Wow. So, I was expecting to finish this way sooner than I actually did, but I hit a truly massive case of writer's block, and then had to write something else, and there was another fandom, and, well... never mind. My point is, I'm back, with conclusion of that awful cliff hanger! (Which I actually feel kind of bad about. Sorry.)
On a lighter note, I just recently posted a new RGB fic called "Citizen Human" that sort of creeps me out. Little bit dark, but plenty of snappy dialogue because it's the Ghostbusters and if you're interested, you should check it out.
In other news, I can highly recommend IDW's newest Ghostbusters series, Ghostbusters 101, involving both the IDW guys and the Answer the Call gals. (And, in two very amusing panels, the RGB Peter and Egon. They discuss Peter's missing cheese. Slimer did not take it.) Don't want to spoil anything, but the whole thing is absolutely frigging hilarious and I don't think I've ever laughed so hard as when Egon comes down the stairs with Kevin and tells the girls, "I'm going to assume you're who this one belongs to." And Kevin just seems happy to be there.
(But back to the story.)
Anyways, enjoy the chapter! Please read and review!
Chapter Nine: In Which a Murder Plot is Discovered and Harry Explores a Forest
"Harry!"
Harry wrestled for control of the modified broom, completely shocked. Only a second ago it had been performing perfectly, perhaps only a tad bit off from the current top of the line brooms. But something had changed. He was no longer in control.
The broom plummeted downwards, clearly panicking Evie, Hermione, and most of the watching crowd. Harry yanked the handle upwards, and only a second later, it was again spiralling into the sky.
Harry chanced a glance down at the girls. Hermione was running towards him, already removing her wand from her holster. Evie, ever the pragmatic one, had first twisted one of the cameras to scan the gathered crowd, then sat down and focused on the readouts.
"Harry, I need you to describe what's going on for me," she said seriously.
"This… ezeru… broom…" Harry growled, holding on tightly. "Stupid thing's… bucking. Trying to… throw me off."
"It's not my work, it's an outside force," Evie told him. "Someone's cursing the broom."
"Then find the awil kispu, and BREAK HIS FACE!" Harry snarled. "This is worse than the time I was riding that possessed bull- fuck!" (1)
The broom flipped over, before shaking him again.
"Much… worse!" he grunted, clinging on for dear life.
He didn't know how long he hung there. It felt like an eternity. It may have only been a few minutes. Time lost meaning.
And then a very welcome voice shouted up from below.
"Nusku Palasu Aksu Kispu!" (2)
Harry breathed a sigh of relief as Evie's spell shattered the curse holding the broom, and he regained control. Immediately, he turned right side up before heading in to land.
"Harry!" Hermione shouted, practically bowling him over with the force of her hug as he touched down.
"Careful, Hermione, this broom still has an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on it," he warned jokingly. Truthfully, it would take a lot more damage than that to cause any real problems. It had to be designed to fight a demon, after all.
Hermione jerked back and punched him in the shoulder. "You prat! I was worried!"
Harry looked over to where Evie had returned to the computer screen, scowling at the readings. "Evie said someone was cursing the broom."
"We don't know who," Hermione said immediately. "But there's no way a student could have done it. Not without it being immediately obvious."
"Probably a ritualistic chant," Harry mused darkly. "We'll know more when Evie finishes her scans."
"Harry, who ever did it was trying to kill you," Hermione warned.
Harry nodded solemnly. "I know. It's not the first time some being's had it out for me. First time it's a human, though. Well, except for that brief stint when the ghosts dried up and my dads ended up busting criminals… until that dried up-" (3)
"This isn't a joke!" Hermione snapped. "You could have been seriously hurt! Or killed! Or-!"
"Hermione." Harry had dropped the broom to catch both of her arms. "Do I look like I'm joking?"
Hermione took a moment to process the serious expression on his face. It was rare to see, but she knew suddenly he was very serious about this. Deadly serious. Slowly, she shook her head.
"I'm not going to panic about this," Harry said firmly. "I'm not going to let it upset my life. Yes, someone wants me dead, but it's hardly the first time, and who ever it is isn't going to succeed. I will take precautions. I will keep an eye out. We will figure this out, together."
"This is a school, though," Hermione nearly whimpered. She seemed to be on the verge of tears. "It's supposed to be safe."
"There's also a cerberus on the third floor," Harry reminded her, raising an eyebrow. "And it's a magic school. Magic is sort of, like, inherently dangerous."
"That may be the most insightful thing I've ever heard you say."
Hermione wheeled about, ready to snap at Evie, when she realized that though her expression was carefully schooled, Evie's eyes still held a great deal of worry.
"Come on, Evie, I'm sure you've heard me say more impressive shit than that," Harry proclaimed loudly. "I mean, really, that's not even that insightful. Well, maybe when compared to British Magical Society-"
Hermione was ready to snap at him as well when she realized he was acting. He was deflecting his discomfort through humor, and probably helping Evie as well, by giving her something familiar to latch on to until they could both process this.
"I do believe the fact that it wasn't particularly insightful was precisely my point-" was as far as Evie got before the excitable students that had been watching surrounded them and all real conversation was put on hold until later.
HP/RGB
Evie burst into the Ravenclaw boys' dormitory, ignoring the few shouts from the boys in the room. She made a bee-line for Harry's bed, grabbed the hangings, and tossed them to the side.
"Hey!" Harry yelped, looking up from his current video chat with Winston and Ray. He had a book on complex mechanics laying next to him, as well as a notebook half full with diagrams. "I thought I told you… Evie?"
"I need to use our computer to speak with Uncle Egon," Evie said shortly.
"Couldn't it have waited?" Harry demanded, slamming the book closed and shoving both it and the notebook under a pillow. "And did you have to come up here?"
"It'd be better to do it sooner," Evie explained. "I've finished the equations to filter the excess PKE energy of the castle out of the readings, so we can get a better fix on those…" She suddenly seemed to register that there were other people in the room. "...those possessed items we were trying to locate."
"Fine," Harry sighed, handing her the computer. "But seriously, some warning next time would be nice."
"If this is about your work, I already knew you were smarter than you typically act," Evie informed him, taking the computer. "I know you prefer to be underestimated, and so have not said anything on the subject."
Harry glared at her for a moment. "I don't know what you're talking about. It's because next time you come barging in, you might find one of us… in a state of undress."
Evie blinked. "...I fail to understand the problem. Don't males and females typically desire to see the other in various states of undress?"
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am not even going to attempt to tackle that one right now. We'll discuss it later. Next time, ask Hermione for help to come up here."
"Alright," Evie agreed easily.
"And get out of here!" Harry hissed.
Still slightly confused, Evie headed for the stairs, still holding the computer.
Onscreen, Winston glanced to Ray. "I think we're going to have to check to see if Egon has the same issues with nudity Evie does."
"He doesn't," Ray said. "He's basically the exact opposite."
"Good to know," Winston decided.
"If the two of you have finished discussing my latest deficiency," Evie broke in, "perhaps you could get my Uncle Egon?"
The two exchanged a glance.
"Er… that might be a little difficult," Ray admitted.
"How so?" Evie asked.
"There was an… incident," Winston admitted.
"...What kind of incident?" Evie asked warily.
"We think Egon's accidentally somehow swapped brains with the Egon of an alternate dimension," Ray admitted.
There was a long pause.
"Did you get an EEG?" Evie asked.
"Okay, I'm out of here," Winston decided. It was getting a little too weird for him.
"That's the best part!" Ray enthused. "He took one himself! We've got some great readings!"
Evie looked thoughtful. "Does this Egon seem to know as much as ours?"
"More or less," Ray agreed.
"Then can I speak to him?" Evie asked. "He should be able to at least tell me if my equations look right."
"...That may be difficult," Ray said at length.
Evie's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"...There was another incident."
"A 'he just tried to blast Slimer' type incident, or 'there's a dimension hopping primal god chasing after him' type incident?"
"No!" Ray said quickly. "No, no-well, he did try to shoot Slimer once, but we think we've got that all figured out now. No, he, um… he discovered where Janine's bedroom was."
"I fail to see the issue," Evie said with a frown.
"Well, then we told him where his bedroom was," Ray expanded.
"That makes it no clearer."
"It took about a minute for the implications of that to sink in, and that's about when he turned completely catatonic," Ray admitted. "Peter thinks he's suffered a severe nervous breakdown."
There was a long pause.
"Tell me you got an EEG of that," Evie demanded.
"Well, I would have," Ray agreed. "Only after a few minutes of failing to get a response from him, Janine locked the two of them in their bedroom to try what she calls a 'home remedy'. That was a couple hours ago, and we haven't seen them since."
"Oh," Evie said, finally comprehending what he was getting at. She took a moment to process. "So the logical course of action would be for me to return this computer to Harry and wait for you to contact me as soon as my uncle has returned to his body."
"Probably," Ray agreed.
"Alright, then," Evie nodded, turning on the stairs and heading back up.
A moment later, the common room was treated to several shouts from overhead.
"God damn it, Spengs, what did I just tell you?!"
HP/RGB
"You know, sometimes I really regret ever deciding to sit with you on the Express."
It was not the first time Hermione would lament that decision, nor would it be the last. Unfortunately for her, as Harry had grown up with Winston Zeddemore frequently lamenting something very similar, it was pretty much water off a duck's back.
"Come on, Hermione, it's an adventure!"
It most certainly was. Harry had decided that since it had been nearly a month since someone had attempted to kill him that he was unconscientiously bored, and the only way to solve this problem was to venture into the Forbidden Forest. At night. With just the three of them.
Okay, so Harry had kind of seen Hermione's protests coming, and had at first thought just he and Evie would go. Only Hermione had somehow found out about it and pretty much invited herself along, just to make sure they didn't do anything stupid.
Well, nothing too stupid.
Whatever.
But Harry had been dying to explore the forest since they first had gotten to Hogwarts, and since Evie had stalled in her own work, waiting both on her uncle to get back to her and the improved clarity on the video she'd taken of the crowd while someone was cursing their broomstick, this seemed the perfect time to do so.
So the three had waited for the cover of night and headed out of the castle and into the forest.
"What I don't understand is why we had to wait until night to go sneaking out here," Hermione continued. "We could have gone just as easily in the daylight."
"That would be more boring, though," Harry insisted.
"Harry just wants to know if there are any werewolves living in the forest," Evie confided.
"Don't be ridiculous," Hermione frowned. "It's not a full moon. There wouldn't be any."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Harry asked, looking baffled.
"Werewolves only become wolves on the full moon," Hermione said, starting to look confused as to why Harry was confused.
"Since when?" Harry asked.
"That's what everything I've read says, and you'd think they'd have mentioned something about it if it weren't true…" Hermione usually treated books as the be all end all of fact, but recently she'd been seeing that they weren't always totally accurate.
Clearly looking for some sort of answer, both Harry and Hermione turned to look at Evie.
"As far as I can tell, it depends on the type of lycanthropy you're talking about," Evie said with a shrug. "There are three main types. The first is one that forces the change on only the full moon and turns the wolf feral, the second is one that forces the change whenever the moon is showing and usually also turns the wolf feral, and the third is one that doesn't force the change, is usually genetically passed (though occasionally also passed through bites), and allows the person to both keep their mind and change at will."
"Like Irena," Harry confirmed. (4)
"Like Irena," Evie agreed.
"Who's Irena?" Hermione questioned.
"Papa Peter's on again/off again girlfriend," Harry explained. "Very nice woman, but they're both pretty headstrong, which leads to a lot of arguments. She's Shannon's adopted mom, too."
"Shannon?"
"Uh…" Harry took a moment to consider whether or not Hermione really wanted to know about the formerly half-demon boy and how his dads had saved him. Or the gruesome deaths of the boy's entire coven… not that they didn't sort of deserve it for trying to summon up a powerful demon. (5) (It was only the third time an entire coven had been wiped out since the founding of the country. At first people had been rightfully appalled… until they discovered the reason they'd died, and suddenly the feeling had turned to one of more "I can't believe they'd be so stupid" and "that's what you get". Luckily, no one had held anything against poor Shannon.) "Lovely night for a stroll, isn't it?"
Hermione gave him a sidelong glance, before realizing that she probably didn't want to know. "You know what? Nevermind. What exactly are we doing here, anyways?"
"Exploring!" Harry said, in a rather "duh" sort of tone.
"That just means he can stay out as long as he feels like, instead of leaving when we 'find' whatever he's 'looking for'," Evie added.
"I'd be completely insulted by the accusation if it weren't completely true," Harry told her cheerfully. "In all seriousness, though, I'd like to meet a centaur. I've never met one before."
"But you've met werewolves?" Hermione asked.
"Well, Irena," Harry agreed. "She's the third type. But she's the only werewolf we've met. There was an… incident, though, with another kind of were-being. The second type. Very dangerous."
"There's more than one type?" Hermione asked.
"Oh, yes," Harry said, nodding sagely. "Wereardvarks, werebears… we had problems with werechickens."
"...Werechickens," Hermione deadpanned.
Harry nodded again. "Nasty little bastards. One bit Egon and then ended up growing to the size of a large house. Hey, you were there, weren't you Evie?"
"For Uncle Egon's presentation of his new weather balloon," Evie agreed, completely straight faced. "It climbed the Empire State Building, didn't it?"
"Yes," Harry remembered. "They had to use that weather balloon to stop it. It was funny, he freaked the presenters out because he had a body of a chicken at the time, and then he couldn't operate the controls because of the claws…"
"Egon turned into a chicken and then they stopped a giant chicken climbing the Empire State Building with a weather balloon," Hermione repeated. "Harry, I know you've done some weird things, but you do know you don't have to make things up, right? I mean, how would you stop something with a weather balloon? Have it take readings?"
Harry blinked. "Uh, no. They had it make a blizzard. Froze the sucker right up."
...Right. A weather balloon. Hermione looked at Evie, still mostly disbelieving.
Evie just nodded solemnly.
Harry held a hand up. "True story. Ghostbuster's honor." (6)
Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. "You know what? I don't want to know. I really don't."
Evie snapped her fingers suddenly. "Harry, there was that other time with the werewolves. You told me about it. First type, weren't they?"
Harry paled slightly. "Don't want to talk about it."
"What?" Hermione asked, looking between the two.
"Lupusville," Harry said shortly, in a tone that clearly said he'd speak no more on the subject.
Evie narrowed her eyes, clearly trying to calculate his mood, before she seemed to figure it out. "So, centaurs?"
Harry clapped his hands together. "Right! Centaurs! Fascinating culture, and they're really good with divination. Best with Astrology, if I remember correctly, but they venture into other areas as well, such as pyromancy and hydromancy."
Hermione snorted.
"Not a fan?" Harry asked.
"Not really," she admitted. "I guess I just don't think that the future can be set in stone like that."
"It's not," Harry said with a shrug. "It's a lot more complicated than that. Usually divination will reveal only one possible future, and then there's the option to try and interfere to either get to or away from that future… only by doing so you might either bring it about or ensure it doesn't happen. It's really a hard thing to explain."
"And you're doing a bad job of it," Hermione accused.
"And I'm doing a bad job of it," Harry agreed. "Evie?"
"I, too, am unsure as to how to communicate the meaning in a concise and comprehensible manner," Evie told him.
"Say what?"
"She'd do a bad job too," Hermione translated.
"Oh." Harry shook his head. "Sorry, Hermione. But it's not set in stone. The future, that is. It-" He ducked suddenly, cutting himself off, at the glint of something on the ground. "...The hell?"
The other two crouched near him.
"I don't recognize it," Hermione frowned, not wanting to touch the silvery liquid that pooled on the ground. "Do either of you…?"
"Actually, I don't," Evie admitted, biting her lip. "It's not something I've come across before. I could offer a hypothesis based on descriptions of substances I've read-"
"Unicorn blood," Harry said lowly.
Two head snapped around to see him dip a twig in the liquid to get a better look. "Harry?" Hermione asked, surprised.
"I've seen it before. There was a thing, with a tapestry coming to life, and there were unicorns. Papa Peter had to play Merlin… it's a long story. But one of the unicorns was injured, and this was what the blood looked like." He grimaced as he tossed the twig to the ground. "Do you know the stories of unicorn blood?"
Evie, whose face had grown from stoic to stoney, nodded once. Hermione, however, shook her head.
"Unicorns are pure creatures," Harry began. "Creatures of magic and goodness and, well, you get the idea. The point is, they are extremely powerful when it comes to magic, and a shed unicorn horn, or willing gifted tail hairs are hard to get and worth a lot. But nothing, nothing is as powerful as the unicorn's blood.
"It has life-giving properties. It's rumored that the philosopher's stone, made by Nicholas Flamel, started with willingly given unicorn blood. That's nearly impossible to get, by the way. So, if you're an evilly inclined wizard looking to score unicorn blood, you don't generally go about looking for a way to ask for it. Instead, you'd just take it.
"Of course, to do this, you'd have to kill the unicorn. And therein lies the problem."
Harry took a deep breath, leaning back slightly against a tree. "Like I said, unicorns are pure. To kill one… that's just wrong. If you purposefully slay a unicorn, it curses you, and using the blood… well, it will keep you alive, but it's not pleasant. Not pleasant at all."
There was a long silence.
"So, you've never busted a unicorn?" Hermione tried carefully.
Harry snorted. "Of course not! They're peaceful creatures by nature. If someone's being haunted by a unicorn, chances are they're the ones in the wrong."
Though this was cheering Hermione up, Evie's expression was still like granite. She straightened and pulled her proton pack from her pouch, strapping it on.
"What are you… Evie?" Hermione asked, putting two and two together. "You're not still…? Something out there is killing unicorns, you said! You can't go out there!"
"Now we have to," Harry said, voice low and serious. "If something is really attacking unicorns, then we can't let it run around unchallenged."
"Yes you can!" Hermione argued. "Couldn't you let someone else take care of it?"
"No," Harry said seriously. "Right now, there's no one else. This blood is fresh. The unicorn must have just come through recently. There's a chance, if we go now, we'll be able to save it."
"But…" Hermione looked between the two.
"You don't have to come, Hermione," Evie told her, voice surprisingly gentle.
"Oh, I'm not about to let you run into danger without me," Hermione said grimly, straightening and pulling her wand. "Let's do this."
The three fell silent, moving quietly through the woods, following the trail the unicorn had left. Harry moved nearly noiselessly, avoiding twigs and leaves like only someone with years of experience in moving silently could. Evie and Hermione tried, but neither could quite copy his perfect footsteps.
It was dark, but the moon overhead, while not full, did give off enough light for them to see. And they could hear every sound.
Including the sharp whinny up ahead.
There were no words exchanged. Instead, all three ran forward, forgetting all attempts at remaining quiet. It was only a second before they burst into a large clearing to see a dark, cloaked figure leaning over a bleeding unicorn, the silvery blood and white coat seeming to glow in the moonlight.
"Back off!" Harry shouted, firing his thrower at the figure. It pulled back at the sudden light, and the shot missed, slamming into a tree behind it.
"Hurry!" Evie cried, pulling a runestone and activating it. The clearing was bathed in a sudden, harsh light.
Hermione sent a burst of ropes towards the figure and Harry shot again, but the figure dodged and ran from the clearing. It sent an unfamiliar spell towards Harry, who, without missing a beat, dove under it, rolled back to his feet, and took off in pursuit. As he did, he shot one glance back behind him.
"Help the unicorn!" he ordered, but Evie had already, knowing his thoughts, moved to the creature's side, holstering her thrower.
Harry didn't stop again, hoping Hermione would stick with Evie. Instead, he tore off after the fleeing figure.
Unfortunately, as the creature seemed more interested in flight than fight, he lost it after a few moments. Cursing, he returned to the clearing.
Evie was pale, bent over the unicorn, a book on healing magic next to her. Hermione was holding up the glowing runestone as Evie tried to simultaneously read the book and figure out how to heal the unicorn next to her.
Healing magic was not her area of expertise. It didn't look like it was going particularly well. The unicorn was still breathing raggedly. On the other hand, it was still breathing, and the worst of the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
He came to kneel next to her, holstering his own thrower. "Don't suppose you know the Sumerian word for "heal", do you?"
Evie shook her head. "No. Though that would be easier. Maybe…"
She trailed off, biting her lip thoughtfully as she struggled to come to a better conclusion. The book next to her spoke mostly of herbs she didn't have, and potions that weren't there.
Harry ran through his (admittedly short, when it came to non-curse words) mental list of Sumerian words. There had to be one that they could use, even if it wasn't a perfect one, magic always cared much more for intent than for exact wording…
"Taru," he suggested.
"Return?" Evie translated automatically. "That… that could work. We'll have to focus strongly on what we want it to mean, though, as opposed to…"
"It's our only shot," Harry determined. He laid a hand on the unicorn's flank, wincing as warm blood covered it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Nusku Taru."
A light glow played around his hand, before slowly stretching from there to pool along the unicorn's side. It began to fill the wounds, pulling them back together.
"Nusku Taru," Evie repeated, pushing her own magic to help. Neither were particularly good at this area, but every little bit could help…
Hermione, meanwhile, had seen what they were trying to do. When she'd first arrived at Hogwarts, she'd never thought it possible to direct unspecified magic like they were currently doing. But she'd seen a lot over the past months. Seen, and learned.
She pulled her wand, touched it to the unicorn, and whispered, "Heal," before forcing all of the magic she could down the wand, not focusing on any particular area, just trying to fix the magnificent creature in front of them.
The magicks mixed, running along the body of the unicorn, ready to knit together skin and bone, to heal all the ails of the fallen creature. But the wounds were great, and the magicks unfocused, unable to tell the difference between a large tear in the side and a small cut from a sharp twig.
Harry was the first to surface from the almost trance-like state they'd fallen into, lasting nearly a minute as they poured magic into the unicorn. He wanted to cry. There were still large cuts all along the unicorn's form, and the magic was fading. It hadn't been enough. Next to him, Evie and Hermione were coming out as well, but he could hardly pay attention. He was too focused on the fact that they'd failed.
Harry had never liked failure. In ghostbusting, failure could very well mean death. He'd seen it too often. And every time they failed, he couldn't keep himself from hating the fact that it'd happened. (7)
"We did it," Evie said, sounding tired, but pleased.
Harry's head snapped around quickly. "What do you mean, 'we did it'? It's still hurt!"
"But the worst of it's fixed," Evie argued, still sounding tired. "These injuries will heal on their own in time, faster if we can find a healer."
Harry blinked as realization set in. A grin grew over his face. "It's going to make it?"
Evie nodded.
Harry punched a fist in the air. "Yes!"
"Don't get too excited yet," Evie warned, digging in her pouch. "We still need to bandage these wounds. And disinfectant would be good."
Now that Harry was paying attention, he could recognize that the ragged breathing of the unicorn had eased, and it seemed to have slipped into slumber. That was good, because bandaging and disinfecting could hurt. "I've got some stuff too," he said quickly, digging in his own pouch. "Let's just hope it's enough."
Hermione, less experienced with bandaging wounds (though Harry promised to find a few mannequins to teach her the basics on), continued to hold the glowing runestone while Evie and Harry worked at bandaging all the injuries they could find. Finally, Evie leaned back and proclaimed it done.
Harry ran a hand down the side of the unicorn, careful to avoid the bandages. What on earth could cause someone to do this? Was it something on earth at all?
Apparently, he'd voiced these thoughts aloud, as Evie responded immediately, "I don't know."
"What don't you know?" Harry asked.
"If the figure you chased was from this plane or not," Evie explained. "I was picking up readings from whatever it was, but I'll need to analyze them later."
"You have an idea, though," Harry realized.
"Just an errant thought," Evie agreed. "I'll need to confirm it later."
Harry scowled, but didn't press.
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of hooves. The three in the clearing tensed, rising to their feet. Harry's hand rose slightly, preparing to grab his thrower.
And then centaurs burst into the clearing. There were four of them, tall, proud, and clearly armed as they circled the clearing before coming to stop in front of the trio.
Harry let his arm drop and instead gave a respectful bow, knowing Evie was doing the same thing. It was one that denoted a meeting of equals, and was something Harry had learned very early on in his studies. With the culture portion of her daemonology studies, Harry had no doubt Evie knew it as well. (Though he was also pretty certain that all the covens taught it. There wasn't nearly the prejudice in American Magicals that could be found in the British ones.)
Behind him, Hermione quickly copied it. (Damn, that girl was a quick learner.)
One of the centaurs returned the bow, only to be glared at by one of the others.
"You would bow to humans?" he snarled.
"If you paid attention, Bane, you would know that these humans just offered the traditional greeting of equals," the one who bowed replied. "Not that you ever seem to listen when it comes to such a subject."
Bane's response was an angry pawing at the ground.
The centaur who had bowed turned back to them. "What brings you into our forest this night?"
"We were exploring," Harry admitted. "We came across a trail of unicorn blood, and followed it here. There was something attacking it. We chased it off and did our best…"
"The unicorn is stable, but will require some further care," Evie informed professionally. "We apologize if we did intrude, but the books at the castle do not list this as a centaur reservation, and the unicorn needed imminent help. Any later and it would have died."
"So humans are finally trying to clean up their own mess?" Bane snarled.
"We don't represent the people in the castle," Harry said, disgusted. "We're from America. Well, Hermione's not, but she's first-gen, so she's not really the same as the castle folk either. Evie got some readings off of the whatever it was, though, so we should be able to figure something out… Hang on." He glanced to Evie. "If you got readings off of it, doesn't that mean that it's not human?"
"Not necessarily," Evie began. "In fact, I have every reason to believe it is mostly human, and certainly disguising itself as one in the very least. I also have my suspicions as to just what it is, but, as I told you, I need more time to analyze my readings. There's a very good chance, however, that what tried to kill the unicorn and whoever tried to kill you when we tested the Ecto-6 are connected."
Harry frowned thoughtfully, but didn't say anything.
"We certainly won't let whoever or whatever it is get away with it," Evie concluded.
"That is good to know," the centaur said gravely.
"Okay, onto happier topics," Harry said, clapping his hands. "I have some questions about your methods of divination…"
HP/RGB
"Well, that was a productive evening!" Harry declared as they left the forest. "Papa Ray's gonna be so jealous!"
"About the divination information?" Hermione asked.
"Well, that," Harry agreed. "And also the fact that we met a unicorn!"
Said unicorn would be looked after by the centaurs until it was feeling better.
"But the divination was neat, too," Harry added.
"Don't forget which one of us actually took the notes on the subject," Evie reminded dryly.
"Yes, Evie, you're the smart one," Harry said, rolling his eyes.
"Yes," Evie agreed, lips twitching.
"Hang on," Hermione frowned. "Didn't you say that Peter was the one good at divination?"
"I said he was good at it, I never said he liked it," Harry said wryly. (8)
"...Ah." Which kind of explained everything.
HP/RGB
Harry was sitting at breakfast when it happened.
It was too bad, as up until that point it had been a wonderful morning. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and, most importantly, Slimer wasn't around. That usually made a day good.
And, then everything changed with a single sound.
"HAAAAAAAAWYYYYYYY!"
"AGH!"
Harry fell backwards off the bench as Slimer smashed through his face, both thoroughly sliming him, and dropping a package on his lap… which quickly rose to sit on his chest as he lay on the floor.
A few kids at the table snickered. Harry wearily flipped them off in response, and, glancing over, saw that Evie had slipped underneath the table. He shot a glare at her.
She shrugged sheepishly.
Sighing, Harry pushed himself up. "Hi, Slimer. How was New York?"
Slimer hovered next to him happily and babbled nonsensically, telling him everything that had happened in New York. Harry only caught about a third of it. "That's great, spud. Did you want to tell Evie?"
"EEEEEEEEEEVIEEEEEEE!"
Evie shot Harry a glare before she rolled out from under the table, dodging Slimer, and tossed a piece of bacon in the air. Slimer immediately forgot about sliming her and zeroed in on the food.
"Oh, you are good," Harry observed. "How do you do that?"
Evie shrugged. "You live with him. How do you not?"
Unfortunately, after getting the bacon, Slimer slammed into the side of her face, giving her a big kiss. Evie grimaced while Harry snickered.
"Hey, gu…" Hermione trailed off at the sight of Slimer. "Oh no."
She had no time to further react before the class five slimed her as well.
"Well. This is great start to the morning," she said, pursing her lips.
"I was just thinking the same thing," Harry said dryly, before looking towards Slimer. "Hey, Slimer, the house elves have been missing you! Think you might want to go visit?"
Slimer immediately cheered and flipped happily in the air as he shot away.
"What did he bring you?" Evie asked as she finished wiping the slime off with a towel she'd pulled from her pouch. Always prepared, that one. (Not that Harry didn't carry a couple towels of his own for all Slimer related incidences.)
"A package," Harry said, holding it up. "I have no idea-"
He was cut off as music cut through the air.
"Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown, and things seem hard and tough; And people are stupid, obnoxious, or daft, and you feel like you've had quite enou-ough~"
Evie shot Harry a look somewhere between amusement and mortification. "I have to keep you away from the cellphone, I see."
"What can I say?" Harry asked cheerfully. "I felt like the last song just wasn't British enough."
Evie's flat stare had him fighting a grin.
"Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving, and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour. It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned, the sun that is the source of all our power." (9)
Evie cut the song off by answering, even as Harry continued to hum it. "Hello, Evanna Spengler speaking." She paused. "Yes, he just arrived. Your calculations must be correct." Another, much longer pause. "I see. Thank you for getting back to me. Incidentally, my uncle…?" Another pause, this one shorter. "Ah. Yes, that would make things difficult. Have you tried convincing him that he's not dreaming?" Another pause. "...I see. I can understand her feelings on the subject. Thank you for staying up to talk to us, Uncle Ray. Have a good night."
She hung up the phone and turned towards Harry and Hermione, both of whom were just finishing toweling off. "I have good news and bad news."
"What's the bad news?" Harry asked as he struggled to get a bit of ectoplasm from his ear.
"Uncle Egon has not yet managed to return to his body, so my analyzing will take longer than expected," Evie informed them with a frown. "I was hoping to have the Egon he seems to have been replaced with look my calculations over, but he's apparently convinced the entire experience is a lucid dream. According to Uncle Ray, his mind is from a Egon that has not yet gotten involved with the Ghostbusters, and Aunt Janine's not helping much… though she seems to be enjoying it quite a bit."
Harry made a face at the thought.
"What's the good news?" Hermione broke in.
"They've sent us back the invisibility cloak Harry got," Evie explained. "It's a powerful object, but apparently not harmful to use. They say to be careful with it, and to try not to shoot it with the proton packs."
"I have the Death Cloak from the stories?" Harry asked excitedly. "That is so cool!"
"They're not one hundred percent sure it's the Mortum Amictus, but it looks to be so," Evie admitted.
"Don't worry, I'll let you borrow it whenever you want," Harry assured her.
"But what are you going to do with it?" Hermione asked.
"Well, the obvious answer would be to sneak out after dark, but that's not really something we need to do," Harry mused. "We don't need a cloak to go wandering. Ah, I'm sure it will come in handy. At some point."
"Better safe than sorry," Evie agreed feverently.
"Words to live by," Harry echoed.
"I don't know," Hermione said slowly. "Don't you think there's such a thing as… too prepared?"
"No," Evie said, as though it were obvious.
"You weren't complaining when I had that atomic destabilizer on me when that manananggal attacked over Christmas," Harry pointed out. "Or the salt we used to help neutralize it."
Hermione frowned, mostly because he was completely correct.
"Or the flamethrower," Harry added, almost as an afterthought.
"Though the reasoning behind you having one of those is still a complete mystery," Hermione said dryly.
"I told you, I'm prepared," Harry argued.
"Speaking of the manananggal," Evie broke in, "did they ever find out what a Filipino vampire was doing in New York?"
"No," Harry admitted. "And I don't think they care."
"Hang on," Hermione realized suddenly. "You have a flamethrower with you at all times."
"...Yes?" Harry said slowly.
"And Professor Sprout was going on a few weeks ago about how someone burned all her geraniums without using any magic!" Hermione accused.
"There's no proof that was me!" Harry denied immediately.
"Who else would want to burn geraniums?" Evie asked lightly.
"They were looking at me funny," Harry admitted, looking down.
"Looking at you… Harry, they aren't sentient!" Hermione cried.
"Tell that to the one that nearly destroyed Brooklyn," Harry retorted. "That thing scarred me for life." (10)
"...I'm not going to ask," Hermione decided.
"Thank you," Harry said, his tone overly formal as he gathered his package. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to run this up to my dorm. I'd rather not leave it laying around, or open it where everyone can see."
"You opened it in the common room when you got it," Hermione pointed out.
"Yes, but at that point, I didn't know what it was," Harry argued.
"But they wouldn't have… oh, nevermind," Hermione sighed. She was fighting a losing battle.
"I'll see you later, then," Harry said, standing and wandering out of the hall, singing to himself as he walked. "So, remember when you're feeling very small and insecure, how amazingly unlikely is your birth; and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!"
"Do you ever get the feeling there's something wrong with that boy?" Hermione asked Evie.
Evie looked up. "What? I'm sorry, I was trying to calculate the amount of time we had before Slimer decides to visit us again."
"...Nevermind."
A/N:
(1) "Man of" "Sorcery" Not actually really an insult, but Harry's a little stressed at the time. Also, I don't know when he was riding a possessed bull, but I bet it was awesome.
(2) "Incantation" "Break" "Dangerous" "Sorcery"
(3) RGB episode "Ghost Busted". It's more that a little ridiculous, and a whole lot of fun.
(4) In the RGB Ghostbuster comic books, Irena was a potential love interest for Peter who popped up a few times. She was also a werewolf. So... yeah.
(5) Another RGB Ghostbuster comic books story, and one that's more than a little disturbing. "The Father-Thing Trilogy" was a three part story surrounding the rescue of a boy named Shannon who turns out to be the half demon son of the demon Astorath, and some Very Nasty Things occur. One interesting plot point is that high levels of magic can short out technology, and that magic doesn't work in certain locations touched by science, such as places with atomic radiation. Sound familiar? Somehow, Peter's the first one to figure it out (and actually devolves into technobabble. Peter!) which makes the whole thing worth a read. As weird as the comics are.
And yeah, at the end of the arc, Irena takes him in, as his whole family was basically vaporized when they tried to summon Astorath. Yay for convenient solutions!
(6) No, he's not kidding. RGB episode "Poltrygeist". Egon becomes a werechicken. It's worth watching for that sole reason.
(7) As smart as they often are, it's important to remember that Harry, Evie, and Hermione are just kids. Some day, Harry will be strong enough to heal a unicorn like that on his own with no issues. Hermione will be able to do it, but it will be difficult. Evie probably won't ever be strong enough to do that on her own... but she'll totally craft a runic cluster that someone else can use to do it. Also, interesting to note, Sumerian doesn't have a lot of translated words currently. So we're working under the assumption that all the ones we do have translated, Harry and Evie know. Egon and Ray both are fluent, because Sumerian is translatable in that universe. In fact, Egon claims in the episode "Knock Knock", "[I can read Sumerian] In my sleep, underwater, and with the lights off. Of course I can read Sumerian." (Though, it's also worth noting the "Sumerian" in the episode looks absolutely nothing like real Sumerian cuneiform. #Iputtoomuchresearchintothisstuff)
(8) Peter doesn't seem to like to acknowledge it in the episodes, but he has (apparently on more than one occasion) known the phone was going to ring before it did, and in "Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream", actually dreamed of the Sandman the night before they go to face him. ("I kept dreaming about this weird old guy in a robe with glowing eyes and stuff. Real strange.") There's no actual dwelling on what the extent of Peter's abilities are, but when you add that to the fact that he was testing precognition in the first scene (or second?) of the movie, it's pretty clear there's something up. Make of it what you will.
(9) "The Galaxy Song", by Monty Python. If you have not heard it before, go look it up right now. It's hilarious.
(10) RGB episode "A Ghost Grows in Brooklyn". Harry has every right to be wary of geraniums. They are officially banned from the firehouse, and Janine takes great pleasure in burning any that anyone tries to give her. (Egon helps, but for an entirely different reason.)
And that's all, folks! (A chapter, a chapter, I really wrote a chapter!) Thanks for reading, and don't forget to review!
Next Time: Harry sees things, and Winston remains the only one who can solve a mystery.