Phantom of the Chamber (DPxHP crossover)

Chapter 3: Vlad

When Danny returns to the mansion, he is first greeted by the butler, Ferdinand.

"Welcome back, young master. May I take your coat from you?"

"Uh, sure." Danny awkwardly answers back. He still wasn't used to the title that the servants in the mansion called him. When Danny tried to ask them to just call him 'Danny', Vlad forbade the servants to call him anything but 'Young master'. Vlad was a stickler to formalities and he himself liked to call Danny 'Daniel', even when he knew full well how much Danny hated people calling him by that. Danny handed the butler his coat. The man raised an eyebrow at the drenched jacket covered in mud and blood stains.

Ferdinand crinkled his nose disdainfully. "I will get a maid to clean this."

"Yes please, can you also keep this between us? I don't need Vlad to know-"

"You don't need me to know what?" Danny visibly cringed. Leave it to Vlad to have supernatural hearing. Vlad was a man in his 40's with his long silver hair (a side-effect from the ecto-acne) pulled back into a ponytail, he also sported a similar color goatee. He had midnight blue eyes capable of intimidating anyone, Vlad carried himself with the influential air of a successful business tycoon.

Vlad immediately zeroed-in on Danny's shoulder and the damage done to his jacket. Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh. "Another fight Daniel? Did I not ask you to refrain from fighting ghosts today?"

"It's not my fault! Spectr-"

"How many times must you injure yourself before you are satisfied? You need to stop doing this to yourself. Go get yourself cleaned up for dinner." Vlad watched the boy dejectedly walk away. The butler excused himself, leaving Vlad alone to his thoughts.

Vlad is very powerful man. With 20 years of experience as a halfa, Vlad used his ghostly abilities to acquire his first millions in underhanded methods. Unknown to Danny, most of Vlad's fortune and political power can be credited to his ghost powers in which he overshadowed millionaires to give him their companies and learn their trade. He also created his own company DALV Co which soon became sensational overseas.

Even though the older halfa led a well-off lifestyle, there were still things that the man wanted. Things that money could not buy. He couldn't buy his favorite sports team, the Green Bay Packers, since the city of Green Bay refused to sell the team to him. His immense love for the woman he could not have left him a bachelor without an heir to inherit his wealth and take on his business. That woman was Maddie Fenton, Jack's wife and Daniel's mother.

While living in Madison, Wisconsin, he secretly kept tabs on the Fenton family (mainly Maddie) and their progress. He watched their children grow and was particularly fond of young Daniel. When he learned of the accident that took the life of his beloved and her family, he quickly left to retrieve their orphaned son. Despite the loss of the woman he loved, he was thrilled at the prospect of having the son he always wanted, as an added bonus Daniel was also the child of Maddie.

He was sadly disappointed when he saw the traumatized 10-year-old boy. The boy was a broken doll. A cheap replacement of the once-headstrong boy. Where was the passionate spirit, the cheeky smirk, the snarky comments, or the playful mirth dancing in his eyes? Now the boy's eyes were dead, void of life and hope, lips pressed in a thin line, and his fiery spirit dampened.

Vlad worked hard to get Daniel to open up to him and return to the cheerful child he once was. But how could you make a child, who has lost all his loved ones in a single moment, happy? He tried getting Daniel everything he could think of that a young boy his age would want: toys, game systems, books, attention, and pets. Vlad knew the boy loved astronomy and had wanted to be an astronaut, so he decorated the boy's room with that in mind. The boy was not moved. Maybe Daniel needed new friends to give him company? Vlad had other children come over and play, but the boy refused to interact with any of them. Vlad had even tried therapy, which proved ineffective when the child refused to speak since the accident. It took months but he finally saw hope when the mute boy started talking again.