THIS IS A REPOST. A BOT ATTACHED ITSELF TO THIS FIC AND THIS IS MY ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE IT.
THIS IS THE SAME STORY THAT WAS POSTED CIRCA 18 MONTHS AGO. MY APOLOGIES FOR THE REDUNDANT POST.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and Devil May Cry belong to their respective owners. No money is being made by the author of this fic. (Only sweat and tears.)
Notes: This was written, like most of my fics, as my idea of how HP/DMC could/should happen as a crossover, as well as a way to improve my action scenes. Expect asskicking. Expect bad oneliners. Expect pizza. Expect LOTS of demons. In the backdrop, expect growth. However, don't expect Harry to say 'flock off' to everything he ever cared for, don't expect fluffy romance, don't expect sappy wubtimes and shove your angst. Timeline wise, this is OotP AU for Harry Potter and between DMC and DMC4 for Dante. Warnings for implicit and semiexplicit gore, lots of blood, minor sexual themes/innuendo, and cursing. It's Devil May Cry, what did you expect?
Do Unto Others
There are two types of family: family by blood and family by choice.
Harry felt a glimmer of power in the air, just in time to seize Dudley and shove the larger boy behind him as a thick haze of red energy appeared from nowhere. His wand was in his hand in the instant it took to coalesce, but the spell on his lips went unspoken in his shock. What had been empty alley was now taken up by half a dozen hunched, snarling things. Monsters.
"What the hell?" Dudley squeaked, voicing Harry's thought. Like dementors, with tattered cloaks, their flaccid, rotting skin visible to the eye, only dementors didn't have glowing eyes, and they definitely didn't have scythes-
The foremost monster lunged, and Harry roused from his stupor. "Reducto!"
It erupted, showering Magnolia Crescent with sand. This energized the others, as they crowded forward, lashing out with their scythes. Harry shot off another blasting curse as he backed up, following the sounds of Dudley's retreating feet, until they came to an abrupt halt with a scream. Leaping back, he chanced a glance; more of the monsters were approaching from behind, and his cousin was stumbling away from a red clownish one. Barely ducking a slash from his side, Harry threw a reductor spell toward the red one, turning quickly to bisect another with a cutting curse. This left the two remaining monsters right in his face, so he threw himself to the ground lashing upwards with a banisher. Rolling away and to his feet, he barked, "Inflamare!" and the advanced fire spell set them alight.
Then Harry turned back to the others, just in time for a second red monster's scythe to sink into his gut.
He made a sound like a strangled cat, clutching at the weapon's handle as he stumbled. The monster made as to pull it out, but Harry's grip on it tightened as he looked up and brought his wand to bear. The point-blank blasting curse turned the monster's upper body to dust, and the rest of it disintegrated in turn, even the blade still in his stomach. Paradoxically, what he saw made him laugh. Though clearly terrified, Dudley lashed out with a meaty fist, knocking the closest of the monsters on its back.
Only for another to take its place. Harry didn't like his cousin, but he didn't want him dead. "Accio!"
Dudley yelped as the spell yanked him up and away from the knot of enemies; one was quick enough to tear at his flying legs as he passed, ripping open a cut in one calf and causing him to scream again. Harry side-stepped to avoid a collision and sent a spell rocketing at the first monster to take chase.
"Get the hell out of here."
Dudley didn't need telling twice, immediately hobbling away.
The pain in his stomach was making it difficult to think clearly, but Harry knew he couldn't afford to let anything close in on him again. He cast another fire summoning spell, pairing it with a wind spell for effect, and took grim satisfaction in the inhuman shrieks that followed. Taking a deep breath, he turned to make his own getaway but stopped.
Damn it.
Thick red mist hung in the air. Unlike before, it seemed to hover, thick and cloying, and it made the hair on the back of Harry's neck stand up. Something was wrong, and it was centered in the haze. But he didn't have the chance to question it; Harry swallowed some bile and forced his body to cooperate as he dashed through the mist after Dudley, a surviving dark monster lumbering after him. It was hard to breathe in the haze. It filled his nose and mouth with the smell and taste of something metallic and fogged his glasses until he was running blind. Harry yanked them off his face and threw them on the ground, having no time to bother cleaning them.
It was once he was nearly through the energy decided to coalesce, making the air shudder: the only warning before a shockwave blasted him off his feet as the alley behind seemed to explode. Harry landed hard on his right shoulder and cried out as it popped out of joint, breathing raggedly before he scrambled to a standing position facing the new enemy.
You've got to be kidding me.
Tall, easily twice the size of the others, the new arrival had a lanky humanoid figure and pale-and-red raw skin that pulsed, appearing to bleed, and the scythe it wielded was on fire. The monster's hunched back was to him, but that didn't permit him a free hex. Though his wand remained in hand after the fall and was thankfully undamaged, the act of raising his arm to cast made him choke back a gasp of pain. Harry switched to his left hand, and he swiped the holly rod in the monster's direction.
"Reducto!" Its back splattered, showering Harry with a rain of blood. He felt a moment's relief, before he realized the blow didn't faze the monster at all. He followed the attack with a blast of fire, which missed entirely when it collapsed into a small lake of ooze. A second later, it rose up again, the scythe a blur as it sliced down trailing fire in its wake. The weapon sailed past his shoulder as he sidestepped, warding off the fire with a clumsy barrier spell that just barely managed its job before shattering. Harry realized belatedly that given the monster was using flames, attacking it with fire was probably an exercise in futility.
As his mind raced through the ice and water spells he knew, Harry gave ground, most of his attention focused on the burning blur that was the monster's scythe. Who knew, maybe he'd be able to get out of the alley and get some breathing room –
Harry ducked, just in time, and the scythe flew over his head to embed itself in the ground several feet behind him. A second later, sparks flew, and the shadows were thrown into stark relief as flames rose to cut off any escape. The heat could be felt feet away; this was nothing an extinguishing charm could handle. He growled under his breath in aggravation.
So much for that idea.
Harry swished the wand through a short pattern, muttering a quick, "Aquafrio!" Instead of the swift spray of magic that encrusted all it touched with ice, holly spewed a thick frigid mist that evaporated as it touched pulsating flesh. The monster snarled in pain nonetheless, liquefying as Harry attempted the spell a second time. Instead of immediately coagulating as before, the ooze flowed over the ground with startling speed and shot up inches from his face; before Harry could react, a long knife of white-hot flame formed and stabbed deep into his left hand. Harry screamed, jerking away, back toward the wall of fire which was no less deadly.
"Pathetic… human… magic…."
It's talking. It's talking. The monster's voice was rough, the words articulated with great care and difficulty, but it was talking. Harry wanted to scream again in frustration. What the hell is this thing?
"That… stench…" It seemed to shudder. Straightening from its hunched position, it rivaled Hagrid in sheer height. The glowing points that were its eyes brightened further. "That… blood…"
For some reason, those words pissed Harry off far more than the attack had. His stomach ached. His shoulder throbbed. Harry's hand could still have been on fire. There was no way he could cast another freezing spell. His wand was gone, whether turned to ash or fortuitously dropped to the ground, and Harry had never trained in off-handed dueling in the first place. And the monster was complaining about how his blood stank?
His blood.
Thought stopped there.
Stabbing the mangled hand into the wound on his stomach, Harry wiped his stinking blood all up and down his arms. The pain as he upset his dislocated shoulder made dark spots appear in his vision, but he ignored it, staring up at his opponent through narrowed green eyes. The monster had reformed its scythe but not yet attacked, perhaps curious or poisonously amused by his actions. That was convenient, as it was too tall for him to reach without climbing… First, it needed to attack.
Trash talk had never been his strong point, but he doubted it would take much. Harry made a come-hither gesture and spat, "Pathetic, maybe, but I'm not dead yet! What's that make you, ugly?"
The scythe came rocketing down. Mindful that it could burst into flames at any moment, Harry jumped up on the prongs, paying no heed to the sizzling of his skin as he grasped the handle and flung himself up. He landed straddling the monster's forearm, exercising four years of broomstick riding experience to remain seated.
The monster should have liquefied, dropping him ten feet to the ground. He honestly expected it. It probably would have, had it not started howling the instant Harry's blood-covered hands met its flesh. The sizzling sound and burning smell brought new life into Harry's struggle, and he maneuvered up the arm, weathering a blow from the monster's free hand, closing in on the head. Wetting his hand again with fresh blood, Harry pressed it to the humongous face and held on for dear life, just like he had with Quirrel three years past.
The man taught me something after all…
Though his concentration and the pounding of his heart in his ears made it difficult to tell, Harry thought not much time passed before he felt the bestial flesh give under his fingers. His seat began to dissolve. He fell as it collapsed one last time into the lake of blood, which began to dissipate after cushioning his landing. Harry watched cautiously as it vanished entirely, leaving nothing but a glowing white orb in its wake.
The orb sank to the ground, emitting a flash of light. When the flash faded, the still-burning fire illuminated a weapon left behind. The long knife was a steel replicate of the knife the monster had used to stab his hand, its blade stained with flecks of red-brown. A single word stood out in glowing scarlet lettering. Harry squinted to make it out: Sangreus.
Harry leaned over slowly, taking the knife's handle. After all that, he figured he deserved something.
"Harry!" The sudden, familiar voice made him start. "Harry! Are you alright?"
"I am now," he answered, exhaustion settling in and turning his tone sharp. "But I'd've been better if you'd turned up ten minutes ago."
Harry was out before Lupin managed to extinguish the fire.
Harry didn't recognize the place where he woke up, but the faint smell of the purification potions that never ceased to bother his nose told him it had to be some sort of hospital. The ward was dimly lit and somewhat dingy, lit by crystal baubles that hovered in the air like the candles in the Hogwarts Great Hall. A few weak rays of sunlight peeked in through the single window on the opposite end from where he lay next to the door.
Aside from him, the place was empty. Harry scrubbed his eyes and sat up, feeling bandages on his torso shift with him, but the motion caused no pain. Actually, he realized, he didn't feel pain anywhere. His shoulder was not out of joint. His stomach under the wrap was smooth and unmarred, and so was the left hand he remembered so vividly as being pierced by the monster's blade of fire. He wondered, fleetingly, if the entire experience might've been some bizarre dream, before his weak eyes made out the slim wood form on the bedside table.
Harry picked it up, savoring the familiar surge of warmth in his fingers, and frowned. The texture of the wood was different. He knew his wand better than the back of his hand, and it was his wand, but… Pulling it close to his face, the black and dark brown discolorations swam into view, concentrated at the handle. The wood was rougher there, not flaky or splintered, but rough. The short holly rod had taken a beating. Harry was just relieved it was intact. Groping around, he also found a pair of glasses with unfamiliar frames. He put them on anyway, and the prescription was right.
Where's the knife?
At that moment, the door swung open. Harry jumped, wheeling around on the bed to level his wand at the intruder. Brown hair spattered with gray, weathered old robes, a face tired and worn…
"Harry?" said Lupin, nearly dropping his mug in surprise. "You're awake?"
He lowered his wand, feeling a bit foolish. "Professor Lupin? Why are you here? And where am I?"
"You're at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries," Lupin replied lightly, walking over and conjuring himself a chair to sit in. He sipped his drink. "As to why I am here, I should think that would be obvious. You gave us all a scare last night, Harry. There are few wizards capable of fighting off a demon horde unprepared, and all of them are well overage. That you're alive is a miracle."
"A demon horde?" Harry repeated, incredulous.
Lupin nodded, face serious. "It's no surprise you didn't recognize them. When I attended Hogwarts, we didn't cover demons until seventh year, and even then we only covered them sparingly. Professor Bernhardt implied we might not have covered them at all, had Voldemort not used them to such effectiveness." Guessing the question before it was spoken, the werewolf stalled Harry with a hand. "Yes, in the war, Voldemort was infamous for his use of demons against the Ministry. While the demon world was sealed away from ours over two thousand years ago, he knew a method which could weaken the barrier between that world and this, allowing a small number of demons to cross over. You can imagine the chaos that would follow."
Harry thought about what might have happened had the scythe monsters got loose in Privet Drive, let alone the larger blood demon Sangreus, and made a face.
"Occasionally, a far more powerful demon would break through," Lupin continued, seeming to wince in remembrance. "Those times were far worse than merely chaotic. And while the Ministry scrambled to have the devil destroyed and to conceal the truth from the Muggles, Voldemort was free to advance his goals as he pleased. It was a nightmare." The werewolf shook himself. "What happened, Harry? The Aurors attempted to question your cousin, but he was most… uncooperative."
"No surprise there," muttered Harry under his breath. Uncooperative involving Dudley and wizards probably meant the fat lard stood there holding his bum and yelling about freaks. Pausing a moment to reflect, he described the events leading up to the attack and the attack itself, unable to resist going into blow-by-blow detail. This caused his favorite professor to smile, however faintly, and he interrupted only once to inform him of the scythe demons' proper names.
"I must say," Lupin said mildly, after he finished, "that you were very, very lucky. The larger demon – Sangreus, you called him – sounds like the descriptions of a blood-based demon known as an Abyss, though I hadn't thought they were as large in stature or as powerful…" He sighed, swirling his cup, the contents of which had long gone cold. "But you're alive, and that's what matters. I have your knife at the place I'm staying; I'll give it to you once you are released, as I don't believe Healer Prynne would approve."
"But what about you?" asked Harry, the question having simmered in his mind for a while. "How'd you know to come? It's not like Dudley would have sent an owl."
The former professor was quiet for a moment, watching Harry thoughtfully. Just when he began to think his question wasn't going to be answered, Lupin gave his wand a peculiar twist, and the spell made his flesh tingle as it snapped into place. Harry guessed it must be some form of privacy ward, because afterward he spoke without hesitation.
"There are several answers to that. Firstly, your use of so many combat-class spells in succession. This automatically designated the dispatch of one of the department of magical law enforcement's Hit Wizards to your location. Secondly, your cousin, fleeing the attack, happened to run into Arabella Figg, a Squib contact of Dumbledore's who lives on the same street. She immediately Floo-called Albus and the Auror office, reporting a demon attack." Lupin paused. "There was an uproar. There hasn't been a major demon assault since the fall of Voldemort. Many of them wanted to wait until the Hit Wizard returned with a preliminary report, for all the good that would have done… but Tonks and Kingsley – Aurors, you'll meet them later – volunteered to go. Sirius wanted to go, too, but I stunned him and went instead. It's lucky we did, as well," the werewolf added. "If we'd been a half a minute later, Dudley Dursley would be down one soul."
"Dementors." Harry shuddered minutely at the thought. He didn't react well to dementors in the best of situations; dealing with dementors in addition to fighting off Sangreus was the kind of thing he hoped never happened.
Lupin nodded again. "Two of them. We drove them off. Tonks helped him back to your house, while Kingsley and I went after the demons. There were enough of them that Hit Wizard Thompson was overrun; he's still in critical care, though he's expected to make it. By the time we dealt with them, Sangreus was defeated."
Just how many demons were there? If one spell is one kill…
"What happens now?" Harry asked instead. "I'm not going back to the Dursleys, am I?" They would be royally pissed that Duddikins got hurt because of him, something he had no interest in dealing with. "From their letters, it sounded like Ron and Hermione were in the same place…"
"They are." A strange look passed over Lupin's face, before he smiled again. "I'm afraid they might wish otherwise, with all the cleaning Molly's put them up to." Again he stalled Harry's inquiry. "I can't tell you where they are, but it's not the Burrow. Albus will probably have you moved there after you're released, so be patient. If there's one positive to this mess, it's that. Sirius and I had begun to think Albus intended to leave you at Privet Drive all summer."
"I'd've gone nutters if that happened," said Harry with disgust. "Between all that tripe in the Prophet and Ron and Hermione being all secretive… did you know I had to sneak to listen to the Muggle news? Nothing there, either. What's Voldemort up to?"
A knock on the door prevented any response Lupin might have made. The werewolf instead did a reverse twist with his wand, canceling his earlier spell, and called for the visitor to come in.
Whoever Harry might've expected to visit him, this was not it. He didn't recognize the woman, and she definitely lacked the look of a Healer. Short and squat, her eyes bulged under a head of extremely curly mousey brown hair and she had a large square jaw. In other words, the witch looked like the spawn of an interspecies relationship between a human and a very large toad. To add insult to injury, she wore robes of garish yellow and a yellow bow in her hair, creating an eyesore Gilderoy Lockhart would be hard-pressed to match.
By the bed, Lupin stiffened. The witch eyed him, a shadow of a sneer forming on the overlarge mouth, but otherwise ignored him to focus on Harry.
"Harry Potter. I should offer my congratulations on your quick recovery," said the woman sweetly, with a smile that reminded him of a snake. The voice took him off-guard; going by the appearance, he half-expected her to croak, but it was instead high-pitched and breathy like a young girl's.
You should, huh. But you didn't.
Harry's eyebrows jumped, and he studied the toad witch again more severely. The feeling that the woman would have been happier if he hadn't recovered at all strengthened. "Who is she?" he asked, directing the question toward Lupin.
"Oh, my apologies. My name is Dolores Umbridge," said the woman in her sugary tone, not giving the werewolf the chance to speak. "Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. Cornelius wished for me to speak with you about these outrageous tales that have been spreading."
Sweet like poisoned honey, Harry decided. Even if she hadn't had the most revolting appearance of any witch Harry had ever met, this Umbridge simply rubbed him wrong. Imaginary hackles rose. He repeated, in the quiet even tone his friends would've known as a warning sign, "Outrageous tales, Madam Umbridge?"
"Yes, Mr. Potter, outrageous tales. Tales like that You-Know-Who may have returned, what with demons reappearing. Amazing, isn't it, the wild conclusions people will jump to!" Umbridge erupted into giggles, as though she had just told an amazing joke. Harry merely stared at her until she stopped, the mask of false geniality falling away. "Do you take the Minister for a fool, Potter? What are the chances that, only a month after you and that fool Dumbledore tried to claim that You-Know-Who returned, the first demon incursion in over a decade occurs practically in your backyard?"
"Pretty high, I'd think," replied Harry, nonplussed. "If Voldemort uses demons and Voldemort wants to kill me, it seems logical that Voldemort might use demons to try and kill me." This was more than willful ignorance; this was willful, determined stupidity. And if the nasty look on Umbridge's already nasty face was any indication… "Just what are you trying to accuse me of?"
And why do I have the feeling I already know?
"Accusing, Mr. Potter? I am accusing no one of anything. That would be slander," Umbridge said. Poisoned honey? Try basilisk venom. "I'm only pointing out a few curious coincidences."
"Right," Harry drawled, stifling the desire to snap at the woman only due to the deadly serious look on Lupin's face as he watched them. "A few curious coincidences Fudge'll make sure the Daily Prophet blows out of proportion in tomorrow's issue?"
Umbridge seemed to swell with anger, startling Harry, who had been under the impression only Uncle Vernon could pull that particular trick. "You arrogant boy. It's not enough for you to spread malicious lies to try and destabilize the Ministry. You have to slander the Minister himself! Well, this is his warning, Potter. You've escaped the consequences of your actions this time, but if you try and mess around with demons again, the Ministry will see to it that you never breathe the free air the outside of Azkaban again."
The witch punctuated this with a huffing noise, and stomped out with her nose in the air.
"They're accusing me of summoning demons?" Harry snarled after the door shut. "They're going to convince the Wizarding world that not only am I delusional, I'm a suicidal nutjob. It's a good thing Sangreus isn't here. I'd have thrown him at her."
"And I would have cheered," said Lupin, sighing as he went limp in his chair. "Harry, you need to be careful around that woman. She's one of Fudge's favorites with a large amount of political pull, and chances are she'll be your Defense professor this year at Hogwarts."
"What?"
Though thankful to be free of the Dursleys, Harry eyed the dark, nearly gothic décor of number twelve, Grimmauld Place's apparation room with no small measure of dubiousness. The walls of the windowless room were done in a worn, faded dark wood and hung with portraits of sneering old wizards in grand if outdated robes. The carpet was short and wiry and done in heavy crimson, and a curious smell tainted the air.
This is Sirius' house? Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix?
In the doorway, Sirius himself stood, a wry half-smirk on his face indicating he knew exactly what was running through Harry's mind at the moment. The wizard gave him a mocking bow, saying dramatically, "Harry. Remus. It is a pleasure to welcome you to the ancient and most noble House of Black."
"The pleasure's all mine," Harry rejoined, meeting sarcasm with sarcasm and provoking a laugh like a bark when he added, "I can definitely tell the house is ancient, but noble I'm not sure of."
"Harry's got this place pegged already, Padfoot," said Lupin with a smile, releasing the arm he used to Side-Along Apparate.
"That's my godson. He's sharp." Suddenly the cheerful façade cracked, and Sirius watched Harry with hooded, haunted eyes. "The Order's meeting up soon downstairs, Remus. Can you fill me in later? If I see Albus or Mundungus I think I'll commit murder."
Lupin's expression similarly fell. "You do remember-"
"Yeah, yeah," Sirius cut in, tone sour. "No spilling Order secrets. Even if he has the right to know. Even if I'm his bloody godfather, and that means Harry's supposed to come before everything else…"
"Sirius…" The werewolf winced but acquiesced. Nodding to Harry and offering him a tired smile, Lupin left the room and the sudden tension.
"Order secrets?" said Harry, studying the man in the doorway.
His godfather had cleaned up a bit, straightening out the matted tangle of his hair and giving it a trim, but at that moment Sirius looked more like the Azkaban escapee than he had as a man on the run last year, when he was unclean, unwashed, and living off of rats. It showed particularly when he smiled; the expression served to make him look even grimmer.
"I can't tell you. Even if there isn't a single damn meeting that goes by without you being mentioned. Even if Dumbledore's being a twiddling moron. Even if you nearly died." Sirius' eyes darkened, clearly expressing his feelings on the matter. "I'm your godfather, Harry, and that means it's my duty to protect you. And if I can't do it myself, I'll make sure you can." He made a 'follow me' motion, and Harry did so. "Tell me about this demon attack. Remus'll brief the Order on it, but I'd rather have it directly from you."
Sirius seemed, for one of the first times since Harry knew him, genuinely serious, so he raised no objection before beginning the story. For the older wizard's part, he listened intently, pausing only to duck into a side room and return with Sangreus in hand. Harry took it, imitating the demon's attack on his wand hand as he traced his godfather's steps upstairs.
"Off-hand dueling?" he repeated, nodding at Harry's mention. They reached a bricked-in archway. Sirius dragged his wand down it, and the bricks seemed to shimmer, before they disappeared altogether. "That's a good idea. We covered that in Auror training, but by that point, most wizards are so used to only using their main hand they can only pick up the basics… here. Your hand, Harry." He drew a pattern on Harry's palm in lines of glittering green magic and pressed it against the now-invisible wall. For a second, his skin grew uncomfortably warm, before it faded and the hand was released. Sirius looked satisfied. "Molly will put you to cleaning the moment she finds you, so this is your best bet. It's not as though the Ministry can trace magic here, with the Fidelius… I figured when Ron, Hermione and Ginny were brought here, they meant to give you some Defense training, but no, clean up duty. Granted, the place needs it. Kreacher's worse than useless."
Kreacher? Harry meant to ask, but it went unvoiced as he saw the room Sirius admitted him into. Expansive as the Great Hall, its dark walls shone faintly with the magenta aura that spoke of an ingrained Spongify enchantment and the floor a subtle blue-violet that Harry didn't recognize. At one end there was an open cabinet, like a bookshelf, piled with phials of an unfamiliar orange potion. At the other end there was a small area cordoned off by a stone rise, with a medicine cabinet and another archway. The view beyond was obscured by a deflection ward.
"Dueling range," said Sirius, with a wolfish grin at Harry's expression. "And training facilities."
"First the Firebolt, now this?" Harry grinned back at him. "Sirius, you really do give the best presents."
The older wizard smirked at him. "Yeah. I keep trying to top your existence. Lily and James did always blame you on me, for some reason. Said that was why they named me godfather instead of someone responsible, like Remus." After that somewhat disturbing comment, he went back to the matter at hand. "Over that way you have the emergency medical supplies and the library. You don't have to worry about anyone coming in that way; the main library entrance is sealed off, too. And on this side, you have some of my family's specialty training tools. Insane bastards they might've been, but they were smart, insane bastards."
It had to be something good, to put a note of grudging respect in his family-rebel godfather's voice. Harry moved toward the shelf, now noticing a solid deflection ward over it as well, and picked out a phial. The potion within was very thick and viscous, like honey, and when he pulled the stopper a heavy but scentless yellowish smoke escaped, making Harry feel light-headed.
"Black family special Doppelganger Draft," Sirius explained. "The regular stuff is virtually useless. Limp, lifeless thing can't even give you an alibi, since both the Aurors and Hit Wizards can identify the potion residue. But this stuff-" He pointed to it and smirked. "It's different."
Harry gazed the liquid dubiously. The Doppelganger Draft he knew of was taken orally, but it didn't have the consistency of old molasses, either. The idea of drinking this… yuck. "How so?"
"You feel up to a duel?" his godfather asked instead of answering. Harry nodded. "Then knock it back and you'll see. Be on your guard though. It won't take long to get its bearings. I'll step in if things get hairy, but I want to watch."
It? Harry would have asked, but Sirius disappeared with a crack, reappearing on the other side of the range. He shrugged it off, rolled his wand to a comfortable position in his off hand, cast the potion one last look, and tipped it into his mouth. As it touched his tongue, he shuddered at the cloyingly sickening sweet taste but kept drinking. The empty bottle slipped from his nerveless fingers and the room spun in circles – and suddenly it was like he was coated in slime and sweating, until something heavy hit the floor and he snapped back to full awareness. Harry jerked around, wand at the ready and fist clenched around Sangreus' hilt.
For a doppelganger, Harry thought, it looks nothing like me.
This wasn't quite true. It was a human figure, with black robes over a too-large shirt and trousers. The eyes that blinked away the fog of disorientation were almond-shaped and thickly-lashed, but that was where the similarities ended; the doppelganger existed in a grayscale, with skin a chalky white, traced with lines of fine gray for veins and notable scar tissue. What should have been startling green was a depthless near-black, which stood out as especially prominent under a shock of snowy white hair. Tame white hair, no less.
What the hell?
The doppelganger's eyes fixed on Harry. It shot to its feet, gripping weapons that mirrored his own: ashy petrified wand in the right, cold infernal steel in the left. It didn't seem inclined to attempt off-hand dueling like Harry himself, and started the fight with a wicked bludgeoning curse. Harry dodged aside, slashing his wand down to send a cutting curse rocketing back; the doppelganger cast a shield charm in time to deflect the cutting curse, but the bludgeoning spell, ricocheting off of the potion shelf's deflection ward, shattered the shield like nothing and sent it flying onto the range with an indistinct snarl of pain.
Harry dashed after it, stumbling a bit as the range decided to shift in front of his eyes. Where had before been an expanse of smooth, bare stone became a grassy clearing ringed by towering monoliths of rock, like a smaller Stonehenge. At the edges of his vision Harry noticed a slight aura of blue-violet, and realized this must be the floor enchantment at work. He grinned.
Meanwhile the doppelganger regained its feet. Swish, swish, slash – Harry was casting a water spell even as the doppelganger finished its incendiary charm, and the spells canceled in midair. Harry followed immediately with a volley of stabbing hexes and a percussion curse, all blocked or avoided. That was fine, as the doppelganger was too busy to counterattack and he had time to work around one of the standing stones. A reductor curse shattered it into a mélange of different-sized fragments, and a banishing charm, paired with a wind spell for added impetus, sent them barreling toward the potion-beast.
It was gratifying that the doppelganger actually flinched, before it jumped back for some extra distance and made a strangled noise. A reductor curse of its own erupted from its petrified wand, turning most of the stone fragments to dust; the few remainders left small scrapes all over the pale face that leaked sluggish slate-gray blood. The doppelganger snarled angrily, whipped its wand down and around, and the earth rose in rows of lethally sharp spikes.
It took him a second too long to recognize the spell. Smothering a swear word, Harry was put on the defensive, blasting apart some of the spikes and trying to avoid the rest, with limited success. One of the spikes, erupting as he side-stepped another, caught the side of his heel, tearing skin and muscle halfway up his shin and causing him to yell out in pain. The doppelganger laughed in response, tossed its knife up in the air to catch it by the blade, and sent it rocketing his way.
Growling, Harry raised Sangreus, knocking the copy off its path to his face. The next powerful fire spell he countered with a freezing spell, filling the air with steam, and Harry used the cover for another barrage of stabbing hexes, adding the occasional slashing hex and percussion curse for variance but careful to stick to pure effect-impact spells. Then, mimicking the doppelganger, he threw Sangreus with lightning quickness. He wasn't sure where the dexterity, let alone the sure skill came from, but the movements felt familiar and the blade followed an unerring path that ended with a squelch and a choking noise. The wind spell the doppelganger had just been using to clear the air treated Harry to the rather gruesome sight of it grasping vainly at the blade lodged in its throat, gurgling and twitching in its death throes.
The sounds of applause drew his attention from the macabre sight, and the grassy stone circle faded away to reveal the plain stone dueling range with its faint blue-violet spellglow. Harry caught the potion vial Sirius threw him with Seeker's ease and downed it immediately once he identified the mild blue liquid as a Wiggenweld healing draught. The pain in his leg eased, and he tolerated the strange feeling of flesh mending at an exponentially fast rate as his godfather approached.
"Spell-chaining, element cancel, creative usage of the environment, and a decisive end to the bout," Sirius said, ticking points on his fingers. He looked clearly impressed, which gave Harry a warm feeling and made the damage to his leg insignificant. "You've already got the important things down. You need a little more variety in casting, and some stronger element class spells would be good. Maybe some homing spells, too. There was only one problem I could see, and that's mobility." Harry was nodding, having already determined to expand his spell knowledge, but that gave him pause. Seeing this, Sirius explained. "Both the flying stones and the spikes would've been best dodged with a quick Apparation. Wizards don't use teleportation often in duels, because for one, it gets tedious and two, with Apparation warding, it's not good to rely on it. But when there's no other good way to block something, it's useful."
Is he implying what I think he's implying?
Trying not to get his hope up, Harry said, "But I don't know how to Apparate. And I'm underage."
Sirius waved that off. "I don't care. Just be careful who sees you do it." For a second, his cheer failed. "From what you said, if you'd been able to Apparate two days ago, you wouldn't've nearly died. After that, you bet you're going to learn."
END PT I: DEVIL IN THE ALLEY
