Act Two Chapter Five: The Knight of Wands I

I am a liar. I had a night off of work tonight and said to myself, why don't you do a brief writing. Great idea self. Thus I somehow wrote the last 1800 words as well as edited the entire thing in like three hours. By the way, that is the only positive of not having a beta reader (someone please beta for me!). I know this is shorter than normal, but I like where it ends and think if I do the next part as well this chapter would be over 7000 words... and updated in March. Thus, baby chapter.

Response time.

Urgazhi:

Thank you for another review praising me. It does well for my self-esteem and does improve my writing time. Though I may get big-headed if it keeps up, luckily I have people to bring me back down!

Slycerr:

This is the chapter posted after you reviewed it. I hope someday you get to read this. Thank you for having a wonderful conversation with me and have a great day!

Metricspace:

If you wish I can give you some recommendations. Calling my work among the best as much as it inspires me should not be the case. But as with Urgazhi: Praise me more. Feed the ego!

The Closer You Look updated today. For everyone who finds my story depressing check it out. It is so fun and brings a smile to my face. It also has Harry using off-brand magic.

Time for the normal spiel.

Please review. I do love to get those reviews; they make me feel good. As always, I need a beta.

Rights are to JK Rowling and Warner brothers. Please write a review, feedback would go a long way to improve my work. I don't care if you want to tell me I am the worst writer ever (if you do please tell me why and what I can improve) just tell me what you think!

Harry relaxed as the room filled with person after person. They were in Le Manoir Des Impressionnistes in the Port de Honfleur, a bustling city south of the Flamel's home and west of Paris. It also marked the last location of Harry's stay in France for the foreseeable future.

Adventure awaited in the Atlantic.

He sat as old comrades spoke in what they assumed were soft tones, but they rang heavily in his ears. They spoke of spoils won of material, men, and women alike. Of one last ride and retirement funds, children, and hopes. While they spoke Harry stayed still, eyes wide shut.

The twenty-something company sharing the room eclipsed what Harry had had in a week, their interactions driving his secondary social anxiety. He steeled his breath and focusing within, the fluttering deviations withdrawing.

That week had been magical.

What he originally assumed was a house devoid of magic showed to be the opposite, as the people who lived within used magic as naturally as Harry breathed. He felt them, the ever-flowing magic through themselves, cleansing and purifying inside. The stone kept them alive, but their magic kept them young and intact.

In the week he had spent his most time with Pen...mother, the word still tasted foreign upon his lips., uncomfortable to say. They did many chores together: gardening, hedging, cleaning, cooking. Throughout the task, despite the commonality of The Dursley's home, it never dissuaded him. His loneliness never arrived, and throughout P...mother would share stories, of which she had a plethora.

It was in those tasks he sensed it. With the cool breeze from the not distant English Channel, the flavor of magic brushed his skin, a familiar one that had safety and care within it.

The first instance of her southing magic was after a horrible dream, the same one he had since the stone incident.

When asked about it, she failed to understand his question. To her, what she did was as natural as sight. To explain it to someone without would be impossible. For someone never experiencing sight, putting the experience into a precise explanation of instruction would be impossible.

But Harry had felt his magic flow, he had pushed magic with intent through himself, only consciously and with effort. Thus, began his summer task, constantly flow, but controlled, and never peer into a mind while doing so.

It was his mind-reading that led to his understanding of the art, and Fleur's intrusion into him that let him understand it better. Still, despite his experience, consistently running magic exhausted him. It made the task lethargic and his limbs heavy like they were encased in lead. How his guardians persisted this action escaped him.

With his eyes still closed, he felt the familiar tingle beside him, Nic was on his left. Counting lead to twenty-three others being in the room, twenty-two of them being human, twenty-one having wizards magic. His roommates resulted from Nic's work in the previous week, while Harry spent time with...mother, Nic had quickly acquired a crew for a quest. Harry learned the target today. The failed whispers of the room predicted his destination, Atlantia, or the muggle term, Atlantis.

The name had popped up occasionally in History, though never explained in depth. It was a constant spot of trouble with wars being waged on its storied lands, lands being larger than a city. Atlantia was a continent, larger than Australia, hidden behind wards older than the statute and layered with more expansions than days in a year. It is hypothesized the time dilation between the continent and the unhidden world eclipsed ten to one, though none performed a formal test.

Time dilation was a magical effect Harry had found in his mother's books. It was a phenomenon that occurred with things that possessed magic within spaces expanded or frozen in time. That time flows regardless, a self-clock ticking against that of the spinning world.

It was the reason February twenty-ninth existed every year at Hogwarts, the special enhancements of the school perfectly aligned with the offset in orbit, another sign of the genius that was the founders. It was the reason someone like Albus appeared so old. His self-time was larger than muggle time by a century if Nic assumed correctly.

Nic coughed, simultaneously amplifying his voice, drawing the room's mummers to still. Harry allowed himself to see again as the strain of flow became exponentially more difficult.

"Welcome everyone and thank you for coming on such brief notice. I will speak briefly before we tuck in one last time on European soil. Everyone attending knows our destination, and that the sum of participation will be great. We seek that which many sought before; The lair of Balagos." His words despite being known to the participants still allowed some to gasp at the name. "Yes, I was not joking before. If any wish to not continue forward, I will understand and not fault you for it."

"And you would bring a child?" A woman spoke. Her face was average, framed with black locks and holding the skin of injong, as Gong, an upper-year Slytherin, would say.

"He is the principal reason I have called for this quest, something Balagos possess I believe will assist this man with a trouble of his."

"But to bring him?"

"I did not say he is assisting in the beast's assault, only that he attend the site upon completion." He paused, waiting for more opposition, though none followed. "The boat leaves tomorrow and we will dock in Rômnen after 18 days if all goes well. Rest and eat. And again, thank you all." The people's voices flared to life once more, fear and excitement held fast in their tones. Nic motioned for Harry to follow him, which he did without need. Blood rushed to his extremities as he stretched for the first time. Before they could escape, however, a familiar voice called his attention.

"Harry, I repeatedly am discouraged that I failed to celebrate this last Christmas with you." The cool grey eyes of Cepheus Black met his. "Though I look forward to spending quality time together in the next weeks." He smiled. Unlike his speech, it sang of truth. More confusingly was the lack of hostility he gained from it.

"Black, what are you doing over here? Slipstone said he wanted to convene after the speech." A man sporting familiar red hair joined the conversation, though his attention was not on the two most famous attendants.

"Weasley number one, I am, like always, astounded by your lack of tact. I would have assumed you would at least grace our host with a welcome. Or do you not know who is funding our expedition? Or the person it is running for?"

"Black, I am still your superior. I would suggest you lay off."

"Or what?"

"Should we leave?"

"No, this is better than reading Tolkien."

"I was Head Boy."

"Funny, so was I."

The normally quiet, strong, and powerful Black became more and more childlike as the conversation continued. Both argued until a creature cut from stone and marred in sulfur broke the argument by berating them both for arguing about petty nothings before the client. Spitting a false apology, the goblin left with both men in tow.

The Knight of Wands.

In their spacious double room, after a brief reading of The Two Towers, they both lay awake in beds. "What did he mean he failed to see you at Christmas?"

"Last year, near the beginning of the year, he asked me why I had never gone. I still don't know what he meant."

"Why would you go? From my knowledge, only those one generation removed from Black attended. I see nothing regarding that family changing over the course of fifty years."

"He mentioned me being the head. I don't understand the implication."

Nic lifted a brow, "Did he now. I will need to investigate this."

"That is what Albus said, too. Moments before telling me I could not attend."

"Yes, I can understand his position. Albus has a... history, regarding the house of Black. Before you ask, it is not my story to tell."

"So, what should I do?"

"Be cautious around Cepheus, he gains the most by you never returning here. I did not sense any malice from him. Though one can never be too careful."

"Alright Nic, I will do that."

"Don't forget to write letters to your two French ladies. It will be a while before you can write to them again."

Harry blushed and turned on his side. "Shut up."

With a laugh, Nic replied, "Goodnight, Harry."

"Night, Nic."

"We will all ignore Alastair."

"Shut up, toad."

"Be quiet, you devil."

"I am a... well, actually I am a devil."

The Knight of Wands.

Emptiness.

The void.

What lay below?

It called.

Beckoned.

The vast nothing begged for him to join.

They brushed the vessel, lulling its victims. The soft rock as it lifted and dropped them. Any moment it could end the voyage. Any moment they would cease.

"C'mon, Harry." The third youngest on board entered his nook. Pinched between crates and hidden below a tarp, protecting him from the angry sun, he watched over the waters. The prison to nothing below. "It is dinner time."

He wanted not for food. Only to be off the water. Before he believed The Black Lake was the ultimate horror and uncaring thing, but alas no. The waters of the Atlantic ran of salt. To drink is to kill. The Black Lake could frost over, but this monstrosity would destroy winter. In these blue waters, he witnessed no ripple of life. The Black Lake at least advertised its abomination that lay in the waters. The child of some unknown thing known was better than whatever lay trapped below.

"Are you seasick?"

Was he? Yes. But not in the sense, Charlie assumed. The waters turned his stomach, and the air burned his lungs. The sun uncaringly lay destruction from above while the waters tricked those on board into believing they were safe.

"It's going to storm, Weasley."

"What was that Harry?"

"The waters show. From the north, a gale is coming, vicious for the intrusion. It hunts for us; it will not rest till it finds us." That was the thing that would happen. "I am wrong. It does not hunt." He stared into the northern horizon, "We are just in its way."

Charlie left.

That suited Harry fine. After a moment to quell Alistair's curiosity, he opened his text. With a concentrated effort, he read while feeling the flow. The work's division caused slower and exponentially more arduous tasks than either in separation, but he needed to succeed. This was his answer to control, so he would never unwittingly attack someone like Fleur again. She did not deserve his attack.

He did not deserve her pity.

Harry wrote as he promised he would. His initial letter was his last as well. It would arrive in time with her, or so he planned. A quick script. It spoke merely that he would travel and could not talk more. That he wished to shop for his school supplies with another, but if she failed to reciprocate his invitation maybe they could go together?

The letter to ...mother was longer. He thanked her for time, for her effort, for his clothes. With ...mother talking was easier, easier than even Albus. With her, he opened about his other residence. He could tell her about how lonely he always was. Harry even told her about Tracy.

She had suggested he write again, to try to put his feelings into words. He rejected on principle. If she chose to be without him, he would never force her or guilt her.

Mother worried about him, though. She told him as much. While preparing to leave, she told him talking about it was good. Something he should do more.

He told her, with no hesitation, he would speak to no one else.

Maybe Tracy, if she accepted him, but mother did not need that information.

Her answer was the ultimate gift. A journal. "Write about your day here. Tell it how you feel, and perhaps you will feel better as a result."

The thing was slim with a binding of simple leather. Written on the first page in the familiar calligraphy of his mother, 'Property of Harry Potter.'

With a sigh, he put down his book and withdrew the journal from his satchel. The deck repopulated, and he knew the forbidden things written on the pages would bring the group to sacrifice him at sea.

Oh, and Alistair would be killed too.

He felt a jolt of fury in his direction.

"I would care if they killed you, you are no afterthought." He smiled at his toad.

Annoyance.

"Whatever."

He drew a quill and inkwell, placing them on a smaller box to his right. Flipping the thick parchment, he brought the quill to the page, still carefully regulating his magic.

"Just write what happened today, easy." The quill stayed still, letting a black spot formulate on the page. "How?" How he could write his day?

Dear Tracy,

It began.

Today is the start of an adventure. I wish you could have come. We left France this morning with the sun at our back, and as I speak it is leading us forward. France is huge. As we left, it grew shorter and shorter, but until I could no longer see it, not even with a telescope's aid, it stretched entirely on the horizon.

I dislike it here. The sea scares me. It reminds me of being alone. Like before Hogwarts. It also reminds me of my dreams. Where I am alone, with nothing else forever, and island isolated.

The people are kind, however. Most of them leave me completely alone. Cepheus Black is here! He is so different from school. I also don't think he believes in blood superiority as great as people said. He spent most of his time accompanying a muggleborn and a Weasley.

That's right, a Weasley. They are everywhere, like rats.

Remember those jerks who prank us, their oldest brother was Head Boy. He is really smart and nice. But more than that, he is not alone. Their next oldest is also here, obsessed with dragons that one is.

That is everyone I have talked to so far. Everyone else is loads older.

Well, not as old as Nic.

Or Alistair.

He heard the rumble. In the distance, the loud moaning of the sea called. Below his tarp, he was safe as a sudden rush of water met them from the sky.

I need to go. The storm is starting. I need to make sure we don't capsize.

Sincerely,

Harry Potter

Day One.

He closed the book and before he placed it away; he felt it. The familiar tingle of his magic.

Harry did it. Just like his guardians, he used his magic unconsciously, putting it into an action he did.

He smiled despite the rush of energy the sky called helping the sea assault the vessel.

Harry's normal fear was absent. Instead, he only held a smile.

The Knight of Wands.