AN: Might be a bit dark, murders and the like.
All properties are owned by their respective copyright holders.
Chapter 3 – Hello Spain!
Bay of Biscay (June 1st.)
The wooden ship was slowly creaking closer to the shore, while there were a handful of metal vessels departing British ports, many wooden vessels still sailed the seas, and this ship belonged to that ancient class of vessels. He was regretting his decision to sail on the old vessel as it violently lurched once again from another wave. He considered disapparating to the shore at this point, but the ship was too small for his absence to go unnoticed.
So, there he sat, feet dangling over the edge of the ship, while he tried to calm his stomach in the dreadfully sunny climate that was northern Spain.
"Ron would burn like a wick." He joked to himself with a slight smirk as he imagined the tall red head complaining that the weather was "too nice."
The trip provided him with numerous opportunities to reconsider his belief that Voldemort was in the past. Perhaps Voldemort was still in the future, but those thoughts made him realize that if Voldemort was not in the past with him, then he had to be in the future with Teddy. At first, that thought made him almost weep with joy. Eliminating the entirety of the Gaunt and Riddle lines would take moments. He considered booking a trip back to England as soon as he landed, but a single thought stopped him.
There was no guarantee that Voldemort's misfired ritual sent him to THE past, the fay races were known for traveling between different worlds, and those tricksters were never clear on what the other worlds truly were. Those worlds tended to be unreachable for all but the fay to reach, but the fact that they existed still weighed on his mind.
His actions here may not affect his home, but Voldemort still arrived here with him.
He cursed himself, there was a chance that Voldemort would remain hidden if Harry played his hand, if Voldemort had not been sent to the past with him, Teddy would be threatened. His only guarantee for Teddy's safety was if Voldemort had traveled with him. If he had not, then he was in the future with Teddy. A future which Harry had no hope of returning to.
"Just another failure, worthless freak." He bitterly cursed at himself.
During the trip, he considered the other possibility as well. Perhaps he was in his past, should he really change anything? If he changed the past, if he saved his family, if he killed off the Gaunt lineage. He would be relegating Teddy to non-existence. If he wanted to ensure his son's life, his parents would have to die, Remus would have to be infected with Lycanthropy, Sirius would need to die. Countless evils would have to befall the world, just to ensure that his son survived. Could he abandon the world to save his son; more importantly, could he live with himself if he didn't ensure that Teddy lived?
The trip continued for days as he spiraled out of control, not leaving his room aboard the ship unless he absolutely needed to.
The second the gangway was laid down; he was off the boat, running from the nightmares that dogged him. Every person he passed, he saw a flash of red in their eyes, and his feet couldn't carry him away swiftly enough.
On the outskirts of town, he stood gasping and out of breath. As the strain of sprinting carried him away from his thoughts.
"Where to look for trouble." He pondered to himself between gasps, desperate to do anything that would force him to focus on something that was not his latest failure at looking after his son.
The recklessness of his plan was becoming apparent to him, besides not knowing what sort of trouble they were having in Spain, how was he going to ask people for information?
"Well, if I can't find trouble, it will just have to find me." He said in resignation.
He started to walk through the outskirts of the Bilbao on the Bay of Biscay in northern Spain. He wished it would captivate him in the same way that the town in Scotland had. Anything to distract him from what he was feeling.
True, the town was completely different from towns in England. Where they used wood and stone, these buildings were made of some type of clay and bricks.
Not for the first time since traveling to the past, Harry marveled at the world. The town he was walking through was as unique to him as entering the magical world for the first time and been.
In no time at all, his appreciation for the town ended as he was at the edge of the town. Beyond the last buildings, only an endless expanse of sprawling fields dotted sporadically with the occasional building was visible until the mountains in the distance.
He started walking along the roads under the harsh sunlight, his destination lay south of him, and magic was still off the table for a short while.
Harry began to catch himself stopping, and looking over the fields, with gusts of wind being visible from miles away as they pushed the grain like waves in the ocean. He paused as he took out one of his books, the one connected to Teddy, and wrote about what he saw.
As he ascended towards the mountains, the fields started to change, they were the same crops, but he could see a difference, colours were darker, leaves were shorter and broader. He took it all in with child-like wonderment, in less than 20 kilometers, something so small that he would have never considered it before stuck out to him.
Northern Spain (June 7th.)
He continued walking for several more days, occasionally catching rides with wagons when they happened by, he passed through valleys and over ridges.
Nights were difficult. Even if he exhausted himself running throughout the day, there were moments when he could catch glimpses of Teddy, and the well spring of emotions that entailed.
On a particularly listless day, Harry wandered across something he had not come across in years. Foreign magic permeated the air, he tasted it on the wind, and could hear it in the still air. It almost felt familiar, but he could not place it.
Whatever it was almost made the air taste like a cold cellar with moldy potatoes, rotten.
The only thing that he was certain of, the source was distant, leagues away.
He considered his options as he stood at a fork in the road. To the southeast lay a path with nothing but open road, and the specter of Teddy that had haunted him since before he had left the ship. To the southeast lay a path of mountains, along with whatever magic he detected earlier. Of course, the path he had already traveled upon lay to the northwest, but returning to where he came held nothing for him presently.
Adjusting his path to intercept the foreign magic, he continued into the mountains.
Hours later, while he was cresting a rise; that could only be called a mountain, he was stunned as he took in the view. Before him lay an expansive valley, ringed with mountains. There was a part of him that just wanted to bask in what he saw, to commit this sight to memory.
As the sun rose above the mountains, he thought that it seemed quite like Scotland; if Scotland were hot, dry, and sunny.
'So, not really Scotland at all.' He laughed with a smile.
The valley before him was verdant, covered in nothing but forest for as far as he could see. He could feel the magic of the forest, ancient, wild, feral. It was unlike the magic of Scotland, which seemed timeless, enduring.
He had read about how different regions had a feeling to themselves, had experienced it first hand while traveling across the isles, but the feeling from the valley in front of him was remarkable strong.
For a moment, as he stood in wonder. He considered if the forest was the source of the rotting magic, before determining that it was not. Even from here, the source of the rot was so strong that he could feel it, pulsing, hidden by the canopy.
He could see a black trail that had snaked its way through the valley, though he had no idea what it was.
As he descended into the valley on the far side of the mountain, the foreign magic became stronger, almost as if it were approaching him.
While passing through a clearing, Harry felt the foreign magic wash over him, it was as striking as a slap to the face. With each passing breath it increased in strength.
A sense of wrongness, telling him to flee, akin to a dementor's presence. A darkness started seeping into the world. Shadows seemed to lengthen in the noon sun. Soon, the midday light appeared like twilight, and the once vibrant colours of the forest had become muted.
Harry heard a thunderous cracking in the distance, if the foreign magic had not been present, he would assume that there was a landslide from the cacophony. He could see the tips of trees collapsing. His pulse quickened as he realized that the tips of the trees were falling in his direction. Whatever was splintering trees across the mountainside was coming directly for him.
Without much time, Harry's wand was a blur, as he transfigured six knights from the dirt around him, giant Halberds held forward in a line, each braced to withstand an impact from a monstrous force.
Next, a dozen hunting hounds were conjured in front of them, each baying towards the oncoming threat.
Around his knights, he conjured a ring of spikes. Arrayed in a semicircle, the massive spikes of the wooden palisade pointing outward. Whatever was coming was going to receive a nasty surprise if it charged in blindly.
The crashing booms of splintering trees was nearly deafening now, with the mysterious entity almost upon them.
Before casting disillusionment charms upon himself and other spells to hide his presence, he conjured a heavily cloaked figure significantly further back then the knights. With scant moments before the source of the rotting magic was upon him, he let loose the hounds.
The hounds darted off into the brush, howling as they started their hunt, and the crashing of trees ended momentarily, buying him enough time to finish the spells which would hide him from detection.
Before he had even finished his spells, the howling and yipping of his hounds abruptly ended, as whimpers of terror and pain filled the air.
In a moment, even those had ceased, leaving a terrifying stillness in the air. For the first time, he realized that there were no bird songs, the wind itself was unnaturally still.
'Was this a mistake?' He wondered to himself.
Cracking noises could once again be heard from within the woods, as an overpowering stench of decay filled the air, heralding some unseen horror's approach.
Harry could make out a pale blur moving within the tree line before the blur abruptly stopped, as he had to fight the desire to start gagging from the scent.
From within the forest, he could see tens of eyes, along a pale shape, each was of different sizes, with the largest being the size of dinner plates.
Harry felt sweat run down his spine, as he imagined whatever was in the woods was savoring the terror it was causing.
In a flash, the outermost trees exploded into splinters and leaves. Through the wave of flying debris, a massive shape sprang forth, one that he had wished to never encounter again.
The Abomination could be described almost like an ant, a giant ant, with too many sections. Several heads which were nearly indescribable, each was half rotten, with bones protruding at odd angles.
Each section of the ant like body had skin instead of chitin, very human looking skin, sewn and stitched together, along with the people that the limbs had once belonged to.
Their limbs were protruding from the body, twisted and mutated to the point that they barely even looked human anymore, with some reaching five or six meters in length, while others had four forearms protruding from one elbow.
Each arm and leg sewn haphazardly onto its body differed from the others, but each had the body of a person sewn into the body of the beast. At almost four meters tall at the thorax, the abomination seemed like a horrific parody of some unholy fever dream.
Harry's eyes narrowed as he recognized the unnatural beast, Abominations were the chimeric product of magical beasts and dark magic fused with a twisted mind.
Large amounts of pus and blood dripped to the ground from the human faces strewn across its body. But these weren't injuries, the body fluids of the Abomination poisoned the ground and rotted flesh, even now, the forest behind it started to wither, and black smog arose from everywhere the body fluids dripped.
The Abomination charged, in what appeared to be a morbid mixture of a gallop and a skitter as it rushed the knights.
With a mighty 'thump,' it crashed upon the stakes of the palisade like a wave upon the shore, and the 'people' along its body who had been impaled screamed in pain.
The mouths of the many heads of the Abomination opened, and let forth a sickening gurgle, the noise could barely be heard under the sound of its sloshing body.
The knights had not been idle while the Abomination charged them. Before the Abomination crashed upon the stakes, the knights were a blur of action, chopping at its legs and eyes, trying to whittle it into a pile of dismembered libs.
The Abomination's limbs twisted at unnatural angles and lengthened, as they attempted to grab hold of the knights.
The knights worked as a team, each one assisting the others. When one was caught, two others would hack at the offending limb.
After a moment of struggling against the pikes, and being unsuccessful in catching a knight, its body started to swell. In an instant the mouth of every human sewn across its body opened, and each vomited out a breath of decay.
Harry could see its immediate effects upon the nearby foliage. The limbs from trees started to slough off from the trunk. Grass withered in the blink of an eye.
The knights used their cloaks to weather the storm of the breath.
By the time the abomination had emptied its lungs, the cloaks of the knights were little more than tattered rags, and the non-metal bits of livery were withered away to ash. While the mail was tarnished into fragments of rust.
With the onslaught finished, the knights rose once again, Harry could tell this his transfigurations were not going to survive for very long.
The Abomination paused for a moment; Harry assumed that it was surprised anything living could withstand its attack.
The Abomination clasped hold of two of the knights in its overly large arms, and the knights started to melt in its grasp.
With a silent command, the cloaked figure that Harry conjured earlier seemed to cast magic, as Harry conjured eight more knights as he cancelled the magic upon the originals.
The Abomination won its struggle against the palisade, the magic surrounding it rotting away the wood which Harry had conjured into little more than a rotten pulp.
As the spikes holding the Abomination in place broke free, its weight causing it to tear a massive wound in its gut as it sloshed over a large rock. An outpouring of vile acid spewed outwards, carrying with it tiny horrors through the gaping wound.
The horrors looked like furless squirrels, swelled with too much liquid.
The cloaked figure seemed to cast a spell, as Harry conjured two stone golems before the Abomination.
The golems grappled onto the Abomination, as it struggled to reach the cloaked figure it had assumed was the wizard controlling the knights.
The abomination tried to grab the cloaked figure with its massive unwieldy arm, but the coordination of the knights allowed them to hack apart any limb which ventured too close.
The squirrel like horrors chose a different method of attack, they were deceptively quick, and would dart around the knights and golems, before launching themselves at the cloaked figure.
Harry conjured a shield of magic around the figure, and the squirrels exploded a cloud of decay and death as the encountered it.
Harry could see the magical shield being eaten away by the bodily fluids of the exploded squirrels, and there was little he could do to prevent it.
Harry began synchronizing his movements with the cloaked figure, casting spells from long range, trying to assist his knights.
"gloriabitur securis" He whispered. (The axe) The line of severing magic rushed forward, but as it neared the Abomination, the magic waned, what hit the abomination was a pale imitation of the original spell, the impact left a thin line which looked like a paper cut on such a large beast.
'Someone went through a lot of trouble to make it magically resistant.' Harry mentally cursed as he changed tactics.
Conjuring more and more stakes of stone in a ring around the monster, until it was surrounded and unable to move. The knights hopped from stake to stake chopping and hacking at the beast with a nimbleness that belied their appearance.
As he observed the confrontation, Harry started conjuring new weapons for the knights, as their weapons were breaking after cutting into the Abomination two or three times as its bodily fluids burst out of the wounds.
"ferrum Virginis" Harry chanted, and the stakes which encircled the Abomination shot into it, piercing through it as if it were a pin cushion. (Iron Maiden: the fantasy torture device, not the band.)
As the words left his lips, every eye on the Abomination turned to look at him, piercing through his obfuscation spells.
In that moment, its body exploded from a dozen angles, as the stone spikes ripped through its body in an explosion of blood and pus.
The only noise Harry could hear was the rushing blood within his ears, and the Abomination's blood raining down upon the mountainside.
After a moment, Harry looked to his knights, their dark armor was rusting horribly from the blood, the newly conjured weapons they held were beginning to bend under their own weight.
Harry vanished the armor of the closest knight, only for the fluid that was once a body to splash out onto the ground, even the bones had disintegrated into a soupy liquid.
Looking towards the cloaked figure he had conjured, he could tell that even shielded, it had suffered the same fate.
The stone golems seemed to be worse for wear, as the stone of their bodies seemed weakened in some way, covered in the bodily fluids of the Abomination.
Gazing back at the abomination, he wondered why someone had created it. More importantly, why would someone put so much effort into creating one, only to unleash it in the countryside?
Looking about the clearing, everything he could see was rotting. The trees were collapsing in squelching heaps as the magic from the beast ate away at everything nearby.
With no answers forthcoming from the corpse, Harry incinerated it.
Southeast Basque (June 10th.)
After the last two days of floating several dozen meters above the path of death left by the Abomination, Harry finally felt as though the magic surrounding the trail had diminished to the point that without spells protecting him, it was safe to walk along the path.
Harry stood in the middle of the trail of decay, the journal in hand as he attempted to sketch a type of fungus or mushroom which he had never seen before. Honestly, he did not know the difference between fungi and mushrooms, or even if there was a difference.
So far, he had sketched dozens of varieties of fungi whose population had exploded in the wake of the Abomination.
All around him were dozens of shades of muted browns and black of dead matter, covered in thousands of different types of detritovores. He wished for a little color, but the pale whites, blacks, and reddish browns were starting to become boring as he marked "brown" beneath the sketch of a different type of mushroom for the umpteenth time.
Even days after the Abomination had rampaged through, the animals of the surrounding forest were nowhere to be seen, with the only sign of life being high flying birds which were mere specks in the sky.
Occasionally he would cross paths and roadways. But mostly, the abomination had stuck to the forest. It had run into a farmhouse at one point. If there were any people or animals in it at the time, Harry couldn't tell, as the magic involved had deteriorated everything to the point that it was impossible to tell.
Only the stones of the chimney were left standing, the wooden structures of the house and barn having rotted away to little more than piles of decomposed goop under the magic of the Abomination's blood.
Through a sludge of death, he trudged. The Abomination did an amazing job at leaving an area devoid of life. The only sign of flourishing life was the fungi, insects, and worms which fed off the dead matter.
A few hours later he heard talking coming from far ahead in the trail. Preparing for the worst, he began to transfigure massive worms, each a dozen meters long within the soil beneath his feet.
The four worms moved quickly, barely noticeable as a slight ripple in the ground as they dug, a barely perceptible swelling beneath his feet indicated that one had passed directly beneath him, but with how unstable the ground was due to the Abomination, it would hopefully not give anything away until he figured out if the group in front of him was hostile or not.
As he rounded a bend hairpin turn that the Abomination had made, he encountered the source of the voices, a dozen wizards dressed in grey, their robes had dozens of different patches and medals sewn or pinned on across what he realized were uniforms.
The group was altering the path of destruction, beyond them, the trail of decay looked more like a tornado had torn through the countryside, rather than some unnatural blight that extended in a twisting path for dozens of kilometers.
When they saw him, Harry readied himself for a fight, as he had the worms move forward beneath the area where the wizards were standing.
Surprisingly, several wizards from the group waved lazily and started to walk towards him. Harry assumed that they were not aurors since they were covering up the wake of a monster, perhaps they were from Department of Muggle Management?
"Have you seen the Abomination?" asked a taller woman with chestnut hair.
"I'm sorry, I only speak English, I don't know how to speak Spanish." Harry said sheepishly as he shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Several of the witches and wizards looked confused, but two looked amused.
"And tell me, how did an English come to Spain without learning to speak Spanish?" One asked with humor in his voice.
Harry started to rub the back of his head. "It's a long story, and not terribly interesting." He replied.
"Ask him about the Abomination." The witch who had spoken to him first told the English speaking wizard.
"My name is John Elorrigia, and we" He gestured towards the group around him, "are part of the Royal Muggle Concealment Department." The wizard introduced himself.
"Arthur." Harry replied briefly.
"We have been looking for a large monster for several days, it caused this destruction. Do you know anything about it, even the smallest bit of information can help?" John asked tiredly.
Harry noticed that each of the group in front of him seemed exhausted.
"The Abomination is dead," Harry replied with an absent wave of his hand in the general direction of where the Abomination had been killed, "It attacked me several days ago, just follow the trail to its end. You'll find it there."
Both of the wizards who understood English looked disbelievingly at Harry.
"You killed it, by yourself?" John asked, the doubt clear in his voice.
Harry quickly realized that he had made a mistake, a mysterious wizard single handedly defeating an Abomination was sure to be told to other people. His mind gripped onto the first thing he thought of to fix this situation, if he gave his best impression of Lockhart, people were more likely to assume that he was lying.[1]
"Of course," Harry replied eagerly, with a smile which was too bright, "Gave it the ol' one-two, and it was out." He said as he shadow boxed playfully.
"You punched it?" The other English-speaking wizard asked, not even bothering to hide the complete disbelief in his voice.
"Right, as I said. I squared up with it, and struck it down with two blows! Pop-Pop!" Harry answered before he demonstrated his 1-2 punch once again.
As John relayed the story to his… boss, commander, officer? Harry regaled the other wizard with stories that Lockhart had told him in class so many years ago.
"It reminds me of a time when I was attacked by a kelpie. Nasty things, kelpies. They get sand everywhere. Anyway, a thunderbird had just dropped me into her nest, there had to have been a dozen hatchlings and me without my wand from being disarmed earlier by a pack of werewolves. So, quick as a whip, I grabbed a discarded feather in each hand, and started tickling the hatchlings as I beat my retreat."
The other wizard interrupted, "How did you manage to tickle a dozen hatchlings and the adult thunderbird with only two feathers?" His voice dripping in false idolization.
John snorted loudly and had to turn away to hide the smile which crossed his face.
"Well, as I said. I was quick as a whip. Anyway, I jumped from the nest which I then learned was precariously perched on the face of a cliff. I discarded one of the feathers, while I grasped the other rightly by both ends, and used it as a parachute to slow my fall into the rapids below." Harry was telling Lockhart's story with as much flair and false pompousness as he could, even imitating what using the feather as a parachute looked like, but the boss of the group signaled for John to speak up.
John spoke over Harry as he said, "My commander thanks you if you are being truthful, but she requires proof before we can report that the situation has been contained." John said very bluntly. "She also wants to know why you are in Spain?"
"Spain obviously required my help in dealing with the Thunderbirds, so here I am." Harry answered with the largest fake smile that he could muster.
The other English-speaking wizard snorted under his breath and said something that left some of the other wizards laughing at Harry.
"There are Thunderbirds around here? How did birds from the American continents get here?" John asked skeptically.
The group of wizards had caught on that Harry was a less than reliable witness, and two had moved on to continue charming the environment to look more like a natural disaster, and less like a magical one.
"No, as I was saying. The uhhh.." Harry paused as he pretended to forget what the creature he had fought was.
"Abomination." John supplied.
"Yes, right oh. The Abomination, I walked up to it and knocked flat with two punches."
"That was very noble of you. In the future, please leave tasks like that to the aurors, as we would hate for you to be injured." John said, it almost sounded like John desperately did not want Harry to follow his advice, just to see what would happen to the wizard he assumed to be a fraud.
"Did you catch the dastardly fellow who created the dark beast, perhaps I could be of service in tracking down this dark fiend?" Harry asked with a level of confidence that only fools can muster.
"The 'fiend' was an exotic pet dealer. We busted his shop several days ago as he was dealing in illegally harvested magical animals and animal parts. He attempted to use the chaos caused by releasing the Abomination to escape."
"Well, I will get right on tracking the blighter down." Harry declared merrily.
"That particular pet dealer was captured, but the commission house is always in need of help dealing with unsavory characters that you seem to be uniquely equipped to handle." The unnamed wizard told Harry, with the largest amount of false sincerity that he could muster.
"Jolly good!" Harry declared as he proceeded on his way without even saying farewell to the group. "Have no fear for your fair country, for I will save it from its ills!" Harry shouted over his shoulder as he left.
The group behind him was laughing at him too hard to hear his parting remark.
He continued along the path wondering what the Commission House was.
As Harry sat inside of a shelter he had conjured, he had time to think. The first thing he did was swap out the glamour charm, he had been wearing the last one for too long without switching it. There was always a chance that someone would be able to trace his path back to Great Britain. He chose the appearance of a snot nosed kid, that seemed fresh out of school.
Almost asleep in a cot, Harry was left with more questions than answers. The aurors were content to believe that a pet dealer had killed dozens of people to make an Abomination, only to use said Abomination as a means of escape if he was ever caught?
That story did not hold water. Which begged the question, why had the Aurors lied?
His question would be answered the next day, as his path through the woods ended directly in the back of a large solitary building that looked as though it should be placed along the High Street of London. Harry knew from the moment he saw it that it was magical, the air hummed with it. Besides which, no one would build something like that in the middle of the woods.
Walking through the front door, he was transported to a street inside of a city.
Zaragoza, Central Spain (June 11th.)
In the middle of a meadow in the woods, a large six story tall building stood. It belonged along a major throughfare, with a dozen wooden signs hanging from the front advertising various services contained within. Extremely narrow, at only five meters across, Harry wondered why someone had built it here.
La Calle De Luciana
Read a faded sign which hung directly above the door. Posters advertising a thousand products had been plastered over every inch of the building's red brick façade, and then posters had been pasted over them. Harry twisted his head upwards until his neck began to hurt, he could see that the front of the building had been covered up to the overhanging roof.
In front of the building lay a narrow sidewalk, though judging by the buildup of leaves and sticks, no one had used it in ages. Which was not out of the ordinary for magicals, most preferred to travel via floo or disapparation, both of which relegated front doors and other entrances as vestigial.
Harry walked up to the front door and began to tear the posters which had been plastered atop it away. Some of the advertisements still had enough magic in them to be affronted.
"Try Carrington's Calming Draught, so you don't behave like this belligerent menace." A middle-aged man, (presumably Carrington himself.) said in a showman's voice to an audience which wasn't there.
The handle which he uncovered was rusted beyond belief, hardly budging, even when he put his weight into pushing it open. Pushing his shoulder against the door, Harry pushed and pushed, and slowly the door creaked loudly open on rusted hinges.
Through the door, Harry saw a busy street. Storefronts over seven stories rose up on either side of the busy throughfare.
Harry entered the alley, and took in everything around him.
Foreign signs hung from every building, though only those which had images of what the goods or services offered within were discernable to him.
Every building was a store, and every store was trying to grab his attention.
Harry could only assume that the door was somehow linked to the inner portion of a city, based on the smoke rising from thousands of chimneys in the distance.
Little vendors sold food down the middle of the street, one was selling large red flowers to children, each flower looked like a hibiscus which was larger than a sunflower.
He was almost shocked to see the children start to eat the petals from their flowers as they walked away giggling, one child who had eaten the petals from their flower took a bite from, the pistil, only to spit it out with a bitter look on their face while their friends laughed.
A butcher shop had fish and animals displayed in its windows that Harry had never even seen before.
Harry tried to act like he belonged, like this was not extraordinary to him, but the sights, sounds, and smells were starting to overwhelm him.
As he walked down the street, he reached a four-way intersection; each direction was strikingly different from the others.
The direction he had come from had restaurants and tea shops, while artisans practiced their craft in the street. Painting pictures of families or lovers for a coin. Others made beautiful ornate vases, each of which had different scenes from plays or musicals being enacted by the figures drawn onto the surfaces.
To his left had what appeared to be homes and apartment buildings. There was a large park in the middle of the street that defied space, the park was massive, with several ponds and lightly forested fields, yet it fit into an area that was less than a traffic lane wide.
To his right the street was lined with industrious looking buildings, multi-coloured smoke rose from smokestacks. And employees in uniforms were either coming or going from their shifts. Perhaps factories? Harry wondered.
The street straight ahead, Harry could only guess at. People ran back and forth quickly from building to building, but very little gave away what the actual buildings were. There was a larger concentration of aurors along that street, but that was the only thing that really stood out.
With his interest piqued, Harry wandered down the last street. The buildings were upkept, but without signage, or any form of advertisement to help determine what they were. Some of the buildings didn't have doors or windows.
Harry was left to wander farther down the thoroughfare, eventually encountering a burned-out building. The stone building was much like the others, no obvious windows or doors. Though the multiple holes in the walls where explosions had torn through the stone walls did provide him with the ability to see inside. It was obvious that a fire had engulfed at least the upper floors, as blackened ash had built up above the holes on the upper stories.
Harry looked about to determine if anyone was watching him, but no one really seemed to be paying attention to him.
So, with his best tourist like lack of respect, he walked into the burned out building.
The inside of the building still had space enhancement charms in place, with the interior appearing to be as large as a warehouse. The smell was overpoweringly putrid, burnt hair mixed with rotting flesh.
There was something else, a feeling, an echo of strong emotions. Terror, pain, despair, as soon as Harry felt them, he was unable to not feel them.
Collapsing to his knees dry heaving, he wondered what had happened here.
The warehouse was laid out with multiple metal cages along each wall, and another row of cages running down the middle of the building, effectively separating the room into two paths.
A cursory inspection of the cages revealed extreme amounts of rust, with a majority of them containing puddles of something that reeked horrendously.
As he walked through the rows of cages, his gaze was caught by a gaping hole in the wall and floor, something had burst through the floor from the basement, prior to escaping making an exit through the wall.
He could see a meadow through the demolished wall, it was the same meadow he had walked through to enter the magical street.
Returning back inside, something clicked in his head. He was inside of the pet shop, the one the aurors from the trail had told him about.
The piles of 'goop' in the cages had been animals, the rust on the cages, the echo of emotions, it pointed to the Abomination having escaped through the wall.
'What a horrible death.' Harry thought as he stared at the rows of cages. Rotting away, unable to escape, terrified.
Harry found himself transfixed on a single cage, the goop on the bottom of the cage almost looked like a horse, if a horse had a horn protruding from its forehead.
'A unicorn!' Harry realized with some shock. Apparently, the Abomination's magic was enough to overpower the purification magics associated with a unicorn's horn.
It took him a moment to snap himself out of his _ (emotion, despondent?) state, as he withdrew a journal and made note of the fact about unicorn horns, he doubted anyone else had ever been in a position to record it. As most people who had observed Abominations were their creators, by definition people who were reluctant to relay information about their creation for fear of being hunted down.
Harry walked into another room, the smell from the other room was decreased here. As large bags and boxes were piled up to the celling, sinks and tables with deep cutmarks were scattered throughout the room.
'Some sort of food prep room?' Harry wondered.
He opened one of the boxes, and found that it was full of grain, leading credence to his suspicion.
With nothing left to do in the room, he began looking around for an entrance to the basement.
It took him almost fifteen minutes to realize that the door was hidden beyond his ability to find without spending an inordinate amount of time looking. So, he took the easy option and dropped down into the basement through the hole the Abomination had escaped through.
The basement was dark, only lit from the sunlight trickling in through the hole he had descended through.
A few swishes of his wand had a half dozen balls of light scattered through the room.
The room had the same warehouse dimensions as the ground floor. Except there were only three cages, each was large, large enough to hold an Abomination.
There was only one cage open, the bars rusted horribly from being exposed to the corrosive magic for so long. The other cages had larger piles of rotten flesh than the cages upstairs, but it was obvious that the same fate had befallen whatever had once been contained within.
Harry was not sure of what to do.
If the aurors had been honest, then the pet shop owner had created the Abomination, and he had already been arrested.
If they had been dishonest, he doubted an auror lower down in the chain of command actually knew what happened. For that matter, he presumed that the owner of the pet shop was equally clueless about the Abomination and had likely been executed already to prevent anyone from realizing that fact.
There was only one thing that Harry was certain of, something was wrong in Spain.
Feeling dumb, and not for the first time, since leaving England on this lark of an adventure. Harry continued looking around the street with unmarked buildings, until he came across the only sign on the street. Old beyond belief, and fading into obscurity it read:
Casa De Comisión
Est, 1191
He recalled that Casa meant house, if he was recalling the movie Casa Blanca correctly, and Commission was obviously commission.
He had a great feeling as he entered the dingy room, as it was the definition of a seedy bar, complete with patrons that pulled their hoods lower as Harry entered the room.
One side was taken up by a large bar, drinks of different types lined the shelves. On the other side, the wall was filled with papers. Bulletin boards, he realized as he saw two individuals perusing the forms.
"Excuse me, is this the Commission House?" Harry asked the bartender, a middle-aged man, potbellied from drinking too much of his own product, and with a nasty smile.
"Yes, it is." The bartender said in a lightly accented voice. "Do your parents know that you're cutting class?"
"I'm nineteen." Harry stated, though he glanced nervousness around the room. Continuing before the man had a chance to answer, "I was told I could get a job here, that if I wanted to fight, this was the place to come."
The bartender looked Harry up and down and then repeated his action twice more, before he walked down to one end of the bar and then pulled out a small stack of papers and waved Harry over to them.
"These must be signed and dated by you." He spoke.
"What are they?" Harry asked cautiously.
With a feral grin the bartender explained. "They're liability forms, saying that when you die it's your fault, and your family can't seek restitution for your death. Too many cockeyed kids walk in here thinking they're all that and a bag of chips. They get themselves killed and their families get mad at us, just because a snot-nosed kid can't take care of themselves." He seemed disturbingly happy about the deaths of other people.
"Once these forms are signed, you can take jobs from the wall behind you and get paid for your work." He pointed Harry towards the wall and left to go serve drink to both of his patrons.
"Who pays?" Harry asked as he perused the papers.
"Government, business, individuals. Up to you to set up the method of payment prior to a job, most use escrow accounts." The bartender said, as he polished a show glass with a rag.
After dotting the last i and crossing the last t. Harry walked over to the wall to see some of the jobs that were being offered, almost every poster he inspected was written in Spanish, before he got the chance to do anything, he heard.
"Posters in English are on the left side, towards the back of the room." The bartender shouted, clearly annoyed that he had to explain anything.
Harry nodded as he walked over, the number of requests written in English was severely limited, maybe three dozen.
Reward for the capture of the murderer Ryan Silso. Last seen in Palma, Majorca.
Assume that he is dangerous at all times. Has committed 7 known acts of murder
In broad daylight.
Reward: 150 Gallons
Payable upon receipt of body,
Dead or Alive.
Below the words were several pictures of the man, along with a map of where his victims had been found in the city.
Another poster read:
Wanted, Altin Oil. This flower is exceptionally rare, with an orange and white colouration. It grows in the southwestern section of the Amazon.
Will pay 200 Galleons per fluid ounce. But it must not be more than one week old or else there will be NO payment.
There was no picture of the flower for this poster.
'They must only want people to go who know what they're looking for.' Harry thought. Though he was surprised by the value, either the flowers produced next to no oil, or its exceedingly rare nature made it that valuable.
By order of the Ministry of Spain,
A reward will be payable to whomever brings to justice the Rainier Clan.
This group is known to be responsible for trafficking illegal drugs, animals and goods through the Kingdom.
At least 20 members are known to still be alive and active at this time.
500 Gallons will be payable to whomever brings the heads and wands of the following
The leader, Kyle Rainier
The second in command, Nate Landin
The thief, James Rainier
All 20 members are to be considered extremely dangerous at all times.
They are located in North Africa.
Harry had to whistle. With a bounty of 500 galleons, someone had kicked in the hornet's nest, that was for sure. A shimmer caught his eye as the lowest line changed from North Africa to
Located in Carthage, using a warehouse north of the port.
Several pictures of the warehouse also started to form beneath the paper.
His stomach grumbled once again, informing him that he needed food. For food, he needed money. To get money…. He had to kill the Rainer Clan.
Zaragoza, Central Spain (June 11th.)
"You still want to do this kid? Killing a man takes a lot out of you." The bartender said from behind his bar.
Harry was getting annoyed that the bar tender was calling him 'kid'. More specifically, Harry was mad that he had chosen a glamour that made him look like a kid, fresh out of school.
"This bounty changed from North Africa to Carthage, why is that?" Harry asked between bites of a sandwich and sidestepped the question.
The bartender walked over and whistled. "Someone just made a percentage, some bonuses are paid to anyone who brings information in. With pictures like that, they probably made a hundred Gallons. See they even got Kyle in this one." He said as he pointed towards a man looking through a window from the warehouse.
One of the patrons from the bar came over to look at the bounty. "Do you think that it's Emily that found them?" He asked the bartender.
"You know it is, that cold hearted bitch loves toying with her food." He replied, noticing Harry's look of confusion, he filled Harry in.
"Emily is a hit-wizard that frequents this place," He said, gesturing towards the bar, "She loves scaring the bounties she chases, she'll update the bounty and leave a few copies around the target. When they find the bounty poster, they run for it, she follows them, updates the bounty again, and repeats the process. Next, she'll start to use curses, things that mess with their heads, until they're terrified of their own shadow. She'll make them so scared that they'll kill each other, and when there are only two or three left, then she goes in for the kill." That feral grin of his was back and growing.
'There's something wrong with him.' Harry realized, silently wondering if the man was sane or not.
"Lately, she has been working big contracts like that one over in Egypt, enjoys when the targets start turning on each other. Everyone gets nice and paranoid, then she goes in for the last man standing." He continued.
The patron from before mused, "Wonder why she's back from Egypt?"
"Probably killed everyone there worth killing." The bartender replied quickly.
The patron from the bar added "Think she gets off on it, myself. Did you see how she looked when she told you about the last set of bounties?" He asked to the bartender.
While they were having their discussion of the sexual proclivities of Emily. Harry went and signed the papers still on the bar.
"What's the fastest way to Carthage?" He asked one of the patrons that still looked relatively sober.
Carthage (June 11th.)
With the directions in hand. He found the nearest portkey to Carthage and without any money left to his name, was off.
It was by far the longest portkey trip he'd ever taken, apparently, they were exponentially worse as they were long. About halfway there, the ruddy thing started vibrating so badly that his arm went numb, and he could swear that he heard his bones rattling against each other.
He landed in a heap on the ground and was unable to get up for several moments. The muscles in his arm, upper back, and neck were twitching so badly that he could hardly think straight.
Looking at the ticket, he saw that the town he had originated rom was Zaragoza. So, that was a positive.
Exploring the magical quarter of Carthage was a short depressing trip. A small sector of rundown buildings was all to be found. He left it to find a rather nice muggle city, it wasn't a bustling metropolis, but it had more than two bars.
"So where to begin looking?" He asked himself. He knew the docks were to the east, but if what the bartender had said was true. The clan would be moving soon, which meant properly planning things out might not be possible. As he walked through the town, he began to form a plan. If he couldn't be subtle, then a show of overwhelming strength would have to do. He thought with a grin.
Finding the warehouse was surprisingly easy thanks to Emily's unknowing assistance. He began to carve anti-portkey and anti-apparition wards into the ground around the warehouse, one of the first rules of combat is to never allow your enemy a chance to escape.
With only two lines left to carve before the last runes activated, Harry stopped carving and transfigured his right ear and eardrum, anyone looking would just think that he had cauliflower ear from one too many boxing matches. But inside there was a world of difference. His eardrum could now pick up the faint sounds of the men within the warehouse, their exact words were indistinguishable, but more than that, the noise of animals could be heard within. The roars of dragons were magically suppressed, but not eliminated.
More spells left his wand, reducing the noise coming from outside of the warehouse, leaving only the sounds from within.
From the echoes he could hear, there was a lower layer to the warehouse, magically expanded to be about three times larger than the building would indicate. Faintly, he could hear a whistling noise, as wind was blown from somewhere underground, a cave system perhaps.
Harry conjured worms beneath the stony street and had them descend into the tunnel system below.
With the knowledge that this was the location, he began transfiguring his knights from the street around him. Without having to worry about a counterattack. He could invest much more energy into his knights. Spending almost an hour inscribing runes onto each of their shields.
Dividing them into groups of six, they approached each side of the warehouse.
With a final two slashes into the dirt; the wards preventing his prey from escaping went up and the knights charged in.
Each knight ran up to a wall of the warehouse and braced their shields against the wall. Within a second Harry could hear shouting from inside as the defenders realized that someone had put up wards. Harry cast a silencing spell around himself, as the runes on the knights' shields triggered, and a deafening boom echoed throughout the warehouse as multiple explosions tore holes through the walls.
Harry felt the blast roll over him, before he cancelled his silencing spell. Allowing him to guide his knights deeper into the building.
The first knights were in the building, drawing looks of confusion from the two wizards they encountered.
That was until one of the knights leapt almost seven meters forward and cleaved into one of the wizards with its sword.
The other wizard reacted immediately, firing a blasting curse directly into the head of the knight, leaving nothing but a fine red mist in its place.
He turned to focus on the other knights that had entered with the knight, his wand dancing in front of him as he started casting another spell.
In a spray of red, he saw his wand still grasped firmly in his arm go flying, he looked down at the stump of his arm which ended below his elbow.
He turned to see the headless knight beside him which had severed his arm.
Resignation dawned on his face, as he backed away from the advancing knights, withdrawing a second wand with his offhand.
"Die." He cursed with the last of his strength, as an explosive hex was lobbed at the headless knight. The blast from the hex killing himself and rendering the knight into a fine bloody pulp.
The other knights continued forward.
At this point, the rest of the clan were more aware of what was happening, eight of them came out in groups of two, each covering the others blind spots.
The knights continued their forward march, when the eight wizards saw them. A multitude of curses and hexes rained down upon the knights, like rain from the heavens, but also like rain, the knights easily weathered it. Some knights lost their heads, others their arms. But they advanced, and as they advanced, they regenerated. When a member was damaged too much to regenerate, Harry would transfigure another from the ground where it had fallen.
This was when the terror began.
"Avada Kardava" One of the wizards shouted, and the killing spell flew true, straight into the chest of a knight.
Now, the killing curse was a powerful spell. So powerful in fact, that the magic controlling his knight was dispelled. The knight fell, but Harry simply conjured another knight from beneath it.
The wizards gazed in terror at what they thought was a living human shrug off the killing curse. Shouting started in a foreign tongue as the knights once again began advancing. The wizards retreated from their position down a hallway.
In an act of desperation, one of the retreating wizards cast Fiendfyre upon the ground to cover their retreat.
The lion of ensorcelled fire pounced from his wand, and out towards the knights. Burning them to ash in seconds.
With a maniacal grin on his face, Harry released the magic upon the knights that were batted down, repairing them was too much effort when he had to fight against the cursed flames.
Instead, he summoned more knight from directly beneath where they had fallen. These knights were covered in Fiendfyre, walking onwards towards the disbelieving wizards who thought that the knights had survived the fire.
Again, and again, he summoned knights from the ground beneath the ashes of the knights, as the fire burned through them almost as quickly as Harry could transfigure them.
The Lion again pounced upon the knights and swatted at them, again reducing them to ash. But the spell was taking its toll, the wizard who had summoned it panting heavily as the effort of controlling the flames was taking its toll.
He realized that he would have to banish the cursed flames soon, or risk the spell getting loose of his control and consuming the entire building.
To the continued astonishment of the hunted wizards, the knights seemed to come back unharmed from the all-consuming flame. The wizard who controlled the Fiendfyre fought for several seconds, attempting to banish his beast back into nothingness.
The battle consumed his focus, Fiendfyre was literally his desire to eradicate something given form, by no means was stopping it going to be easy.
With a massive sigh, he dropped to the ground as he finally forced the Fiendfyre into oblivion. The fire was immediately extinguished, leaving nothing but smoke and a burned-out room in its wake. The wizard who had brought the hellfire into reality laid curled up on the ground.
Harry was impressed. The wizard had used Fiendfyre for over two minutes and was able to banish it!
That put the wizard in an exceptionally higher bracket then most other magic user.
Though impressive, it was not enough to save him from the descending warhammer or the sickening crunch his diaphragm made as the descending piece of metal pushed his bones aside, but it was still impressive enough for Harry to note his skill.
The knights advanced even deeper into the warehouse. The reduced group of seven wizards was now firing off spells at the knights from down a large corridor, when a second group of knights appeared from a doorway behind them, they realized that they were trapped, and tried to hold off the unending advance, but it was futile.
With a move of desperation, one wizard blew a hole in the side of the corridor and collapsed the celling, after five of the wizards had escaped through it. abandoning two wizards to be trapped, pinned by the debris to secure their escape.
"Fifteen to go!" Harry said excitedly, as two more lives were snuffed out.
When the wizards started to collapse the ceilings along certain hallways, to keep his knights at bay, the knights responded by using the runes on their shields to blast through the walls.
Kyle Rainier had been having a bad day. First Pablo or whatever the H*** his name was, got himself arrested, meaning that all the money that he owed them for the last shipment of beasts was gone forever.
Then someone, probably also Pablo, had leaked the location of the warehouse his clan was operating out of to the Spanish Ministry.
This base had been perfect for them for the last four years, but that didn't matter now with hitwizards relaying information about their movements to the Spanish Ministry.
Soon more headhunters and hit wizards would be crawling all over these parts, and the loss of business on top of the cost of moving everything would result in a massive hit to his retirement.
He was exasperated with having to do all this work. Hopefully, he could retire in a few years, and not have to deal with people ever again.
He thought of the future as he looked over the shipment of opium he had just gotten, after the English stopped pouring it down China's throat, they had to sell their stockpile to someone, and he was that someone.
Middlemen like him might not amass the huge fortunes that the governments were making, but he was willing to earn a dime for every dollar of opium he sold. He stared at it with a grin, if the shipments kept coming in, he would quit the magical portion of his business.
After all, there was no point in possibly bring the magical law down on him, they were content to turn a blind eye if his actions only hurt muggles.
The magical animals were why he had a bounty on his head anyway, stealing them from preserves was profitable, but insanely risky. Some of them could earn a fortune at any potion shop in Europe. No one really cared how they got their ingredients.
He realized that long ago when he was poor, a unicorn horn was worth 85 Galleons, if you got it from a corpse that passed away peacefully, or if you had to turn the animal into a corpse first. No one asked questions about that, they just wanted their cold remedy, or whatever the H*** they used unicorn horn for.
The deafening explosion that rattled the building shook him from his reflections, dust falling from the celling glittered in the magical light as the rumbling abated.
A cold chill ran up his spine, it only took him a fraction of a second to decide to secure the money before he fled. There were three different stashes hidden around this warehouse, each of which would take him less than a minute to retrieve.
He had sprinted into a large storeroom in ten heartbeats, another three and the cages from several animals had been overturned as he dug out one of his hidden stashes.
He froze as a scraping noise, like metal on stone. Peering out from his position behind several crates, he could see two knights stumbling drunkenly into the warehouse.
The muggle suits of armour were not what he would consider threatening, but if they had made it this far into their hideout, he suspected that they were extremely dangerous.
Though their disjointed movements did make them seem less threatening. Still, he stayed still and observed them without drawing attention to himself.
'Caution was the better part of valor.' He recalled, as he watched the knights shuffling towards one of the doors.
The knights turned to face a hallway which was obscured from his view by several crates, from it he could hear shouting, before a barrage of spell fire was loosed towards the knights.
Half of the spells went wide, exploding against the creates and cages scattered throughout the storeroom. If the situation was any less dire he would have gotten upset that his men were damaging his goods.
Freezing curses, blood boiling charms, and explosive hexes were lobbed at the knights, and before his eyes, he watched as the knights were frozen solid, boiled alive, and exploded into bits.
From the sound of the voices casting the spells, it was probably Joao and Ulisses.
The spells from the hallway did not abate, they continued to fire at the knights long after he would have stopped.
As he watched the spells land, he realized with a sense of dread that the knights were reassembling themselves. Frozen fingers were cracking as the knights flexed them, having their limbs blown off was only a minor inconvenience. As the knights continued to regenerate, the spell fire stopped as the two wizards in the hallway retreated.
He stood frozen in place as the knights recovered from their apparently non-fatal dismemberments, the two knights crawling forward as they continued their slow advance towards the fleeing wizards.
He waited a few moments after the suits of armour had exited the room.
"What was that?" He whispered, already dashing for the next stash of gold and gems which he had hidden.
In moments, he had pushed aside one of the cages containing a baby wyvern which was hissing and spitting out sparks, as he pulled a few bricks aside to reveal his second stash.
'One left." He thought to himself.
He full on sprinted towards the third stash, already resigning the other members of the gang to their fates. If they survived, he split the money, if they didn't, he may have enough to retire after all.
He was less than three meters away from the false wall that contained the last stash when he saw them, four more knights were meandering down the hall towards him.
Making a split decision, he fumbled with his wand slightly as he dispelled the enchantment around the wall and grabbed the final sack of money. Even at their slow shamble, the knights had already covered most of the distance between them by the time he turned back to them.
With a few waves of his wand, high powered banishment charms were sent flying down the hallway in front of him, and the knights went flying. They smashed against the wall harshly, only to get back up and walk towards him at the same pace as before.
A look of consternation crosses his face, as he began to feel disquieted.
He cast a freezing curse upon one, its organs would literally freeze inside of its body. He smiled when he saw frost start to form upon the outside of the armour, only to become confused when the knight didn't miss a step.
Instead, the snap of breaking flesh and skin was barely audible underneath the screeching protest of frozen metal.
A lightning curse followed up the freezing curse, with no visible effect besides the facial holes of the knights leaking smoke. He began to get scared.
'If I can't harm them, then I can stop them.' he thought. He transfigured the ground beneath one's foot into a giant bear trap, that closed with a sickening crunch. The knight didn't scream, it looked down at his leg, and with a speed that the wizard could hardly follow, turned the sword that it had been dragging around in its hand, and slashed its leg off with a single stroke. Blood and sinew went flying in an arc as the knight toppled over. Dripping flesh dangled from the wound, until another leg started to grow from it.
Within moments, the leg was regrown. A scant second after that, armour once again covered the leg.
He was so scared that his hands were shaking as he tried to cast more spells towards the knights.
Transfiguring metal harpoons connected to the ground by chains before banishing them into the knights. But the knights didn't slow, they would cut their own bodies open to remove the offending piece of metal or hack off limbs if they slowed them down overly.
He felt a blast of heat from behind him, and lots of screaming. Whatever was happening in that direction probably wasn't worse than what was in front of him. Figuratively backed into a corner, he turned and ran.
He needed to get to one of the hidden exits, but which one would be clear? As he retreated, he conjured things to impede the progress of the knights behind him.
Turning a corner, he was brought to a stop, in front of him was a knight crouched over a corpse, the gap in its helmet acting as a mouth as it ate one of his friends.
It must have sensed him, because it turned its blood-stained helmet towards him and abandoned feasting upon the corpse to start approaching him.
Which was when he heard something that disgusted him, a deep noise from within the knight's body, "Grraa, Graaa, Grraa." Almost a deep chuffing noise could be heard from within.
At that moment, with a monster disguised as a knight approaching him, he made the decision to run. Through several corridors and hallways, he ran.
Coming to a stop only when he saw the rest of his clan was fortifying the room that had one of the exits.
"Kyle!" He heard someone shout from beside him, the voice filled with relief.
"What are those things?" Andreas asked, as he conjured a massive steel plate to cover part of the wall before casting a sticking charm to it and banishing it against a wall.
"Undead of some sort." Kyle responded through gasping breaths. "Where's everyone else he spat out?"
Simon's cursing interrupted whatever response he was going to receive.
"There's more of them down in the path!" Simon screamed as he came back up from a trap door.
Kyle looked towards the celling, a spell to remove part of it on his lips before Andreas stopped him.
"You're fool brother cast fiend fire across the entire first floor before he died, if you do anything with the celling, we'll burn to death!" He shouted angrily as he shoved Kyle.
A young voice boomed throughout the room. "Surrender now or prepare to die." When no one moved to surrender, the walls exploded inwards around him, and the knights swarmed into the room. Each one ravenous, when one fell the others would climb over it in their charge.
Carthage (June 11th.)
Harry stood in a hallway a few meters from the room that the remaining members of the Rainier clan were huddled in. With a thought, his knights entered the room, and after a minute had capture eleven of the wizards alive. The corpses of the other thirteen were scattered throughout the building.
He was a thought away from having the remainder of the clan executed when he felt a tingling sensation run up his spine, as the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
Someone was watching him, from the corner of his eye he saw a distortion in the air. Sending his magic to back trace the spy to where they were observing from, the trace pointed to outside.
With a sense of dread, he realized his mistake. The warehouse was being watched; he had known that going into it. He had conjured knights, his trademark. Once word reached Voldemort the jig was up.
Cursing himself for his incompetence, he rapidly tried to find a way to salvage the situation.
With a morbid grin on his face. He walked into the room which held the remaining members of the clan, faced his knights, he bellowed, "Blood for the Blood God!"
As he said it, he sent a pulse of magic through his wand which triggered a charm in the knight's helmets.
They responded in chilling voices which sounded like something was trying to imitate human speech, "And skulls for the skull throne!"
Harry conjured a large demonic looking axe. While dragging it over to one of the clan members, he sent a magical command to two of his knights. They hauled the man into a position with his head forced painfully against the ground.
"We exist not in the shadows of night." He chanted.
Another pulse of magic had the knights respond.
"We exist in the shadows of your mind." Two knights shouted as Harry readied the weapon.
The kneeling wizard in front of Harry started begging for his life.
"For a warrior, the worst crime in cowardice." Harry stated with utter contempt as the axe in Harry's hand finished its descent through the man's neck.
The remaining members of the Rainier clan started making noises that some might classify as begging, but Harry didn't hear them. Their fates had been decided the moment he had conjured knights instead of something less recognizable.
He stood beside another soon to be corpse. "Krone desired a struggle; you'll have the rest of eternity to repent for your failure at providing him with one." Harry said it with every ounce of contempt he could muster, he needed to sell it to whomever was observing him.
The man being held to the ground couldn't speak, as his mind was lost to fear. Harry ended the man.
With a magical command, the knights started hacking the rest of the clan to death.
The same odd feeling filled the air once again. A presence he couldn't place. 'Behind!' he thought, banishing a knight into the pathway of an oncoming spell. With a sound of sundering metal, the chest of the knight was crushed in on itself.
"You stole them from me." An angry female voice said from over his shoulder.
As the knight reformed itself, two more walked to place themselves between Harry and the woman.
"Theft implies ownership, and the God of ceaseless slaughter owns every violent death." Harry waxed poetically.
"They were mine to kill, you stole their deaths from me." She answered.
"All deaths in battles belong to Krone. Who are you to think that you are to steal from God?" Harry shouted out, spit flying from his lips from the vitriol he put behind the words.
"Emily. Just, Emily." She replied with a girlish smirk.
Harry suspected she was an apple short of a pie. The information he heard from the bartender made more sense. She really did want to terrorize people.
With a small smile he said, "Far be it from a knight to take a lady's name without giving my own, I am Arthur Utherson. Devoted servant of Krone, and traveler of the eight-fold path." He bowed slightly.
She began to glare at him. "A lie." She spat out.
"No son of Krone has a name, we only have a weapon, with which to spill more blood." He said happily, and she even seemed to smile a little bit. Or maybe just not glare quite so hard.
"A knight who enjoys slaughter, wasn't there a code in the law of chivalry about not executing prisoners?" She questioned after a moment; an eyebrow quirked.
"All paths make sense after traveling the eighth-fold, for to travel forward one step is to take three back, and two to the side." He replied.
Taking a chance, she asked. "So, we are at an impasse, what occurs now?"
He pondered his response as his illusionary arm was still as his real arm slowly made its way to a position where it could launch a spell.
"Would you be interested in becoming a warrior of Krone? Krone is always looking for new blood." Harry offered, "In more ways than one." He laughed insanely at his own joke.
"Arthur Utherson, Servant of the blood god." She said slowly, almost like she was considering his offer.
A larger smile split her face as her face lit up, "I will have to reject your offer. Though, I think your blood god will be quite happy when I kill you, so very slowly."
The idea of ending her now crossed his mind, leaving a deranged mad woman on the loose with an unknown arsenal of magic at her disposal seemed like a terrible idea to him.
A spell left his wand before she uttered her last word.
In an instant she disapparated away, tearing away his wards with her. His eyes widened at the feat. Whoever she was, she was as strong as she was demented.
"I will hunt you, try to put up a good fight." Emily's voice said as it reverberated around the building.
'Not killing her was a mistake.' Harry thought to his knights. The same knights who were still hacking the corpses to pieces.
"You can stop that now, she's gone." He explained to his knights pointlessly. His magic controlled them, not his words. Harry didn't look at what his knights had done. He had enough nightmares about what he'd seen other people do. He didn't need to think about his own actions.
Without being able to do anything about Emily right now. He went into the warehouse to look over the damage he caused.
The insides of the building were ruined, most of the walls were collapsed, the roof over where the Fiend Fire was conjured no longer existed, and the corpuses of the first two men that the knights had killed no longer existed as anything more than carbon stains on the stone floor. He found the beheaded wizard who had conjured the Fiendfyre while he walked down the hallways, he started searching the body for anything of value, and pocketing the few coins and the wand that the man had. Along the way he found more bodies and looted anything he could.
He finally returned to the final resting place of a majority of the Rainier Clan, the knights still stood in the macabre poses. He started looting whatever he could from the bodies, jewelry, money, anything of value.
Eventually finding (one of) the bag of goodies that Kyle Rainier still had grasped in his fist. When he looked inside he saw shiny things.
He didn't have the time to count it all now, but it was enough to live off for a few years. He took the loot and placed it inside the bag. With his future secured for at least a little while, Harry had the knights perform a final task, collecting the severed heads of each of the men, and placing them at his feet.
"Blood for the Blood God." He whispered grimly.
He decided to search the building before leaving. And what he found was amazing, over a dozen cages of magical beast, nothing too exotic sadly. A young unicorn which hadn't grown it's horn yet. a few other unremarkable animals. He opened the cages of the prey animals and let them escape.
"If a ministry won't stop crime, they should be forced to deal with the consequences." He said tiredly, wondering which ministry would actually be in charge of cleaning up the mess he had made. At least in the future, Carthage had been torn between multiple countries all vying for control.
Leaving the predators caged, he went to the other rooms to look around, He found a room full of crates, a slash of his wand split one down the middle. What he found surprised him, bottles of opium, with English labels.
Why would bottles of opium in the middle of North Africa have English labels on them? He wondered.
He looked through the rest of the building, finding a few trinkets, but nothing valuable of serious value, until he found some clothing that fit him.
'No more transfigured rags!' He thought happily.
Inspecting a few more rooms turned up nothing. Sure, there was tobacco and alcohol out the wazoo. But very little that interested him in his mission to prepare for a fight against Voldemort.
He collected the heads and wands of the wanted men, released the predatory animals, and banished the opium into nothingness.
With the main tasks done. He pulled out the bronze spoon which was the portkey "Venice" he said, and was whisked back to Zaragoza.
Zaragoza, Central Spain (June 11th.)
He entered the bar with the large sack shrunken and placed in his pocket. The bar was filled, dozens of men clamored over each other. All boisterously shouting. Whatever was occurring was beyond his caring. He shouldered his way to the bar.
"Where do you want these?" He shouted over the noise.
It took the bartender several minutes to finish serving several drinks and reach Harry.
"What are you on about, what do you have?" The bartender snapped, annoyed that he had to stop serving drinks to answer questions.
Harry pulled the bag from his pocket and opened the top of it so that the bar tender could see it.
The bartender recoiled from the sight. "Get that out of here!" He shouted.
The noise of the bar died almost instantly.
"What are you crazy? You take those to those to the Aurors' Office." He shouted at the top of his lungs. Every patron of the bar now staring at the scene.
Harry turned around quietly and started to walk out of the bar, a smile crossed his face at the shaken bartender. Every mercenary, hit wizard, and headhunter in the bar would want to know what happened. They were like the wives of fishmongers, constantly gossiping.
Soon the tale of Arthur Utherson, the man with a sack full of severed heads would spread. Emily would help spread the tale, she seemed like the type to tell others about people she planned to kill. The rumors would spread of an insane religious fanatic who worshiped a blood god.
'It's better than the rumor of a strong wizard who controlled conjured knights.' He thought bitterly.
Checking his newly acquired watch, a mission that had taken over six hours. Including two hours to locate the warehouse. Rumors would spread, fanning the flames of fear and uncertainty. A large smile broke out upon his face as he realized that the story of an insane fanatic was much more likely to be spread than the story of a strong wizard.
'At least I salvaged it in the end.' He thought.
The dull thud of his feet against the flagstones of the street set Harry at ease. Now, he just needed to land the final part of the story, and his rumor would spread.
He walked toward the more occupied part of town, occasionally asking for directions from the odd passerby. The sack which he slung over his shoulder bouncing off his back with each step.
Eventually he stopped a young man who was kind enough to lead him to the offices of the aurors. It confused him a little, as there wasn't any outward way to tell that it was an auror office, in England they all had crossed wands over the coat of arms of the English Ministry.
Here, there was nothing, though it was down the one street where nothing was marked.
'Perhaps there is a way to discern which building is which?' He pondered as he followed behind the young man.
Handing over five knuts for his help, He entered the Auror's office. Wards washed over him as he attempted to recognize them from feeling alone, spells from outside the building would be deflected into the sky, anti-travel wards, and dozens more that passed too quickly to be identified.
Inside, two aurors in uniforms stood like bouncers on either side of the door. Behind them stood a somewhat normal looking waiting room, inside which sat an auror behind a counter.
On his way up to the counter, he noticed several hit wizards sitting in the lobby.
"Hello." He said as politely as possible to the seated auror. From the looks on the seated aurors' faces, he could tell that they didn't speak English.
"Is this where I collect bounties at?" Seeing the looks of confusion, he decided on a course of action which would be annoying in the short term, but helpful in the long term.
"I'm here to collect." He said as he took the sack of heads off his shoulder and placed it on the counter in front of him. This might have not been the best possible way to ask for a bounty, because when the auror behind the counter screamed after looking inside the sack, the aurors and hit wizards drew their wands on him.
Within a minute, his wand was confiscated, he was whisked away to a room and bound to a chair. Waiting for someone to come in and give him his money.
The door opened to allow two Aurors inside,
"You speak English, correct?" One asked.
"Yes, I do." Harry responded directly.
"The decapitated heads that you brought here. Who do they belong to?" the other auror asked, grimacing.
"The Rainy clan, or the Rainier clan. Something like that." Harry said jokingly. "Didn't really stop to get names and addresses, if you know what I mean." He said with a smile and a laugh.
The Aurors shared a look.
"You thought it was a good idea to bring their heads in a sack, and throw them down on our front desk?" They asked.
"Well, I took them to the Commission House, and the Bartender told me to bring them here. So, here I am, ready to collect." Harry replied.
The aurors shared a look of disbelief, one sat down and rubbed his temples.
"So, Henry Cauldo tells you to take a sack full of heads into an auror office, and you think that's a good idea?" The standing Auror asked.
"Is that his name? I never caught it, only started this hit-wizarding today. I just assumed he was telling me the truth." Harry replied with a shrug. Making people frustrated was his passion, and he enjoyed pursuing it wherever possible.
"You started today? What do you mean by that?" The seated auror asked, still rubbing his temples.
"Well, yesterday an auror told me that I should sign up to be a hit wizard. So, that's what I did, Mr. Cauldo pointed me to the Rainier bounty?" He added a question when he said Rainer, people tended to fear individuals who killed without emotion. "I collected the criminals' heads, and I brought them here." Harry explained. Sure, some important information might have been omitted, but it wasn't his fault they were asking vague questions.
"So, you didn't wait the mandatory 6 week waiting period for your information to be verified, and your hit-wizard badge to be issued?" There was a definite note of loathing in the seated auror's voice at this point.
'The seated auror must be the one who had to do the paper work,' Harry thought. 'Well, if he thinks I'm an idiot he'll probably let me out of here faster.'
"Ummm, no. I couldn't really read the form as it wasn't in English. But Mr. Cauldo did tell me where I had to sign." Harry would have laughed if it wouldn't have ruined his persona. The aurors were looking at him with looks of utter disbelief on their faces.
"You signed a magical contract you couldn't read, how stupid are you?" The seated auror asked him.
"Chris!" The standing auror reprimanded.
"He signed a magical contract without reading it! Do you remember when he told us that part?" Chris said in his defense.
Turning to him, Chris spoke as if Harry was a small child, "You do realize that the contract may be invalidated by you not being an official Hit-Wizard, or did you not read that part either?"
With a shrug he replied, "There are always other bounties."
He sat in that room for another hour, while the two aurors were forced to do a figurative mountain of paperwork. Verifying that the heads and wands of the wizards belonged to who Harry said that they were.
"You killed a total of seventeen wizards, there are several missing. Do you know where they fled to?" The standing auror asked is a bored tone as he flipped through several files.
Harry considered his options for several moments before deciding upon the insane zealot option. "They didn't flee." He supplied tersely.
Looking up from the papers he was holding, the auror asked. "Then, where are they?"
"Their skulls were offered up to Krone after the battle." Harry said reverently.
The auror probably knew better than to ask. But professional obligations demanded that he pursue the information.
"Who is Krone?" He asked in equal parts resignation and disgust.
Harry looked scandalized. "You've never heard of the blood god? The greatest of the gods, the lord of ceaseless slaughter. His fortress is steeped in the blood of his foes, his throne is made of the countless skulls of those he's slain. I've only made a small offering of several hundred skulls, but that number wi…" Harry was cut off from his description of Krone by the auror interrupting.
"No. No, I've never heard of him. But I think I can piece together who he is from your description." He looked disturbed. Which was perfect for Harry. News of insane people who brought sacks of heads into auror offices prior to waxing eloquently about a god of war and murder tended to spread.
In the end he would not be able to get any money from the ministry from the contract, due to not being officially licensed at the time of the "capture". All in all, a very positive experience, as the story of the servant of Krone spread, the story of a wizard who specialized in conjuring and animated knights did not.
Zaragoza, Central Spain (June 12th.)
Harry enjoyed strolling through the streets of Zaragoza, the lights from the buildings illuminated the streets beautifully, while the charms above the street ensured that the twinkling of the stars was plainly visible.
The aurors had a tendency of following him wherever he went, a negative aspect of having the persona of an insane religious zealot who worshiped a god of blood and slaughter. Such was the price he had to pay for being negligent in his choice of magic.
The coins in his pocket which he had looted from the Rainer clan let him rent a decent room for the night, at an antique (for him) little inn.
The third-floor room looked out upon the street, with a great view of several restaurants. As Harry gazed through the window, he saw a picturesque scene of families dining, children playing, and couples enjoying themselves. A stirring in his chest brought up odd dreams, dreams of what life would be like if Teddy were here.
"Perfect?" He whispered, perhaps it would be.
He was lost on that train of thought for too long, as a feeling of depression was settling over him. Another part of his mind planned potential escape or attack routes as the aurors below switched off with another shift.
Harry closed his eyes and felt for the wards around the room. They were weak, aimed towards the protection of the room from damage, rather than privacy for the occupants.
The wards protecting the buildings around him were weak and geared more towards the prevention of damage from fires and floods, rather than curses and hexes. Clearly, whoever had designed the wards had not expected the building to be exposed to heavy spell fire during a war.
Casting multiple privacy charms around the room, he began to cast stealth spells upon himself, leaving the room, as he tried to escape the thoughts about Teddy and 'what-if'.
Wandered into several different shops, nothing really stood out to him. There were odds and ends which were interesting, but he was not truly interested in anything more than passing the time until he could fall asleep. That was, until he entered an old resale shop.
Inside he found several years' worth of goods from students who had pawned them off after determining that they would never need them again.
Picking through several sets of potions equipment with an appraising eye. He stumbled upon several old steamer trunks; a plan formed in his mind to try his hand at enchanting.
He started to shrink them and put them inside of one of the larger trunks. A few coins changed hands. And the elderly man barely even looks up when he made the odd purchase.
With his loot in tow, on the way back to his rooms, he asked his new luggage loudly "How many skulls can fit into you?"
The aurors following him paled.
Deciding that he had been cooped up in his room for long enough, he went out to the Commission House for a drink. The warm summer air was thick with humidity as he left the wards of the building. A few short spells dealt with the uncomfortable weather.
Entering caused several patrons around the bar to start motioning him, others started hushed conversations.
After he killed two glasses of scotch, he started looking over the bulletin board. Perusing his options. Slowly, a pattern started to form in missing persons requests, an idea formed in the back of his mind. 'Looks like a hunt.' He thought to himself.
Journal Entry 3.
I heard shouting last night. Aunt F. is really mad at Dad.
She wants to send me away, to take me out of the country. Dad was yelling that I need to be trained, that if he hadn't trained me, I would be dead alongside Uncle Jordan.
She said that I'm a child, and she won't let him raise me to be some sort of monster like he is.
This is bad, I don't know what is going to happen.
[1] This may seem a bit odd, everyone believed that Lockhart accomplished the tasks that he lied about. I am assuming that people who met Lockhart quickly realized that he was a liar, while people who read his books could not determine that he was incapable. This is how he is portrayed in the books; I do not believe that he ever comes across as competent when he was 'on screen'.
AN: This chapter has one of the only blatant WH40K references. I am making this offer if anyone detests the cross-over reference. Think of replacement phrases. Post them. If they are appropriate, I will place them into the story. (You will be credited.) There will be other (Less blatant) references to other properties in the future. Part of the fun of stories is figuring which parts were inspired from what source.
AN: If you are concerned about Harry being able to control 24 knights. Please recall that McGonagall was able to animate every statue and suit of armour in Hogwarts. Also, Harry did not use magic during the scene, indicating that he may not be able to easily cast magic while he has twenty-four animations running. McGonagall was able to animate hundreds of statues, suits of armor, and gargoyles, while simultaneously fighting Voldemort.
AN: Is there anything that you can think of that I need to work on, or that you think would help my writing? Are the chapters too long, are they too short, should a chapter be focused upon one task, or do you think that the present setup is alright? Is the grammar passable, or is it incomprehensible?
Are the times and dates annoying should I keep them, do they make it easier to orient yourself in the story?
I think I may break future chapters up into smaller scenes. It may help them stay focused on a single aspect, instead of being about six or seven scenes. Again, let me know if you like these medium length chapters, or if you want them changed in some way.
Would you say the ending (Not the epilogue.) to Harry Potter is Bitter, Bitter-Sweet, or Sweet?
When I originally wrote this story in 2018, I wanted to mirror the Harry Potter story, this story has mutated more than a turtle exposed to Ooze. Still, the ramblings below may help explain my mindset coming into this story.
Please take a minute to formulate an opinion. If you'd like to share it, you're welcome to do so.
I've been thinking about it while I've been writing this story. I would like to explain how I got my opinion before I say what it is.
Who is Harry Potter? At his core, Harry Potter is a neglected orphan who wants attention. This is portrayed in Harry's willingness to put himself at bodily risk just to win a game, if it means that he receives compliments which compare him to his father.
What does Harry Potter want? Harry Potter has 2 moments that showcase what he wants.
The first and most obvious is with the mirror, he sees his family. Thus, he wants a family.
The second is less obvious. He wants to live with Sirius Black, he knows next to nothing about Sirius. "Oh, he's my father's best friend…" Not a compelling argument for Sirius being that great of a parental figure. At his core, Harry wants a family, he wants someone to want him.
At the end of the books, who is Harry Potter? He is a neglected orphan, who neglects his orphaned godson. Teddy is oddly a reference to Neville, as he is a pureblood orphan raised by his grandmother, and his "parent" does not love him.
At the end of the series, Harry becomes a godfather. Reading through the 7th book, I was certain that this would be an analogy to Sirius. i.e., Harry would immediately seek out Teddy at the end of the book, he would have learned from Sirius not to seek out revenge. Part of me honestly believed that Harry Potter would have disappeared at the end of the story, absconding with his godson into the unknown. I think an ending as a newspaper article by Luna asking "Where is Harry Potter?" would have been a better ending, it would also allow for future stories to be told if JKR wanted to continue the story later.
Thus, you would be able to see that Harry had learned from Sirius, whom he looked up to as a father. It would have been a touching moment, and a high point for the story. (Connecting threads and all that.)
Instead, the first thing Harry does upon defeating Voldemort is what? He repairs his wand, and he forgets that Teddy exists…
What does repairing his wand represent? It represents his readmission to a community that makes him special, waking up to a new world where he is put onto a pedestal, but it also represents his link to Voldemort, and how he is the Boy-Who-Lived. So, it represents him being special, needed, and accepted.
This illustrates that Harry is more focused upon acceptance/recognition by a community for himself, than he is upon his family.
The ending was very bitter to me. Harry had won the war, but he had lost himself somewhere along the way.
The epilogue gives credence to this idea. As Ginny says that if Teddy marries Victoria, he will finally be part of the family.
To me this indicates that Harry never convinced Teddy that he was a part of their family. It leaves a rather bitter taste, that Sirius, who shared the stage with Harry 4 times, abandoned a child so that he could seek revenge, and treated Harry like a replacement for James. (when he was not having psychotic lapses and believing that Harry was James.) That Sirius, was a better father figure than Harry turned out to be, with 17 years of peace, no criminal charges, and not being insane from being mentally tortured for twelve years.
I am not really bothered by the ending, I just think that it is a bitter ending. It shows that Harry's character has changed from someone selfless to someone who only thinks of themself. From an orphan who would who wants a family more than anything else, to someone who refuses to be a family for an orphan.
Do you concur with my opinion? Did I get it completely wrong?