Reviews:
Greyjedi449t: Thank you. I tried to blend the two types of magic from both series to make the story flow nicer and feel connected to both worlds.
Necrogod: No problem, enjoy the next one.
Greer123: Thanks. I'm happy you enjoyed the magical aspect of it, and yes, I did have a good Thanksgiving.
Toast Guts: Thank you, I'll certainly try.
Disclaimer- Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling, and Berserk is owned by Kentaro Miura. I own nothing
She led Harry back to the garden and away from the supposed "storage door." Flora's answer regarding what lay beyond had been far too vague for his liking, as opposed to how she normally gave such lively descriptions. For some reason, his sense of curiosity seemed amplified, his imagination running wild. But, it was also something else; something that seemed to almost call to him, to pull him toward… something.
"Here we are." Flora's voice drew him away from his imagination train of thought. They were back in the garden where Schierke was watering the plants. A bee buzzed around the girl's hat, and she shooed it away with a point of her staff toward some sunflowers. "Hard at work, I see."
Schierke straightened when addressed by her teacher. "I finished with the potion I had been brewing, so I decided to help out here."
"No reason to defend yourself, Schierke," Flora spoke lightly. "I was actually hoping that you'd be out here."
"You were, mistress?" Schierke tilted her head.
"For what I had in mind, yes. Have you been keeping up with your ability to warg?"
Schierke bowed. "Of course, mistress. Do you require a demonstration?"
"Not for my sake, no." She looked over at Harry. "For our learner." Flora bent down near some of the flowers, seemingly looking for something. "Aha!" in her hand was a small green garden snake, which almost seemed content in the witches clutch. "I believe this little fellow would make a fine vassal for your first experience." Flora handed him the snake, which perked up at Harry's touch.
"Warging… you mean I'm going to be able to see what this snake sees?" Harry surmised from what he had been told about the art.
"See what it sees, feel what it feels, move its body around to your will," Flora expanded.
Harry looked down at the small serpent which was curled around itself in the palm of his hand. "If I actually do manage to take control over it, will it feel anything?" Harry wondered. "If something goes wrong, what would end up happening?"
"Usually warging requires a mage to have a luminous body, one that can exist outside of our existence in the astral world." Harry had still to summon the apple; an act which he attempted every night before going to sleep. "But, if you can talk to snakes that would be a great benefit to you."
"You mean if I ask nicely, the snake will allow me to do it," surmised Harry.
"Consent of sorts is needed from the animal," Schierke mentioned. "Animals can form bonds with humans either over time or just from being in tune with one another. If you really can talk to snakes, it could allow you to get past the fact that you haven't achieved an astral form yet."
Harry looked back at the serpent coiled in his palm. Sensing his gaze, the snake perked its head up, eyes unblinking and flickering its forked tongue. But, there was no sign of discontent from the tiny serpent. "Try speaking to it," Flora suggested. "Ask if it would be willing to share its mind and body." Flora gave an encouraging look, and Schierke looked at him with curiosity, trying to pass it off as being nonchalant.
Trying his best to imagine that he would get this right on the first try, Harry spoke. "Hello."
The forked tongue flipped up and down in rapid succession. "A sspeaker. Here? That'sss sssurprissing."
"It's talking to me," Harry spoke to the two witches.
Flora nodded in approval; Schierke, on the other hand, dropped whatever blasé appearance she was going for. If she had wanted to see him fail, her expression of wonder betrayed that completely. "What's it saying?" she excitedly asked.
"It's just surprised that I can speak to it," Harry admitted as much.
"Parseltongue is a rare trait," said Flora. "To have such a unique ability is a great blessing. Please, do not let us distract you. Talk to it some more. If it grants you consent, I'll tell you how to properly warg."
Directing his attention back to the snake, Harry said, "My name'ss Harry Potter. Do you have a name?"
"No name for me, sspeaker. Usss seprentsssss do not name ourselvesss."
"How long have you lived in this garden then?"
"Many yearsss. I wass here before the girl, but not the woman. Ssshe doesss not age, not here. Many of my brothersss and sistersss have found refuge near her tree."
"You like humans then? If you live so close to them."
"I've heard talesss from othersss of my kind. Humansss outssside of this foreesst, they are cruel, viciousss beingsss who would kill without a second thought. But thessse onesss, they are kind to usss creaturesss."
"Have you warged with them then?"
"Once, with the older one. Ssshe hass done sso with almossst every creature who comesss near this tree. Sshe iss in tune with all thessse animalsss."
"Would you be willing to try it again, with me this time?"
"Perhapsss, what'sss in it for me?"
"What is it you'd like?"
"Ratss, sspeaker; ratsss. The woman iss protective of all creaturesss, even the uselessss onesss."
"Well I promise if I find a rat then it's all yours."
"Much oblidged, sspeaker. I will name my firssst hatchling after you asss thanksss."
Harry looked up to see both witches watching him. "He agreed."
"Did he want anything is return?" Schierke asked. "Snakes can be faithful to those they trust, but they are sly to a fault."
"You're not wrong. He wants a rat."
Schierke blanched. "Even predators have to eat, I guess. I'm just glad that's its rats."
"You're glad, Schierke?" Flora asked. "I'm rather fond of the little rodents. The pitter-patter of their little feet always amused me."
Clearing his throat to get back on topic, Harry asked, "What's next? Now that I've gotten the snake's permission, what do I do now?"
"Ah, right." Flora cleared her throat. "First, make eye-contact with the snake." Harry did as instructed. "Now, imagine looking at yourself, but through the eyes of that snake; its eyes are about to become yours. That is a crucial step; magic comes from believing, after all. And finally, recite the following phrase; videm na conspectru tao ostinde maihi."
Videm na conspectru tao ostinde maihi. Harry mentally recited. He looked back at the serpent in his hand, it was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him. "Videm na conspectru tao ostinde maihi." Harry recited.
It was almost instantaneous. One minute he could see himself holding the snake as clear as day, the next it was like he was swimming through milk. Everything was a bit foggy, and Harry feared he had messed up and gone blind. But the white began to clear; shapes and outlines were becoming present to him now. He turned to look, but it felt like his whole boy moved in sync with his head and neck. Moving his arms and legs was impossible, he didn't have any.
The whiteness faded to near nothing and he found himself staring up at himself, at his own body. His human eyes were closed, and his body as still as any statue. Right now he was being held in the palm of his statuesque hand. Flora's image came into focus, and she extended her hand for him to slither onto, which was easier said than done. He was used to walking with two legs, and with only a body and tail at his disposal, it made for a great struggle.
Eventually, Harry managed to grasp the concept of whatever direction he moved his head and neck, the rest of him was sure to follow. He slithered into Flora's palm and was examined by the elderly witch. She looked him over as if to see if he was able to pass inspection. She spoke some words, but his snake hearing did not interpret all of what she had said. He got the general gist of it when she set him down in the grass, eager for him to test his legs, or rather, his tail.
With this new environment as his horizon, he slithered forth. It may have just been his imagination, but he felt faster as a snake. He slipped through the grass as if he were the wind, eventually being stopped by a sparrow landing right in front of him, his excitement quickly replaced by fear. In this body, he might be faster and more in tune with the environment, but he was much weaker. There was no way he could defend himself from being eaten by a-wait, what was wrong with the birds' eyes?
Circling around the pupil of the sparrow was a glowing turquoise ring. The same shade of turquoise of-Schierke? The sparrow bent down towards him, but not to peck him with its beak or to carry him off to a nest. It was examining him as well. A series of chirps came from its beak and it was bobbing its head over to where Flora and their two stiff bodies were waiting. The warg Schierke flew low to the ground and went to perch on her human shoulder. Getting the hint, Harry slithered his way back to his body as well. Flora scooped him up in her hand and held him level with his head. She pointed a wrinkled finger to the center of his forehead, and he extended his body to touch it. He saw white, and then black, and then color once again. He blinked his eyes and flexed his fingers. He was back.
"Well done," praised Flora as she let the snake down on the ground. "You've just achieved your first major step in the world of magic."
"Congratulations," Schierke said, her voice lacking any form of sarcasm or distrust. "I guess I was wrong about you; you do have magical talent. And I'm… sorry for being unpleasant before."
She held out a hand to him, and he took it. "That's pretty mature of you, Schierke. And once you get a bit taller, you'll look the part too."
"That's not funny," she deadpanned. "At least Ivalera wasn't here to hear-,"
"-Schierke!" the elf flew out from behind a sunflower. "Did you actually apologize?! You never apologize to anyone besides Mistress Flora. Are you feeling alright? Do you have a fever?"
"Oh no." Schierke shied away from Ivalera's hounding interrogation.
"The two of them have been friends since as long as Schierke has lived here with me," Flora informed Harry while the two bickered. "But all joking aside, you did splendidly."
"Thank you," Harry replied. "I had a good teacher I suppose."
"I simply taught you the incantation. The rest was all you. Speaking of which, may I now ask you a question?"
"With all I've asked you, it seems fair."
"You see, Parseltongue is a rare trait, as I've said. Usually, it is passed down by blood, what do you remember of your parents?"
"I never knew them. They died when I was just a baby."
Flora's smile wavered and turned to a frown. "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to bring back any bad memories. I was only curious."
Harry shook his head. "It's fine. Like I said, I never actually knew them." It was a cold thing to admit, that he was fine with not knowing his parents, had things been different, he would feel a pang of guilt. But he never even knew what they looked like, let alone what kind of people they were. The Dursley's never talked about them and they were Harry's relatives. Relatives, but not his family.
"Why not get some rest?" suggested Flora. "To achieve warging on your first attempt, and without a luminous body is quite the feat." Deciding to take her advice, Harry went back to the spirit-tree, passing by the storage door as he did so. He waited to see if he would get the same ominous feeling as he had done before; he didn't.
If warging had been an easy task, then what came after it was cause for infuriation; crafting his own staff. According to Flora, staffs were unique to each person and more "loyal" than wands. Staffs were all handcrafted by the future user issuing a strong magical bond between the caster and instrument. If for example, Harry were to try using Schierke's staff, he would find the power to be far weaker than his own; the exception being if Schierke willingly lent and gave him permission to wield it. He asked her if he could, she laughed at him.
"It'll be better if it's your own," was what she told him after her laughing fit ceased. And that was where the loyalty factor came into place.
Having the ability and understanding to perform magic was one thing, but it would be useless if there was no way to focus it. By handcrafting a staff, it made the bond all the stronger. The only exception to a handcrafted staff would be if a preexisting one recognized a person as worthy enough to wield it. When Flora told him that, it made Harry think that they were somehow alive in a way.
The materials required to properly craft included wood from a tree with deep spiritual connections, the essence of an animal, and a specialized core. The wood was easy to come by, Flora gave him permission to use some bark from the spirit-tree mansion. For the animal, after collecting a few rats to pay his end of the bargain, Harry was rewarded shed snakeskin. As for the core-well things went sour before he could get to that. The incomplete staff shattered in his hands, leaving them covered with splinters.
Ivalera, with her natural elf dust, was able to heal his wounds in a jiff, and thus Harry began the process all over again. She soon found herself overworked as staff after staff kept exploding in his hands. "Schierke, help me." The elf pleaded. "This boy is going to work me to the bone."
"Get some rest, Ivalera," Schierke told her elf friend. "I'll sort this out." Harry heard her approach from behind.
"Before you say anything, I know what it is I've been messing up on." Harry examined the wood he had just carved. "It's the grip. I'm not allowing any room for everything to fit on the inside. If I make it wider-,"
"-It still wouldn't work," Schierke cut him off.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, sounding more than a little frustrated.
"Any one of those ruined staffs would have been ready the first time, and if you keep up at this rate we won't have a spirit-tree anymore."
"Oh, you're right. The staffs that explode would have worked. What do I know?" his voice heavy with sarcasm.
"You're frustrated."
"Really? I had no idea."
"What are you thinking about right now?" she asked out of the blue.
"I'm thinking of how best to make this staff," Harry answered, trying to sound like he wasn't close to exploding like so many of the past attempts.
"Exactly, you're thinking about making it, not what you plan to do with it. Magic reacts best when it has a goal in mind. So what's yours?" the image of a face came to his mind almost instantly. Instead of mindless babble, a kind, yet also relieved look was on her face; like she was ready to reprimand someone in an older sibling kind of way. He set back to work once more, this time he had a feeling things would turn out very differently.
Wood from the spirit-tree, the skin of a snake, and lastly, "Ivalera," Harry said to the elf, "I know you've spent a lot of dust healing my hands; but do you think you can spare a little more?" much to his relief, this time it did not explode in his hands. He had sanded down the wood to make the grip smooth, and he had gotten enough splinters in his life. It stood a few inches shorter than him, and the top was carved to resemble a lightning bolt, similar to the scar on his head. With this new item, the walking stick he had gotten from Godo's seemed a bit obsolete, with the exception of one thing.
Harry unsheathed the hidden blade from the walking stick. "Godo, forgive me." He concentrated and brought the top of his staff down to where the blade attached to the hilt. It fell off as expected, and taking the blade, Harry tied it around the bottom of the staff like a type of makeshift spear.
"You've done well," Flora told him when he presented her with the finished version of his staff. "When you feel you're ready, I will teach you how to enter the astral world via a luminous body. Now that you have a staff, it will be all the easier."
She bid both him and Schierke a good night and they retired for the night. It was a night that would prove to be an unpleasant one.
At first, Harry had thought he had warged by accident. He was in a snake's body, that much was certain; he knew what the sensation was like having done it before. But this was different. Instead of being in control of the serpent, it was more like he was the one who was along for the ride. This snake was clearly in charge of its own actions. It slithered through the night silent as a ghost, fitting seeing as it was in a graveyard.
Some ways away, a house was visible on a hill overlooking the graveyard, no lights were on, but the snake made a beeline for the house all the same. The house was old but far too nice for any peasant, some lordling maybe. A hole was present in the back door which was more than enough space for the snake to slither on through.
It turned right and ascended a flight of stairs to where a voice was calling a name. "…Nag…ni…" it was weak; whoever was speaking seemed to be on the verge of death. The snake picked up on the voice and picked up the pace, perhaps to go in for the kill. The head prodded a half-closed door open to a room where an armchair rested. Faint breathing could be heard from the other side.
The snake slithered round and-a door appeared in his line of sight, a round door that apparently led to storage. He seemed to phase right through the solid wood and enter inside to the awaiting darkness.
Harry opened his eyes and made a mad grab for his glasses and staff. His bad leg ached a bit at his sudden awakening, but the metal brace helped to relieve some of that tension. He had to know. He had to know what was behind that door.
He tried to keep his steps as light as possible, but every now and again, his metal brace would creak. But he made it to the outside alright. He stuck close to the base of the tree, feeling along the bark for the sanded perfection of the door he sought. And he found it. He pointed his staff at the handle, trying to think if he had read the spell that would open locked doors.
"It isn't locked, you know?"
He whipped around to see Schierke standing behind him, Ivalera on her shoulder. Both looked tired, and not amused. "Is sneaking out going to become a habit of yours? Because this is the second time I've caught you."
"Look, I had this… dream, alright?"
"A dream about the storage room?" Schierke said before yawning.
"…Yeah," Harry kept the first part a secret. Even he couldn't make heads or tails of that one. "Are you going to try and stop me from going in?"
Ivalera seemed to relish the thought of it. "Do it, Schierke!"
"What is it you hope to find in there anyway?" she asked, annoyed. "Don't make me regret having put a little faith in you."
"Less talking, more magic fighting!" Ivalera egged them on.
Harry could only shrug. "I have no idea myself. I don't know what's behind that door, do you?"
"I've only been down there a few times when I was younger, and I don't remember too much about it."
"And you're telling me that you're not the least bit curious?" Harry tried persuading her.
"It doesn't matter if I am or not," Schierke told him. "If Mistress Flora does not want us to enter, then we should respect her wishes."
"It is not a sin to be curious." It wasn't Harry who spoke, but Flora. The elderly witch calmly walked toward the two of them.
"M-mistress Flora!" Schierke's tiredness vanished in a flash.
"How did you know we were-?" Harry began before she pointed to an open window on the mansion above the storage door.
"My window was open, and you were speaking quite loud." She smiled cheekily.
"I'm sorry for disturbing you, mistress," Schierke apologized. "I know that you don't want anyone going into the storage room, and-,"
"-And I believe an exception to the rules is overdue." Her statement stunned all three of them as she went to open the door, and a faint light appeared from within the lower base of the tree. "Curiosity can be quelled easily, especially when I know that it won't be the only instance of this midnight sneaking occurring."
The room was a bit packed; tables mainly occupied the space lined with different ingredients and glass containers. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, save for the suit of armor resting in the corner. It was ebony black, and without a dent or scratch on it. The design of the plates was so intricately crafted that no human could have made it. And the helm, it looked like it resembled a skull.
Wait… "Is this-,"
"-Made by dwarves," Flora said. "They were the finest crafters in any part of the physical world. A subspecies of goblins tried to replicate their craft, but they never succeeded."
"Has that always been here?" Schierke asked her teacher.
"For quite some time, yes. The last user died while wearing it; bled out completely while fighting. It is one of the two dangerous items that is kept down here."
"Where's the other one?" Harry asked, his eyes roaming to spot any other abnormal artifact.
"Do you recall when I said a sorcerer named Merlin had discovered this place long ago?" at Harry's nod, she continued. "He left something behind before he departed as well."
He was running. His bare feet were probably cut up all to hell from the cobblestone road, but he felt no pain; just an overwhelming sense of fear and anxiety. Something was chasing after him down these narrow streets. Something that was a jumbled mess of what a human body should look like. Skinless and blotchy, small and grotesque with an open, toothless mouth, and a singular eye that was unblinking.
His feet carried him far, but the creature did not have to run to catch up to him, it was always there, right behind him. At last, he came upon a gap in the road, one that led straight down into a black abyss. If he looked behind him now, it was going to be right there, right in front of his face. He had to-,
Guts' metal fist came back to squish the succubus that had been feeding off of his nightmare. It was the same one as the night before, the demon child plagued his dreams as of late, preventing him from ever enjoying a moment of rest.
"Good, you're awake!" Puck flew into his face. "Because we have some company, and I don't think they want to have an idle chat." The light from the campfire Guts had started reflected off of the steel weapons the corpse soldiers held. Bony hands shot up from the ground, and the undead warriors rose to fight as they had done in life.
"Brilliant," Guts mumbled strapping the crossbow onto his arm and firing a volley at the first wave. As he neared the end of his ammunition, he busted out Dragonslayer. The huge blade cut three skeletons in half easily sending their bones flying in all directions over the forest.
More gathered in a cluster, but a shot from his canon decimated their bones, burning them beyond recognition. "Is this all you guys have got?" Guts taunted the undead. "No wonder you all died in real life." Dragonslayer became a blur as bones went flying.
Puck watched in fear and awe as Guts fought another battle. He almost missed the shape that had manifested within the embers of the dying fire. It looked like a misshapen fetus. And its sole eye was trained solely one Guts as he fought. Puck tried to get close, but an aura of unadulterated power kept him back. The fetus made no move, it just watched Guts, watched him until the sun came up.
A/N: Sorry if this chapter was a bit short, I had a ton of papers and presentations due this week, and I tried to get as much of this done as I could. Anyways, thank you for reading.