Hello lovelies who bother to read these pre-chapter rambles. So this story has had a pretty positive response so far and I'm happy about that.
That said, I shalt apologize now now taking a while to get this chapter up. I have this thing where I imagine it in my head then get really stuck how to get it OUT of my head to share because words just don't convey the imagery. It's annoying and I hate it. I also keep dropping back into my default writing style which is a slightly ramble-ish thing that is kinda passive and formal, nor does it cater to Dante's aggro nature. Add in the end of year work crush...well, let's just say sometimes motivation is on thin grounds some days.
On the other hand MERRY CHRISTMAS! I don't care if it's not christmas in your corner of the world yet. It is in mine so there. So I guess you could say this is my christmas present to all you lovely readers.
So after the long delay, here is the second chapter. A little world building, a little discovering and a whole lot of crazy. Maybe.
Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own these.
The first days, weeks, months were fairly boring. Whatever the demons did, they well and truly had reverted his physical age to that of a toddler. Most days were spent in that stupid cupboard under the stairs staring at the ceiling in boredom or sleeping. Under normal circumstances he would've been happy to bust out guns blazing, if he had guns to bust out in the first place. So alas, he was reduced to biding his time and plotting while he regained enough coordination to actually walk and talk.
Urgh, the whole watch and wait thing was really more Vergil's thing than his own.
Things took a more interesting turn when the former demon hunter discovered his somewhat new appearance. His eyes had turned green. Not that green where there was more of his natural blue with a touch of green (like the time he experimented for the sake of killing boredom at Trish's suggestion, turned out he lacked the full scope of demonic shapeshifting abilities that most devils were gifted with), but rather full on emerald green. That and minor facial structure changes but that may have been the deaging. Although he would swear up and down his nose was less...buttony and cute when he was an actual kid than what the mirror showed him.
Along with the discovery of his changed features, another more unwelcome change was also discovered. He was so fucking weak. To paraphrase his brother, absolutely pathetic. So obviously his strength had been sealed alongside his deaging. It probably had to do with the foreign thing in his forehead. Really, what was the goal of these demons?
Speaking of demons, mused Dante in the dark silence of the cupboard, where were they? He would've thought there would be observers or jailers watching him. Maybe even been approached by now with some 'serve or die' ultimum. Certainly would be right up their ally, after all, having a descendant of Sparda serving them would boost whichever devil's reputation right up there. Sure there were wards on the house, but that energy was weird and no way demonic. Not to mention geared to protect those living in the house. Sorcerer maybe? It lacked the demonic taint of a demon bound sorcerer though.
Whatever was going on, he still needed to undo whatever bindings had been placed on him. That way, he was at least going to have a chance to deal with anything that threw themselves at him. Hauling himself upright into a sitting position with a sigh, the once demon hunter prepared to turn his attentions inwards.
Entering a meditative state was easy after decades of practice. He had hated still meditation at first, not one to sit down and basically sleep without sleeping. It had always been easy to fall into it syncing his breath with each swing of a well known sword from. In interest of preserving
his eardrums though, the currently nearly three year old boy let the tension flow out of him, slipping into that half-aware state with barely a thought.
Turning his gaze inwards, he sought out the well of his power and frowned.
Where was it?
His demonic energy had sat barely contained near the surface of his being for pretty much forever. Despite his rejection of it early in his youth, for as long as Dante could remember all he had to do was reach out and touch it. Sure it had taken years to learn to properly channel and control it, but it had been always there. Bindings didn't make power vanish, it made it inaccessible.
Unless they managed to come up with something new?
The strains of panic began to filter through, only years of training keeping it at bay as he dove deeper into his self, senses reaching out for that familiar pulse of power.
Had it been stolen? Sealed so totally that it could never be used again? Where was it? Wherewherewherewherewhere?
'BOY! GET UP NOW!'
The loud cry accompanied by loud bangs tore him from his search, making him blink dazedly at the light filtering from under the door, instinctively reaching for a weapon that wasn't there.
Oh, it was the horse faced harpy 'waking' him up.
Untangling his limbs, Dante scurried out of his 'room', quickly stretching out stiff limbs before hurrying into the kitchen. Half-devil or not, his horse faced caretaker - and he used that term in the loosest sense of the word - had a voice that could break glass if applied properly. He would hate to see what it would do if it was directed at him.
Once there, there was a stool in front of the stove and an impatient Aunt Petunia - as the poor woman demanded him to call her, he really didn't see the resemblance - stood waiting with a frown.
'Well you ungrateful whelp, get to work' was the demand, emphasized by a sharp jab.
Green eyes narrowed as he took in the situation. This was the third week in a row the woman had dragged him out of bed to cook breakfast every, single, day. If the whale junior was being forced to as well, he would have less complaints. But him and only him? Well, unfair child labour came to mind. Or demons trying to break his will. This felt like something degrading enough for them to cook up.
Thus, his answer was a nice and simple 'No'
His supposed aunt frowned harder, as if trying to burn him with the sheer force of her glare. Too bad for her he had seen worse, and actually been set aflame by some of those glares.
So he glared right back, face set in a stubborn frown, arms crossed in front of his skinny body.
For whatever reason, his 'aunt' was the one who broke first.
'You ungrateful freak!' she spat at him, raising her hand to slap him, 'how dare you!'
The smack for flesh meeting flesh rang unnaturally loud in the kitchen. The other hand gripped his arm, nails digging into tender flesh, dragging him towards the unlit stovetop.
"We took you in, fed you and clothed you," she continued to snarl, 'It's time you earned your keep you freak'
Young Dante twisted out of her grip, ignoring the sting of scratches etching themselves into skin.
'Hell no! I'm not some slave you can order around!' he spat right back, carefully putting himself out of range of anymore crazy lady attacks. 'You're the adult here, aren't you suppose to be the one with duty of care or something? I mean, who teaches not even three year old kids to cook?'
Something was seriously screwed up with the horse-faced woman. Maybe looking like she was sired by a horse had messed with her thought processes. It was more likely she was being controlled by the demons keeping him captive though. After all, why else would be area be disgustingly normal and (relatively) demon free? The cookie cutter houses gave him the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. A truly terrible attempt at normality now that he thought about it.
'You…' He appeared to have shocked his aunt into speechless fury with his back talk judging from her pale face and the twitching eye. He did always have a knack for pissing people off.
'GO TO YOUR ROOM RIGHT NOW YOU UNGRATEFUL FREAK! NO FOOD FOR YOU!'
Rolling his eyes, the once demon hunter slouched back to the cupboard under the stairs without a complaint. He had worse punishments, and wouldn't be the first time he had starved.
That and they needed new insults. Freak was getting a little boring.
Several years down the road, Dante would look back and muse over the incident he dubbed 'The beginning of attempted brainwashing' and laugh at how stupid he had been.
Several more similar incidents had happened, each with his caretakers attempting to force him to do some ungodly amount of chores and basically turn him into their mindless little house slave.
He'd been absolutely certain some devil was getting kicks out of seeing the sprog of Sparda stuck doing mundane house chores. Turned out it wasn't the case.
After getting kicked around and out of the house, he had skulked off to see if they could find some of his remaining contacts in the world. It'd taken some time, to get 'lost' in the London proper enough times to thoroughly check out all possible demon hunter gathering spots as well as any weaknesses in the likely illusory environment. He even took several trips to the library much to his disgust, before he kind of hit jackpot.
He had been poking around a couple of alleys looking for leads and weaknesses on the crazy illusion he obviously was trapped in. Studying the graffiti on one of the walls, the once demon hunter had been trying to decipher if the jagged lines were part of a spell when two loud pops shot through the air.
Instinctively, the boy ducked behind a conveniently placed rubbish dumpster, peering around a corner at the source of the noise.
Two men, he would swear up and down that weren't there before, dressed in bizarre dress things (robes supplied a part of his mind in disgust that sounded suspiciously like Lady) talking hurriedly in hushed voices. Which, to Dante's irritation, he couldn't make out the words of properly. Likely because of his stupidly missing demonic energy.
Throwing caution to the wind, the curious one shuffled closer, careful not to draw attention to himself.
'I'm telling you Mister Bert, I don't got anymore dragons blood, some crazy bought it all last week!'
'You dimwit! I told you to make sure you had 12 vials ready for me two weeks ago! What do you think you are? Some shop in Diagon Alley?'
Woah woah woah! Dragons blood?, Mind reeling he took stock of the situation, after all dragons didn't exist, the closest were fire salamanders that haunted the Fire realms in hell. Unless they managed to capture one? Probably killed it if they didn't have anymore. That said, demonic essence that made up demons near always dissipated once the demon was dead, so how exactly did these crazies manage to bottle it?
Unless it was some fancy pants street name for a drug.
'Look Mister Bert, I can get some in a couple of days, I promise'
The other man snarled, a feral sound baring teeth.
'That's what you say all the time Johnson, and you've barely delivered,' The so named 'Bert' pulled out a slender stick of wood, 'and I think it's time you learnt a lesson! Crucio!'
Strangely enough, a bolt of red erupted from the stick. The other man dropped to the ground, writhing in obvious pain, shrill screams echoing down the narrow walls. It lasted for several minutes, leaving the victim lying there, visibly trembling from the after effects.
'A taste of what awaits you if you don't deliver Johnson.'
With that, the other man stepped away in disgust, vanishing with a swirl of their fancy pants dress thing and a slight pop.
An odd silence reigned as Dante tried to process what had just happened, eyeing the downed man who managed to struggle into a sitting position, muttering something under their breath. Another stick of wood was produced (a wand from the looks of things), the white haired boy watched in fascination as the man waved it over a piece of trash with a murmured 'portus', before picking it up and vanishing himself.
Letting out a breath that he didn't know he was holding, the boy sat back on his heels, head whirling with new discoveries.
This, was far too complex to be an illusion. The best illusions let the victim's mind conjure up the details, letting them see what they expected to see. Unless he had totally gone around the bend, that was either a seriously talented illusionist or he was not actually trapped in a complex twilight zone illusion.
Welp, there was only one way to find out.
This 'Diagon Alley', Dante thought in irritation as he sat on the steps of a storefront on Charing Cross viciously crunching his way through an ice lolly (acquired using money that the walrus had ah...accidentally misplaced. It needed to be put to good use after all), was ridiculously hard to find.
It wasn't in a directory, no one seem to know about it and those stupidly dressed people were oddly hard to find.
Gnawing on the wooden stick now, he glared at the unfashionable moron exiting a shady looking pub. Maybe he really had gone around the bend after all. Maybe it was another way of driving him insane.
The white haired boys eye twitched as yet another unfashionable twat exit that stupid pub opposite him. Was there an anti-fashion party in there? After all, who on earth wears such a garish purple suit? Red would've been acceptable (speaking of which, he really missed his coat right now) but fluorescent purple? It vaguely reminded him of the stick waving weirdos from the alley.
Pausing in his mutilation of the ice lolly stick, Dante back tracked his thoughts. Weird dresses were a terrible fashion choice. Just like those weirdos exiting the funky looking pub.
Narrowing his eyes at the now suspicious pub, he jumped to his feet casually tossing the stick to the side. If he wasn't wrong (which he wasn't, he was awesome after all), the former devil hunter would be able to find more information on the mysterious 'Diagon Alley' at the pub. Carefully darting across the road, Dante eyed the establishment with distaste. The facade was intact, but grotty. So grotty he was pretty sure there was no way to see inside without going through the door. The sign hanging by the door declared it 'The Leaky Cauldron' and to be honest, Dante had been to his fair share of crappy pubs, but this one really took the cake for being least inviting.
Warily pushing the door open, the boy half expected to see more weirdly dressed people raving or something. Instead, he was greeted by a stack of plates zipping past his face. Wide eyed, he instinctively jerked back in surprise trying to find the source of the plates. When no more flew past, Dante very carefully stepped inside taking in the scene.
Whatever this place was, it strongly resembled a medieval pub with the hazy atmosphere and terrible lighting. What made it different however, was the clearly supernatural nature of the occupants. Men, women and a few young children sat scattered among the tables, eating, drinking, socialising. The usual. What was unusual was the funky dress code of the pub's patrons. Where almost all were dressed in those hideous dresses. It was disturbing on a level he didn't want to think about. Not to mention the obvious use of supernatural abilities, the flying plates, the self sweeping broom and HOLY THE FIRE JUST SPAT SOMEONE OUT!
Never the less, it was a pub. A watering hole for all and if the rules hadn't changed, here Dante would be able to get some information on all the bizarre things happening.
Carefully checking his fringe hung low over his eyes - which really wasn't all that hard, horse lady left it long to 'cover that hideous scar' - the boy shuffled his way to the counter, the baggy hand me downs helping him look like a lost street kid.
Peering carefully through the white strands, Dante faked nervousness (here he could capitalize on his youth, people always let their guards down more around kids).
"Excuse me sir," was the anxious almost squeak, "do you know where Diagon Alley is?"
Internally the once devil hunter cringed at his tone of voice. He really couldn't wait till he got his adult body back, this cloak and dagger thing was really starting to wear him out.
The man behind the bar looked up from the glasses he was cleaning, his countenance kind and open despite the somewhat freakish hunchback he possessed.
"Looking for ya mam and da kid?" came the jolly reply
Not really considering that his parents were dead, but who cared about that. Finally someone knew what he was talking about. Instead of shouting out though, Dante nodded slightly, continuing his role as a nervous, slightly lost kid.
The barkeep laughed cheerfully, opting to accept the silent reply as it was and beckoned for the boy to follow him.
"Must've gotten distracted didn't you and lost sight of ya mam and da. Can ya find them yourself in Diagon Alley? It's a big place after all." Chattered the barman as they stepped into a small badly kept courtyard. The hunchback pulled out a slender stick of wood before tapping several bricks on the wall. Before his eyes, Dante couldn't do much but watch in amazement as the bricks rearranged themselves into an archway, revealing the magical world behind it.
"Y-yeah, I think I can see them right there." his words tumbled over themselves as he took in the sight. Shaking himself out of it, the white haired boy took off tossing a "Thanks sir, and bye sir. Thanks for all your help!" over his shoulder as he ran towards his imaginary parents. Surprisingly the barman just smiled and waved at him before turning back instead of checking he had safely returned to his parents. There was something seriously wrong with these people.
Now that he had found this Diagon Alley, it was time to figure out what in the 9 circles of hell was going on. And the best way to do that was obviously window shopping.
Safely lost in the crowd, the boy was easily ignored by the masses as he peered into different storefronts. In one shop they sold cauldrons, another sold telescopes and what on earth were those funky things in a jar? Demon parts? They looked like eyeballs. Letting himself be swept along with the flow, eventually he ended up in front a large white building, marble from the looks of it. Curiosity caused him to trot up to the front of the building, marvelling at its clearly unstable structure that still managed to stay upright. Words on the door caught his attention and after reading the message, Dante concluded the people running the bank - which this building was - were paranoid shits and felt the need to remind the world that stealing was bad. Well, then again, they did employ ugly looking imps or something to work in the bank. Maybe they were mutants? Unfortunately deformed people? Whatever, it didn't matter to him.
He did need to find more information on the place though. Didn't he see a book shop back there? And money. Money was a problem. Technically he had a little money, maybe the bank could do something about it. The coins he caught sight of people trading looked nothing like the paper currency he currently had in his pocket.
So with that, Dante entered the bank under the scowls of the doorkeepers. Then was promptly wowed again by the interior of the building. Seriously, whoever built this bank was loaded.
Joining the shortest line, plans of what he was going to do when he found his captors danced through the half-devil's mind as he waited to be served. Sure enough, when he got to the end of slow dissection of his imagined opponent, it was his turn.
"What do you want?" was the haughty demand from the imp (he was going with imp for now) seated high on its podium.
"I wanted to exchange some cash and maybe open an account?"
There was short pause at his words before the creature replied, "The muggle money can be exchanged easily but the account must be opened by your parents boy. Money to be exchanged"
Digging into his pockets, Dante peeled off about half of the twenty pound notes he managed to steal and handed them to the teller.
"But I have no parents. And my guardians are ah... muggle and refuse to come here."
"Hmph, we cannot open an account for minors. Obtain your guardian's permission to do so and we can open an account under their name. Here, at the current exchange rate 60 pounds is 12 galleons, 1 sickle and 2 knuts. Anything else?"
"No, thanks for your help"
Accepting the small pile of coins, the white hair boy wandered back to the entrance with a scowl. Seriously being a kid was so annoying.
Just as he got outside the bank though, he felt something. It was like running into a brick wall, the familiar energy reaching out, radiating from its source. Shoving the coins into another pocket, Dante traced the energy. It was something he hadn't felt in years, decades, centuries even, this resonance.
Slipping between people, yelling apologies when he jostled someone a little too much, he raced after that feeling, heart thudding in his chest as he slowly neared it. Could it be? Was it a delusion? Skidding around a corner, he found the source.
It was a boy, about his age also dressed in those ridiculous clothes people here seemed to prefer, accompanied by an elderly lady with a vulture hat of all things. But it was his appearance that caught his attention the most. That boy had the same snow white hair he alone and few others possessed and unlike the red half-devil's, the other's had been spiked up, the perfect posture and despite the funky dress, it was a familiar shade of blue.
"Vergil?" Choked out Dante in disbelief, because the last he knew his brother was dead, debatebly killed by his own hands.
The other boy reacted to the name, turning sharply, gracefully, robe flaring slightly with the movement.
(In his mind's eye the red one saw the blue one do the same and it was so familiar it hurt)
Gazes locking, green bored into one brown eye, the other an achingly missed ice blue.
"Dante?"
His name was hushed, as if the other couldn't believe what he was seeing.
They stood there for a moment more before the younger one moved, tackling the older in a hug, sending them both tumbling to the ground. There was a moment of shock permeating the air from all those around, easily broken as the roughly dressed boy suddenly pulled back and punched the other in the face.
"That was for pulling the vanishing act on Temen-ni-gru you bastard!"
"What? You're still hung up on that?"
"OF COURSE I AM! IF YOU DIDN'T DO THAT SO MUCH COULD'VE BEEN AVOIDED! I mean, who goes 'just to prove I'm better, I'm gonna destroy all the work my dad put into saving this world' huh?"
"Well if I hadn't you would've spent your entire life denying your inheritance"
"Well maybe I was happy like that! And don't get me started on Nero"
"Nero? Who's that?"
"Who's tha- You mean you really don't know? Of all the stupid things..."
"Neville, who is this?"
Instantly both boys froze at the same time. As one, they peered up at the speaker, who despite their elderly status glared both of them into submission. Almost as if they coordinated it before the two pointed at each other.
"He started it"
Tada, and done!
Yes I brought Vergil in, mostly because of the soul theory I'm applying to this story. And I mean, it's Vergil. Lets just go with I'm somewhat obsessed with his fighting style.
But for those who wish to know the soul theory:
Identical twins are born from the same soul. If they are similar (like Gred and Forge) then traits have been split more or less equally. If they are different (like Dante and Vergil) traits have been split polarly. As they were once one, where one half of the soul goes, the other follows. Thus, because Dante popped up in HP world, Vergil tagged along as well. There is a plot filler thing here too that I cooked up while planning this thing.
In all seriousness, I have designed an entire alternate universe plot hole filler thing and soul theory thing that I'm still debating whether or not I should use in the story. Obviously I used part of it here, but...yeah, still a bit stuck on how much I should put in.
We'll see what happens.
I also wanted to put all of pre-hogwarts in one chapter. But that was such a nice place to finish it. So, you get another chapter of pre-hogwarts shenanigans.
You all know the drill, R&R. Reviews motivate me to write faster and give me the warm fuzzies. It can be your christmas gift to me or something. Opinions on writing is also nice since I'm always looking to improve.
Tata, see you all next time :3
