"Nope, just need to inject venom into the blood stream. And are you sure about the enhanced senses? I can actually count the number of hairs in your head from here. From much farther away than here, in fact. And the enhanced cognition is pretty amazing, too."

"I'm autistic. Enhanced senses get a total and absolute nope in my head - I already get meltdowns from sensory overstimulation. But I can think of a lot of people who might want to have that in my world, people whom I trust, so if venom stores, can I get some to take home?"

"Um, I should also list the disadvantages and ambiguous parts too, first. Also, I think your brain will change enough in that respect that you won't be overloaded? It's... literally impossible for a vampire to be overstimulated, mental discomfort is basically nonexistent."

"Hmm...Well, you could... write it all down, and I'll always have either the venom or a vampire, right? Also, please put it into an unbreakable container."

"Unbreakable container, right. We should probably go back inside? Bar could help us with that I think."

"Yeah, sure." She walks through the door and up to Bar. "How much is a mundanely unbreakable, vampire-venom resistant container with a lid?"

"That depends on what you mean by mundanely unbreakable. Glass resists that kind of venom, so I could offer you tempered glass."

"That won't be necessary, actually, all I'd need is a stopper," says Sadde, and holds out his hand, palm up, from which a vial made of bone starts growing. "My body is resistant to my own venom, and vampire bone is pretty close to unbreakable."

"I meant that it shouldn't break if dropped. Alright then, how much is a stopper of that size, also venom-resistant, please?" She points at Sadde's vial. Then she remembers, "And parchment with a quill- no, paper with a pen, thinking like a witch again, those too, please."

The Bar quotes an appropriate price in galleons and sickles and knuts. Sadde looks at it curiously. "You don't need to worry, I can pay, I'm actually pretty rich." So Bar quotes another price, in British pounds.

"Oh, thank you, but I can afford it. You're being so nice to me, and you're already going to give me the venom, and the vial, and the list! I can afford it, really," she says, blushing slightly.

He raises an eyebrow. "If you say so. But the first and most important thing I think you'd need to know is that there's one condition for my giving you this vial, which is that I come with you to your world, for at least a year. Drawback number two is that, for a year after turning, vampires are much stronger than their older counterparts and also much less capable of controlling their emotions and impulses. Knowing about vampires beforehand does help a lot there, but just giving you this without any supervision would be tantamount to releasing a serial killer in your world."

She pays for the things. "Oh. You should probably write that list, then. ...What if you're stuck there? I mean, wix do have spells that immobilise people, and spells that give control of your body to someone else, and I might be able to make a new spell that does something useful? I could go to the room of requirement if nothing else.
...Wait, am I even going to remain a witch when it's done? And I won't have Bar's synthetic things, either, what do normal vampires even drink, if not human blood?" She gets more and more worried as she goes through that speech.

He starts writing the list as he speaks (possibly to show off his multitasking skills): "I don't particularly have a whole lot of attachments where I'm from, and the current shadow government is very benevolent so I don't mind being stuck somewhere I can be more useful. As for immobilising people..." He crosses the bar and is back in less than a second. "Unless you can be faster than that, a vampire will have no trouble evading attacks unless their range is ridiculously high. I don't know if you'll remain a witch when you turn, I have no idea how your witchcraft works, but it does boost my kind. And vampires can feed on animal blood, too, plus if I'm going to be there I can just generate an endless supply."

"I meant someone would bind me beforehand, would that work? And I wouldn't like to impose, I'll try animals first."

"Oh. It might work, yeah, but unless they can keep it up indefinitely it won't be much help, especially if they're all human and smelling delicious and you're a newborn vampire without a whole lot when it comes to self-control feeling annoyed that you're being immobilised. It's best if you spend your first year away from humans if at all possible. Here," he hands her the list:

• Three days of increasing fiery agony, more pain than a human body could handle without dying, but the venom makes you not die.


• Emotions are much more expansive and hard to control, especially when you're new. Mild annoyances are rage, slight sadness is the worst of depression, light humour is cackling hilarity, etc.


• For the first year you'll be burning off your own blood from when you were a human, which will make you stronger than other vampires.


• The pain of turning never disappears from your throat, and flares whenever you smell blood, especially human blood, which smells good enough to drive normal people to thoughtless murder and to typically consider humans little more than snacks.


• Human blood makes your eyes crimson, animal blood makes them gold. Animal blood makes you weaker but clearer-headed and makes it easier to resist humans in the future, but drinking human blood even once will make it hard to resist for a long, long time.


• A packet of vampire instincts is installed in your brain that are pretty hard to control when compounded by the growing emotions.


• Females can never bear children, males can impregnate humans to have half-vampire children but that's a very difficult process that kills the mother without proper care and turning her after the birth.


• Not only do you not need sleep, you will never again be able to sleep.


• Your senses are heightened to a point that the first few minutes of vampire life can be enough to make you forget all but the most important aspects of your life as a human, including faces and names and places.


• You don't strictly need to breathe, and it'll be best not to until you can control yourself around humans, but it feels annoying to be deprived of it.


• You can actually see blood coursing through a human's shallower veins, which doesn't help with the self-control.


• Animal blood tastes absolutely rancid, worse than anything you've ever tasted and then some, but isn't actually unhealthy and will feed you.


• Vampires have a magical soul-mate thing where they will instantly fall in love completely and utterly with a person on laying eyes upon them. You will invariably be compatible and you two will be happy together if you give it a chance, but unless the other person is also a vampire it's not instantly symmetric; it does become symmetric once the human turns into a vampire. It's also completely and strictly monogamous, if you mate on someone no one else will ever mate on them and while you're alive they won't mate on anyone else.

(And yes, Sadde does write in italics.)

"Oh, wow. This will need very careful consideration and organisation. Like, at least a week. And I'll turn after I graduate, too, I don't want to be stuck only in the room of requirement. Somewhere in the wilderness, probably. I'd also have to perform egg removal, probably. And I might let someone else have a go at this first, to make sure wix magic stays, they could provide me with more venom. Could a sense-dulling potion possibly help with the pain and forgetting everything? Is there any way to predict who you're going to mate to? What are these vampire instincts you mention?"

"If the sense dulling potion is magic, possibly, but morphine at least doesn't make the pain go away and makes the person be unable to move until it's been burnt off by the process. I think breaking the neck works for a while? But then it's fixed. Also back home there's a witch who can erase senses and make the pain go away working for the shadow government, but being stuck there is worse for your than for me. It is as far as I know impossible to predict who you'll mate to, but like I said, you won't regret it whoever it turns out to be. The instincts are stuff like other vampires are dangerous and should be fought for prey, and humans are prey, that kind of stuff. But in any case I am still very much going with you, first."

"Mmm. Alright then. Let's see who else comes in the next few hours, I guess, then back to my world if no one of interest does."

Here's someone! A girl, no older than sixteen, wearing a black-and-blue frilly dress with two katanas crossed on her back. She peeks her head in.

"Does she count?" Sadde asks, before skipping over to her and repeating, "Welcome to Milliways, the bar at the end of the universe!"

"Hello. The Milliways door ate yours, if you come in and close the door time stops in your world, if you go out and close the door you'll get your door back." Flora is somewhat more informative than Sadde.

Sadde thinks the fact that it's a bar at the end of the universe is much more important information than the door thing, but you know, to each their own.

And if the girl had any doubts about the bar, after hearing the bit about the door they vanished.

"How can there be a bar at the end of the universe?" she asks, walking after Sadde towards the actual bar.

"Ridiculous amounts of magic."

"Yes, quite. Interesting costume you got there," she comments.