I just wanted to warn you before you complain: I'm aware of the fact that Harry had red eyes in the last chapter. This is not a mistake!

I know that the common tounge is most definitely not English, but in my story it is to make things at least a little easier for Harry!

For those, who are interested: It's the year 2998 of the Third Age, so it's roughly 50 years since Bilbo returned to the Shire and Gollum has escaped from Mordor twenty years ago. In 3 years Bilbo turns 111 years old.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Middle Earth.

The Dark Wizard and the Curse of Immortality

Chapter 2 – Orthanc

Harry sat up, opening his eyes, just to slam his hands in front of them with a gasp of pain. His nightly red eyes were not meant to be subjected to the light of day. He had to blink a couple of times to get the spots, that were still dancing in his vision, to recede slightly, as his eyes turned back into the brilliant emerald green he was known for.

Looking around, he came to a realisation that made him blink in surprise: This was most certainly not his room. Although the floor and the walls of the room, he was in, were made of a dark stone, he couldn't identify, the room was light-flooded, as on one side off the high room were several high windows.

He stood up. Pacing around the room, he tried to find something familiar. Was it some secret room of Hogwarts? Maybe just the Room of Requirement... No, that was unlikely. What would he need such a light-flooded room for?

What was he doing here? What did he do before falling unconscious? How did he fall unconscious?

He went to meet Hermione yesterday, he remembered that much. What happened during their meeting though? Trying his best to remember, the first thing that came back to him was her odd behaviour. Why had she been acting weird? She said something about her not living forever... and she didn't want him to be left behind.

That was when he found the bag, she had packed for him. It lay innocently beside his bed. Grabbing it, all missing memories suddenly returned to him. Like a tidal wave the memories crashed down and drowned him. He couldn't quite sort through them at first, leaving him stunned for a second, but then he let lose a blood-curling roar filled with emotions, ranging from longing to betrayal.

"So you have finally awoken," an enchanting, wise voice called in relief, effectively cutting him off, although he hadn't spoken loudly at all. "I have been worried about you, child."

Harry whipped around and gasped, when all he could see was light, that eased the painful emotions, whirling through him. To his great disappointment the beautiful light was soon lowered to a less brilliant degree though, until it was a soft ethereal glow, that a very old white haired man with a long staff in his right hand, seemed to emit.

He was a truly respect-inspiring person, despite his age. On the contrary, his age enhanced the natural power he had over people by pronouncing his obvious wisdom. Harry knew from the moment his eyes landed on the man that he was the most powerful wizard, he had ever seen. Dumbledore, Voldemort and even Hermione were nothing compared to him.

The man approached him and Harry drew back slightly, feeling unworthy of being in the man's presence, as he was quite the opposite of the man. He felt like he was in the presence of an angel.

The man raised a slightly amused eyebrow, but murmured in a soothing, concerned voice: "You don't need to fear me, little one, I am Saruman the White of the White Council. I do not intend to hurt you. What is your name?" He continued in his advance and Harry didn't try to stay away any more, fearful that he might insult the other.

Under normal circumstances the young-looking being would have felt annoyance, when someone treated him like a child, although he was most of the time several times as old as the person, but it reminded Harry too much of how his late Headmaster used to treat him to annoy him much. He was convinced anyway, that this man was in fact so old, that he was young in comparison. Wasn't this the reason Hermione sent him here? "Harry"

The man finally stood in front of Harry, "Fangorn found you. You were lucky I happened to take a stroll through the forest, when I did or he might have simply disposed of you..."

The man looked only mildly irritated with who-ever it was, he was talking about, but the green-eyed man made a mental note to give this Fangorn a piece of his mind. He didn't take too kindly to people, trying to get rid of him, while he was in the helpless state of being unconscious.

Concerned dark eyes turned to him again, as the great wizard in front of him lowered his head to further examine the young face. "What happened to you, young one? There was blood all over your face and hands...," His eyes turned a slightly darker shade, as they suddenly became sharp and calculating. "although you didn't have any wounds on either. Have you done something, you want to talk to me about?"

Confused eyes were the only answer he got for a few minutes, until Harry realized what the other wizard was talking about. "Oh. I cried," he muttered, looking at the floor, hoping despite better knowledge, that the other wouldn't think less of him. He knew from experience that once he told people this most figured it out, but lying made situations like this worse.

To Harry's great relief and confusion, his voice remained sweet and sympathetic: "What does this have to do with the blood?"

The dark creature's confused eyes blinked. "I cry blood." He had to have figured it out by now!

The eyebrow was raised higher and the eyes became even more piercing. "I beg your forgiveness for my ignorance, but I have never heard of a race that cries blood. Would you care telling me about yourself?" Obviously not expecting a negative answer he lead the other towards two wooden chairs, that were facing each other, while Harry figured out, that Hermione had actually succeeded. He wasn't in his world anymore. The old being was only vaguely surprised that since he was angry with Hermione for doing this without his consent, he missed nothing. There was simply nothing left to miss. Even Hogwarts was not really his home any more without his family there.

He shook his head slightly confused, which the white-robed man misunderstood as affirmative answer to his long-forgotten question and sat down with a grace, that defyed his age in Harry's opinion. Then he remembered the man's request to tell him about himself.

He could lie now and probably get away with it, since the other would most likely never find out about it, but something made him reconsider this. If this man in front of him was truly immortal, then Harry should do his best not to botch up and lose the wary trust the other was willing to give him. Now that he was given the opportunity to be with a constant in his life, he found that it sounded too good to risk in favour of hiding his dark past. He had a feeling if he explained everything, the other would understand.

So Harry told the other everything he remembered. Even though a century had passed already he tried to add as many details as he could, but he noticed with growing horror that the story was nearing its darkest parts. "I turned back grinning at Hermione and Ron the horcrux safely in my fist..." For the first time Harry stuttered in his story-telling. He tried hard to battle the images, that were slowly breaking him.

The white clothed wizard's eyes sharpened and for a moment Harry hoped he'd be allowed to skip the part he obviously didn't want to talk about, but the older wizard only half-whispered: "Do continue, please," in this feathery-soft voice of his, sounding forceful and regretful at the same time.

With all the will Harry could master, he started again, "..., but suddenly I felt a searing hot pain almost as horrible as the Cruciatus coming from the side of my neck, as an impossibly strong grip held me in place. I felt someone sucking the fluids out of my body agonisingly slowly – well at least in my opinion it was slow. I was dimly aware of Ron's and Hermione's screaming. I don't know what they screamed. Maybe hexes or they were just screams of terror, but either way, it didn't help. I was already so weak that the vampire was the only thing supporting me, when a furiously red cutting curse flew just over my shoulder, slicing its head off. Both of our bodies slumped to the floor, his blood spraying everywhere. A great deal of blood landed on my dieing body and by chance or rather misfortune, a little bit trickled into my mouth. Slowly the pain dimmed and I thought that was the end. I would now die and go see my parents. I was right on one point: I died in that moment, but it was neither the end, nor did I or will I see my parents any time soon."

The wizard's eyes widened a little in mild interest. "So you have been reborn?"

"No, I'm still dead, although I like to call this my second life."

At this bushy white eyebrows shot up. "Why do you remain here? How can the dead remain among the living without losing their bodies?"

Harry was getting annoyed with the other man's questions, so he answered, knowing full well, that it wouldn't mean much to the other: "The thing that bit me was a vampire."

"So whoever is bit by a vampire dies and becomes one too?" he asked trying to fill the blanks Harry had left purposefully.

The vampire shook his head, deciding to get the explanations over with and hope for pity, instead of the usual reaction: fear and disgust. "Only if the victim drinks a little of the vampire's blood. Otherwise he or she either dies of blood loss or if the vampire didn't drink too much, continue to live as though nothing has happened." Seeing that the wizard wanted to know more, he gave him more information, "A vampire is an undead creature, that drinks blood to keep its body from dieing completely. If they do so they are basically immortal - if nobody severes their head that is. They can heal every other wound."

That seemed to catch the other wizard's attention. "They can't be killed otherwise?"

"I don't know any other way. Other wounds may merely cause us to fall unconcious, if the pain is unbearable. We can even regrow lost body parts in a matter of days, if we have enough blood in our system."

"How long can you sustain without drinking blood?"

The younger of the two winced. He was hit by a memory, he certainly did not wish to remember. "That depends...Everything we do-walking, talking or even just existing- takes us a certain amount of blood to do. If we did nothing at all and remained perfectly still, we might be able to last a year, two perhaps."

Saruman frowned thoughtfully. "And if you are active?"

"I don't know for sure, since we go into a crazed blood-lust and develop enormous strength far superior to even our nightly hunting form, none have been able to tell how long we can really last without blood. If we don't get blood, when we need it - which is most of the time every few weeks - we are going to get it a week later at most." A flash of red hair that was in many places darker and damp lit up in his mind and he tried to shut out the images of more parts of the red-head, lying in different places all over a great room.

A light squeeze of his shoulder was all it for some reason took the old man to snap him out of his daymare. "Please, continue, my boy. I need to know all. What happened after you found that Horcrux?"

"Hermione and Ron panicked, while I fell in and out of consciousness. Since she knew I desperately needed blood and would soon be unable to control my actions, she decided that we would break into a hospital." He continued, his voice growing monotone, as it grew harder to talk about the horrible events taking place after his turning. Although he later found out that Snape had little choice but to kill Dumbledore, the vengeful dark creature spoke of how he ripped him apart in great detail and deep satisfaction. Finally they came to the part where he killed Nagini, who was the last Horcrux and was confronted by an enraged Voldemort, whom he only managed to kill, because he went into a crazed blood-lust, after being hit by a great number of cutting curses. After the fight, when he was done with Voldemort's body though, he was still beyond himself with hunger, as he was still suffering from the deeper wounds and had toyed too much with the monster's body. It was then that Ron stumbled in bleeding from a number of smaller wounds. He only remembered snatches of what happened after that, because he had buried those memories deep inside himself, but what he did remember forced blood streakes to trail down the sides of his face. He had to use all his willpower to tell his story to the point of him waking up in this room.

"I am sorry, child. I shouldn't have pressed you for information, but I had to know. I am meant to protect Arda, so I had to make sure you can be trusted," the white wizard told him with deepest regret.

"You knew I was not from this world?" Harry asked surprised.

"I knew that you were different," he said, smiling slightly. "You should get some rest and we will continue this conversation at a later time, my boy."

"But vampires don't rest! They may only fall unconsss..." Harry's voice slurred to a stop, as he felt himself slump back into the mattress he had only gotten up from a little earlier and the older wizard obviously having come to enough of an understanding of his race magically pulled the heavy curtains over the windows closed. After a small struggle, that Harry again lost, his eyelids closed on their own accord, smiling slightly at the thoughtful gesture.

"You should rest despite that, young friend. I will ask your assistance on a few matters tomorrow, if you don't mind."

So Harry stayed with the wizard helping wherever he could and in return receiving blood from Saruman's thralls.

He backed the walls around Orthanc up with wards and placed curses at the entrance that would attack anyone, who tried to enter without permission or with bad intentions or he spent his time searching the rooms for magical objects, that were forgotten by the muggles that used to live there. Most of those were weapons of all kinds that were on the fine line of a very well-crafted muggle weapon and a magical one.

It were peaceful and happy months, that he spent in the tower of Isengard, avoiding the sun by only leaving the building after sunset. Like most happy times in his life those times came to an end. He by accident stumbled across a forgotten study.

The door was rusted and shrieked in protest, as the vampire forced it to open. Hardly noticing the dust that greeted him and showered him, when it settled again, Harry set to work. He picked up some of the more important-looking documents, scrolls and books he found, as he didn't understand the letters and languages they were written in.

It was by pure luck that he found the room, hidden behind one of the bookshelves. Silently thanking his vampiric eyesight, that prefered the darkness to light, he surveyed the room, but the only thing that held his interest was the ball of stone, supported by a three-legged pedestal in the middle of the room.

He ran up to it and was about to size it, when the familiar voice of Saruman made him whirl around in a fluid motion, like a kid caught with its hand in the cookie-jar, "I think it would be best if you left that to me, Harry."

Feeling slightly miffed, Harry complied, stepping out of the way. As Saruman made his way towards the stone, his staff started to glow more brightly, but the wizard was obviously careful not to light it too fast, so Harry's eyes had the opportunity to change to their less light-sensitive form. "What is it?"

Examining the stone Saruman told him, "It is a Palantir." Knowing that this didn't answer the vampire's question very well, he elaborated: "It is an elvish Seeing Stone. Now please leave me alone, so I can study it further."

Turning around to follow this dismissal, when he heard the sharp edge to the wizard's tone, Harry made a mental note to ask him later what exactly "elvish" meant.

He never got the chance to though. The wizard started spending day in day out gazing into the stone. Beginning to worry, Harry began watching the other.

From his usual position at the door, spying through the jar, he couldn't see anything in the Stone. It took much time, until he saw the places and people the other saw mirrored in his eyes.

The spying his cohabitant did on those strangers wasn't what really worried Harry though. Every day he saw something horrible more often. It was a red eye and for a moment, he had thought it was his own, until he realised, that those unlike his were full of bad intentions and surrounded by flames.

Over time Saruman changed further.

Looking down Harry saw with a sad heart as the trees that used to carry fruits and the flowered bushes were hacked down on the white wizard's command to make way for buildings of ruffly-hewn stone, that already disfigured the area a farther bit away. He frowned, looking over to them. The cluster of buildings, from which at night the smoke of fires rose, could only be seen from the tower, as it was surrounded by a ring of high trees. He sometimes wondered what they were doing there, but he was quite sure that it had something to do with the pollution of the beautiful lake that was not too long ago filled with fish.

Let alone the things he saw lurking about at night. The vampire shuddered. Foul-smelling, disfigured monsters were starting to populate the area around the tower, forcing him to give up his old habit of venturing the grounds by night.

Harry was watching Saruman. The man wasn't gazing into his Palantir though. He was sitting in a high-backed almost throne-like chair, sitting in a position, that suggested he was deep in thought. The vampire was standing in the shadows of the room, hiding behind a pillar.

Suddenly the white haired man's eyes snapped open. He called with a voice that made it clear to the darker figure that he had known for quite some time, that he had been spied on: "Harry, come here, please."

Stepping out of the shadows, the vampire frowned slightly, wondering what had given him away, not at all feeling embarrassed for being caught. "Yes?"

Saruman smiled in a self-satisfied way, as though he had just won a battle - or was he about to win it? "I want to ask a favour of you that will be benefiting to both of us."

"And what favour would that be?" Harry half-growled in his annoyance with the man, who was clearly going insane with the power he held.

The old man's eyes twinkled, as though he knew something the younger didn't. A little like Lockhart. A degrading, slightly cocky look that was most certainly pointing downward on everybody else. In this case Harry knew though, that the wizard had every reason to wear this look. It was unnerving. "I want you to create a new tribe of vampires."

"What?!" Harry yelled, hoping he had misunderstood him.

A glare met him. It stated the other's patience was not up for such games today, as he told him, "You have heard me quite correctly. I want you to create more vampires."

"Never," he answered simply.

"You will do as I say!" Saruman commanded, but seeing that this only served to infuriate the dark creature more, he quickly changed tactics. His voice regained its charming quality, "Think about what you would win, boy! You could have a race of your own –a new family- and nobody would ever frown down upon you or your people. Nobody could frown down upon you, because you would have power, Harry. You wouldn't be different any more, but part of group of people like you, a society you could form yourself; you could rule!"

For a moment Harry almost sympathised with the dementors, as he suddenly realised what kind of person sat in front of him and what he offered him. Someone like this could offer far more to a monster like himself, than the good ever could. He glared at Saruman defiantly despite that though. In honour of Dumbledore he had always done what was right and not what was easy.

"Fuck you," he said simply as he left the room, conveniently ignoring the fact that the sinister wizard most likely didn't know the word.

"You will regret this choice, Harry!" a more cheerful voice than Harry was comfortable with called after him. The words, 'because nobody else would ever take in the likes of you' were left unsaid, but couldn't have come across more clearly if he had screamed them after Harry's back. The short man ran up to his room, grabbing the bag, he had left untouched, in fright of the memories it adhered. Letting his instincts take over, he trusted the animal-like vampire in himself to take over and carry him out of the tower.

Watching the young-looking creature in its flight through the Palantir, Saruman of Many Colours almost laughed. Yes, it was doing exactly, what he had anticipated. It was highly amusing, that such a powerful creature was so predictable. He smirked. It wouldn't be gone for long and when it returned it would be ready to lead his army and follow him loyally. By now his ambassadors should have submitted his warnings, that he had encountered a certain new evil, to even the farthest parts of Middle Earth.