The Price of Magic - CH2
AN: usual disclaimer applies
Lord Voldemort sat in his armchair in Little Hangleton. The brief flashes that he saw of the Potter boy meant that some of his old guesses and theories on the nature of magic were a lot more close to reality than he dared dream. With a jolt of easily ignored pain he opened a mental link Wormtail, who was in the town, "procuring" supplies from the muggles.
"Plans have changed. I will need you to get me blood of any of the people that opposed me. The order of preference is as follows: Potter, Dumbledore, Moody..." what followed was a list of known Order members in a rough level of personal power. "You don't need to kill them, in fact, it's better if you don't, and then come back here. I simply need a vial of their blood, for the ritual you should be well aware of."
If Voldemort had hands, now would be the time to wash them - talking to that slimebag was a necessary evil, yet far from pleasant. Voldemort knew that once a traitor, always a traitor, but Pettigrew was his only option in the sorry state that The Dark Lord found himself in.
He had to get to that African tribe. They owed him big for the ghoul he brought under control (no need for them to know he was also the one that created it), and if Potter suddenly had True Sight, it was time for him to treat the boy seriously, and prepare such an attack from which the constant thorn in his side will not be able to recover. But alas, a body was needed first of all.
The great shamans used a different power, Voldemort learned in his days of travel, gathering the arcane and the dark knowledge to secure his immortality - instead of affecting the world directly they negotiated, trapped and bound the beings of the Astral plane - where the thoughts, emotions and the overall magical background of Earth could be felt and manipulated. Additionally, the dark-skinned wizards had a large set of battle rituals, turning the world around them into their weapon - destroying their enemies with ravines, quicksand, lighting and dust storms. The issues began when the animated corpses entered the equation - for they were such an abomination, in the words of one of the shamans that Voldemort captured, that the world dared not touch them. All of these powers relied on the Astral plane - and sadly Voldemort did not possess the gift of Astral walking as shamans called it, but it was nothing that a ritual circle and a few sacrificed humans could not fix, even if that bothersome procedure was needed for every entrance.
As Astral was a mirror for all thoughts and emotions, legilimency as it turned out directly channelled that power, to create a link between the caster and the victim. However, with the right manipulations of the spirit, the risk of the victim suddenly being able to defend or even worse, push your attack out, became miniscule - for who can resist the onslaught of memories kindly provided by a spirit that still remembered when the first human opened their eyes under the starlit savannah. Voldemort did not for a second regret the effort that he went to get the knowledge, and it seems he will need to visit his old friends to get some more. But the body is to come first.
Lord Voldemort proceeded with a slew of repelling and notice-me-not charms - it would not be due for anyone to walk in on him when he is at his weakest. But he would not be this weak for long.
It is with this action that two hundred miles away, a boy named Harry Potter woke up from his strange dream.
The days of summer crawled at a snail's pace at number 4 Privet drive. Harry recently received a letter delivered by Fawkes from Dumbledore, outlining that despite no answers for how his sight awakened, and what it meant, Harry was not to leave his home on 4 Privet Drive. The dreams of the ancient mausoleum still called out to Harry every night. And a mausoleum it was, for Harry recognised the structure in the heart of the desert as one. Apparently, all magicals of Ancient Egypt, or Kemet as they called themselves, were to be buried in the massive tunnel complex, culminating in the simple structure, where the most powerful one was resting. It is with the constant gruelling work courtesy of Dursleys and pursued by the dreams of the mausoleum in the desert that Harry whiled his summer away.
The glimpse of Voldemort, Harry dismissed as a proper dream for once, and not a Binns special as he started to call the visions of the ancient times. For how could it be the Dark Lord, if all he is doing is sitting on an armchair by the fire in a house, looking at the flames, and not killing people or something?
Harry shook his head to get the last of the sleep out of his system, and a brief look at the clock confirmed what he suspected all along - 5 am on the dot. It is almost as if he was forced by whatever power to start the day when every normal (as much as he reminded himself of Uncle Vernon when he said that) person was still fast asleep.
Harry stretched and cast his inner eye inside himself. The bright golden flow of power inside him, in every blood vessel, provided a comforting glow to him. What had him concerned was that the previously barely noticeable specks of grey have grown, to become filaments and eddies in his flowing magic. He became more and more convinced that he has to get to the mausoleum as soon as he can, and following some primal instinct, Harry twisted his shoulders and disappeared with a pop, heralded only by a small gap in his cousin's snores coming from the nearby bedroom.
A strange silver device on Albus Dumbledore's desk has whirred and buzzed, but the elderly wizard was fast asleep, and we will never know what could have happened if he did manage to wake up and stop Harry Potter from the fateful step into the ancient mausoleum.
The structure was just ahead of Harry, so tempting, so inviting. In the true sight it flared silver, the same colour that Hermione's time turner did, but so, so much brighter. Harry just picked up the pace. This place promised him the answers to most everything he was looking for.
It is only when Harry entered and the door locked behind him, submerging him in total darkness that the compulsion stopped. He realised that he, in fact, is only in his pyjamas, in the middle of the desert, with no food, water or means to get home. All the knocking on the door was futile, as was trying to move the thick stone. So Harry summoned his willpower and tried to feed a trickle of his golden power with the intent of moving the stone, but as a speck of grey touched the ancient structure, Harry's vision went black and he hit the floor, with a vision already starting.
The grand circle of Ra was to be assembled today - the High Priest decided as he traversed the sacred hallways to the very meeting chamber where Kemet's most powerful were to gather. The Sleeping Gods were waking up, and the fragile world of today could not, and should not, be subjected to their power. His predecessor thought otherwise, and precisely that was the reason why he now held the mantle, and that old man was at the bottom of the Nile. The people were not happy, to say the least, if the horrors that were now locked in the Underworld were to start stirring, or worse yet, started to remember their desire for mortal flesh. And no amount of great victories would be worth the desolation that this event will inevitably bring.
The soft lighting of the oil lamps threw strange, elongated shadows on the walls of the chamber. The soft drone of the advisor would, in any other case, put people to sleep but not when the news was of this magnitude.
"There have been at least three sightings of the ancient bone-men, with a brave and cunning priest managing to smite one of the foul creatures at the cost of his life. This is a most concerning event, for the bone-men were not seen since we brought about the wrath of the Ancient Ones"
No one wanted to think that the legends of old were factually correct, but the High Priest was left with little choice. The songs and the clay tablets say that fire rained from the sky day and night for three days and people were disappearing from their beds by a force unknowable and unstoppable if they went to sleep - and if even a tenth of the horrors described, and the High Priest believed each word of that to be true, the Ancient Gods were not to be trifled with.
"Esteemed Men, I believe I have a solution" The High Priest intoned. The murmurs in the room died at once. "The circle of Ra is to be assembled. We must lock the gates and seal them ourselves, preventing access to the entity that lies in the underworld if we have any hope of those gates remaining closed"
This caused an uproar. Cups were thrown, insults and curses yelled. The Military Leader even raised his fists, with spittle yelling at the priest "And how do you say we stop the Greeks? Without that power, we are sure to crumble! Do you want your daughters to be sold as slaves?"
The lights dimmed. Suddenly everyone was very well aware of why The High Priest got and maintained his position.
"You want to stop the Greeks? Tell me, Achillas, do you care more for some acres of land, or for the essence of every person in this room. For if we do as you say, that which you now control, will be used against you a thousandfold. And I'm not referring to steel, I'm talking about what you used on the field of tears"
The commander flinched at his name being used, for names had power and a man like the High Priest knew how to use it. The field of tears still haunted the dreams of the commander, the enemy screaming as their corpses turned to dust, their soul sucked into the desert sand as if it was an ocean. In this silence, the High Priest spoke again.
"The circle of Ra will close the gate, at the expense of one of our advantages. The priests will still use their power for the war effort, but we cannot risk the death of the immortal soul for some conquest"
Harry woke up, surprisingly standing, but unable to move. He was more than startled by a hissing voice beside him.
"So you did come. Well, it is time for you to learn then!"
With that Harry was thrust into pure agony - he was being choked by an unknown power on top of feeling like red-hot knives were carving shapes into him, and no matter how much he struggled, he could not get a breath of air in. Harry then realised - if he can't move it must be magic, and magic must be studied with the True Sight. He looked inside and saw - a lone spark of life, about to be extinguished by the black tendrils encroaching from outside his body. But there were more sparks around - faint, but present. Overcoming the blinding pain, Harry willed one of them to move to his core and almost lost all control when it merged with him. The next while was spent hastily and greedily absorbing the sparks around him and battling to keep the tendrils out.
Harry's essence finally grew large enough to be able to expel the ancient trap. He, already mentally numb to the pain, coalesced it into a single luminescent ball, and drove the offending darkness out of the channels by which his magic flowed - briefly noting that grey and gold were in almost even proportions by now, melting and alloying with each other. It was after this massive push that Harry was pulled back into reality.
"Good, worm. Now watch carefully - this is the ancient symbol for stability. Visualise it"
When Harry only closed his eyes tiredly, he was greeted with a pain that almost made his eyeballs pop out of his skull.
"Want me to do that again, worm?" the hissing voice mocked Harry's powerlessness "Do it!"
Hence began Harry's tutelage from the Voice in the Mausoleum - filled with pain and brief strokes of success. As time went on, Harry managed to see the shapes, the patterns, the Power in the ancient symbols, and during his punishments managed to sneak a look with true sight at the tool that brought him so much pain. It looked like a silver lance with a fine web where the tip would be - attaching itself to the channels of the victim, and pulsing rapidly, distorting the magic.
When upon one such punishment Harry threw it back in return, putting his power in it, the voice in the darkness only laughed and deflected it.
"Maybe you are ready, worm"
It is with that that the doors to the cave opened and Harry wasted no time escaping that place, only to be stopped by someone's firm hands.
"I am Vittorio Bianchi from The Vatican City committee for Magical affairs, and in the name of the God you are under arrest for the practice of Forbidden Magics"
"If things were looking up from the detainment and torture in the cave by darkness and pain, it was a very marginal improvement," Harry thought before red filled his vision and he passed out again.