Title: Thanatos and the Sorcerer Shade
Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel
Pairings: None at present.
Story Summary: After the war first Ginny, then Harry, becomes the newest super-villains of Gotham: a powerful sorcerer and the Master of Death. DC Comics crossover. DH spoilers.
Setting: AU. Takes some plot from each of the seven books – so spoilers – but doesn't exactly follow canon. These are slightly different people to the ones in the books. Takes place after the war. Probably the first fic I've written with spoilers from all books, actually – although altered.
Author notes:
Some blame for this goes to The Wizard of Gotham by Skyskaber. I haven't read that many DC Comics, but I have a few, and I've seen Gotham Girls online.
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THANATOS AND THE SORCERER SHADE
CHAPTER ONE: GETTING SETTLED
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For the first sixteen years of her life Ginny Weasley was seemingly unusual, but not extraordinary.
-
She was the youngest of seven children, the rest all boys. Like any girl with only brothers, she used a combination of cuteness, feminine wiles, dirty tricks and shameless lying to avoid being outnumbered. She had doll teaparties, broke into the broom shed to steal her brothers brooms, climbed trees and read. By the time she was eight all her brothers had finally learnt it was best to leave her alone. Girls didn't fight fair.
-
At eleven she went to Hogwarts where she had a lengthy conversation with the hat before she was Sorted into Gryffindor. There she met one of her brothers friends, Harry Potter. He was good-looking, clever, and didn't say much. He'd almost been Sorted into Slytherin, but told the hat, "Slytherin? Are you serious? Everyone there is marked down as a dark wizard. I'd never get a break. Somewhere less conspicuous, please." The hat agreed, and put him in Gryffindor – pick-pocketing takes a certain amount of nerve, after all. Harry had befriended Ginny's brother Ron, because he knew about the wizarding world and was a good strategist, as well as liking Quidditch. He'd also befriended Hermione Granger. Sadly Hermione took an almost instant dislike to Ginny which would be unfortunate in later years. Hermioen and Ginny were both intelligent, but Hermione's was largely academic, whereas Ginny's was far more practical. Some might even say opportunistic.
Later that year a diary she'd been writing in tried to possess Ginny. She'd burnt it to ashes using the powers only she and the hat knew about. She liked the way it screamed as it died.
-
In second year Ginny found out a bit more about what happened to magic users who weren't purely wizards when the Ministry caught an enchanter who was living in Surrey. Ginny read the newspaper article carefully, then decided it would certainly be best if people continued to think she was a witch.
In third year Harry was entered in a magical competition against his wishes. Only Hermione and Ginny believed he hadn't chosen to be. Between the two Harry they helped Harry enough for him to do well in each section of the tournament until he was abducted during the final stage. His blood was used to resurrect the Dark Lord who had killed his parents; Harry had only escaped by kicking his enemy in the privates and escaping via portkey before Voldemort could react.
-
During Ginny's fourth year the school was taken over by the Ministry. Once again, no one had believed Harry; the Ministry believed that the Voldemort story was a Plot. After Harry had been tortured twice through the use of a Blood Quill, Harry and his supporters went underground, starting a secret defence club. Meanwhile the Ministry worked on turning the school into a perfect replication of their sinister vision. Several students quietly disappeared. Ginny stumbled upon her friend Luna by accident. Luna had been an untrained but powerful telepath. Ginny threw up in the girls toilets for over an hours afterwards, resolving more strongly than ever for no one to ever find out she wasn't a witch. At the end of the year Voldemort attacked the Ministry and they were forced to remove from Hogwarts under public pressure. Ginny and Harry quietly went around searching for al the bodies and tabulating a list. Luna Lovegood, telepath. Mandy Brocklehurst, healer. Eleanor Smythe, earthwitch; Jason Morgan, possessed of an affinity with fire. Gordon Blair, quarter-vampire. The list was carved into the stones deep in the dungeons. Harry and Ginny didn't tell anyone else. They knew what the wizards thought of non-wizards.
-
Sixth year the headmaster was murdered and the wizarding world began to fall to Voldemort. Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny went on a desperate and dangerous hunt for the pieces of his soul, the destruction of which would be his undoing. A couple of times Ginny had to let go of her seemingly-unusual-but-normal image to save their lives. Eventually, they won against the darkness. Now their world was trying to put itself back together.
-
Harry was in his apartment when Ginny appeared in the doorway. She was carrying a backpack that Harry recognised as one of the ones from the Horcrux hunt. The interior had been magically expanded and the front pocket was stocked with useful items.
"I'm off."
Harry didn't need to interpret this. He knew what she meant.
"Where." His voice was calm. She shrugged.
"I was thinking America." They're pretty relaxed about some things. People saw me use my magic during the Horcrux hunt. It's only a matter of time before it gets out that I'm a sorcerer."
"I used Hermione's fearsome research skills on your behalf," he said, instead of protests. He'd accepted this would be coming since Ginny had first had to use her magic without twisting it to resemble a wizard's. He'd seen the bodies the Ministry had left behind in Ginny's fourth year.
"Oh?"
"Family records. A few hundred years back one of your ancestors was an Emrys. The line of Merlin."
"Oh." She was quiet for a few seconds. "That explains a lot."
"Mm-hmm. Throwback genetics. The scholars don't like it, but I've read up and they reluctantly agree that Merlin wasn't quite a wizard. Pop history says he 'transcended wizardry', but if you can get your hands on the real stuff he definitely wasn't a wizard, they just don't know what."
"Using the Black funds to good effect?"
"Of course." He met her gaze for a few seconds. "I'll miss you."
"Same here. You're the best damn friend I've ever had."
"Likewise."
She left then. She had a portkey to catch.
-
Gotham city. It was a dark, dangerous place. It was better than it had been, particularly with mysterious ant-hero Batman and his other superhero friends keeping the supervillains more or less under control, but it was still dark and dangerous.
Ginny Emrys enrolled in the local high school, where she was appalled by the constant venom and one-upmanship that went on as everyone tried to get ahead at others expense. Almost immediately she was picked on by the popular girls for dressing too casually and being an affront to the American way of life. Meanwhile the newest Super of Gotham watched quietly from the shadows, learning as much about the others as she could.
-
Batman sat tied up in the pit wondering how he was going to get out of this one when a voice came down.
"You look like you're in a bit of a mess." The voice was female, young, an unmistakeably British. "Want a little help?" It was also unmistakeably amused.
"That would be good," he agreed warily. Squinting sideways he was able to make out a cloaked figure leaping into the pit.
"Good thing I was in the neighbourhood," his mysterious rescuer remarked, bending over him. "There. You can move now."
Batman found that indeed, the robe gave way. He got to his feet stiffly, wincing.
"Give me a moment," the woman grasped his arm and next moment with a small popping sound they were out of the pit. She let go of his arm.
"I must say, I never expected to see Batman in such a situation."
"Who are you?" he asked gruffly.
She gave a little bow, hooded cloak swirling as she did so.
"I am the Sorcerer Shade, newest resident super of Gotham," she introduced herself. "I've been watching the rest of you for a while now. Didn't want to make my entrance too splashy. Anyway, nice to meet you."
She took off before he could say more, and try as he might, he couldn't for the life of him find which way she'd gone.
-
The Sorcerer Shade leapt from rooftop to rooftop, soaring gracefully in semi-flight. She still wasn't used to flying. Voldemort and Snape had both flown during the war (curse their miserable souls) but it was Hermione who had inadvertently given Ginny the clue how. Hermione had been lecturing the world in general about apparition, and had gone deep into theory. Ginny had been listening with half and ear as Hermione talked about distortion of the space-time continuum, wormholes and folds in reality. Somehow it had worked into Ginny's brain and she found herself thinking about it. This had led to her breakthrough. Hermione would have fumed if she had known she'd helped Ginny realise an important discovery. In Hermione terms, flying used a similar method to Apparition, however instead of folding the space-time continuum to bring two points into contact, creating a wormhole and allowing instantaneous transportation from one point to another, the witch or wizard merely created a distortion in space-time. In Ginny terms, instead of using apparition to take you somewhere else, you just used it to move yourself around where you were.
-
As Ginny sailed to a new rooftop, she was startled by a strong "meow."
She looked around to see a beautiful silver tabby watching her.
Ginny had a weakness for cats. She bent down and held out a hand.
"Hello," she cooed. The cat let out a companionably trill and began trotting away.
"Hey, don't go," Ginny protested, following the lovely creature. It moved from rooftop to rooftop, Ginny in pursuit, until it gathered itself for a jump and landed in the courtyard of a rooftop apartment. It sat and regarded Ginny expectantly.
Ginny shrugged and leaped after it. The cat immediately got up to greet her, twinign around her legs and purring.
"I see you've met Sheba," said a velvety voice. Ginny quickly looked up to se a dark-haired, green-eyed woman approaching. She moved silently, like a cat, a faint smile giving her beautiful face a mysterious, sphinx-like look.
Ginny straightened.
"You must be Catwoman," she observed. "She is lovely. I'm the Sorcerer Shade."
Catwoman looked a bit surprised at being identified out-of-costume.
"She is," she agreed, referring to Sheba. "I don't know where she came from. For some reason cats seem to assume I have some sort of fellow-feeling for them."
"You don't say."
"I'm sure I can trust you not to give my identity away," Catwoman smiled slowly. Ginny grinned at her.
"But of course. I'm very partial to cats."
Catwoman chuckled.
"I'm not a cat."
"Close enough." Ginny gave her a smile. "Well, I'd better be on my way. Nice to meet you." And she disappeared across the rooftops.
-
Her next Super acquaintance was made when Ginny spotted the Batmobile parked in an alley.
"What are you doing?" she asked Harley Quinn. The harlequin-costumed woman looking around, pausing in the act of hotwiring the complicated vehicle.
"Stealing Bats' car," she said cheerfully. "Who are you?"
"The Sorcerer Shade, newest Super of Gotham."
"Oh." Harley considered this for a second. "You wanna help?"
"Sounds good for a laugh," Ginny replied. Harley grinned brightly as Ginny joined her.
Some time later Batman returned to the Batmobile …to find it wasn't where he'd parked it.
"What the hell." Pause. "Where's my car?"
Cue the Batmobile rounding the block with a revving of the engine and roaring down the street. It slowed down as it passed him. He recognised Harley Quinn's manic laughter in the background as a vaguely familiar cloaked figure blew him a kiss through the front passenger window. The Batmobile sped up again and vanished around the corner.
Batman contemplated the thought of walking all the way home. His muttering threatened vague but terrible fates for the joyriders.
oo o0o oo
Ginny Emrys was a fair way to being convinced that American high schools were responsible for much of the world's evil.
-
Starting at the school had been an experience. After prim, restrained, old-fashioned Hogwarts, this – this hotbed of seething teenage angst, rebellion and barely-restrained chaos came as a shock. Everyone was image-obsessed, self-absorbed, and concerned with getting ahead at any cost. They were a world away from the teenagers she knew.
Maybe it was Hogwarts, she thought. Oh, we had our share of blow-ups and hormone-induced conflicts, but being taught control of your magic taught you control of yourself, to a certain degree. When losing control meant real consequences, like endangering the lives of everyone around you, you learnt restraint. These muggle teenagers had never had any reason to, and it made a huge difference.
And my generation have just been through a war. I'm sure that does things to your maturity as well.
Ginny had dressed casually for her first day, as she would back in Britian. A faded pair of jeans, and old bright red t-shirt and sneakers, her hair loose, and no make-up at all. Back home it would have been perfectly acceptable. Unfortunately she wasn't in Britain, and from the moment she walked into a class full of people presenting a bewildering array of carefully-chosen fashions, with full make-up on the girls and even some of the boys, Ginny had known she'd be in for it.
A blonde in a pink miniskirt and heels with impeccably coiffed hair turned to Ginny the moment the teacher's gaze was elsewhere.
"What are you, homeless? You dress like a hobo."
Ginny's eyebrows went up at the blunt, insulting remark.
"I wasn't aware school was a fashion parade out here," she retorted.
The girl looked surprised at her accent.
"What are you, foreign or something?" condescending scorn. "Well it's going to take more than a cute accent to make it here, freckles. Go back where you came from and take your fashion sense with you." She turned back to her notebook; after sending Ginny glares or snooty looks, her identically-dressed friends did the same.
Things didn't get any better. Taylor, as the blonde was called, mocked her further for diligently taking notes, and giggled nastily when the maths teacher got annoyed with her confusion over the way they did things here. She'd chosen to take history class, over all the unfamiliar classes, as she at least knew what history was: but after a brief introduction to the subject the lesson went on to the War of Independence, which Ginny knew nothing of.
The teacher saw her blank face.
"You look a little confused –" he glanced at the roll "- Ginevra, wasn't it?"
"I prefer Ginny, sir," she replied. She wasn't used to teachers addressing her by first name. The 'sir' got stares and some titters. "And I just moved here from Britain, and we have different wars Mr Callow."
"Then I suggest you do some reading, Ginny," he informed her. "The War of Independence led to the founding of the United States and is the most important event in our history. And just a tip, here in America we don't usually call our teachers 'sir.'"
-
At lunchtime Ginny went to the cafeteria. Lunch was some kind of disturbingly-unidentifiable stew, and Ginny collected some dubiously before looking for an empty seat. There was an entire table empty nearby, so she sat there, wanting a chance to relax without having to try to figure out the rules of American social interaction. A few minutes later Taylor and her posse stormed over.
"What are you doing at our table?" Taylor demanded.
"Your table?" Ginny repeated. "I thought people could sit anywhere."
"You thought wrong, airhead," Taylor told her. "This is the cool girl's table. Look around. Everyone's in groups. Over there's the goths and emos, then the arty people and the rockers and general misfits. The sporty girls are over there, then the IT geeks. Then there's the guys on the sports teams, the musos, the girls who want to be popular but aren't and us. The cool table." She leaned forward. "And you're about as far from as cool as you can get, so leave. Oh, and you should so moisturise your hair," she added as a parting shot.
Ginny gathered her things, glaring angrily, while the cool girls dutifully tittered at this sally from their leader.
That had been a month ago. Things hadn't gotten much better.
It wasn't just Taylor who despised her. The popular-wannabes did because the cool girls did. The cool guys did too. The arty people were on a totally different wavelength, and she was too 'normal' for the Goths and emos with whom she had no patience anyway. The sporty girls despised almost everyone. The IT geeks had no social skills and jabbered about unintelligible mysterious IT things. In the end, Ginny found herself hanging around with the socially-maladjusted people.
Patience Cooper was in most of Ginny's classes, so Ginny hung around with her out of self-defence. Anyone alone in this place got torn to shreds, so packs were important.
Patience was moderately-good company, if highly cynical and ironically lacking in her namesake – "my sisters are Faith and Chastity, so I suppose I didn't get off that badly" – and gave an abundance on hints on how to survive Life in America. Sometimes Savannah or Ashley hung out with Patience too, and Ginny got on all right with them. These days Ginny wore make-up and emulated the semi-rocker style of her group. Taylor still targeted her though.
It was a different world.
oo o0o oo
After another week of social torture, it was a relief to don the identity of the Sorcerer Shade – black cloak, black dragonhide boots, black jeans and a black shirt, together with charms designed to keep her face hidden by shadow as long as the hood of the cloak was over her head – one Saturday morning and head out for a relatively carefree weekend. Ginny decided that it was about time she practiced some proper flying, so finding a fairly high rooftop, she launched herself out into open space.
With only a flicker of concentration, she was soaring.
Grinning, Ginny went for a fly through Gotham. She'd been flying her brothers brooms for years, and then one of her own, but this was so much better! You could dive, and duck, and twirl… Ginny leapt and spun like a graceful dancer, cloak flowing, laughing at the effortless joy of it.
Unfortunately, she lost too much caution. Venturing higher, Ginny lost concentration in her pirouettes and somersaults, giving the strong winds a chance to tumble her off course and right into the nearest skyscraper.
Ginny gasped with the impact as she smacked into the thick, sheer surface. Panicking, she scrabbled at the ledge beneath her and did her best to cling to the glass, eyes squeezed shut against the great drop below.
"Do you need a little help?" asked a warm, male voice by her ear. Ginny's eyes shot open and carefully, she looked around.
Superman was hovering next to her, wearing a kind, curious, faintly amused expression.
Ginny closed her eyes in mortification.
"No, no, I'm fine," she assured him. "I can actually fly, but I'm new at it, and when I got blown off course I panicked." She gave a pained grimace. "This is so embarrassing."
Superman gave her a grin.
"Well, I'm here now so do you want to try again and I'll catch you if you fall?"
"Thanks." Ginny did her best to calm down and summoned up the thin thread of concentration necessary to backflip off the ledge and remain, hovering, in the air.
"All right now," she observed. "Thanks. Sorry to bother you."
"No problem. I'm Superman."
"The Sorcerer Shade," Ginny sketched a bow.
"Ah. New to Gotham, then?" he asked. "If you don't mind my asking are you, erm…"
"Hero or villain?" she finished for him. "A bit of both, actually. Batman knows about me." A wicked smile hovered about her mouth, just visible beneath her hood. "I helped Harley Quinn steal the Batmobile. He really ought to upgrade the security on that thing." Grinning, she took off.
-
Later that evening Harley Quinn herself stopped by Ginny's apartment.
"He-e-e-lllo-ooo!" she called. "Shadey, are you there?"
Ginny hastily transfigured her clothing and threw her cloak over herself.
"Harley?" She struck her head out of her bedroom to see the woman peering in her fridge. "Feel free to help yourself to a drink if you want.
"Well thanks, Shadey." Harley shut the fridge door and pulled on the ring-tab of her can of creaming soda. Their theft of the Batmobile – eventually discovered abandoned atop the local courthouse – had been the start of a promising friendship that had since progressed nicely. Harley gave a sigh of pleasure as she sipped her drink.
"So what's up?" Ginny wanted to know. "Want to prank someone? Rob a bank, maybe?"
"Gosh, that sounds fun," Harley liked the idea, "but nah, I was just dropping round to se eif you wanted to come to Ivy's 'Out of Arkham' party."
" 'Out of Arkham' party?" Ginny repeated dubiously.
"Well, sure. It's a regular thing. Someone gets out of Arkham, we throw them a bash. It's just about the only time all us rogues get together."
"And who's this party for?" Ginny clarified.
"Poison Ivy," Harley replied happily. "She's my best pal. I'm sure you'll get on great. It's on in about half an hour. You gotta come. It'll be a laugh."
Ginny gave the patented Weasley grin.
"Sounds brilliant. Are presents in, or what?"
Harley grinned back, equally mischievous.
"Depends on the present."