MC4A - Paranormal Phantasm
Fill #20
Representations: Harry Potter; Claudia Donovan; Immortality; Vampires; Artefacts
Bonus Challenges: Second Verse (Rock of Ages); Second Verse (Middle Name); Second Verse (Not a Lamp)
Word count: 2,012
Beta: Aya Diefair
He leaped from world to world. Some he stayed in for several years, others only moments. He was currently in World 56 and found it rather fascinating. He had felt the scan as soon as he arrived, there was a flying football circling the globe and searching for things out of the ordinary. He followed it and found himself standing in the middle of nowhere looking at a warehouse. It wasn't an ordinary warehouse, he knew. There was power coming off it in waves.
"Well," he said to himself, "this is certainly interesting."
He strolled down the slight hill and picked up the football that had lead him to the warehouse. It had intent magic floating around it. Harry rose an eyebrow, impressed. It generally took quite a bit of willpower to fuel intent magic and this magic was old. It had been placed around the football almost eighty years ago, recharged every so often by someone. Presumably someone who lived or worked in the warehouse he was standing in front of.
The door to said warehouse opened and a woman stormed up to him, waving a screwdriver. "Who are you and what do you want?" she demanded.
Harry smiled at her, ignoring the screwdriver pointed threateningly towards him. "I'm a traveller," he explained. "I noticed your ball and followed it. I must say, the magic on this is really quite brilliant. Is it you that recharges the intent?"
The woman frowned slightly, "I guess, I'm the one that upgrades it. But you didn't answer my second question, what do you want?"
"Nothing really. Just curious to see what this world has to offer. Would you mind terribly if I take a look inside your warehouse?"
"I…" she trailed off, her head cocking to one side as though listening to something. "Sure."
"Thank you." Harry threw the football at her and proceeded to the still open door. The woman managed to catch the football and immediately threw it back into the air where it soared off on another trip around the globe. She followed him into the warehouse, not commenting on the bombs that lined the entrance tunnel.
Instead she said, "My name's Claudia. Claudia Donovan and this," she gestured around the room they had just entered, "is Warehouse 13."
There was magic everywhere inside the building. There were extension charms fuelled with intent stretching the building to impossible lengths. Computers were following the progress of the football and reporting back what it found, and there were items dotted around the main room that gave off varying energies. Outside the main office, there were rows and rows of items. All of them vibrated with magic.
"Amazing," Harry breathed out. And it was. He hadn't seen such a well of magic since his first world. He was distracted from the sight of the many shelves by a pinging sound and Claudia rolling over to the computer on the chair she had collapsed on. He watched as she typed and different items appeared on the screen.
There were newspaper clippings, books excerpts, police reports, and various other things popping up on the screen and being dismissed as another one was called up. This went on for several minutes before Claudia sat back and said, "I don't believe it. We've got an actual, real-life vampire case."
Harry moved to look at the screen and saw reports of bodies being found drained of blood. Unless vampires differed in this world to the others he had been in, that certainly sounded as though a vampire was wandering around. "I'm guessing you don't have blood pops in this world."
Claudia looked up at him. "Blood pops? Are those what they sound like? Because, ew, and also, you're from another world? One that has actual vampires and not just ones turned into a vampire by some random artefact?"
"If what you're thinking is a lollipop flavoured with blood; then yes, they are exactly what you think they are. I have been in many worlds. My original had vampires and that's where we also had blood pops. What does an artefact have to do with someone turning into a vampire?"
"Well, that's what we have in this world. We have things left behind by someone that take on some characteristic of that person. Houdini's wallet for instance, that thing is always trying to escape. There are several things I can think of that would potentially make someone a vampire. There's Blaskó's cape from the original Dracula film, Bram Stoker's typewriter, or Angel's necklace from Buffy. I really hope it isn't the necklace, that thing would be hard to find.
"It's also pretty recent which makes it more unlikely. Artefacts are generally pretty old. Of course, that doesn't mean that we can just cross it off the list and it may be something other than these three things but at least it's a start." Claudia wheeled herself over to another monitor and continued talking. "This is a pretty serious case but there's only me available. Pete and Myka are out in Sacramento looking at the animal situation and Jinx and Artie are in New York dealing with what we think might be Poseidon's trident."
The chair swivelled around and Claudia gave Harry a measuring look. "You know vampires," she started, "think you might be able to help a girl out here and see if we can bag and tag an artefact?"
"You want the help of a stranger who just happened upon what I assume is your top-secret warehouse?"
"Yeah, sure." she waved a hand dismissively. "The Warehouse says you're cool so you're all good in my book."
"Well if that's the case, I would be happy to help catch a vampire." It would at the very least be entertaining. Vampire hunting wasn't something he had expected from this world but he wouldn't turn down the opportunity.
"Great! Looks like we're off to Philadelphia then."
And so they were, after Claudia had shoved various things into a bag and Harry had stopped her from ordering the plane tickets (instead he asked to see a place in Philadelphia and Apparated them both there). Claudia swayed when they arrived, holding her stomach. Harry let her regain her equilibrium and started looking around the place they had arrived.
It was an alleyway, the walls covered in new and old graffiti. There was a large trash bin near the entrance to the alley and rubbish strewn everywhere but in the bin. Behind him, Claudia finished recovering and pulled out the notepad she had scribbled on before they left Warehouse 13.
"Alright, we should head over to the morgue and see if we can get anything interesting from the drained bodies and go from there."
"Sounds like a plan," Harry agreed. Together they moved out of the alley and headed to where Claudia's notes said they would find the morgue. Upon arriving, Harry held up his old Auror badge from World 1 and asked to see the bodies from the vampire case. The rather stunned desk clerk looked from the badge to him and back to the badge before nodding and guiding them back to where the bodies were stored. The badge had confounding charms layered on it, aiding him whenever he felt the need to play Auror again.
Claudia whistled approvingly. "Wish I had one of those. Would be right handy."
"I find it to be so, yes."
The coroner looked up as the three entered the room from where she was standing over the most recent victim. "Hello, who are you?"
"They're with the Auror Corps," the desk clerk said and the coroner nodded. Harry had charmed the word Auror with the same confounding charms as the badge. It helped if he wasn't being asked what exactly the Auror Corps was every time he decided to use his badge. "They're helping with the vampire case."
"Oh good," the coroner exhaled. She stripped off the gloves she was wearing and offered her hand to both of them, shaking their hands as she said, "I'm Penelope. I've just started the autopsy on this victim if you'd like to observe? Or I have the files from the other victims you can read and I can update you once I'm finished here."
"Files, please, Penelope," Claudia requested, and Harry nodded in agreement. They would be able to cross-reference a lot easier if they had more data to work from.
Claudia was able to cross Angel's necklace off the list fairly quickly once they sat down and went through the files. Harry wasn't any help there—having no idea what Buffy was or who Angel might be. That left them with a cape, a typewriter, or something else entirely. At that point, Penelope came into the room holding another file.
"I tell you, this case is weird. I'm freaking out about it because I started writing a vampire story a few weeks ago and every body that's showed up has been almost exactly like what's happened in my story! I keep thinking that maybe someone's going through my manuscript and using it as inspiration, but the pages aren't disturbed when I check them."
Claudia and Harry exchanged a look. "You wouldn't happen to have a cape or typewriter, would you?" Claudia asked.
Penelope grinned, "Oh yes! I bought a typewriter ages ago and I decided to use it for this story. The guy who sold it to me said it belonged to Bram Stoker himself! And I thought; well, if I'm going to write anything with this typewriter, it may as well be a vampire story. So that's what I did."
Harry smiled at the cheerful coroner. "I'm sure Bram Stoker would be proud." He felt vaguely sorry for the woman, she didn't know she had just informed the two that they had to steal her typewriter away from her because it was causing deaths.
The whole thing was fairly simple after that. They left the morgue and headed in the direction Harry's point me spell pointed. Once they had entered Penelope's home and found the typewriter, Claudia snagged it and doused it in purple goo. A twist from Harry and they were back in Warehouse 13 with Bram Stoker's typewriter.
"Well that was easy," Claudia remarked. "Thanks, my dude. I'll quickly go shelve this before it causes anymore trouble."
Harry watched her go. He knew he wouldn't be here when she returned, that wasn't how he operated anymore. No lasting attachments. Still, he liked Claudia, he wanted to leave her something to thank her for the adventure. It wasn't everyday he hunted down a murderous typewriter. He knew exactly what to leave, and grinned as he set it down on the main desk.
He felt a nudge in his mind and glanced around at the walls. "Is that so?" he asked the Warehouse and received an affirmative. "Alright then." A flick of magic and another item was placed down. "Thank you, Claudia Donovan," Harry said before taking another leap. World 57 was waiting for him.
When Claudia returned, she found an empty office. She shrugged, she had been expecting Harry to be gone, he hadn't seemed the type to stick around. She plopped into her chair and wheeled over to the main monitor to check if anything had happened while she had been gone. She stopped as she noticed the two items sitting on the desk.
She grinned when she saw the official-looking badge stating the owner was a member of the Auror Corps. Next to the badge sat a single yellow rose. A thank you, spoken in flower tongue. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the wall in front of her but grinned when she received an unrepentant smug feeling.
"Thanks," she said, both to Harry and the Warehouse. She leaned back in her chair and twirled the rose in her hand, thinking about the adventure she had just been on. A ping brought her out of her thoughts and she stuck the rose behind her left ear before starting the whole artefact identifying process all over again.