OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
[x]Null
Harry Potter and the Scabbard of Excalibur [AU]
- Location
- a place
What exactly is the arguement for keeping the fact that King Arthur was real and killed by Merlin who happened to be a wizard supremacist from Dudley again?
Like the guy already knows about magic and the wizarding world, which seems like a much bigger secret then whatever this bit of historical apocrypha is.
Like the guy already knows about magic and the wizarding world, which seems like a much bigger secret then whatever this bit of historical apocrypha is.
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- Location
- Italy
not really. I imagine the existence of the wizarding world is "allowed" to be known to muggle family of wizards.
On the other hand, we have NO IDEA just how well known or secret the TRUE history of the Merlin/arthur conflict is, or just how much control the wizards have on the muggles. History is written by the winners and all that.
There's also the fact that we'd be revealing knowledge that implies Excalibur is at Hogwarts, which I imagine is NOT widely known. I'd rather avoid a wizard coming to mind-read our family would have easy access to those kind of secrets.
I feel like the possibility of a Dark Wizard coming and mind-reading our family and then finding out Excalibur's possible location, and being able to do anything with that information, far less worrying than bonding further with the dark spirit living in our head right now. It's already having consequences that involve making us act pretty weird.
Corvus Black
The Inestimable
- Location
- England
Like Geist said that's on Harry.
- Location
- a place
The whole Merlin/Arthur story only makes sense to muggles in the context of magic existing so it doesn't really make sense for one to be more secret, especially in a world where the masquerade obviously still exists. If Dudley starts blabbering about the 'real story of the round table' to a bunch of people who think magic is hogwash their just going to think it's a preteen making up some fancible story.
Plus, if their in a position to do that, their likely in a position to do that to us for the next several years too. Harry's not even got a wand yet and will still likely spend their summersat Durselys for the foreseeable future even post hogwarts admission.
- Location
- Italy
technically speaking this "dark spirit" hasn't really proved itself malicious yet. It might actually turn out to be a good influence in time, funnily enough
It's not, after all, a NORMAL Horcrux, but something more and less at the same time, an accidental horcrux from, it it went as in canon, an already pretty frayed soul. and this soul fragment has been with Harry since he was 1 year old, it might very well use him and his soul to slowly heal and grow to be more than what it was meant to be.
Maybe I expressed myself poorly. I'm saying that EVEN AMONG WIZARDS the true story of Merlin might not be common knowledge, as they might have wanted to make themselves look better. I'm also slightly worried about someone doing what Malfoy did, and coming to read our family's memories while we're at school and finding out about Excalibur.
Also I just don't think Dudley has any use for this information as of right now, so I'd err on the side of caution, just in case
So, like, Geist isn't *malevolent*. He's not like a 40k Chaos entity that is emnating radiation that is making Harry eeevil.
But Harry is picking up behaviors from him. Doing stuff like demanding imperiously rather than asking, and declaring himself usurper-king of Britain.
That's small-scale.
Now.
I'd like to keep it that way.
- Location
- a place
Uh, take a look at some of things he's trying to impart on harry if you think the imperious demands were just a silly quirk.
THIS is the Geist's actual reasoning for not telling Dudley. A not so healthy dose of anti muggle prejudice that he uses as the sole reason for why harry shouldn't confide his secrets with his best friend.
That even the families of wizards who happen to be muggles shouldn't even be allowed to know magic exists because it's too dangerous, which implies some, uh, problems with the concept of wizards marrying muggles, half bloods ect if you take that too it's logical implications.
That it makes them 'too dangerous' and that as much should be kept from them as possible so they won't be even more threatening to Harry.
Geist ISN'T some evil warp entity, but uh, he's not exactly inoculating harry with the most wholesome ideas here like how he should keep muggles at arms length and should strive to keep even ones who have wizards as loved ones from knowing the truth of the world less they threaten them.
This really screams pretty textbook anti-social behavior.
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CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That's a really good point. Changing vote
[X] Tell Dudley - Yo, that's wicked! +Dudley
- Location
- Italy
I think that's kind of irrelevant. I'm not agreeing with Geist's reasoning, I'm agreeing with his conclusion for different reasons.
Namely, I agree there's no reason to tell Dudley about Merlin and Excalibur. I disagree about him not having the right to know about magic in general.
We're not agreeing to sharing Geist's worldview and mindset. We're voting on a much more restricted decision, about sharing ONE specific secret Dudley has little reason to know, little to gain from, and that we have little reason to share beyond just feeling good about it and proving a point that we're willing to share secrets with our cousin.
In other words, I agree Geist can at time be a bad influence. I agree with his conclusion of "don't share this with Dudley", weven if it's for completely different reasons, namely "I don't want the knowledge of Excalibur's location and Merlin's true history to be shared to other people until we learn more about it ourselves".
We can always tell him later if it becomes relevant, while we can't take back a secret shared.
...well, technically we can, but I'd rather not ending up having/wanting to obliviate Dudley in the first place, and in canon it was apparently possible to break through obliviation to recover "deleted/suppressed memories". It happened with that one witch Pettigrew caught that knew about Crouch junior.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Hold Back - A wise choice. +Geist.
Rolen von Keng
Sleeping Green Bear
- Location
- The Wilderness
[X] Hold Back - A wise choice. +Geist.
[X] Tell Dudley - Yo, that's wicked! +Dudley.
I'm not crazy about doing what Geist says. Its inclinations are somewhat concerning, and we've also seen that its capable of straight up lying to Harry to fuck with him.
The risks of informing Dudley about Arthur and Merlin have been mentioned and are valid. However, I can only assume that The Dark Lord and His remaining loyalists will have their gaze on Hogwarts in this timeline regardless of what Harry does. It is the center which produces many of the next generation of wizards and witches in the British Isles, the Boy-Who-Lived is attending, and the school in canon already possessed magical treasures of great value like the Room of Requirement and Flamel's Philosopher's Stone. Death Eaters having one more reason to mess with the school unfortunately doesn't change much.
I'm not crazy about doing what Geist says. Its inclinations are somewhat concerning, and we've also seen that its capable of straight up lying to Harry to fuck with him.
The risks of informing Dudley about Arthur and Merlin have been mentioned and are valid. However, I can only assume that The Dark Lord and His remaining loyalists will have their gaze on Hogwarts in this timeline regardless of what Harry does. It is the center which produces many of the next generation of wizards and witches in the British Isles, the Boy-Who-Lived is attending, and the school in canon already possessed magical treasures of great value like the Room of Requirement and Flamel's Philosopher's Stone. Death Eaters having one more reason to mess with the school unfortunately doesn't change much.
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The Death Eater Incident
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
The Death Eater Incident
"A vision?"
Harry and Dudley were sitting cross-legged on the floor, hunched together.
At Geist's despotic insistence, Harry locked every window and thoroughly checked for any possible listening enchantments in the bedroom, which, apparently involved shaking every piece of furniture vigorously. Also, they closed the curtains and made sure that no one from the outside could peek in.
"Yeah," Harry said, nodding.
He explained the contents of what he saw - the strange fuzziness around reality as he was suddenly the actual Merlin, and Dudley was the actual King Arthur, and the stuff he saw after that. Maybe under most circumstances, Dudley would've been excited to hear all this, but Harry's grave expression killed the mood somewhat.
As he made the explanation, Geist infrequently prodded him to look at various dark recesses and corners in the room, in search of 'apple-rated bugs' though Harry didn't understand what spiders or mosquitoes eating apples might've had to do with them maintaining privacy. As soon as Harry thought that, Geist recoiled within his psyche as if slapped with a shoe and taught him the difference between apple-ration and Apparation; the former was, apparently, nonsense, and the latter was magical teleportation.
After Harry asked why they don't simply call it magical teleportation, Geist went silent. Although, somehow, that silence carried the foreboding note of disappointment.
"So," Dudley summarized, "Excalibur's som'where in a lake in Scotland?"
"Yeah," Harry replied.
After a moment to deeply consider, Dudley came up with a solution to their problem of not-having-the-sword-of-Excalibur.
"We should probably go to Scotland. And, uh, fish it out."
"I don't think that's how, um, logistics work," Harry replied curtly.
"Oh."
"Yeah, I don't think we'd be able to survive out there on our own," Harry said matter-of-factly. "We'd need money, uh - pounds for, uh, lodging, and maybe some bus tickets and food and stuff. And fishing rods, if we were gonna ever fish Excalibur out of the lake. I, uhm, think that'd cost too much."
Astute. Although, I have to wonder... what manner of bait does one use to catch the attention of a relic sword? Mythical nuggets of silver, perhaps?
"Oh, yeah, right."
No. Hold on, too dense for a normal hook. Magical lithium then, perhaps?
"Although I'm not sure that'll be a problem. I think the wizard school I'll be going to might be close by."
Or you may enchant the hook.
An hour of discussing potential ideas about how to extricate Excalibur from the lake in Scotland went on before Harry and Dudley both got very bored and exhausted every possible vector for the subject. Also, as much as they might theorize doing such, it was deeply unrealistic to consider doing anything of the sort in even a partially serious way.
Once their musings were over, Dudley and Harry went downstairs to have sausages and mash dinner with Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, following which the entire family watched television together. Around seven episodes of Automan later, Petunia chased them off to their rooms and ordered them to sleep.
Around three in the morning, it happened.
Harry woke up to some rustling and footsteps, down the stairs, in the entryway and living room. A momentary, restful thought, coming from a brain still largely asleep, made him think maybe the Pottergeist was making one of its customary appearances, or maybe someone had gotten up to get a glass of water, but as he strained his ears, he caught more boots moving simultaneously than should've been possible; voices whispering in low tones that he did not recognize, all of them slowly moving up the stairs.
After a moment of doing nothing but listening, he sat up in his bed and reached for his glasses on the nightstand, putting them on. Another hand reached out to turn on the night lamp, filling his room with a soft glow.
Someone outside quietly said, "In here, I think."
At the sound of that voice, something deep and primal awoke in Geist, who suddenly leaped into Harry's awareness with the ferocity of a lion.
Harry, you have to run! Run NOW!
Run to where?
ANYWHERE! OUT THE WINDOW! NOW!
Harry didn't think he'd ever, in their shared life, heard Geist sounding so utterly serious and urgent. As if he were on the verge of succumbing to a terrible poison that afflicted its victim with wracking pains and needed a cure to be applied within literal seconds or else he would suffer a terrible death.
At once, Harry snapped up from his bed and moved for the window. However, before he could...
"Open Sesame," said the voice on the other side. Harry's bedroom door lit up with an orange glow at its edges. It exploded outwards with a burst of smoke, shredded into pieces and wooden shards, the largest as big as Harry's hand, the smallest as tiny as fingernails. A few of them whipped across Harry's skin and left scratches in it.
"Idiot," said a woman, though Harry couldn't see her very well; only as a silhouette underlit by the wall fixtures in the hallway behind her. However, she wore a splendid black dress going down almost to her ankles, as well as a mask in the style of a skull covering her upper face, from brow to mouth. "Use the Unlocking Charm."
"There was no reason for magic use in the first place," said another voice, beyond where Harry could see. "The door was open, you see."
"Ah," said the person who'd cast the spell - the first voice that Harry caught earlier - a young man, relatively, in his middle twenties. He also wore a skull mask, though his clothing was limited to a gentleman's finery, including a white cravat. "I'm sorry about that. I'll be more careful next time."
"Lumos," said the woman, as she stepped into the room. A long piece of wood - a wand? - hummed softly in her hand, before its tip lit up with a pale aurora of soft moon-like glow, luminous enough to reach almost to where Harry stood against the back wall of his room. Her sharp eyes caught him immediately. "Ah, there you are, boy."
Ah, dung. That's Bellatrix.
"I believe you'll be coming with us." She lowered her wand and reached out with one hand. "Come, we have a wizard adventure waiting for you."
Don't trust her. She has social anxiety. People with social anxiety don't know what they're talking about.
"Y-You have social anxiety, Ms. Bellatrix," Harry blurted out.
At those words, the woman, apparently called Bellatrix, blinked at him once, in a very exaggerated manner. "I beg your pardon, young man?"
However, young Harry was too frozen in place to respond, in equal parts due to the sharp stinging sensation in his wrists and forearms caused by the cuts, tinged with a deep pulsating pain that seemed to match his rapid heartbeat, as well as the mortification factor of knowing there were magical strangers in his house. And not only ordinary, garden-variety strangers, but apparently - kidnappers, who had no qualms about blowing up doors, and whom even Geist seemed to vaguely fear.
Harry, carefully repeat what I am about to say, and we might survive.
And Harry did. "I- Sorry, I meant to say that I have social anxiety. I don't want to go anywhere."
A moment of thought later, the woman's eyebrow creased in deep thought - a suspecting kind of thought. "How did you know who I am, Harry Potter?"
Yet, before Geist could even begin to continue the conversation, there was a half-dozen cracks in the air, so deafeningly loud that Harry thought he'd lost his hearing for a fraction of a second, as a number of people appeared from nowhere in Harry's room - men and women dressed in dark blue robes, wands outstretched towards Bellatrix. One of them stepped back carefully, one arm extended back to keep Harry equally in place and to push him further into the corner of the room, seemingly for his own protection.
All of the next events happened in deathly fast snapshots; several actions per second from every individual in the room, stacking and overlapping in so dizzying a manner that Harry would later critically misremember details as if he were delirious at the time.
Half the men in blue robes said, "Stupefy," in rough unison, and cast their wands forward in a jabbing motion, connecting red jets of energy with a sudden disk of translucent force that Bellatrix made in front of herself using a gesture while stepping back to produce more distance. As soon as their attack - lasting a quarter of a second - ended, she whipped her wand forward in a frenzied cutting motion and made a vertical gouge in the room; concrete, mortar, brick, and splintered wood flying into the air like a cloud of dark smoke but also hurting several people, including the man standing in front of Harry, whose throat was dissevered by a flying piece of cement and promptly sprayed out a gory cascade of blood.
It was the first time that Harry saw blood in that quantity - in something that wasn't a papercut or a nosebleed - and so, the majority of his senses focused on the falling man and the deep red color now staining his once-azure collar, but Harry remained tangentially and peripherally aware of the other events in the room.
At the same time as this all happened, the young man who'd remained behind Bellatrix yelled out, "Aurors! Avada Kedavra!" and in doing so, launched a bolt of sickeningly green light from his wand at one of the Aurors, who, in response, rapidly twirled his wand down at the floor like he was swirling a ribbon in the air, and caused a number of floorboards to stiffly spring up in front of him as a makeshift shield, the green light washing over them and dissolving into dancing, furious sparks. The Auror lowered the shield and replied with an identical spell, but without the incantation, making the man in the skull mask who'd cast it fall over unconscious when it blasted into him.
Another second passed, spells and energies and lights flying around the room, some of them punctuated by flourishes of the wands or loud proclamations.
"Impedimenta!"
"Confringo!"
"Expelliarmus!"
The wizards continued to fight, and as it continued, as seconds passed - two seconds, and then three, and then four - Harry felt increasingly more helpless, watching them casually throw around powers that he'd have been hard-pressed to access during moments of extreme emotion, throwing his room's furniture into the path of spells that could not be easily blocked using magical shields, or dodged, and in doing so, causing explosions that tossed masses of burning or charred debris everywhere.
A masked man's wand spat a misty spray of effervescent lime acid that burned the cloak of one of the Aurors. In one spot, an explosive blast someone had made left a deep hole in the floor, wide enough that an uncautious person might've stepped into it and fallen down to the floor below.
As the battle started to move closer to the doorway being the chokepoint, one of the Aurors knelt next to the Auror whose throat had been cut. Although he looked to be awake, he was bleeding deeply, and his chest moved up and down, as if unable to breathe. "Vulnera Sanentur."
"Damn it. Get Potter out of here!" one of the Aurors snapped.
"Never! He's not yours to have!" replied Bellatrix with a ferocious dark look on her face, "Bombarda!"
Her next spell didn't include a flying bolt of energy, so much as a translucent distortion in the air that caused the Aurors to brace, as there was no time to prepare; no time to duck or leap away or hide behind cover.
It caused an entire side of the house to blow away in a rain of bricks and torn concrete, wooden beams clattering down in a cascade - an avalanche - and causing a whole section of the roof to collapse on top of half of the Aurors in the room. An Auror who remained standing stepped closer in Harry's direction and made an almighty motion, using her entire upper body in concert, moving from left to right like a wave, to throw away what must've been at least several people's weight in the rubble that was about to fall down on him. However, the momentary distraction proved to be her ultimate undoing, as another of the men in the skull masks then cast a spell that manifested as a fiery stream - more red than orange, and more red than white, burning ferociously like an evil blowtorch or flare - that slammed into her and sent her down to the yard.
"All of them," Bellatrix muttered heavily, one hand clutching at her side as she grit her teeth - a spell of some kind struck her in the left side of the ribcage earlier, from what Harry remembered. "How's... How's Borgin?"
"Dead," said the other man in the skull mask. "Killing Curse. His father will be furious."
"That... idiot," Bellatrix muttered again; straining her voice, out of breath as she said it, though Harry couldn't see her expression, because, for a brief moment, her head dipped so low in the pain that her long black hair covered most of her face. "He escalated, so the Aurors... damn it... Damn it," she said.
"Harry Potter," said the man in the mask, stepping forward, and Harry tensed at his approach, eyes widening. "Calm down. We-"
"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Bellatrix growled, eyes fixed to the floor, with a mad look in her eyes. "How did the damn Aurors know?"
"I don't know."
"Harry!?" Aunt Petunia yelled outside, footsteps approaching. A second later, Uncle Vernon echoed her call.
"Die, Death Eaters... Bombarda..." Harry could hear a whisper from down below; the Auror who'd fallen down, wand raised up at the second floor of the house. Bellatrix and her companion only reacted moments later, erecting a shield to protect themselves and Harry up where they stood. "...Maxima..."
Harry stood blankly through the events. He'd barely been able to follow the happenings with his thoughts, let alone act. Altogether, he was emotionally stuck at that moment he'd seen the man shielding him get his throat severed by flying shrapnel, and the events which kept piling on with every second only added more to process - the understanding that the green sparks killed instead of incapacitating being one of them. It was hard for him to understand, at first, given there was no blood.
As the aftermath reared its ugly head, the Death Eaters having disappeared, and a new platoon of Aurors arrived, he was discovered sitting alone in the rubble.
He mumbled words, repeating the incantations the wizards used in a soft whisper, as if they might protect him, tears flowing down his cheeks. And in those words, there was some venom, some darkness, although the Aurors on scene attributed that quality in his voice to shellshock more than anything.
---
All of the Dursley family is dead.
[ ] Rest In Peace
[ ] Beg On Your Knees - If you are willing to pay the price, there is yet hope for young Dudley Dursley. By destiny's resolution, he is to die within a Muggle hospital or on the way there, in but a few minutes from now, but the Chooser of the Slain is more than willing to tip destiny's scales in your favor. And by the Chooser's decision, a single Auror within the ranks will find enough pity to abuse his powers, contrary to the law, in order to heal your cousin to a state which resembles survival. Enough to tip the scales.
However, the prices of denying Death his obols are steep - he demands nothing less than sacrifice of equal or greater value. As such, you will now pay a regular tribute - 100% of the Gnosis you earn from your Blessing, "An Equal in Truth" will be conveyed into Death's coffers.
None of your other family members can be saved. A sad pity, but Death is unwilling to budge on this. "Actions have consequences," too, is a primordial maxim.
After the event, who spoke to Harry (and his cousin, should he have survived by some miracle?)
[ ] Mr. Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt - A man that Harry is already familiar with, having met him during the incident that we do not speak about. He's a relatively affable man, with a nice smile, and shows understanding and sympathy for Harry's plight. He moves Harry to a wizarding orphanage in the interim for finding him better accommodations. (If Dudley is alive, he will reluctantly attempt to split the boys into separate orphanages and won't hear any of your bullshit, though.)
[ ] Headmaster Albus Dumbledore - An old man with a thick fluffy beard, that Harry doesn't remember meeting before, although Mr. Dumbledore claims they'd met once, when Harry was too young to remember him. He tentatively offers Harry (and Dudley) a place to stay at his brother's until they can together figure out more permanent accommodations; Dumbledore knows more than a few people who'd be willing to take the boys in.
"A vision?"
Harry and Dudley were sitting cross-legged on the floor, hunched together.
At Geist's despotic insistence, Harry locked every window and thoroughly checked for any possible listening enchantments in the bedroom, which, apparently involved shaking every piece of furniture vigorously. Also, they closed the curtains and made sure that no one from the outside could peek in.
"Yeah," Harry said, nodding.
He explained the contents of what he saw - the strange fuzziness around reality as he was suddenly the actual Merlin, and Dudley was the actual King Arthur, and the stuff he saw after that. Maybe under most circumstances, Dudley would've been excited to hear all this, but Harry's grave expression killed the mood somewhat.
As he made the explanation, Geist infrequently prodded him to look at various dark recesses and corners in the room, in search of 'apple-rated bugs' though Harry didn't understand what spiders or mosquitoes eating apples might've had to do with them maintaining privacy. As soon as Harry thought that, Geist recoiled within his psyche as if slapped with a shoe and taught him the difference between apple-ration and Apparation; the former was, apparently, nonsense, and the latter was magical teleportation.
After Harry asked why they don't simply call it magical teleportation, Geist went silent. Although, somehow, that silence carried the foreboding note of disappointment.
"So," Dudley summarized, "Excalibur's som'where in a lake in Scotland?"
"Yeah," Harry replied.
After a moment to deeply consider, Dudley came up with a solution to their problem of not-having-the-sword-of-Excalibur.
"We should probably go to Scotland. And, uh, fish it out."
"I don't think that's how, um, logistics work," Harry replied curtly.
"Oh."
"Yeah, I don't think we'd be able to survive out there on our own," Harry said matter-of-factly. "We'd need money, uh - pounds for, uh, lodging, and maybe some bus tickets and food and stuff. And fishing rods, if we were gonna ever fish Excalibur out of the lake. I, uhm, think that'd cost too much."
Astute. Although, I have to wonder... what manner of bait does one use to catch the attention of a relic sword? Mythical nuggets of silver, perhaps?
"Oh, yeah, right."
No. Hold on, too dense for a normal hook. Magical lithium then, perhaps?
"Although I'm not sure that'll be a problem. I think the wizard school I'll be going to might be close by."
Or you may enchant the hook.
An hour of discussing potential ideas about how to extricate Excalibur from the lake in Scotland went on before Harry and Dudley both got very bored and exhausted every possible vector for the subject. Also, as much as they might theorize doing such, it was deeply unrealistic to consider doing anything of the sort in even a partially serious way.
Once their musings were over, Dudley and Harry went downstairs to have sausages and mash dinner with Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, following which the entire family watched television together. Around seven episodes of Automan later, Petunia chased them off to their rooms and ordered them to sleep.
Around three in the morning, it happened.
Harry woke up to some rustling and footsteps, down the stairs, in the entryway and living room. A momentary, restful thought, coming from a brain still largely asleep, made him think maybe the Pottergeist was making one of its customary appearances, or maybe someone had gotten up to get a glass of water, but as he strained his ears, he caught more boots moving simultaneously than should've been possible; voices whispering in low tones that he did not recognize, all of them slowly moving up the stairs.
After a moment of doing nothing but listening, he sat up in his bed and reached for his glasses on the nightstand, putting them on. Another hand reached out to turn on the night lamp, filling his room with a soft glow.
Someone outside quietly said, "In here, I think."
At the sound of that voice, something deep and primal awoke in Geist, who suddenly leaped into Harry's awareness with the ferocity of a lion.
Harry, you have to run! Run NOW!
Run to where?
ANYWHERE! OUT THE WINDOW! NOW!
Harry didn't think he'd ever, in their shared life, heard Geist sounding so utterly serious and urgent. As if he were on the verge of succumbing to a terrible poison that afflicted its victim with wracking pains and needed a cure to be applied within literal seconds or else he would suffer a terrible death.
At once, Harry snapped up from his bed and moved for the window. However, before he could...
"Open Sesame," said the voice on the other side. Harry's bedroom door lit up with an orange glow at its edges. It exploded outwards with a burst of smoke, shredded into pieces and wooden shards, the largest as big as Harry's hand, the smallest as tiny as fingernails. A few of them whipped across Harry's skin and left scratches in it.
"Idiot," said a woman, though Harry couldn't see her very well; only as a silhouette underlit by the wall fixtures in the hallway behind her. However, she wore a splendid black dress going down almost to her ankles, as well as a mask in the style of a skull covering her upper face, from brow to mouth. "Use the Unlocking Charm."
"There was no reason for magic use in the first place," said another voice, beyond where Harry could see. "The door was open, you see."
"Ah," said the person who'd cast the spell - the first voice that Harry caught earlier - a young man, relatively, in his middle twenties. He also wore a skull mask, though his clothing was limited to a gentleman's finery, including a white cravat. "I'm sorry about that. I'll be more careful next time."
"Lumos," said the woman, as she stepped into the room. A long piece of wood - a wand? - hummed softly in her hand, before its tip lit up with a pale aurora of soft moon-like glow, luminous enough to reach almost to where Harry stood against the back wall of his room. Her sharp eyes caught him immediately. "Ah, there you are, boy."
Ah, dung. That's Bellatrix.
"I believe you'll be coming with us." She lowered her wand and reached out with one hand. "Come, we have a wizard adventure waiting for you."
Don't trust her. She has social anxiety. People with social anxiety don't know what they're talking about.
"Y-You have social anxiety, Ms. Bellatrix," Harry blurted out.
At those words, the woman, apparently called Bellatrix, blinked at him once, in a very exaggerated manner. "I beg your pardon, young man?"
However, young Harry was too frozen in place to respond, in equal parts due to the sharp stinging sensation in his wrists and forearms caused by the cuts, tinged with a deep pulsating pain that seemed to match his rapid heartbeat, as well as the mortification factor of knowing there were magical strangers in his house. And not only ordinary, garden-variety strangers, but apparently - kidnappers, who had no qualms about blowing up doors, and whom even Geist seemed to vaguely fear.
Harry, carefully repeat what I am about to say, and we might survive.
And Harry did. "I- Sorry, I meant to say that I have social anxiety. I don't want to go anywhere."
A moment of thought later, the woman's eyebrow creased in deep thought - a suspecting kind of thought. "How did you know who I am, Harry Potter?"
Yet, before Geist could even begin to continue the conversation, there was a half-dozen cracks in the air, so deafeningly loud that Harry thought he'd lost his hearing for a fraction of a second, as a number of people appeared from nowhere in Harry's room - men and women dressed in dark blue robes, wands outstretched towards Bellatrix. One of them stepped back carefully, one arm extended back to keep Harry equally in place and to push him further into the corner of the room, seemingly for his own protection.
All of the next events happened in deathly fast snapshots; several actions per second from every individual in the room, stacking and overlapping in so dizzying a manner that Harry would later critically misremember details as if he were delirious at the time.
Half the men in blue robes said, "Stupefy," in rough unison, and cast their wands forward in a jabbing motion, connecting red jets of energy with a sudden disk of translucent force that Bellatrix made in front of herself using a gesture while stepping back to produce more distance. As soon as their attack - lasting a quarter of a second - ended, she whipped her wand forward in a frenzied cutting motion and made a vertical gouge in the room; concrete, mortar, brick, and splintered wood flying into the air like a cloud of dark smoke but also hurting several people, including the man standing in front of Harry, whose throat was dissevered by a flying piece of cement and promptly sprayed out a gory cascade of blood.
It was the first time that Harry saw blood in that quantity - in something that wasn't a papercut or a nosebleed - and so, the majority of his senses focused on the falling man and the deep red color now staining his once-azure collar, but Harry remained tangentially and peripherally aware of the other events in the room.
At the same time as this all happened, the young man who'd remained behind Bellatrix yelled out, "Aurors! Avada Kedavra!" and in doing so, launched a bolt of sickeningly green light from his wand at one of the Aurors, who, in response, rapidly twirled his wand down at the floor like he was swirling a ribbon in the air, and caused a number of floorboards to stiffly spring up in front of him as a makeshift shield, the green light washing over them and dissolving into dancing, furious sparks. The Auror lowered the shield and replied with an identical spell, but without the incantation, making the man in the skull mask who'd cast it fall over unconscious when it blasted into him.
Another second passed, spells and energies and lights flying around the room, some of them punctuated by flourishes of the wands or loud proclamations.
"Impedimenta!"
"Confringo!"
"Expelliarmus!"
The wizards continued to fight, and as it continued, as seconds passed - two seconds, and then three, and then four - Harry felt increasingly more helpless, watching them casually throw around powers that he'd have been hard-pressed to access during moments of extreme emotion, throwing his room's furniture into the path of spells that could not be easily blocked using magical shields, or dodged, and in doing so, causing explosions that tossed masses of burning or charred debris everywhere.
A masked man's wand spat a misty spray of effervescent lime acid that burned the cloak of one of the Aurors. In one spot, an explosive blast someone had made left a deep hole in the floor, wide enough that an uncautious person might've stepped into it and fallen down to the floor below.
As the battle started to move closer to the doorway being the chokepoint, one of the Aurors knelt next to the Auror whose throat had been cut. Although he looked to be awake, he was bleeding deeply, and his chest moved up and down, as if unable to breathe. "Vulnera Sanentur."
"Damn it. Get Potter out of here!" one of the Aurors snapped.
"Never! He's not yours to have!" replied Bellatrix with a ferocious dark look on her face, "Bombarda!"
Her next spell didn't include a flying bolt of energy, so much as a translucent distortion in the air that caused the Aurors to brace, as there was no time to prepare; no time to duck or leap away or hide behind cover.
It caused an entire side of the house to blow away in a rain of bricks and torn concrete, wooden beams clattering down in a cascade - an avalanche - and causing a whole section of the roof to collapse on top of half of the Aurors in the room. An Auror who remained standing stepped closer in Harry's direction and made an almighty motion, using her entire upper body in concert, moving from left to right like a wave, to throw away what must've been at least several people's weight in the rubble that was about to fall down on him. However, the momentary distraction proved to be her ultimate undoing, as another of the men in the skull masks then cast a spell that manifested as a fiery stream - more red than orange, and more red than white, burning ferociously like an evil blowtorch or flare - that slammed into her and sent her down to the yard.
"All of them," Bellatrix muttered heavily, one hand clutching at her side as she grit her teeth - a spell of some kind struck her in the left side of the ribcage earlier, from what Harry remembered. "How's... How's Borgin?"
"Dead," said the other man in the skull mask. "Killing Curse. His father will be furious."
"That... idiot," Bellatrix muttered again; straining her voice, out of breath as she said it, though Harry couldn't see her expression, because, for a brief moment, her head dipped so low in the pain that her long black hair covered most of her face. "He escalated, so the Aurors... damn it... Damn it," she said.
"Harry Potter," said the man in the mask, stepping forward, and Harry tensed at his approach, eyes widening. "Calm down. We-"
"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Bellatrix growled, eyes fixed to the floor, with a mad look in her eyes. "How did the damn Aurors know?"
"I don't know."
"Harry!?" Aunt Petunia yelled outside, footsteps approaching. A second later, Uncle Vernon echoed her call.
"Die, Death Eaters... Bombarda..." Harry could hear a whisper from down below; the Auror who'd fallen down, wand raised up at the second floor of the house. Bellatrix and her companion only reacted moments later, erecting a shield to protect themselves and Harry up where they stood. "...Maxima..."
Harry stood blankly through the events. He'd barely been able to follow the happenings with his thoughts, let alone act. Altogether, he was emotionally stuck at that moment he'd seen the man shielding him get his throat severed by flying shrapnel, and the events which kept piling on with every second only added more to process - the understanding that the green sparks killed instead of incapacitating being one of them. It was hard for him to understand, at first, given there was no blood.
As the aftermath reared its ugly head, the Death Eaters having disappeared, and a new platoon of Aurors arrived, he was discovered sitting alone in the rubble.
He mumbled words, repeating the incantations the wizards used in a soft whisper, as if they might protect him, tears flowing down his cheeks. And in those words, there was some venom, some darkness, although the Aurors on scene attributed that quality in his voice to shellshock more than anything.
---
All of the Dursley family is dead.
[ ] Rest In Peace
[ ] Beg On Your Knees - If you are willing to pay the price, there is yet hope for young Dudley Dursley. By destiny's resolution, he is to die within a Muggle hospital or on the way there, in but a few minutes from now, but the Chooser of the Slain is more than willing to tip destiny's scales in your favor. And by the Chooser's decision, a single Auror within the ranks will find enough pity to abuse his powers, contrary to the law, in order to heal your cousin to a state which resembles survival. Enough to tip the scales.
However, the prices of denying Death his obols are steep - he demands nothing less than sacrifice of equal or greater value. As such, you will now pay a regular tribute - 100% of the Gnosis you earn from your Blessing, "An Equal in Truth" will be conveyed into Death's coffers.
None of your other family members can be saved. A sad pity, but Death is unwilling to budge on this. "Actions have consequences," too, is a primordial maxim.
After the event, who spoke to Harry (and his cousin, should he have survived by some miracle?)
[ ] Mr. Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt - A man that Harry is already familiar with, having met him during the incident that we do not speak about. He's a relatively affable man, with a nice smile, and shows understanding and sympathy for Harry's plight. He moves Harry to a wizarding orphanage in the interim for finding him better accommodations. (If Dudley is alive, he will reluctantly attempt to split the boys into separate orphanages and won't hear any of your bullshit, though.)
[ ] Headmaster Albus Dumbledore - An old man with a thick fluffy beard, that Harry doesn't remember meeting before, although Mr. Dumbledore claims they'd met once, when Harry was too young to remember him. He tentatively offers Harry (and Dudley) a place to stay at his brother's until they can together figure out more permanent accommodations; Dumbledore knows more than a few people who'd be willing to take the boys in.
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[X] Rest In Peace
[X] Headmaster Albus Dumbledore
I really liked you Dudley, but the gnosis must flow. I'm a hardcore Dumbledore stan, so the other choice is easy.
[X] Headmaster Albus Dumbledore
I really liked you Dudley, but the gnosis must flow. I'm a hardcore Dumbledore stan, so the other choice is easy.
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- Location
- Virginia
[X] Rest In Peace
[X] Headmaster Albus Dumbledore
[X] Headmaster Albus Dumbledore
