I'm fairly certain that right about now, people are going to start yelling at me to go back to work on my other stories and finish them up.
*Bleeds from his ears as his eardrums are blown apart by angry, disgruntled readers who are fervently expecting a new chapter*
…
……
……… SEE?!
Anyways, this is the result of a plot bunny that's been bugging me for a long time now. See, I'm a very, VERY big fan of the Fire Emblem series. And if you've never played the series, then you are missing out horribly. I suggest you play it. And by suggest I mean I will drive to your house, bind you in duct tape and drag you to the nearest Gamestop or Best Buy and force you to buy a copy of one of the games just to enlighten you to the series' incredible gameplay, epic storyline and memorable characters.
Now, where'd the plot bunny pop its miserable head up from now? Well, in 2 of the Fire Emblem games, there's a mage named Soren. For those who've played the game(s), you know who I'm talking about. Well, at the end of PoR, Ike and Soren… well, they go *poof*. So… this is what may have happened if they'd run into some… trouble on their journey and wound up in the Potterverse.
And the next person I find trying to rupture my eardrums will find a switchblade buried up to the hilt in their jugular. I'm serious.
Oh, and before I forget, this begins during OotP, summer before Harry's fifth year, to be overly precise. Obviously, it's AU.
All was clear in the Forbidden Forest… well, as clear as a dark, demented forest full of some of the darkest magical creatures to inhabit the world could be. In this specific patch of forest, a slim ray of sunlight could be seen beaming down from the sky and onto the forest floor, directly on a small patch of wildflowers that occupied the sunlight, taking advantage of the solar energy to synthesize what they needed to survive in this harsh wilderness. There was no trace of Acromantula webbing anywhere in the immediate vicinity (which, in much of the Forbidden Forest, was the equivalent of a needle in a haystack), and this select portion of the forest also had a decidedly less… dark feeling about it. Though that may have something to do with the fact that a favorite unicorn breeding ground was in the vicinity.
It was a rather tranquil day, in truth: during the summertime, none of the students occupied the hallowed, homely Hogwarts halls, giving the poor professors a much needed respite from the school year (except for Argus Filch. The poor Squib was stuck with the job of cleaning up various parts of the castle still affected by the pranks of the Weasley Twins). It was also because of this tranquility that no students were in the Forbidden Forest with Rubeus Hagrid, though their presence in the woodland was a rare sight to begin with. As such, nobody was there to witness the strange wisps of air that seemed to coalesce in the shape of a vortex, hovering a good five yards above the forest floor.
It also meant that nobody was there to see the wisps of air suddenly darken and spin faster before the fabric of reality tore itself asunder, a hole in space materializing and forming a slight vacuum, sucking up vast amounts of air from the forest air. But this was not a black hole, oh no; this curiosity was a wormhole. But it wasn't a normal wormhole either, in truth. This dimensional portal was magically created and magically sustained, and once it delivered its load would reseal itself, the magic involved leaving little to no evidence that it had ever existed…
A black-clad figure dropped from the wormhole before the discontinuity seemed to fold inwards on itself, collapsing into nothing as the forest returned to normal… as normal as it could be, anyways. A scratching noise could be heard on the forest floor as the unwilling inter-dimensional traveler lifted his head, revealing red eyes that gazed upon his surroundings, taking in the sights of the forests while attentive ears captured the sounds.
"Reminds me of Gallia." Had any been around to hear it, they would have been surprised to hear the near emotionless tone escaping from his mouth, completely uninterested in his current predicament.
"The only question is," he said, pulling himself to his feet and dusting off his robes before checking to ensure the good condition of his tome, "what is this place?"
And with that, Soren of the Greil Mercenaries walked off into the forest, hoping to find an answer to his situation and to reunite with his traveling companion. His fingers lightly dusted the sword at his side, and he hoped he wouldn't have to use the thing. Swordplay was never his greatest strength. He preferred having the wind do the cutting for him.
* * * * * * *
Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, age fifteen, collapsed down onto his bed, exhaustion creeping into his bones as he processed the events of that day.
To say that his trial at the ministry was eventful would be to say that Hagrid only wanted to have a dragon a little bit. Something about several of the Wizengamot members just rubbed him the wrong way in a manner that he truly couldn't describe. Hell, he'd been protecting Dudley of all people from Dementors! Weren't those things not allowed outside of Azkaban? The fact that the Dementor was even there threw a wrench into the gears, not that any of the Wizengamot members would even know what a wrench was, not to mention a gear.
And of course, Percy Weasley just had to be present, the bigoted git! Harry himself had a very, very hard time believing that the bastard was even a member of the Weasley family! Sure, Ron had his moments where he was just as bigoted as other purebloods, but that was mostly towards Slytherins and their ilk, and aside from a few exceptions (Greengrass and Zabini came to mind, but mainly because he couldn't really point out anything truly bad that either of them did rather than anything outstandingly good, a fact which wasn't a flattering fact in its own right) he was right. After all, what was to be expected of the House that spawn Tom Marvolo Riddle?
Finally snapping out of his memory, the green-eyed Potter at last noted the tapping on his window that informed him of the arrival of an owl. He opened his window, and an owl flew into the room in a manner that could only truly be described as drunkenly, but that really wasn't an apt description considering it was an owl. Untying the letter from the bird's leg, it gave him a drawn-out hoot before taking off, knocking into his dresser (Harry winced), his nightstand (he winced again), the wall right next to his window (he sighed at this), and the window itself (at this point, Harry couldn't help but slap a hand to his face) before eventually making its way out of his room. Yep… that owl was intoxicated… no doubt about it.
Turning the letter over in his hands, Harry noticed that it was addressed to him in a scrawl that he didn't recognize offhand, but he opened the letter anyways. After all, an owl that stupid couldn't be harmful, could it? Retrieving the letter from its envelope, he noted that it was from… Professor Trelawney?
They have arrived,
The two who can turn the tide.
Bearing a power this land once wrought,
A power the Dark Lord knows not.
Should they be kept in sight,
Victory belongs to the Light.
Harry read the letter several times, unsure of whether or not this was one of the crackpot Divination professor's fake prophecies or one of the very, very few real ones, like the one she'd given him in third year. Resolving to keep it until he found out, Harry stored the letter in his trunk. After all, it wouldn't hurt to keep it… just in case. It didn't exactly take up much room, and if the prophecy turned out to be a fake like he expected it to be, then he could just throw it away. After all, there was no way a written prophecy from Trelawney could be true. Right?
* * * * * * *
After having lived for well over a hundred and fifty years, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore knew better than to disregard a prophecy from a seer. And after seeing one of the strangest sights that he had ever seen, namely that of Trelawney writing a prophecy while simultaneously speaking it, all the while with clouded eyes, he knew that there had to be some truth to her prophecy. So without further ado, Headmaster Dumbledore cast a duplicating charm on the parchment and sent a copy off to Sirius, a copy off to Harry, another copy off to Alastor Moody, and a final copy to Severus Snape. Why Snape? Simple: the man was a spy for the Light, reporting back to Voldemort and his followers every so often with carefully orchestrated snippets of information, mostly false with some truth added in to make sure that it seemed reliable enough to warrant the Dark Lord's trust in his 'spy'. After all, one could truly never be too careful, now could they?
It was at this time that the wards that surrounded Hogwarts informed the Headmaster of the approach of an unfamiliar magical signature, one which the wards had never detected before. Now this in itself was strange, as most wizards and witches in Europe had been to Hogwarts and thus had their magical signature archived by the ancient castle's wards at one point or another. For a mystery signature to appear out of the blue—and from the direction of the Forbidden Forest, no less—could have some importance attached to it. The fact that Trelawney had just spoken a prophecy about two beings who could help turn the tide in the war against Voldemort not five minutes ago did have something to do with this as well. And so it was without further ado that Dumbledore let out a shrill whistle, signaling Fawkes to appear on his shoulder and use the phoenix's famous flame travel abilities to take him to the location of the unfamiliar magical signature.
* * * * * * *
After five minutes of traipsing through this strange forest, Soren had quickly decided that no, this was not a good day.
Despite his age, the mixed blood flowing through his veins threw off his body's aging process quite a bit and while he was certainly older than he appeared, his body was only at the size and maturity of a fifteen or sixteen year old, even though his mental state was that of one quite a bit older. This matter, which was an advantage on the battlefields of Tellius due to his small size making him an often underestimated, small target, it certainly wasn't helping in this forest of gargantuan proportions.
First was the unicorns. Now, despite his obvious abilities with magic, as the tome that he constantly held by his side implied, Soren had never seen a unicorn. Yes, he'd seen humanoids with feline ears and tails transform into lions, tigers and lynxes. Yes, he'd seen humanoids with immense wings on their backs turn into hawks, crows and herons that were easily two to three times the size of a grown man. Yes, he had seen seemingly normal humans transform into dragons; hell, he was related to one of them! He'd even seen goddesses—not one goddess, but two, count them, two goddesses—but the red-eyed youth had never actually seen a unicorn. And so that sight was certainly a good sign that he was definitely not in Tellius anymore, beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The second problem was that there was no sign of Ike or his ridiculously oversized golden sword. And if there was no sign of the sword, then there was no sign of his blue hair. And if there was no sign of his blue hair, then there was obviously no sign of the destruction that inevitably seemed to follow in the wake of the leader of the Greil Mercenaries. Of course, these three observations led to the stunning conclusion that Ike was… nowhere to be found. Just his luck.
And problem number three? Well, how about a quiz: what's immensely large, has eight legs, eight beady eyes, a head and a thorax, incredibly venomous fangs, webs shooting out of what had to be its ass, and a horrible, horrible temper? Why, a territorial Acromantula male in the prime of mating season, of course! What else could it possibly be?
Now, one would think that facing down a goddess would prepare one for this kind of thing. But whoever thinks that had to put things in perspective. Soren and the others had been facing a goddess that was relatively human-sized and human in appearance. Aside from the immense aura of powerful she emanated, there was no way to tell that she was a goddess. Now, an acromantula on the other hand… was roughly ten times the size of a human being, and quite a bit faster.
Well, Soren was lucky that he wasn't a normal human, wasn't he?
The wind sage dodged out of the way of a burst of acidic venom spat at him by the Acromantula before channeling some of his magical power into his hand, bringing the limb in a slicing motion to release a pressurized blade of wind at his arachnid foe. The blade of wind struck a glancing blow on the acromantula, forcing a cry of pain to emanate from the giant spider.
Soren blinked. Since when could a spider talk?
Unfortunately, he didn't get much of a chance to ponder the philosophic quandary of talking spiders before he had to roll out of the way of a burst of spider webbing, flipping his tome open as he pulled out of the roll. He chanted the words to his spell as the giant spider turned around, hoping he would have the time.
And have the time he did. Just as the spider prepared to spit another salvo of acid at the seemingly teenage mage, a large whirlwind engulfed the arachnid and lifted it into the air before dispersing, sending eight blades of wind at it from various directions. The beast fell to the floor in pieces, leaving a disgusting mess on the forest floor.
A distinct clapping noise rang out through the forest, causing Soren to pivot and draw his sword before pointing it at the source of the clamor. Imagine his surprise when he saw a man in purplish robes with a long, flowing beard lengthy gray hair, a wizard's hat topping off the ensemble. As the clapping drew to a halt, the mysterious man held one hand up and placed the other behind his back, hoping that the gesture would signal to Soren that he meant no harm. It did, but Soren only lowered his sword instead of putting it away.
"Impressive, my boy," the man said as he walked closer, causing Soren to unconsciously step back and shift his sword slightly upwards again. "Not many can take on a fully grown Acromantula and come out unscathed. I must say that this was a rather profound display of magic that I am glad to have witnessed."
Soren clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in annoyance, unsure of who the man was in front of him and what exactly was going on. He'd seen his fair share of crackpots, imbeciles and lunatics, and he wasn't quite sure as of yet whether or not this man counted among them.
"I don't know who you are, where I am, or what you're doing watching me. So if you've got answers, now might be the time to start talking."
The old man flinched slightly at Soren's cold tone, thought it was enough for the red-eyed youth to register it. He placed his other hand behind his back, keeping a close eye on Soren's sword and the tome held in his hand.
"My name, my child, is Albus Dumbledore. You are in the Forbidden Forest, an annex to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And I am here, my boy, because I believe your arrival has been foretold in a prophecy.
AAAAaaannndddd cut!
Alright, there's the first chapter. The plot bunny's annoyance finally reached a crescendo so I decided it might be a good idea to just hammer this out.
For those of you who haven't played the Fire Emblem games you can go to this URL to find more information on the character that I've brought into the Potterverse:
fireemblem DOT wikia DOT com SLASH wiki SLASH Soren
Sorry about the strange address, but doesn't allow any URLs aside from ones linking to their own site or Fictionpress.
Also, just a note: I will likely be continuing at least one of my other three Harry Potter stories soon, but am at a loss as to which one of the three to continue, since my muse has been failing me of late. If I can get some suggestions as to which one to continue, that would be appreciated.
And last but not least, sorry for the short opening chapter.
—Electroclasm/JP