high moral standards?"

A terrible realization struck Voldemort a fraction of a second too late.

Before he could react, an arc of crimson light slashed through the air.

Voldemort barely managed to disperse into black smoke, retreating with frenzied desperation. The attack struck the ground where he had stood, carving a deep, jagged trench in the stone.

The Philosophers's Stone—the very thing he had come for—was forgotten.

All he could do was flee.

He twisted through the air, a swirling mass of black mist, speeding toward the Forbidden Forest. He was close—so close—to escaping.

Dracula's lips curled in irritation. "Ugh. Not this trick again."

From his back, wings—jagged, segmented, and sharp—unfurled. He flexed them once before launching into pursuit.

Voldemort dared a glance behind him.

Dracula was in pursuit, but he wasn't even trying. He flapped his dark wings lazily, almost mockingly, trailing behind like a predator toying with its prey.

Voldemort pushed forward, nearing the boundary of Hogwarts' Anti-Apparition Wards. If he could just get past—

Dracula vanished.

Voldemort faltered, his smoke-like form flickering. Where did he—

The answer came in an instant.

A dark moon materialized in front of him, as if reality itself had bent to Dracula's will. From within its ghostly glow, the vampire emerged, his silver hair dancing in the wind, his wings stretching wide and casting deep shadows over Voldemort's spectral form.

Behind him, a river of blood shimmered, flowing in elegant arcs through the night. With a flick of his fingers, Dracula guided it, shaping it into a perfect circle—

A blood-red prison.

The swirling liquid surrounded Voldemort, trapping him within a cage that corroded his very essence.

Panic clawed at him. He hurled himself against the barrier, only to recoil as his smoky form sizzled on contact.

"Wait!" he shouted, his voice raw with desperation. "Dracula, wait!"

The vampire's expression was unimpressed. "Any last words?"

Voldemort forced himself to sound calm, despite the terror pressing against his chest. "We don't have to be enemies."

Dracula's eyes narrowed.

"I have knowledge," Voldemort pressed on. "A secret that no one else knows. Something that every wizard craves but can never truly attain."

The blood prison faltered for the briefest of moments.

Dracula paused.

Voldemort seized the moment, smirking as confidence returned to his voice.

"Wise choice, Dracula." His tone turned persuasive, seductive. "Join me, and I will tell you the greatest secret of all—"

His crimson eyes gleamed.

"The secret of immortality."

Dracula stared at him.

Then, after a long silence—

He sighed.