Rome

Rome

Chapter: 14

Richard and Sniffy appeared on a street right next to the local airport.

They were a few hours early to get the checked in.

The place they were going to, was Rome in Italy.

Richard wanted to see the ocean, because he did never see it in his last life and wanted to experience it.

The reason he picked Rome was that he loved Italian food and wanted to try the originals and see their culture up close.

Of course, they would look for the local magical community there and see if there was any difference as well.

After they checked in and ate some food at the airport, they then took a look around it.

Shuffling around for a bit to look at all the incoming flights the completely forget the time and needed to hurry to their gate when they heard that boarding was happening.

Arriving in a hurry at their gate the then saw a really long line and could only wait for a couple of minutes to get to the plane. Since there was not much to do, other than to do nothing, Richard began to train his magical telekinesis a bit.

In the last few years while his magical core was constantly growing stronger and bigger, he could now let a chair fly around with not straining his magic too much.

Richard was able to let it move around in the air and could hold it there for 10 minutes, after that his magic was depleted and the chair would no longer be able to stay afloat and crash onto the floor.

He learned that he lacked control in this department and could only let things fly rudimentarily around but not move them to specific places in a short amount of time and it took immense concentration.

The things he was floating around, just went in the direction and not a specific place where he wanted the things to go to.

Richard needed to get better with his control over it and was trying to achieve this with a coin that he now let spin around in his pockets.

At first it took him a lot of time to get a coin stay afloat inside his pockets and the coin often times bumped into himself for the first couple of days, but after some time he got the gist of it.

Nowadays he added a spin to it and tried to not become to distracted that it took of its course. Richard knew that he needed more training time for that.

He was sure that when he was doing things like all the time then it would be burned into his subconsciousness and he would not need to think consciously about it anymore.

When he achieves that, he can then add another thing to it make it harder.

Right now, he could let the coin stay afloat in his pockets while moving around and he did not need to think too much about it. It almost never bumped into his body and pants anymore. However, he was not to accustomed to the spinning yet and needed most of his mind to concentrate on it.

In the meantime, Sniffy was just sitting there and was eagerly looking around and took in all the new things she had never seen before.

She really loved to learn new things and was studying all the people around and their choices of clothing. Sniffy was fascinated by the fact that some people had no sense of fashion at all and got many new ideas for her hobby to make new clothes.

She also was quite eager to see how muggles would be able to fly without using any magic at all. These planes really looked big through the airport windows and she could not understand how they could fly. Richard explained her the details for it but because she had no schooling whatsoever and therefore could not understand a thing.

At home, Richard had told her various technological inventions that the muggles had made, but now she was able to experience it and she was more than excitedly moving up and down in front of the window at the end of the line that was gradually moving forward.

After tens of minutes of standing in line the then got into the gate and boarded the plane.

While they were walking into the plan and to their seats he mumbled to Sniffy:" I really am looking forward to the trip towards Rome, it's my first time to even go to a real vacation in another country."

In his last life, he had only ever taken a vacation with his family at the mountains nearby for camping and he never got much farther away than that even after he moved out of his parents' house.

They got onto the plane and were seated in the common class and after that Richard thought.

'It´s really a long time since I have gotten onto a plane, I kinda missed this feeling of experiencing the starting of the plane. It is exhilarating.

I can only imagine when I will have the ability to fly around without any outside help at all. Yeah it is something else to fly on a broom because I can control almost everything up there but just thinking about flying without any help excites me so much more. That is one of my biggest dreams for forever.'

Having no bags to carry around and to search for space to put them, because they head their magical pouches they were sitting down at their seats. Richard looked at Sniffy and was seeing that she was looking around with glee in her eyes, he laughed when he saw her like this. Sniffy was sitting at the window and he was right next to her. He could remember his first flight on a plane and was in the exact same position that Sniffy is in right now.

After a few minutes the plane was starting to go towards the runway and then took off.

Sniffy loved the starting process and had not the common flight sickness or fear to die in a plane crash. When you can just apparate around you don´t have such thoughts.

The flight was not long and they soon landed without any troubles at the airport in Rome.

Sniffy talked a lot to Richard of her plans and ideas for new clothes and after 20 minutes on the flight she got bored, since they could not move around to much in this enclosed space and said that taking a portkey or apparating there would have been much easier.

The only upside was that she loved the view she experienced while looking outside the window.

Brooms would never be able to get that high. Luckily, they had perfect weather and that the sky was clear of all clouds. The view was quite amazing and Richard was thankful for not sitting right next to an annoying person or child. He remembered his first flight, he sat next to a child who was constantly screaming and he hated every minute of it. This time he had booked the seats next to them to not encounter something like this.

Richard never was someone that liked crowded places and he felt much safer in areas with less people.

Landing in Rome, they got out of the airport and took a cab to a nearby 5-star hotel where he had booked them a whole suite.

Richard had forever wanted to stay inside such a hotel at least once. He only knew them from movies and was looking forward to the suite.

It also was the first time Sniffy was coming along in a car and she did not really know how to act.

She got a beet red face while the taxi driver looked at her funnily, when she tried to fasten her seatbelt and completely failed with that.

Richard explained to him that it was her first trip outside and that they were holed up for a long time at home. This explanation left the driver perplexed for a moment after which he shook it off with a shake of his head and he did not ask much after that.

The got to their hotel in a couple of minutes and got out.

The check-in in the hotel was no trouble at all, since they booked the room beforehand and were handed the key after a bit of speaking to the hotel concierge.

The hotel had everything, the suite was as big as their whole first floor at home and had 2 bedrooms, 1 big bathroom and a huge lounging area.

The view was great too and they could see the city in all its glory.

They did not do much this day anymore. It was getting late and they only got out to eat something and got back to the hotel afterwards. The two found a nice restaurant down the street where they ordered their first original Italian pizza and loved every piece of it.

They had not too much energy left from their day and decided to go to bed early and start on the next day with their sightseeing tour.

After a good night's sleep, they ate a nice breakfast and were then touring the city for the whole day and saw some pretty amazing buildings.

That went on for a whole week and they even went to swim in the sea at a few afternoons. The water was nice this time of the year and they build some sand castles with magic when nobody saw them. Richard and Sniffy also had one particular day when the waves were big enough to be swept away and got in love with this feeling of fighting against the power of the water.

After this week, they were quite relaxed and searched for the magical community of the city. The got searched around for a day but never found anything suspicious.

They never saw people wearing robes or the like and Sniffy never felt a concentration of some magic nearby.

Not knowing how to find their way to the magical world inside Rome they then tried their luck by moving around the city on foot while looking around for runes or some enchantments.

Richard cursed himself for not looking up where the entrance is beforehand, but alas they could not to anything about at this moment and could only go on with their search.

After another day of fruitless searching, Sniffy and Richard were sitting at a café next to the beach and enjoyed themselves with some cold drinks.

Richard then said:" It´s quite vexing that we have not even found a clue now. But nothing beats cold drinks at this bar on a sunny day."

Sniffy then answered while slurping her cold milkshake through a straw:" Yes it's a bit frustrating but it´s not that everything is bad, these days are really nice.

We have also found this secluded café that sells these delicious drinks."

Sniffy was really content at this moment, while she was enjoying her milkshake and thought back at all the things they had seen at their search of the wizards here.

"Yes you're right. It would also be relatively easy to head back home and look for what we are searching, but that would make it not too much of an adventure.

Let´s see if we can find it in the next week and if we still fail then we will go back for more information."

Said Richard while he thought about how they found this café on their search for the magical community. They chanced upon it at the second day. It was situated right next to the beach but a bit out of the way and served the best drinks they ever found. He also was quite content with this and they relaxed there for a few hours.

After relaxing for some time, their search continued for another 3 days and not much new was found.

They also got lucky and found a restaurant which served the best pizza they had ever eaten and they did not care about their search too much anymore.

The two of them enjoyed themselves and relaxed a lot in these days. Richard took Sniffy out to the movies and she marveled a lot at the sight of her first ever seen movie and was completely perplexed of how there were people inside a wall.

Richard then explained what was happening and how something like that is possible in an easy to understand manner.

After the movie, Richard and Sniffy went on a tour throughout the city and since Rome had beautiful night sky they loved to walk around the city at night.

They walked around and after some time they heard some noises, it was like there was a fight going on somewhere nearby.

Richard and Sniffy went on high alert, but their curiosity won when they contemplated to ignore it or to see what was going on and decided that they will investigate these noises.

Richard took the highly enchanted invisibility cloak out of his pouch and put them over himself and Sniffy.

Invisible and masked they made their way towards the street where the noises came from.

It took them 2 turns and after the second turn the were standing inside an old alley where they found out what was happening.

Inside the alley were currently two people coming to a standstill. They looked at each other with hostility in their eyes.

On one side stood a bald man with his back turned towards Sniffy and Richard and he was facing his opponent. He was wearing robes that marked him as a wizard in the eyes of Richard and Sniffy, he could also be a muggle, but that was highly unlikely.

He had his hands raised a bit and Richard thought that he should be holding his wand in his left hand but could not see it, because of their position.

Opposite to him stood a tall man that should be at most 20 years old. He had red eyes and long black hair, which were held together by a string.

His skin tone was unnaturally white and it looked like he was never much out in the sun.

He had no weapon and was now shouting at the other man that he was facing.

"Why are you attacking me, we have a treaty stating that we cannot attack each other or we will be punished by law." While he yelled that, Richard could now see the pointy teeth that the shouting pale man had and thought.

'A vampire, how fortunate. In the books they were never really mentioned and it was not talked much about them.

It seems like we are quite fortunate to find a vampire on our first vacation, or unfortunate? Never mind but why did the wizard attack him, it doesn't look like the vampire is at fault here. He also doesn´t look like a blood thirsty beast.'

The wizard said back in a calm and steady manner:" It does not matter, that treaty was made by our ancestors and we never really cared much about it, but now that we can use you vampires to do something useful, it does not matter anymore."

"How can you say that? We never made enemies out of you or your people, why did you attack me? I want answers or I will inform my community about this."

Came back from the vampire.

"It really does not concern you, all that you need to know is that you will not see the next day coming." Shouted the bald man back while laughing for a bit.

Done with that, he then got back into a fighting stance and hurled a red bombarda at the vampire which dodged the spell in an easy way.

"If you really want to kill me then you need a bit more than that." Said the Vampire now being calm, back to his enemy.

'Nice, there seems to be something going on at this part of the world. Vampires have long lives and now it seems that at least some local wizards want to use some vampires for some maybe dark things. This is really interesting. I have to see where this is going and I can view another fight.

I am looking forward how they are compared to Voldemorts.' Thought Richard while he heard everything what was said.

The vampire was rushing towards the wizard in a speed that was hard to follow with normal eyesight and he soon was directly in front of the wizard who seemed completely unfaced at the claws of the vampire that almost reached his neck.

The bald wizard then activated some kind of spell. It sent some kind of shockwave outwards which knocked the vampire away with full force.

The vampire was caught off guard and was thrown back and before he could position himself again, he hit the wall hard.

"Vampires, Tsk… it is the same every time, they want to get in close combat and if they can´t than they are just living targets." Said the wizard as he belittles the vampire and hurled a body binding spell towards the vampire which had hit the wall.

The vampire rolled away at the last moment and then stood up again.

Trying again to approach the wizard, he was met with the same shockwave that he experienced earlier and realized, that he could not come close enough to hit the wizard.

Richard seeing this frowned a bit when he saw this and thought.

' I had thought that vampires would be a lot stronger than humans/wizards and since I only am able to follow his movements while channeling magic inside my eyes and enhance them through this, the other wizard should be helpless against him. Who would be able to hit someone which is so much faster than yourself?

But it seems the wizard uses some kind of spell or even an artefact which reflects the vampire after he got near the wizard.

I don´t think that the wizard is able to cast a spell that fast, therefore it should either be a spell that was casted beforehand or some kind of artefact or even runes or an enchantment.

There really are many possibilities, but seeing that the vampire is only a sitting duck. I do not understand why he does not retreat. This fight is going on for a few minutes already and he is clearly at a huge disadvantage and his chances of winning are not high if he has not something to turn this around.'

The vampire was now thinking. 'I cannot get close enough to him, maybe I can win by hitting him with a stone that I hurl at him.

After I try this and do not win, I will retreat, I cannot use that here. '

Dodging spells left and right and thinking of what to do, he then was hit by a sudden feeling of weakness and stumbled onto the floor.

The wizard saw this and knew that this was his chance, he threw out a binding curse and hit the vampire on his chest, which turned him completely still.

'Damn, I did not drink any blood for this trip and the thirst for blood made itself known in the worst possible moment.' Thought the vampire as he was lying on the floor while his eyes were locked on the wizard.

"Hahaha, that really was not too hard. My friend said that it should work but now I do know it really works as intended.

You will be a huge asset in our plans and you should be happy to be our first guinea pig that we got alive."

Saying this after laughing for a bit and feeling excited about the things that they would now be able to accomplish, with the capture of the vampire. The bald man was really excited, it took him a long time to find a vampire and he was sure to be the first to have captured one.

He then began to approach his captured prey with glee in his eyes.

Richard and Sniffy seeing all this were now contemplating on what to do.

The downed vampire could only look with his eyes at the approaching men and curse in his head.

" Damn, why is my luck so bad every time? It cannot be that I really have no other choice than to activate "this" right now, it will set me back for ages, but I can only wait for the last moment. It has to many repercussions. And why the hell does this dude look so smug? Let's see when I rip out your throat what you say then."

Thought the vampire in his head while the bald man approached him.