Chapter Text
Ron felt the pain before he even opened his eyes.
He hissed, screwing his eyes shut even tighter while touching his forehead. Everything hurt. His head was absolutely killing him, and his legs were sore like he had run for hours. Opening his eyes made it even worse, because the sun was already shining merrily through the window, way too bright.
What time was it? Speaking of which, what even happened last night?
He remembered the sleeplessness, then going out for a walk… then coming back, utterly exhausted. Everything in between was completely indistinct. Ron tried to swing his legs out of bed, shivering a little. It was cold out here. He looked down and groaned. He had slept in the same clothes he wore outside, and now everything was crumpled.
After swapping his clothes out, he finally made his way down the stairs, still blinking the sun out of his eyes.
“Ron!” Ron jumped and whipped around to see Molly, who looked taken aback. “Dear, when did you get out of bed?”
“Just now, Mum,” Ron mumbled as Molly bustled over to feel his temperature.
“Oh!” she said, pleasantly surprised, “your fever’s gone down.”
“Yeah, I feel alright. Only a bit peaked, ‘is all.”
“Well, if you’re sure. If you still need a chilling potion, let me know.” Molly mused. “Oh! You must want something to eat as well, you slept past three—”
He slept past three?! “Merlin, why didn’t you wake me up!” Ron groaned. “I slept past three?”
“If you slept that long, you must’ve needed it. I’ll make you something quickly—”
“Aw, you don’t need to, Mum.” Ron frowned. “I’m not that hungry, actually.”
“Nonsense!” Molly insisted, “you’ve been sleeping for the entire day, of course you’re hungry. I’ll make you a sandwich, I think there’s still a bit of corned beef left…”
“No, it’s really okay, Mum,” Ron said, blanching at the mention of corned beef. “I’m really not hungry. I’ll make something for myself later.”
Molly scrutinized Ron’s face, as if looking for any trace of hunger or lies. “Well, if you’re sure,” she murmured, “it’s really nothing for me if I was to make something—”
“Mum, I’m fine!” Rom laughed, swatting her hands away lightly, “I’m really not hungry right now, I’ll tell you when I am.”
After some more back and forth, Ron finally fended off his Mum. He sat down in the kitchen, kneading the bridge of his nose. The soreness from earlier was still thrumming, but without the sun in his face, his head felt a little better. He poured himself a glass of water, raising it to his lips. Some strange sickness! Maybe he got lucky with a weak bug—
He spat the water right out of his mouth. What the blood hell did he just have?
Looking down at his glass in disbelief, he tried it again, only for the water to taste just as bad as it did the first time, perhaps even moreso. It felt like liquified ash, without any of the smoky homeness of the warm fireplace in the Gryffindor common room. Just bitter dust.
Ron peered at the sink, not even sure what he was looking for. The water was fine before, right?
His memories chose this moment to give him a kick in the chest.
Gasping, he saw that night, the new moon, the alley. Blood. Blood and teeth.
He screwed his eyes shut against the pain, more and more of it coming back. He felt the two hot irons pressing into the spot at the side of his neck, the way he got pounced before he could even react. Most damning, he remembered the way his attacker turned to dust. It couldn’t be. There was no way. Ron scrambled to the cupboard, almost tripping over his own legs, and snatched out a slice of bread. He shoved it into his mouth, only to spit it back out again. It tasted exactly the same as the water: like ashes. A grape, an apple: ashes, ashes.
He hurled all of the food into the trashcan. After all, it must’ve all rotted. That was the only explanation. He crouched down, gripping the sides of his head, and the chill that’s followed him since he got out of bed became more pervasive and real.
Maybe it’s not the weather that’s cold, his traitorous mind supplied, maybe it’s you.
Perhaps Ron would understand being bitten by a vampire, but also being cursed by one? That wasn’t supposed to happen to people like him! When the ministry captures vampires, they don’t imprison and execute them, they don’t use that word. They imprison and euthanize them.
Ron shakily stood up, thoughts in turmoil. Vampires had a healing factor, right? His eyes slid to the knife rack. There was only one way to be sure.
He took a small fruit knife and positioned it over his forearm, trying to brace himself. He’s had way worse than a small cut in quidditch anyway! Yet, no matter how much he told himself to just do it and get it over with, his hand was frozen. What if he didn’t get the answer he wanted?
“Ron?”
Ron yanked the knife away from him, whipping around to see Harry at the entrance to the kitchen.
“Harry!” he gasped, nervously laughing, “What are you doing here?”
“‘Dunno,” Harry answered, shrugging. “I was a little hungry. What about you?”
Ron’s eyes darted between his hands and the knife. “I… was just about to cut up an apple” What if Harry looked at him a bit more and just knew? Could that happen? “...D’you want to share one?”
“Sure.”
The silence between them stretched as Ron took another apple, washed it, and cut it into halves with the same fruit knife he was planning on mutilating himself with. Harry leaned against the kitchen counter, absentmindedly drawing little circles into the wood. He seemed somewhat preoccupied as well, lost in his own thoughts.
Ron placed the two halves of the apple onto the counter, and Harry gratefully took one, biting into it. Ron stared at his half, the phantom aftertaste of ash still in his throat. Harry continued eating his half with no problem. Ron slowly moved to hold the apple, wanting to just try it, just a nibble, just to make sure, but his hand seemed stuck.
“Have you noticed?” Harry started. “We never seem to make it through a school year without something happening.”
Ron paused, slightly off kilter. He remembered Quriell, then the Chamber of Secrets, then Sirius, then the Triwizard Tournament. Would you look at that. Harry had a point.
“Yeah,” Ron chuckled. “We’re sort of magnets for trouble, aren’t we?”
Harry frowned, and a shadow fell over his face. “Magnets for mortal peril, more like.”
“Hey—” Ron tried to protest.
“It’s going to be even more dangerous this year, what with Voldemort—” Ron flinched, “—being back, and Dumbledore won’t even tell me anything! I already got attacked by dementors! What if we all end up bloody dead, huh? What about that? Did he think about that before deciding to just keep all of us in the dark!?”
Ron was taken aback. Harry seemed to immediately regret his outburst. When he looked up fearfully at Ron from behind his bird’s nest hair, his eyes were crammed to the brim with fear and hopeless frustration.
“Sorry,” Harry whispered, shrinking into himself, and Ron suddenly saw that night in the summer of second year: the barred windows, and the small boy behind them.
“What brought all this on?” Ron asked.
“I don’t know,” Harry muttered. “Maybe it’s because we’re about to go back to Hogwarts? I just can’t shake the feeling that everything’s about to get worse.”
Ron thought about everything that had happened, like, you know, the return of You-Know-Who, and Harry really wasn’t wrong. It sunk in for him as well then, that this school year might be worse than the last one.
“Well, I’m not going to lie and say that I think you’re wrong, because I think you’re right,” Ron said, completely blunt, making Harry look at him in disbelief. Ron smiled.
“W-what?”
“I trust your instincts,” Ron said. “You’ve been through a lot, mate. Well, we all have, but you helped us through it. So how could I not trust you?”
Harry ducked his head, abashed, and Ron nudged him in the shoulder lightly. “So trust us back that no matter what happens, mate, we’re all in it together, right?” Ron finished, “Me, Hermione, my family, we’ve got your back.”
“Thanks,” Harry said, a small, but genuine smile on his face. “That means a lot.”
And Ron decided then and there that no one could ever know about even the possibility that he had been cursed. Harry needed them, and Ron would not bring the Ministry to their doorstep.
—
By dinner, Ron was still not hungry. He staved off his mum’s protests that he wasn’t eating enough with some excuse about having too big a snack and retreated to his room, where his half of the apple from him and Harry’s talk was still sitting on the nightstand next to his bed. His eyes had drifted to it countless times as he did his summer homework, but even as evening came and passed, it still sat there, unbitten.
The more he stewed and thought about it, the more he convinced himself that he had only been bitten and not cursed. After all, the pervasive chills wracking his body and the sun-induced headaches could just be lingering sickness. He wasn’t thirsting for blood. He didn’t feel particularly enhanced, as vampires were often described to be; his sense of hearing seemed unchanged, and his sense of smell was as dull as ever.
He felt like… well, he felt like Ron.
So maybe everything was still alright.
The next day, Ron escaped breakfast again. The various members of the Weasley family were hilariously split between being either extremely early risers or extremely late risers, and with the added chaos of Hermione, Harry, Sirius, and whomever happened to be at the base at the time, Molly had resigned to simply making a portion of food for everyone, wrapped with a heating charm, to claim sometime before noon. Lunch was accordingly scattered and served in the same manner. With increasingly frequent Order meetings, even dinner had become irregular. In the end, Ron simply got away with just not taking any food.
However, when Ron woke up on the third day after that night, he was beginning to feel a little peckish. He had eyed the apple half that was still on his nightstand (now looking appropriately browned), but in the end he had convinced himself that he wanted something chilled, so the apple simply wouldn't do. Absolutely nothing was wrong about this.
During him and Harry’s summer homework cram session, he kept on smelling something strange in the air.
“Ron! Are you listening?” Ron flinched and turned to a miffed Hermione. They were sitting on Hermione’s bed, reviewing for a Transfiguration essay. Though Hermione and Harry were in shorts and shirts, Ron was comparatively bundled up in a sweater and trousers. The getup had drawn some strange looks, but no comments yet. After all, it was just about time for the weather to start cooling down again. Ron looked down at the book between them, Hermione’s impatient finger tapping at a section about different forms of the Fundamental Equation of Transfiguration. Gulping, he tried reading the first sentence, and was immediately lost.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, sheepish. “I keep on smelling something strange. Bit distracting.”
Hermione sniffed the air experimentally. “I don’t smell anything,” she said.
“I dunno, Hermione. I think I’ve started smelling ink my sleep,” Harry joked from the floor next to the bed, looking up from his inky draft parchment. Ron snorted.
“Boys,” Hermione snapped, “We’re back at Hogwarts in a week and a half! Let’s try to at least get this done before the Diagon trip.”
“But that’s in four days!” Ron groaned.
“So you better start reading,” Hermione sniped. Ron groaned again. Momentarily, he tried to seek out that smell again, somewhere between perfume and metal-
“Ron!”
He hurried back to reading.
—
The smell was only a precursor to what was to come.
On the remaining days leading up to the Diagon trip, Ron’s peckishness evolved into moderate hunger. Along with the hunger, the smell in the air began to define itself: metallic and savory, blended with some notes of sweetness. While he was by himself, the smell was faint. With others, it cloyed and swirled like a fog.
Deep in denial, Ron put on his usual smile and hotly ignored the fact that the smell was absolutely mouthwatering.
The day before the Diagon trip, the essays were being revised. As such, Ron was still obligated to be crammed into a room with Harry, Hermione, and the smell all the time. The sun was giving him a migraine. He was doing his best to breathe through his mouth and not his nose, but sometimes, a particularly strong wave of it would waft over and almost make him cough and choke.
“Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?” Hermione asked, the third time it happened.
“No, it’s nothing,” Ron asserted, giving her the brightest smile he could manage. “Maybe the air in here isn’t great for me. I’ll go out for a walk later.” He wouldn’t. The sun gave him splitting migraines, and the consistent tickling at the edge of his hearing range wasn’t helping matters at all.
“You look like you need it,” Harry commented, looking up from his own parchment.
Ron flinched at that statement. “I do?”
Harry shot him a worried look. “You’ve been kind of haggard lately.”
If possible, Ron felt even colder than he already was. Was it that obvious? If Harry could tell something was wrong with him, who’s to say that the rest of his family won’t? Another wave of the smell wafted over again, almost forcing another cough, and Ron suddenly didn’t want to be here anymore.
He slammed his quill back into the inkpot on the bed. “I’m done,” he announced, lying.
“You are?” Hermione exclaimed.
Ron quickly stood up and beelined for the door. He was halfway to his own room when Harry caught up with him and grabbed his wrist.
“Ron,” Harry started, “is this because of what I said a few days ago? I didn’t mean to worry you like that, I guess it does sound a bit drastic now—”
“No, you don’t have anything to do with it,” Ron hurriedly said.
“Are you sure?”
“Trust your instincts, Harry,” Ron reassured. There was a pause as Harry looked at him, suspicious. Ron searched for an excuse. “I think I’m actually coming down with something.”
“Really?” Harry said, eyes widening, “maybe you should get some potions from your mom then—”
“It’s fine!” Ron whined. “It’s nothing. It’ll go away once I sleep a bit.”
“If you’re sure,” Harry murmured. He suddenly jolted. “Hey, does that mean you lied to Hermione about finishing?”
After shushing Harry aggressively, Ron finally sent him off to cover for him and retreated to his own room. Ron locked the door and pressed up against it, ever so cold. Footsteps, creaking, voices, and whispers from all over the house were slithering into his range of hearing, like the walls were thinner than before. Even though his curtains were drawn, it all still seemed too bright.
He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, perhaps trying to get at the ever-present tangled nest of pain in his head. Slowly, he shifted his shallow breaths back into full ones. The air was so sweet, and just the smell of it managed to cool the heat behind his forehead. Licking his lips, he breathed in deeper, trying not to cry.
—
The sun was positively glamorous on the day of the Diagon trip. As soon as they arrived through the floo, Ron immediately felt the sun stabbing into his head, reigniting his migraine and somehow making him hungrier.
“Everyone, we’re stopping at the bookstore first!” Molly announced from ahead of him.
Ron staggered into the alley proper, and suddenly got bludgeoned in the face with the full force of a whole alley’s worth of cloying air.
He burst into violent coughing to try to get it out of his nose, doubling over.
“Ron! Are you alright?” Molly exclaimed, turning around and rushing to Ron’s side.
With the sun beating down on him and the overwhelming mouthwatering smell, Ron finally realized just how hungry he was.
“He’s been looking a little under the weather all week, Mrs. Weasley,” Hermione chimed in.
“If you weren’t feeling well, why’d you agree to come?” Fred grumbled.
A cold pit was yawning open in his stomach, and the sensation sent a full-body shudder wracking through him. The Diagon Alley school shopping crowds stormed past them, feet thundering and voices deafening. The freezing hunger cut through him, leaving him trembling with sick anticipation. He bit his tongue until he could straighten up without getting vertigo. When he looked into the faces of everyone, all he could see was how rosy they were, taunting him. If he just reached over, just tore, just bit down into skin, he wouldn’t have to deal with this euphoric smell and he’d have the actual thing—
Focus! He screamed at himself, everyone’s watching!
“Maybe I am coming down with something,” he said, voice hoarse, “but it’s nothing too bad, and I can still shop.”
“Ron, are you sure?” Molly fretted, feeling his temperature and frowning at the lack of fever.
“Mum, it’s fine,” Ron forced out, his voice somehow managing to remain steady. “I’ll rest when I get back.”
“You owe him a broom, Mrs. Weasley,” Harry pointed out.
“Oh, alright,” Molly said, resigned. “But it’s straight to bed when we get back, alright?” Ron gave her the happiest smile that he could, tucking his trembling hands in his pockets.
As the books were bought and the broomstick picked out, the sun seemed to only get brighter. Ron trailed after everyone else, his gaze constantly sticking to necks before he wrenched it away. He was almost glad when they ducked into Madam Malkin's, out of the sun again. While Molly fretted over hair products for Hermione, Ginny spent most of her time shoving hats onto Ron, each one sillier than the last. Ron could only keep breathing through his mouth while trying not to salivate at her proximity.
"I didn't know the wizarding world had caps," Hermione spoke up, startling Ron out of his reverie. Molly, Hermione, and Madam Malkin herself were back, and Hermione had about five new bottles in her arms.
"That's what this is called?" Ginny clarified, pointing at the strangely brimmed hat on Ron’s head, "a cap?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say they're very common here," Madam Malkin admitted, "They're still quite muggle. But I do love new things, and there’s a certain charm to them.”
“It looks good on you, dear,” Molly told Ron, smiling.
Ron plucked the cap from his head to actually look at it. It was pine green, and had only a frontal brim, unlike the full brim of the classic witch’s hat, which was more formal anyway. He put it back on and looked in the mirror mounted on the wall. He had to admit that it looked pretty decent, paired with his nape-length red hair.
More importantly—perhaps it would keep the sun out of his face?
“Let’s get one,” he told Molly, an almost manic glint in his eye.
—
It was 2 AM again, and Ron couldn’t fall asleep.
The situation was ironic in a bitter way, because that was where all of this started, wasn’t it? The after-midnight walk through the dark, empty streets of London.
After the trip, he’d been immediately banished to bed rest by Molly, who had felt bad enough for not letting him fully recover. It had been three days since then, and Ron wasn’t getting better.
He pretended to be asleep whenever Molly visited, letting her medicinal potions and glasses of water accumulate until he got up to dump them in the middle of the night. He let Harry and Hermione in to chatter at him until his hunger grew so all-consuming, he couldn’t help but salivate whenever someone got too close.
Sleep didn’t even help, because the smell had filtered into his dreams. His nights were feverish tangles of wishes and waking dreams, where he imagined getting out of bed, following that heavenly smell, and walking towards someone else’s room. He’d find them in bed, faceless and red, and his jaws would hover closer and closer to their neck until he woke up in his own bed again, breathless, drooling, and exhilarated. Sometimes, he would see the eyes of his alley attacker hovering in the shadows of the room, completely insane, and he’d wonder how much he’d become its reflection.
One time, he woke while dreaming of walking out of his room, only to find his body actually walking out of his room. The door remained locked after that.
Completely awake, he could only lie still as he felt the numbness of hunger creep over his shaking limbs, listening to the rest of the house snore away. Every single part of his body was consumed and twisted to chase out food, imbued with sheer, desperate strength.
Suddenly delirious, Ron got up and pasted himself against his door, writhing to get rid of the itch in his marrow. They were right outside. Not even far. Skin’s much easier to break than people seem to think, judging by his alleyway experience. Maybe he could go out and just… get one tiny bite! Then everything would finally stop itching and burning, it would even taste good, so good—
No.
Ron flinched the thoughts away, his nails gouging claw marks into the door. His body, seething with want, was trapped in this room by his own mind, and no matter how much this hunger battered against him, he’d keep it trapped as long as he possibly could.
—
On the eve of the day the Hogwarts Express was due to leave, Ron woke up in the evening, feeling fine.
Wait, what?
He scrambled out of bed, onto his feet.
He didn’t feel hungry. The smell and sounds were muted, and he breathed in air that was mind-shatteringly clear. He was still freezing, and the sun still hurt, annoyingly reminding him that none of this was a dream, but maybe he’d weathered the worst of it. Maybe nothing else was going to happen?
He burst out his door and almost tumbled down the stairs before righting himself bursting through Hermione’s open door.
“Guess what?” he trilled, startling her from her packing. Ginny perked up from the floor of Hermione’s room.
“Ron!” Hermione exclaimed.
“Shouldn’t you still be resting?” Ginny asked, one eyebrow raised, “you looked pretty out of it earlier.”
“I just woke up, and now I feel right as rain!” Ron declared. “Just in time for tomorrow!”
“Finally!” Ginny laughed. “Come on,” she said, ushering Ron out the door, “let’s go tell Mum!”
Molly had evidently just got out of an Order meeting, judging by the dispersing Order members leaving through the door, but she was nonetheless overjoyed when she saw him.
“Oh, you’re finally up!” she fussed, pinching Ron’s cheeks and pecking him on the forehead. “You’re just in time for Hogwarts, really, I was really getting worried that you wouldn’t be feeling better before you’re all set to leave, everyone’s started packing—”
Fred suddenly appeared in front of them with a CRACK. “You can’t fault him, Mum,” Fred said, placing a very heartfelt hand on his chest, “he’s the second youngest and the most fragile. He can’t even use magic. Tragic, that is.”
“Hey, so what does that make me?” Ginny asked, faux offended.
“Fred, finish your sweeping!” Molly yelled at him.
“Well, glad to see that nothing changed in my absence,” Ron sniped.
“You wish it could!” Fred snickered, bopping him on the nose before disappearing again with another CRACK.
“Just they wait,” Ginny grumbled. and Ron tucked his hands in his pockets, trying to feel happy. He was up, he was in the thick of everything, and the hunger was gone.
So why did it feel like something terrible was looming over his head?
—
“Ron! Harry!” Molly yelled from downstairs, “Hurry up!”
Harry started brushing his teeth more furiously than before as Ron attacked the knot in his hair harder than before.
“I can’t believe you left all your packing until today again!” Molly was hollering, “You get down here in less than 15 minutes or else!”
“Tick tock!” Fred teased as he and George passed their doorway, levitating two trunks behind them.
Harry spat and rinsed, bundling out of the bathroom. “Good luck,” he said, looking back at Ron sympathetically.
“Yeah, get out of here so I can use the loo!” Ron groaned back, and the door shut. Ron slammed the comb down and put his green cap on, only for his arm to spasm and jolt.
He gasped at the sudden numbness and looked down at his right arm. As he twitched it, it erupted into pins and needles like it had fallen asleep. He hissed. What on earth?
Something deep and primal shuddered through him, a mental yearning for something to eat that echoed his aches and itches from just the day before yesterday. The emotion was desperate, curling, and still right in the forefront of his mind, quivering as his numb arm shook.
With a sudden alacrity, Ron realized that the reason he stopped feeling the hunger was because he was too hungry to be hungry.
Desperately, he shook his arm again, only for it to feel more leaden than it had seconds ago.
“RON!”
Terrified, he abandoned the bathroom and raced back into his room to try to lift his trunk. When he pressed his numb hand to it, the hand seemed to bulge like it was being stuffed with cotton and refused to exert any force on the trunk. Panic twisted into his lungs. How was he going to keep this from everyone? What in the bloody hell was he supposed to do now?
Ron took a few deep breaths. First things first: get down there!
He lifted the trunk with his remaining arm and winced at the strain, finally racing down the stairs with everyone else. The space was teeming with order members.
“Ronald Weasley, what in Merlin’s name took you so long! The Order cars have been here all morning!” Molly snatched the trunk away from Ron and immediately ran outside. Ron gulped as she immediately rammed three others out of her way to load his trunk.
“We’re with Ginny and George,” Arthur said, walking up to him. He patted him on his numb shoulder, making him jolt, but Arthur didn’t notice. “Nice hat, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Ron croaked.
20 minutes behind schedule, all the cars finally departed. Through Ginny’s final homework dash and George flicking the brim of his cap at least once every 5 minutes, Ron steadily grew more panicked as both his arms eventually turned numb, then lost all sensation.
He suffered through an entire crisis as Ginny and George carried their own trunks out of the car trunk, but was thankfully saved by Arthur, “I’ll carry it Ron, don’t worry—”. They met up with all the others, and Hermione was happy to talk his ear off about prefect duties, none of which registered with him.
“—and we’ll have to get to the prefect compartment immediately—” Hermione was saying, when a creeping, tingling sensation suddenly seized Ron’s legs. Ron completely froze.
Distantly, he felt Sirius in his doggy form nudging him. What was he pretending for? Why did he bother going through all of this if he would’ve just crumpled down walking anyway?
His body was wrenched around to face Hermione. Harry, and even Sirius were looking at him, worried. “Ron, are you okay?” she asked cautiously. Belatedly, Ron noticed that her hand was on his shoulder. Funny, that he hadn’t felt it at all.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” he blurted, and ran.
“Ron, what—”
“Hey!”
He ran into a crowd of people, pushing people out of his way as spots began to wink in and out of his vision. In a blur, he was outside the station, on the streets of London, thickets of people with suitcases all rushing past him. The sun was still too bright, always too bright even through his cap, so he ran into the darkness of an alley. There, his legs finally went numb under him, sending him crashing to the grimy concrete under him.
He burst into shrieks of laughter. His thoughts were all whorling around in his brain like soup. The sun blinded him, his heart wasn’t beating, and human blood smelled like the best thing he would ever have. What did he think this was, the flu?
The Hunger had taken his appetite, then his will, then his health, then his limbs. Somehow, he knew deep down that if couldn’t sate the Hunger now, it would take his mind and hunt for itself, and then it would all be very out of his hands.
Footsteps.
His head snapped up, almost involuntary. A muggle with a star-studded cap and an official looking coat had walked into the alley. All his limbs strained, and suddenly, that muggle and the blood thrumming through his veins became Ron’s entire world.
“Don’t come any closer,” Ron whispered, but the muggle just narrowed his eyes, his gaze darting to Ron’s shaking body and dilated eyes.
“Alright boy, hand the dope over.”
“Don’t,” Ron hissed, nails gouging into the concrete beneath him.
The muggle huffed and took another step towards him.
Ron lunged.
He bowled the older muggle over, eliciting a roar.
“Get off me, you little—”
He bit down on the muggle’s neck. Like his body knew what was coming, it worked together in perfect fluidity and clamped the muggle’s mouth shut before he could scream. Ron’s dull teeth weren’t piercing deep enough, so Ron just bit harder.
Blood.
It flooded into his mouth, like hot chocolate, like iron, like honey, like tea, like everything he thought tasted good but yet like nothing he’s ever had. His eyes drifted shut in ecstasy. A well of magic seemed to rise up in him as he drank, circulating through his veins. It chased away the pins and needles and cured his atrophy. He couldn’t stop himself from drinking even after he stopped feeling the aching need in his stomach. Just a bit more, just one more gulp—
Something suddenly pushed against his gums, gently pulsing behind his skull.
Pass it along.
Ron’s eyes snapped open again. He yanked his teeth from the unconscious muggle, almost yanking out a chunk of his shoulder, and the suggestion instantly fizzled away.
Reality slammed back into him like a stunner. He slowly looked down at his soft hands, still as pale as ever, but no longer shaking. His hearing was dimmed, and he couldn’t even smell the blood like he could before. He felt like… just Ron, again.
Ron looked back behind him, and his green cap was still on the ground, having flown off when he… attacked. He looked back down at the unconscious muggle and knew he wasn’t dead because his wound was already knitting itself together. That’s right, he thought faintly, vampire spit is supposed to be a healing agent.
There was no denying it anymore.
He was a vampire.