1 April, 1892 — Night — Sanditon Resort

Getting from Muggle London to the Sanditon had proved more difficult than he had anticipated, and consequently by the time he finally managed to appear through the resort's main floo it was already dark. On the upside, this meant he could shed all the superfluous layers of clothing he had donned in an attempt to protect his pale skin from a chance ray of sunlight. On the downside, he now found himself in the unenviable position of trying to break into his own house.

He should have had the presence of mind to floo straight from the house he'd woke up in, or ordered one of the servants in that house to escort him, or even taken the time to scribble out an owl and asked Zelda to come to him; presumably she would have recognized his handwriting well enough, even if there had been someone with his face at home with her that morning. Of course he'd thought of none of those things, being (justifiably) distracted by the fact that he was now a fucking vampire and had no recollection of how any of this had happened. Muggle London had been enough of a hurdle, and then there had been the unexpected encounter with Jo Smith, then navigating the wizarding world in general when he was sporting a set of fangs. Now it was dark, and late enough that Zelda had apparently gone to bed, because when he knocked on the front door of his own house no one came to answer. He tried the handle; it was locked. Was she even at home? He didn't know if there had been someone with his face in the house that morning or not. She might think he had disappeared; she might have gone to stay with family, in that case.

If she'd left, though, anyone she might be staying with would have long since locked their floo. The best bet was still to get inside somehow, and then he could take stock of things and decide where she'd gone and how to reach her — and maybe find his wand, which would make life immensely easier. Alfred didn't think of himself as the kind of person that was too reliant on magic, after his experiences abroad, but he was more dependent on his wand than he'd realized; he'd been missing it sorely since this morning. Just being able to apparate would have been a huge boon (— assuming he could still apparate. Vampires couldn't use magic, and Alfred didn't actually know the extent of the changes that had taken place yet. He'd managed not to rip anyone's throat out, or even been much tempted to, but he wasn't sure that alone was conclusive evidence of his continued humanity).

So here he was, trying to force open the parlor window, while standing in the damp mud of the garden patch in his front yard. He was doing a rather clumsy job of it, but that was fine — he didn't care if he woke anyone inside, because the whole point was to find Zelda. And, like many things he had failed to consider that day, he spared no thought for anyone else who might be alerted to his presence.

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