The Wizard and the Maidens
The Department of Mysteries; ask anyone who had spent any time in the magical word and they could tell you all about was what being researched in the infamous department; time travel, advanced spell development, immortality, some even claimed they tried to harness the power of love.
In truth none of those people actually knew what they were talking about; most of them just repeating speculation they had heard from others. The Department of Mysteries took the best, expected the best and above all else they maintained complete secrecy on what was being researched, rumours had it that not even the current minister of magic was allowed to know what was being researched behind the closed doors of what some referred to as the most competent department of the British Ministry of Magic.
He and his house mates had spent numerous hours speculating exactly what was being researched. Sadly all to soon most of them had fallen victim to what so many older magical practisers had already fallen to. They accepted magic as something that was normal or even worse; they tried to explain magic with science.
Why could no one understand? Magic was a genuine miracle, a mystical force that was older than recorded history. Yet almost everyone treated it like it was something normal. Taking it just as much for granted as the very air they breathed.
There were exceptions of course and if his hopes were right the Unspeakables of the Department of Mysteries were an entire group of those. It was for that very reason why he had wanted to end up there after his graduation from Hogwarts. An impossible dream most had claimed; their standards were so absurdly high that they supposedly hadn't hired anyone in years.
He didn't care; half a decade ago he was a complete nobody, a punching bag for his bastard cousin and a borderline servant to his aunt and uncle and look at where he was now. At the mere age of fifteen he was already known as the European U-17 duelling champion, he was one of the top students of his class and he had seen things his younger self could only dream off.
Most importantly he had done what most considered the impossible. At age fifteen he was standing in the Department of Mysteries. Sure the circumstances were a tad irregular and sure he was technically not supposed to be here, but who cares he was there.
Now if only he had the time to study those rather interesting things he had seen instead of backpadeling for his life as he was being chased by a batshit insane witch that was cackling like some kind of deranged villain from some kind of bad movie.
One may wonder how he managed to find himself in this situation, but even he wasn't entirely sure as the situation made less and less sense by the minute. One moment he was on a rescue mission to save his idiotic, prideful, stubborn man that was his godfather and the next he had managed to enter the Ministry of Magic and the Department of Mysteries without any trouble in fact that wasn't a soul in sight.
If that wasn't strange enough then there was the fact he was ambushed by an entire group of Death Eaters. That had definitely not been a fun moment. The last time he had seen those bastards was at the end of his fourth year and that had to put it mildly not been a pleasant memory.
Fortunately for him unlike before now he was armed and ever since that living nightmare that was the aftermath of the Third task he been training harder than ever before. Without hesitation he had brought forward his staff and unleashed hell.
The confrontation was short, but brutal. Surprising even himself he was not only able to hold his own against a full group of people that were almost as feared as their leader, but even managed to take several of them down.
Yes he had the element of surprise as they probably hadn't expected to attack them considering the near suicidal odds, but regardless of that the skill level of those 'Death Eaters' had been surprisingly lacking. Sure in single combat they would most definitely destroy most of his housemates, but compared to some of his opponents in last summer's U-17 tournament there skills were most definitely lacking … well most of them at least.
He generally divided people in one of multiple classes; they were either weak, but showed promise, simply weak, piss weak, average, stronger than average, strong or genuine monsters.
Most of the Death Eaters definitely belonged in the average category; sloppy stance, laughable reaction time and all things considered they really were no better than any other NEWT level student.
Now for the actual strong ones … damn. That was the only word that could be used to describe their performance. You would think spending over a decade in the literal hellhole that was Azkaban would slow them down, but no … or at least he hoped it hadn't slowed them down. He shuddered to think how they would have been at their prime if this wasn't their best.
The weaker ones he had managed to cripple or disable in the opening moments of the fight, but in mere moments the tides turned and he had soon found himself unable to attack any longer as he was forced on an all out defence.
Spells, curses and jinxes flew by as he desperately tried to dodge, parry or shield the incoming barrage of magic coming at him. Things turned from bad to worse when he slowly moved backwards only to enter a completely unknown room.
Now he knew his sense of direction may not have been the greatest, but he was pretty sure he could not in fact get freaking lost merely by moving back the same way he had come from. Of course it was rather obvious what was responsible and normally he would be rather in awe at how magic either transported him or changed his surrounding without him noticing.
Now was not the time however as the life or death battle he was engaged in took just a little more precedence over any other thought. Mentally cursing his own stupidity for walking into what was in hindsight a rather easy to avoid trap he started to backpedal more rapidly, all the while defending himself from the onslaught of magic heading his way. Eventually the corridor he was traversing through gave way to a more open room and he quickly jumped out to the side, away from the sight of his foes and more importantly out of the line of fire.
He panted heavily as he leaned against the stone wall for a moment gathering his thoughts as he tried to form some plan of attack, preferably one where he would end up the only one remaining standing, but considering the odds that wouldn't be easy.
It was then that he heard something odd. Not the mad cackling of a deranged witch occasionally interrupted by a near child like voice calling out for him. No, that was 'normal', rather it was a sudden warning by what he assumed was one of the pursuing Death Eaters.
''No! Don't follow him in there!''
Harry blinked as he gripped his staff more tightly. 'Don't follow me in here?' He wondered. 'Great idea! And while you are it why don't you just piss off?' He mentally suggested knowing full well that was not going to happen.
It did made him wonder why exactly. Sure he was in a pretty good position to ambush anyone who would come running after him, but he had little doubt they could overwhelm him long before he could take them all down and all things considered they really didn't seem to be the type to put their own safety before their mission, so why?
It was then that he for the first time tore his eyes away from the corridor he had just come from and did and quick scan of the room hopefully finding an explanation for the Death Eaters warning. The first thing he noticed was the sign above the entrance he had come from which read; Magbob Solution.
He had no idea what a Magbob was, but he had no time to dwell about as he scanned the rest of the room. What he saw nearly froze him in shock. Not only did the circular room have no other visible exit other than the one the Death Eaters were coming from, but there was an even bigger problem; there was what could only be a massive runic array covering the whole floor.
He didn't reorganise any of the symbols, but one thing was for sure; the fact that they were glowing did not reassure him at all. While he generally considered magic to be great there was no denying that magic was fundamentally dangerous.
Each and every teacher of subjects that had practical aspects at Hogwarts had started their very first lessons with an hour long lecture on the dangers of messing up magic, not even Snape and Quirrell had been an exceptions to that and considering one loathed children in general and the other was sharing a body with a Dark Lord that was saying something.
And that was controlled magic being used, studied and mastered by countless others. Who knows how dangerous the magic of the Department of Mysteries was?
So what was he going to do; stay in room that was filled with some kind of array that seemed to have activated when he entered and one of the Death Eaters was possibly weary of? Or go back to the small corridor where the Death Eaters and almost inevitable defeat was waiting for him?
''Then stay here you coward! The Dark Lord will deal with you when we get back!''
Knowing that those words signalled the choice being made for him the youth known as Harry Potter aimed in his staff and prepared himself for the inevitable. The first to burst through the doorway was one of the Lestrange brothers, he did not know witch one, nor did he care, he merely fired a bone crushing curse towards the man's wand arm.
He grinned as the curse hit and the man howled in pain. The people who could use magic without their wand arm were far and few in between and hopefully he would distract the other Death Eaters, if only for a moment. His gamble paid of as the next one through, the other brother, instead of scanning the room to find his crouched from rushed towards his brother.
Unfortunately hot on the heels of the brother was the third and final Lestrange who sadly proved to be far less distracted by the cries of pain of her husband/brother-in-law as she almost immediately managed to spot him.
Harry cursed loudly as she flicked her wand and an all to familiar and sinister beam of red light headed toward them. He jumped to the side and retaliated with a stream of flames come form his staff.
Sadly a fourth person choose that moment to burst through the entrance and somehow sucked the flames in his wand. 'Now that looks like an interesting spell to learn.' Harry thought as he made to move out of the way of yet another torture cure when suddenly everything went straight to hell.
How in the name of all that was magic could he forget he was fighting atop a giant runic array? Yes crazy people were attacking him, but that really was no excuse.
Still no matter his reasons it sure had grabbed his attention now as the lowly glowing symbols suddenly lit up with an intensity that was literally blinding. He was forced to close clench his eyes shut as he didn't want to make his eyesight any worse than it already was.
He heard screams from the others of the room, but fortunately no magic was flung in his direction. Suddenly and without warning it felt like the floor gave way and for a single moment he felt utter weightlessness before he suddenly crashed down on the cold hard … earth?
Harry frowned as his grasped what was unmistakably dirt in his free hand. He then noticed sound of wildlife around him and the extremely clean smell of the air around them, but there was also something else, something very … wrong.
He could not explain it, but by now he knew better to ignore his gut feelings so he forced his eyes open. For a moment he saw only spots, but that cleared quickly when he noticed something was lunging toward him!
Having no time for magic; Harry merely grabbed his staff with both hands and swung with all his might. The staff connected with his foes head with a force that could have been lethal to a human, but the his attacker was not human.
Harry stared in mixture of awe and fear at the beast he had batted aside. He could barely believe what his eyes were seeing; he recognised what it was of course; every child in the magical world had seen at least one picture of those things and that was exactly the problem. It should be impossible to see them in real life. The only place they belonged were 'The Summoner Conflict' sections in the history books.
Unfortunately no one told the create before him that as there was no denying the thing was very real and one thing was for sure the pictures did not do it justice. A skin so black it seems to suck all the light in, a chilling bone white skull like mask, red eyes that were almost as menacing as Voldemort's, and even more chilling was the dark shadow like substance that seem to ooze out of the creature.
It was unlike anything he had ever seen in the real world.
It was unnatural. An abomination. A Lesser Dog Demon. It shouldn't exist.
The demon shook it's head and snarled, seemingly ready to leap at him again, but Harry wouldn't let him. Without hesitation he brought his staff forward and snarled. ''Confringo!''
The spell made contacted moment later and Harry felt the heat of his explosion as smoke marred his vision. When the smoke cleared Harry was surprised there was nothing left.
'Well … that was surprisingly easy.' He thought before realizing that gut feeling hadn't left yet. In fact it had gotten significantly worse. A howl just as terrifying as that of a werewolf reached his ear and Harry jumped around seeking the source of the sound only to pale even further when he saw a small army of Lesser Demon Dogs heading straight toward him.
''Bollocks.'' He cursed as he swirled his staff in a ready position before being interrupted by a sound from behind him. Woodenly craning his head to look behind him Harry realized something out there must really hate him as suddenly a Major Scorpion Demon came crawling toward him, looking even more intimidating that the Dog Demons.
''Bollocks.''
Author notes:
I know I had promised to update more often, but unfortunately stuff happened and I didn't have any time to write. I am finally moving out my parents home. Unfortunately a lot had to happen to my new home before it was remotely habitable let alone a place where I want to spent a good portion of my free time in. So for the last few weeks my life has consisted of sleeping, working and working on my house. I had at most an hour each day of 'free time' and I use those words very loosely because I was often way to tired to focus on anything. Fortunately I am almost finished and in two maybe three weeks I should have lot more free time to write.
Now as for this story; I outlined most of it after watching the first three volumes of RWBY, but I might incorporate character and plot elements of the new volumes if it fits. I am not completely happy with this chapter as most of it was written in 10-15 minutes writing sessions. So I will probably end up rewriting some of it when I have the time, but for now enjoy!