A/N: I've had this idea in my head for a while now, and I sort of rushed it out, but hopefully this comes off as presentable.
This is eventually going to be a sort-of crossover with a mobile app game called "MonTowers ~Legend of Summoners~", wherein all you do is pretty much collect monsters. If you haven't played it before (and you're probably lucky, considering how tedious and repetitive that freaking game is), think Pokémon with boobs and various mythological creatures and more boobs. I'm going to take it a little more seriously with this though.
Word of warning: stuff starts off a bit slow. Also, I'm using one word writing prompts – I've never done this before and it's very interesting to do.
Anyways, read and review, friends.
1. Unexpected
It was eleven in the morning and Harry Potter, twenty-seven years old, was relaxing on a beach in Atlantic City in the United States.
Just a week ago, he'd packed everything he owned into an expanding trunk that he afterwards had shrunk and stuck onto a necklace – taking the late Alastor Moody's infamous catchphrase of "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" to heart – instead of having his house broken into and his belongings potentially stolen by the paparazzi, a rabid fangirl or, heaven forbid, a rabid fanboy while he was out of the country.
Afterwards, he had taken a plane to the United States, in no hurry and looking forward to his first flight on an airplane (though it had turned out to be mildly disappointing in the end). He had never been out of the UK before; the United States had seemed like a good place to visit. He had never gambled before either – not with money at any rate – and he had more money than he knew what to do with, and he had heard about Atlantic City before and had thought: why not?
So far, it was turning out to be a great vacation.
He was just shifting himself on his blanket, wanting to tan his back, when his cell phone rang.
At Hermione's insistence after he had expressed his desire to go vacationing across the pond, he had also picked up a mobile phone. Being a muggleborn witch, on top of being a genius, she was very familiar with both worlds, and felt that cell phones were far more convenient than using owls or other familiars.
Harry was hard-pressed to disagree; it was instantaneous communication instead of waiting a day or two for a letter, not to mention that it was annoying to feed the stuck-up courier owls (and bird food for some reason kept getting more expensive) – though at times, it made him miss Hedwig. As long as he didn't use too much magic around it, the device would work perfectly.
After letting it ring a few more times, he sighed and finally answered it. "Hello, Harry Potter here."
"Good morning, Mister Potter," a female voice, one that he recognized as belonging to the receptionist from his hotel, answered. For a moment, he wondered how they had his number before he remembered that he had given it to the front desk the day he checked in. "I'm terribly sorry to bother you, sir, but you seem to have received a package. UPS just dropped it off with me a few minutes ago."
That caught Harry a little off guard. The only people who knew that he was in the States were his friends, and they would've asked Hermione to call him if they'd sent something. Not to mention that they most likely would not have used such muggle methods to give him something. This was most unexpected.
"Does it say who it's from?" he asked, careful to keep an even tone.
There was a slight ruffling of paper, probably the packaging wrap, before the receptionist answered again. "It says it's from a . . . um, Andromeda Tonks, sir. The return address is from London."
No doubt the receptionist thought it to be an odd name, he noted absently. But it's definitely not from Andromeda, even though I know she knows how to use the muggle mail system, Harry thought. Besides, other than the occasional letter, she's never sent me a package; she usually just waits for me to visit her and Teddy to give me something. It's also from London – Andromeda doesn't even live in London. Whoever this is, they're being quite obvious.
"Not to worry, it's from my great aunt. She's fussy around me; I probably forgot something, so I think she asked my best friend where I was staying so she could sent it to me," Harry lied.
"Oh, I see," the receptionist replied, buying his story.
It was incredibly suspicious and inconvenient, but he would have to deal with the mysterious package immediately. He'd rather not leave a potentially ticking magical time bomb in the middle of a muggle city.
Glancing around mournfully at the beach, not to mention the buxom young women, Harry sighed again.
"Would you mind having it sent to my room?" he requested. His stomach rumbled slightly. "And two turkey and cheese sandwiches and some iced tea, if that's alright?" he added hopefully. "I'll be back at the hotel within fifteen minutes. I'm just down at the beach."
"That would be no problem, sir."
"Thank you," Harry said gratefully. He hung up and began to collect his belongings.
Thirty minutes later, Harry, freshly washed and dressed with his shrunken trunk hanging from his necklace as usual, munched away at a remaining corner of a sandwich while he inspected the mysterious package.
It was a simple square shape, about half a square foot in diameter, and mildly heavy. There were no odd markings on the plain brown wrapping, only his hotel address and name, along with a fake address from London together with Andromeda's name.
Harry chased his sandwich down with some iced tea before setting the glass aside and pulling the package closer to him.
"Alright then, you little bugger," Harry mumbled to himself.
The first thing he did was cast a diagnostics spell, to see what was inside. He groaned when the result came back as inconclusive, which meant that there was either some powerful magic surrounding the contents of the damn thing, or there was some powerful magic coming from the damn thing.
With a grimace, he slowly opened the wrapping paper to reveal a plain white box – and inside the box was a small mirror and white notecard.
Arching an eyebrow, he prodded the card to see if it was going to explode or something.
When it didn't, he cautiously picked it up to read it. "What the hell?"
In bold colorful letters, the notecard exclaimed cheerfully:
ADVENTURE AWAITS!
GAZE UPON THE MIRROR OF TIAMAT
AND YOU – YES YOU! – WILL BE GRANTED
YOUR OWN EPIC JOURNEY!
FAME, FORTUNE, ETERNAL GLORY;
ALL OF IT IS YOURS FOR THE TAKING!
That was all it said; nothing else, not even a name on the back.
Harry scratched the back of his head. "'The Mirror of Tiamat'? Tiamat – why does that sound kind of familiar . . . ?"
He glanced down at the mirror, which was obviously a powerful magical artifact.
"Well, whatever Tiamat is, I have no desire to do business with a magical mirror again," Harry said stringently, memories of the Mirror of Erised in particular fresh in his mind and most certainly not Sirius's mirror.
For all he knew, the thing would suck him into itself like a portal or something.
Of course, given his luck, that was exactly what happened next.
The Mirror of Tiamat started to glow a bright blue color, and before Harry could register that in his brain, what appeared to be the glass for the mirror seemed to shatter and collapse upon itself, the shards of glass swirling like a whirlpool, growing bigger and bigger.
"Oh motherf—" was all he could say before he was sucked into the widening rift.