Chapter 9
Harry had never had an outer body experience before, but he guessed that must be what was happening to him as his mind seemed to leave his body so he could gaze down at the scene below him.
Rylan stood grinning at Harry, hands dripping with blood, while Harry's body stood still as a statue, eyes unseeing, while the raven flapped around them both in a uneven circle.
"Kill, kill," the raven screeched, though who exactly he was talking to Harry hadn't a clue. He still wasn't sure what the raven even was, and now was not the time to ponder on that particular mystery.
"They gave you a guide?" Rylan said while he briefly observed the raven.
Harry said nothing, could say nothing, since his mind was still floating somewhere far, far above the rest of him.
Rylan shrugged off Harry's silence and went on as if Harry had answered him anyway. "And a raven, too. You must have made an impression, my boy. I always knew you had a lot of potential."
Without warning, Harry's mind fell back down in his body, and the sensation of being corporal again was almost painful as his muscles tightened and blood rushed in his ears.
"How?" Harry managed to grind out between clenched jaws. More than anything he wanted to know how Rylan had found them. He already knew why Rylan had murdered Rindyll; to punish Harry for daring to run away.
"How?" Rylan released a burst of obnoxious laughter and gave Harry a look as though he never realized before how stupid Harry was until that moment. "Did you really think anyone in this world could walk the deathlands without me knowing they'd opened a portal?"
Ah. Of course. Harry squeezed his eyes shut. He should have realized that. Someone should have realized that. At once Harry's chest filled with fiery fury directed at Karakas and Auntie Eustice and most of all himself, for not realizing that a necromancer as powerful as Rylan would sense the moment someone else opened a gateway to the deathlands.
Harry should have known and now Rindyll was dead.
Rylan's bloody smirk slipped off his face and at once his expression became one of intense focus. "You know why I am here, what I came for."
Harry swallowed hard around the thick grief in his throat. "I know. And I'm going to have to disappoint you."
Narrowing his eyes, lips thinning, Rylan stalked closer to Harry, who remained frozen in place. "You did not dare, boy."
"I did," Harry said in a trembling voice, because he knew that this was the moment that would decide everything, Harry's entire future and probably even his life. "I burned it all."
Rylan released an unearthly screech as he raised both hands, blood dripping from his palms, and send a burst of sheer magic in Harry's direction. It hit Harry in the chest hard enough to crack a few ribs and it sent him flying backwards until he landed hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.
"Tell me you are lying!" Rylan screamed, advancing on Harry with furious strides. "Give me the ritual, you useless sack of shit!"
Harry fumbled in his pocket to get hold of the opal he used to cast wizarding magic while trying desperately to inhale breath after breath through his burning ribs. He raised a shaking hand and aimed a finger at Rylan. "Stupefy!"
Rylan's raised fist erupted in purple flames which easily countered the stunner until it fizzled out into nothing.
"Bombarda!" Harry managed to yell while falling all over himself as he tried to get up.
The same thing happened as before. Rylan swiped away Harry's magic with a burst of purple flames until he stood in front of a swaying Harry, who had barely managed to get to his feet.
"I am giving you one chance, boy," Rylan said in a venomous tone while his grey eyes glowed in the darkness. "Give me the ritual or I will spend the next year torturing the information I need out of you and I will enjoy every minute of it, I promise."
"Run, run," the raven cawed as it circled above them.
Harry swallowed and panted, still unable to draw in enough air to keep his mind from swimming. This was it, then. This was to be the end. He could apparate away, but he wasn't leaving Rindyll's body behind, because her body was the only chance Harry had to bring her back. He could send more hexes or curses flying Rylan's way, but Rylan was powerful enough to counter Harry's wizarding magic.
And Harry barely knew any necromancy at all, certainly not enough to go against someone like Rylan.
So this was the end, and it would come in the form of months of torture and Harry was genuinely terrified but he saw no way out of it.
The raven landed on Harry's shoulder, causing him to startle for a second. "Portkey, portkey," the raven cawed as he flapped a large wing against Harry's head, as though trying to knock some sense into him.
"What is it saying?" Rylan demanded.
"No clue," Harry mumbled, but an idea had suddenly occurred to him, thanks to his new guide. He wasn't about to run away and leave Rindyll's remains behind, but he could send Rylan packing. "You're right," Harry said, gathering his courage while he looked Rylan straight in the eye. "I lied. I have the ritual here." And while ignoring Rylan's triumphant grin, Harry stuck his hand in his satchel and summoned the emergency portkey his mother insisted he carry.
It was an old book of boks recipes that had seen better days, the pages stained and the cover torn.
"This is the first one," Harry said, barely looking at Rylan as he offered him the book. The second Rylan's hand closed around the book, Harry let go and shouted, "Fortuna!"
And with a sharp pop, Rylan was pulled hundreds of miles away to one of the safe places they'd camped during their initial flight from the school.
"Thank fuck," Harry breathed, and then pressed a hand in his side to rub against the stinging, burning pain from his cracked ribs. "Come on, we're getting out of here," he told the raven, who still sat heavily on his shoulder. Harry stumbled over to Rindyll's corpse, grabbed hold of her cold wrist and apparated them to a location some fifty miles away, in the middle of a small forest that was the domain of a local warlord who used it only for hunting wild boar and let no one else live in it.
The second they landed, Harry let go of Rindyll and set about casting the strongest wards he knew. He wasn't sure if Rylan would be able to sense a resurrection ritual the way he'd sensed the portal to the deathlands, but Harry wasn't going to make it easy for him.
They hadn't dared use wards when summoning the portal to the deathlands, because Harry had worried it might interfere with the necromancy and perhaps make it impossible for him to return to the land of the living or something equally horrifying. Now Harry genuinely wished they'd taken the chance and protected themselves better.
But that was in the past and what mattered now was bringing Rindyll back.
Of course, Harry had never resurrected a human before. He'd only ever managed a dog, had never even had the chance to progress to a monkey, but his need to bring Rindyll back was so great that he was convinced he could do it. And he'd walked the deathlands now. That alone made him a real necromancer and should give him the skills to bring a human back.
Once the area was protected, Harry started a small fire while the raven watched curiously from his perch on an overhanging tree branch. Harry sat down beside Rindyll's naked body and used his opal to clean off the blood from her pale, cold skin, to heal the many cuts across her body, including her neck, and finally to conjure a simple sheet to cover her clean body with. Then he rubbed his thumb across the amulet and summoned his family.
"Oh no," his mother said as she crouched beside Harry while everyone else gathered around them.
"My dear, dear child," Euphemia sighed as she stared down at Rindyll's still form.
"What happened?" Auntie Eustice asked, looking down at Harry with a hand pressed over her mouth in shock.
"Rylan happened," Harry whispered. It was strange. He was sad, incredibly so, but he could spare no tears. All there remained was an utter emptiness inside of him that made him believe he was the one who'd died, and aching ribs to remind him he was still alive with every breath he took. "I'm bringing her back." And without waiting for a reply from his family, Harry summoned Karakas and glared up at his mentor. "Tell me everything you know about resurrecting a human."
"Harry, I doubt you have the power for this, even if you have walked the deathlands. It takes extraordinary skill and many, many years of practice to perform a ritual such as that," Karakas said, eyes creased with sympathy.
"Tell me!" Harry all but yelled, because he had no time for excuses. All he wanted was Rindyll back.
"Very well," Karakas sighed, exchanging a few worried glances with some of Harry's family, but Harry ignored them all and started preparing a ritual circle while Karakas explained what he needed to do in detail. The basics of the ritual were the same, whether you resurrected a mouse or a human, but the amount of power and concentration needed made all the difference.
Before long Rindyll's body lay at the centre of the ritual circle and Harry summoned a nearby hedgehog and a squirrel to use as living sacrifices to power the runes. A few slicing charms later, Harry dripped their blood around the circle and started to chant.
The drain on his magic was unbelievable the moment Harry initiated the ritual. When resurrecting cats and dogs Harry had always ended up exhausted and in need of a good night's sleep, but now Harry was genuinely worried he might end up accidentally killing himself, such was the feeling of his very life seeping out of him and into the magic that would bring Rindyll back.
Harry didn't care, though. It would all be worth it to have a living, breathing Rindyll at his side again.
The next thing Harry knew was waking up beside Rindyll's cold body while the dawn cast long shadows in the forest all around them. His family was nowhere to be seen.
"Not dead, not dead," the raven cawed while it flew down from the branch above them and landed in front of Harry. "Sleep, sleep."
Harry swallowed and blinked against a sudden burning in his eyes.
He'd failed.
Somehow, he'd failed at finishing the ritual and he'd passed out instead. What a sheltered, weak little swot he was that he couldn't even get this right.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Harry leaned forward until his forehead rested on Rindyll's stomach and great, big heaving sobs washed over him. Harry didn't think he'd ever cried like this before, as though all that was left inside of him was sorrow and grief.
The raven blinked beady eyes at him while it looked like it didn't have a clue what was going on.
Harry didn't want to lose Rindyll, he really, really didn't want to lose her. But if he couldn't have her back in the flesh, at least he could still talk to her. With a brush of his thumb across the amulet, Rindyll was there at his side again, shimmering with an inner light as she floated in front of him.
"Harry, I'm so sorry," Rindyll said, much to Harry's surprise. "Rylan got the drop on me, snuck up on me before I even knew he was there. I'm so sorry I left you alone."
More sobs wrecked Harry's entire body and it took quite a while before he could reply. "No, I am sorry. It's my fault. I tried to bring you back, but I'm not strong enough to do it and it's all my fault."
"It's not," Rindyll assured him with a sad little smile. "It's Rylan's fault and no one else's. And I'm fine, Harry. There's no pain here. I am finally free."
Nodding, Harry tried to hold back more sobs but failed at that, too. Rindyll waited patiently while Harry gathered himself enough to look up at her again. "I miss you."
"I'm right here. I'll be here whenever you need me," Rindyll said with a reassuring smile.
Harry stared at her and for the first time realized she was dead. That she wasn't alive.
It was a peculiar revelation. Harry loved his family. His very dead family. They'd always been enough for him because he'd only ever really known them as dead people. He simply didn't remember them as ever being alive so he had no memories to compare their dead versions to.
But Harry knew Rindyll as a living, breathing person he could touch and kiss and fuck and sleep next to while he listened to her breathe in the darkness and all of that was gone now, and the shimmering Rindyll that floated in front of him was a poor substitute for the living version of her.
"Yeah," Harry finally whispered, just to assure Rindyll that he'd be fine and that he'd talk to her when he needed to because the last thing Harry wanted to do was reject this dead version of the person he loved most in the world, and yet that was what his gut told him to do because she wasn't and could never again be the Rindyll he'd known and loved all his life.
"Burn, burn," the raven cawed as he pecked at Rindyll's cold hand.
"He is right," Rindyll said with a firm nod. "You have to burn my body. You don't want it to fall in the wrong hands."
Pursing his lips, Harry stared down at the dead body in front of him. "Yeah, I know."
"It's okay, Harry. I'll still be here," Rindyll assured him once more.
Except that she wouldn't be, not really, but Harry kept that to himself while he got up on trembling legs and stepped away from the body. He cast a quick Incendio and watched how flames engulfed the corpse.
The fact that it was a magical fire helped to speed up the process but it still took a few hours for the fire to consume the whole body and leave only ashes behind. And all the while Harry stared at the flames and felt nothing at all while his thoughts wandered far and wide as he contemplated what the point of being alive even was if he had to go about it all alone.
"Eat, eat," the raven cawed while it flew up to Harry's shoulder and settled there.
"I'm not hungry," Harry muttered, wanting to brush the raven off but not having the strength to do it. "Just leave me be."
"Maybe you should listen to him," Rindyll suggested with an encouraging smile. "He seems to want to help."
"I don't need help." And without waiting for a response, Harry dismissed Rindyll's soul back to the beyond. He'd lost her and the last thing he wanted to do now was stare at some poor imitation of her.
Harry apparated away to a random spot near a river a good distance away and set up his tent after warding the area against intruders. For the next few days Harry stayed there, barely eating and barely sleeping, just wandering around the tent, aimlessly looking for things to do while he was too tired to do them.
He didn't summon his family or Rindyll because he didn't want to deal with their sympathetic words or their pitying looks.
The raven was there, reminding him to eat or sleep every once in a while, but Harry mostly ignored him.
Until he realized he still didn't know who the raven really was, so one afternoon Harry sat in a chair and looked at the raven who was perched on a bookcase. "Do you have a name?"
"Yes, yes," the raven cawed as it soared across the tent and landed on Harry's knee. "V…V…"
"V…V?" Harry asked, smiling for the first time in days.
The raven clapped his beak while he narrowed his beady, black eyes at Harry. "V…V…V…"
"All right, how about we stick to V for now?"
V seemed to contemplate that for a few moments before he ducked his head in what Harry thought was agreement. For a good long while Harry stared at V and V stared right back, and then Harry sighed and ran a hand down his face.
"I'm the biggest fool in the world," Harry said, more to himself than to his new companion. "All this time I've been preparing for walking the deathlands, but I guess I forgot to come up with a plan on what to do afterwards when I eventually confronted Rylan."
"Dumb, dumb," V agreed with what sounded like a cackling burst of laughter.
"Yes, thank you, I hadn't come to that conclusion by myself yet," Harry said while briefly glaring at the obnoxious bird. "And now I've lost everything and I still don't know what to do about that monster."
"Plan, plan," V suggested and Harry wanted to smack him, really, just for stating the obvious. V seemed to realize he wasn't being very helpful because he tilted his head and added, "Books, books."
"Were you a Ravenclaw in your previous life?" Harry said absently while he got up, because he might as well move around a bit while he stared at his many bookcases.
"No, no," V said while he flew back up to his favourite perch right on top of the books on geography. "Slytherin."
Harry stopped dead in his tracks and looked up at V with widening eyes. How the heck did a raven know about the Hogwarts houses? Yes, Harry knew he was more than a raven, that he was a guide given to him from the beyond, and that he was possessed by a mysterious shade, but how did any of them know about the Hogwarts houses?
V kept his beak shut and looked down at Harry while sitting perfectly still as though he hadn't just shaken Harry to his core.
For a few moments, Harry contemplated getting to the bottom of this new mystery, but then he sighed and reminded himself he had more urgent matters to look into, like killing Rylan as painfully as possible, and he honestly didn't have the energy to do more than one thing at a time.
"My great-grandmother was a Slytherin," Harry said, just to have something to say because V was still looking at him expectantly. "Charis Black was her name, well, until she got married and then it became Charis MacMillan. She was a Potions Master."
"Rye, rye," V said, much to Harry's confusion. V hopped to the left and back again, bobbing his head up and down, looking quite frustrated with himself. "Rion, rion." Another few hops, another head bob. "Orion."
Harry's mouth sank open. He knew that name. He'd heard plenty about the Black family from both Dorea and Charis, not to mention James had spent hours and hours reminiscing about Sirius, and Orion was definitely a Black family name that came back every generation or so. "Are you the reincarnated soul of Orion Black?" Harry asked slowly, expectantly. It would explain everything very neatly, if Harry had ran into some Black forefather in the deathlands and the Figures had decided he should tag along with Harry as his guide.
The raven cackled as though Harry had just told a very funny joke. "No, no. Friend, friend."
"Ah." Harry nodded in understanding, but then narrowed his eyes in confusion. How the heck did the soul of Orion Black's friend end up with Harry? For a moment Harry was tempted to summon his family but he really didn't want to see them yet, so he decided again that this mystery could wait.
He had a necromancer to kill.
Without really knowing what he was looking for, Harry took his time browsing the bookcases, his thoughts wandering far and wide, to Rindyll and to Rylan and even though he tried not to, also to V and his strange connection to Orion Black. But then Harry was pulled back to the here and now when he came across a familiar book that he hadn't seen in years.
"Rindyll wanted me to get a barok to kill Rylan with," Harry mumbled as he pulled the book on Santika's native animals off the shelves and flipped it open. Instantly, V hopped down from the bookcase to land on Harry's shoulder, probably so he could read the pages in Harry's hand. "I didn't have the heart to tell her no one has ever caught a barok, let alone tamed one. They're resistant to magic, so coming up with spells to fight or catch it is not going to do me any good."
While Harry read through the chapter on baroks, V clapped his beak a few times and shuffled to the side and back on Harry's shoulder.
"Make beast friend," V finally said while Harry closed the book, his whole body filled with a warm flush of nostalgia while around the edges bitter reality was eagerly waiting to take over again.
"I just told you, V, you can't tame them. Many have tried. All have died." Harry shoved the book back on the shelf with more force than necessary.
V shuffled around some more. "Make friend beast, make friend beast."
"Aren't you listening?" Harry demanded, because he had no time or patience for useless advice. Not now.
V gave Harry a sharp, stinging peck on the cheek, even drawing a drop of blood, before he flew up a short distance until his claws latched onto a thick, old tomb that he promptly pulled off the shelves.
"Seriously? You're just making a mess now?" Harry muttered as he bent over and picked up the book. The cover was made of thick, worn leather and the words inscribed in it were barely visible, yet Harry made them out just fine.
Soul Magic
Harry blinked, something beginning to dawn on him.
"Make friend beast," V said again, looming over Harry from on top of the bookcase.
"V," Harry said slowly, backing up to his chair and sinking down in it while clutching the tomb to his chest. "V, do you think it's possible to put a deceased soul into the body of an animal?"
"Yes, yes!" V flapped his wings in obvious excitement. "Make friend beast!"
Harry's eyes were prickling while his throat instantly went dry. This might be it, the solution he needed to take out Rylan once and for all.
Baroks were resistant to magic, all sorts of magic. Attacking them with it had little use.
If Harry could pull off this plan, Rylan with his fancy purple flames wouldn't stand a chance against the beast.
Without even thinking about it, Harry brushed his thumb across his amulet until Rindyll floated in front of him. Harry slowly looked up at her smiling, expectant face.
"How would you like to be a barok?" Harry asked her in a whisper while showing her the cover of the tomb in his lap.
Rindyll blinked once, twice and then she broke out in an enormous grin. "You could do that? I could be a barok? Nothing could hurt me if I was a barok."
Harry's smile was a little watery as he nodded in agreement. "You'd be the strongest thing in this world if we can pull this off."
"Yes, make me a barok." Rindyll's smile faded a little as she gave Harry a questioning look. "How are you going to manage this?"
Harry shrugged, not at all concerned about that question for some reason. He'd figure it out. He had the rest of his life to do that. Besides, it wasn't as if he had to come up with all the details of this plan alone.
With another swipe of his thumb, his family was there and so was his mentor.
Much to Harry's surprise, Karakas looked decidedly less there, his bright shimmer clearly diminished, and Karakas fell onto his knees before Harry.
"Please, child, you must keep me here," Karakas pleaded, eyes wide while he placed cold, ghostly hands on Harry's knees. "Rylan summoned me and he can inflict great pain on the dead as it turns out. Keep me here, don't send me back to the beyond where he can reach me."
That was something Harry hadn't even considered, but now that he heard of it he realized he should have. Of course Rylan would summon Karakas from the beyond to get him to cough up the ritual, and of course Rylan would know ways to inflict pain even on the dead.
"I'll keep you here," Harry assured his old mentor. "You haven't told him about the ritual, have you?"
Karakas quickly shook his head. "I gave him a false ritual, one that won't work, I swear it."
"Good. You're safe now. But I do need your help." And with that Harry explained to his family what he was planning.
"I love it!" Auntie Eustice proclaimed with a clap of her hands and a proud smile directed at Rindyll. "If you didn't want to do it, girl, I'd volunteer."
Lily and James were a little less enthused as they looked at Harry with worried frowns. "This is seriously dark magic," Lily said and she probably would have said more but Harry interrupted her as he jumped up from his chair, his still healing ribs burning in protest.
"Rylan killed her!" Harry snapped, gesturing wildly at Rindyll. "And he wiped the floor with me. My wizarding magic did nothing against him. I need a way to kill him, and this is the only plan I have!"
"It's a good plan," Charlus said, much to Lily and James' surprise. "Yes, it's dark magic, but in case you've all forgotten, Harry had been preforming dark magic for years now. What's a little more if it can actually save his life and get rid of that monster?"
"I agree," Patroclus said, even the pragmatist. "Harry, we'll help. Let's get a realistic plan together."
Before James or Lily could protest any of these new developments, Fleamont spoke up. "He needs a broom."
"Oh yes," Bernadine agreed. "If he is to get close enough to a barok, he needs to fly."
"Fly, fly!" V flapped his wings a few times, drawing everyone's attention to him.
"What's with the bird?" Rigel asked with a puzzled frown.
"He's my guide from the beyond," Harry said, deciding that he was keeping any other interesting titbits about V to himself for now. Planning how to make Rindyll a barok was more important right now.
Auntie Eustice gave Harry a reassuring smile. "We'll help you build an amazing broom, don't you worry."
"A barok is resistant to magic," Charis muttered as she gazed off into the distance with a thoughtful frown. "But you can use magic on their environment, create a magical trap that uses natural material."
"Yes," Dorea agreed at once. "Place the trap over a ritual circle, say a cage made of rock, and you'll be able to hold the beast in place long enough to place Rindyll's soul inside of it."
Harry sat back in his chair and looked between his family members and for the first time since he'd found Rindyll bloody and beaten and dead he felt a spark of hope again.
They had an actual plan to kill Rylan, and that was more than he'd ever had before.
While his family talked amongst themselves, adding details to the plan and brainstorming ideas, Harry got up and poured himself a cup of water, which he drank in one thirsty gulp. Then he got a pot of water going on the woodstove, to make some soup with the root vegetables and salted meat he had in storage. If he was going to pull this all off, he needed his strength and not eating in days was not a way to maintain that.
After a night of restless sleep, Harry packed up his tent and apparated to a new location, in a vast forest to the east this time. If he was going to make a broom, he needed wood and lots of it.
As Harry followed Auntie Eustice, Fleamont and Dorea around the woods, looking for suitable trees, V sat on his shoulder and peered down at the opal in Harry's hand, even trying to peck at it.
"I use it to cast wizarding magic," Harry whispered, holding the opal out of V's reach. "So leave it alone."
"Wand, wand," V said while giving Harry a look as though questioning his intelligence.
"If only Ollivander had a shop in Santika," Harry said with a sarcastic snicker, ignoring the restless bird on his shoulder. The bloody thing was heavy, yet refused to budge.
"Make wand," V screeched, pecking at Harry's cheek in obvious frustration.
"I don't have a magical core," Harry replied through gritted teeth. Great, now they'd drawn the attention of his family, who were staring at him in confusion. But before Harry could explain what he was squabbling about with a bird, V shuffled around on his shoulder, his head and long beak reached all the way over his own back. Once he righted himself again, he had a long, black tailfeather in his beak.
Auntie Eustice's whole face lit up. "You can make a wand now, since that bird is magical!"
"Huh." Harry stared at V, who looked entirely self-satisfied while rubbing the feather in Harry's face. "Okay, we'll make a broom and a wand."
And that is exactly what Harry did over the coming months. He camped at a new site every day, slowly travelling across Santika to the coast in the South-east, where the ocean between the two continents was the most narrow and Harry could easily cross it on his broom during the night. He contemplated just buying a boat and using that as a base of operations, but Harry knew nothing about sailing, had never even been on a boat before, so he'd be better off just making the crossing on his broom and flying back if he needed to set up camp.
It was quickly decided that setting up camp anywhere in the Grim Gorges, where the barok lived, was suicide because magical wards didn't work to keep them out.
Harry's first attempt at making a broom was…well, it wasn't a disaster, as the broom did fly, but it was uneven and that made the break charms buck and it leaned heavily to the left.
"Good effort," Rigel said with a proud smile. He'd told Harry all he knew about brooms, which had always been a hobby of his. "I promise you, it's a better broom than you'd find at Hogwarts."
James snorted loudly at that in amusement.
"Yes, yes," Dorea agreed. "But it's not good enough to hunt a barok with, so try again, Harry."
Harry's next attempt was better, far more steady in its handling and Harry couldn't stop smiling the second he mounted it and took off into the sky. It was a fine broom, but still too slow.
"Again!" Auntie Eustice gave him an unforgiving smile while she crossed her arms.
Attempt number three was much, much better, and most importantly, it was fast. Harry cried out in sheer joy as he climbed high and dove down fast, V soaring by his side in wide circles while cawing at him in encouragement.
Making a wand turned out to be trickier, but Auntie Eustice was a harsh taskmaster who would not accept failure as an option. Harry made a few practice wands first, to learn how to magically turn the wood and how to inscribe the runes, and once he had learned those processes, it was time to pick the right wood.
"Yew, yew," V suggested with a loud caw.
"Hm." Auntie Eustice gave a thoughtful nod, but then quickly shook her head. "No, not yew. Cyprus."
V blinked his beady eyes and stared at Auntie Eustice for a moment before bobbing his head in agreement.
"Where did you say you got that bird again, Harry?" James asked, not for the first time.
Harry shrugged, no longer concerned with V's origins since the bird was only ever helpful, if not a tad arrogant at times. "He was a gift, Dad. He's been useful."
They found the perfect Cyprus tree in a field near the coast where it stood alone with its mournful branches reaching down all the way to the ground. Harry approached it on the night of a full moon and muttered the ritual words as he sliced off a single branch. He then spent a whole week carving and turning the wood, and inscribing the runes before adding both V's feather and the opal he'd been using as the double core.
When it was ready and Harry picked it up, a strong flow of heady magic rushed through him and out of the wand in a shower of silver, gold and black sparks.
"Congratulations, sweetheart," Lily said with a glowing smile. "You've got a wand!"
Harry beamed at his family, finally feeling something like himself again after months of being empty inside. He'd studied the right ritual to use, he'd made a fast broom and a powerful wand.
He was ready.