Act Two Chapter Nine: The Knight of Wands V
Welcome back, everyone. I have a small confession to make... I may or may not have forgotten to upload this chapter a month and a half ago. It may or may not have been sitting here waiting to go live. So as an apology I might be giving you two chapters today!
In regards to updates.
I know this is my less popular story, and if I just wrote the other one most of my readers would be happy. But I do this for me, and I like this story more. I have made it clear the SNAFU one may never be updated again as I only write it when inspiration hits me. Please, if anyone wishes to write more on top of what I wrote I am fine with that, my work is done on the backs of other writers and I am sure that people reading my story can write something as good, if not better, then me. I love the reviews and even the PM's, but that story is not one I can force out.
BLAH BLAH BLAH beta please BLAH.
Reviews:
Pteaset: Thank you!
Urgazhi: I appreciate it there is more in this one and the next. I actually did not read Dresden only that amazing crossover, which everyone should read! It is called The Denarian Renegade and is amazing. Requires literally no knowledge of the series. I am actually just an enthusiest of mythos and thus have alot flowing around.
Ok... There was this guest reviewer. He was kinda down on my story, but I think I can call this my first flame. Make sure you comment so the last thing people see is not how my story is not worth reading. I am going to do a little rant now.
I guess to answer his questions and offer some of my own.
I have him sorted there because the hat sees things the reader from the perspective of Harry doesn't see about himself. To him in Diagon, why would anyone mention that he is famous. Do you walk up to celebrities and go, "Hey your famous." No, he is a child who does not understand his station with adults believing he knows. Why would you question, if someone is famous, if they know they are? You assume they know. Or in the case of Dumbledore, try to hide it from him so he is not overwhelmed.
Onto the Headmaster, you obviously didn't read the part where Dumbledore definitely knew what happened to him, or did you not read the scene where he apologizes?
To the poor Harry part, I may be heavy with it, but he is the narrator and has a lot of mental and social disorders from years of abuse. Is he sad and self-deprecating, yes? Please look up some common traits of borderline personality disorder and depression before you accuse me of writing something that is only about angst. I try to do my research before I pen something.
And he also gets his first friend in the chapter you dropped my story. It is a happy chapter that has little to no angst, which is what you were complaining about... I just don't understand.
Rant end.
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!
The air tasted rancid as Harry's nose twisted in disgust at the odor. He ached with unfamiliar pain and stirred with unfamiliar exhaustion, not even the troll drained him so. The first sensation he had painted his closed eyes in the hint of light, and the soft stroking of his hair, much like how his mother had done for him many nights in his home when he had night terrors.
His clothes stuck to his frame, laden with his skin's precipitation. Voices argued above his quiet and still form, though the words came as hazy preludes to language.
For now, he was content to lay still with the warm hand running throughout his damp hair.
As minutes passed, the beating rush of his heart silenced from his ears, allowing the voice of others to reenter them. One was Nic, and two others spoke.
"… An abomination, I witnessed it," the voice was female and harsh.
"He is a good boy," Nic softly replied.
"You say that after the acts he has done. I only know of two actions now and I cannot think of many monsters worse than him," the female retorted in feral tones. Despite Nic's age and wisdom, this woman spoke to him with an air of superiority.
"Please keep it down." So, the third voice was Selphie, given the position of the sound she was responsible for the comforting feeling atop his skull. "He is still resting,"
"As he needs to, without him I doubt we would have fared as well," Nic said, shuffling around the room. His voice tenser than Harry had experienced.
"That human is a beast and needs to be purged," the stern voice argued, spitting venomous anger.
"You would kill a child?" Harry imagined the look on his face when he said that. Albus must have stolen the innocent question routine from him.
"No simple child can command like that. No child can bind like he has. He is no child, he is a demon," the lady snarled like a feral beast. He knew she looked at him, her intense glare and curved mouth readied on him like a wolf in the wood.
"Mother," Selphie came to the defense. Her voice was soft and non-confrontational.
"Quite girl. You need to be punished for your action, as will your father for his negligence," the identified voice of Ildilyntra Silverleaf bore into him. The unprecedented situation of someone holding him in contempt for the actions he did was new. Someone else saw the evil that he was. Someone else agreed with his opinions on his horrible self.
Harry was used to hating, he received it every day in his old house. Even after escaping he again was shunned and hated for things beyond his control. Ildilyntra was different than the hatred of his past. She hated him for his soul. It stemmed from his actions rather than things beyond his control.
"You step across your bounds. She agreed to an oath. You would cauterize it?" Nic responds with a dangerous tic Harry only heard once previously when Harry had commented on the muggles in the streets of London.
"My daughter should not be shackled like some creatin," the Silverleaf mother whispered intensely.
"No wonder in all your longs days, the fey have never come for you. Your disregard for the common courtesy and respecting the power of an agreement is lost to you, Queen of the Wood," Harry could hear his smirk it was so large.
The disrespect that Nic held to the matriarch broke Harry's charade as the soft whistle of air extracted itself.
"Even now he feigns rest as my daughter sits vigil, protecting her slaver. She worries over him and yet he fakes his injuries,"
"Injuries you gave him," the heated voice of his follower shouted with the same venom as her mother, sounding so similar yet showing such a range of emotion.
"And an injury I thank her for," Harry sounded, finally opening his crusted eyes. His voice came out hoarser than he wished, as the air came through his dried windpipe. With a slight cough, he continued, "Thank you, Queen Silverleaf. If not for your prompt interruption, I would be dead." He tried to sit up and show the proper respect, but the fresh wound on his side erupted into a fire at the action. Suppressing a wince, he stayed his form.
"I should have killed you then and there or waited to let the beast kill you himself," Her eyes were lit in flames, born of passion and fury. They saw him and found him wanting, and they attempted to burn away the filth they saw without the aid of spell or fire.
He held her gaze, for its power was not so that it eclipsed the ones he had already met. Her fires would be dosed by the cool crystal of Albus, snuffed by the brilliant grey of Nic, and washed by the loving blue of his mother. "Why didn't you?"
"What was that?" The emotion she had reminded him of another. Her tone could only bring up memories of a time before, someone who considered themselves superior.
Unlike Vernon Dursley, however, she had power and charisma in spades. Enough so her warnings had merit and would be followed upon. If someone as weak-willed as Vernon could assume violent action in hate, what would someone with equal passion and the power to do so accomplish?
"Why did you not let me die or kill me yourself? I am guilty of the crimes you accuse of me and many more. What stayed your hand, or rather, acted it?" He pushed. Hoping to understand.
Understanding.
It has always driven Harry. From a young age, he had tried to understand the things he never experienced: fun, learning, love. They all were absent in his growth. It led him to magic, to sights into the minds of others, in violation to nature, on the curiosity of understanding.
Harry could understand his classmate's hatred of himself, for it was natural for Harry to be hated. He understood the desires of Tom Riddle, for it was the nature of powerful psychopaths to glutton power, and the sadness of Albus Dumbledore, for the monumental decisions he chose for the good of the many ended up destroying his self.
He remembered Ariana's smiling face, the ultimate form of torture, for her's was the cost of it all.
Understanding.
It brought him to the art of divination. To predict events that would come and solve for them accordingly. All this did was leave him with vague predictions that made sense in hindsight.
Ildilyntra left without a word, not even a parting one with her only daughter.
Understanding.
It seems he still failed to.
"Help me up, I wish to see," Harry said to Selphie, who looked at him with her warm smile. Nic giving his approval set him on his feet.
The pain in his side was nothing compared to what followed.
The Knight of Wands.
Harry witnessed the campsite as it still burned. The flames of the defenders had destroyed many tents beyond measure, others were damaged extensively but still useable. The cost of property paled compared to the life toll.
Three graves had been dug in the morning's light. Three men that Harry failed to learn the name of and who died for a cause whose responsibility was Harry's. The members who had become close to them mourned the deaths of the three nameless ones: two elves and a man. But the cost of it all was more.
The three men were better off than the other ten casualties of the fight. How they could be called that when they yet lived raised bile in his throat, though a glance from Nic prevented his intervention.
They could be like Martin. They could be good and kind. There was a fair chance that they would fight off the darkness and strive for better than the curse they received. They were not causes that could only be left behind.
Ten bodies cried in silent horror with wooden stakes planting them to the ground. The tear-streaked faces frozen in fear as the sun began melting their flesh from bone and bone to dust. The silent prayers of the helpless group were overseen by a man clad in black robes and a shawl as he offered forth a "true prayer" in the Latin language. He smiled as he did the "good work" of removing the undead scum from the world, as if his actions were praiseworthy. The man had killed ten living men on the chance they would steer the path of evil. What would his God say to that?
A few members of his group did not wish for the death of their fellow man, openly arguing, the familiar duo of Master Fanucci and Florian seemed to argue apart from the rest, with his master in favor of the needless murder.
The overwhelming feeling of erased suffering let him know the evil ritual that had been performed had finished, as his lifeless eyes looked to each pile of ash. He battled tears, forcing them not to fall, instead, he froze his heart to the senseless massacre. So much cruelty for a curse they had not chosen to bear, all for the fear their species inspired in the hearts of man.
Men failed to understand the fear should be pointed inward. Vampires followed the logic of the world; it was humanity that truly was the monster.
The Knight of Wands.
By the time the sun had crawled to its peak, the campsite was only just being packed. Representatives from the purging crew that Ildilyntra led talked with Nic's over the misfortune. It being decided this rouge band of Vampires were outside of their own prey, and much weaker than the force Ildilyntra had expected to encounter. Her enemy lay deeper in the forest yet, but the path they traveled should be clear of more undead as signs to the south were sparse to zero.
Selphie became his legs as he rested on her shoulder, watching the camp. The healing specialist of the group had checked him over and tried casting a spell on his wound, only for no effect to be had. The man who hours before murdered ten people tended his wounds with a smile, looking at Harry with nothing but kindness, "The elf lord must have a strong enchantment upon it, for it to cut so easy and make wounds that repress attempts to heal." He told Harry, wrapping the wound in a fresh bandage. When the tall, bearded man left, Cepheus took his place. Wrinkles of worry stretched across his face.
"Are you alright, Harry?" He glanced between the elf and human as if asking permission.
"Yep, only a flesh wound, nothing to worry about," Harry said, forcing a smile, the first show of emotion in hours he tried. One that Cepheus saw through with little effort.
"Did one of the bloodsuckers get you?" The grey-eyed boy reached for the wound, only to stay his hand, whether he saw Selphie or decided otherwise, Harry did not know.
"No, an elf got me," Harry said with a grin, a genuine smile. Selphie glared at the wound in question.
"How does that happen?"
"She helped me deal with an enemy, but I got hit by her attack that let us kill it," Harry said, though the meaning of his words was not targeted at Cepheus.
"You killed one of them," his voice rose an octave as he forgot the worriedness he came with, instead holding awe, "How, you are only twelve?"
"Eleven actually, and I got lucky, it didn't,"
"That is a really poor explanation," the man deadpanned.
"Sorry," Harry said with a shrug which brought with it a wince. The stretching sensation on his torso burned with the added motion.
"Quit bothering him, let him rest," Bill joined in, giving a playful wack to the former Black hair's skull.
"Damnit, Bill, don't hit me," he turned to the new arrival, louder than before rubbing the wound.
"Ya, ya, whatever you say," the redhead began ruffling the smooth long hair of his close friend, one that shared a color with Harry's own, it only dawning on him now how tall Bill was as he towered amongst the group.
"Will you two take your nonsense elsewhere, Harry needs to recuperate after his ordeal, you jerks," Selphie's broken French was yelled at the two males, who looked in shock at her outburst. She had stayed relatively quiet around them, but this outburst was more in line with herself, the one Harry saw behind tent flaps.
"I am really glad you are both alright," the sincere words were strange on his lips. How long had he never cared for others? When did that change? He wanted the approval of these two. He wanted them safe.
"Ya, me too," Bill responded with a warm smile, "we have to do some more inventory, see you later." He left with a small wave, dragging the Black heir with him.
The Knight of Wands.
Harry had taken to ignoring the godly man. Not that he paid attention to him before, but now he could hardly contain the rage that entered him whenever he saw that murderer. Though his criticism was hypocritical considering the toll of life that he accounted for, the newest editions only weighing upon him more.
But they did not have to die, no those ten were not on his list, they were on the practitioner of the holy rites, and the members of the group that allowed it, that called for it.
People like the cook.
Or Master Fanucci.
Or Bill.
Even Bill wanted them dead, those who did nothing wrong but exist were wanted for death. How could someone as good and kind as Bill want that?
The group had grown more somber, and yet more on edge as they moved deeper into the wood. The dense wood continued to drown out the sun. Conversations between the men had all but dissipated into marches of silence.
Why then was Harry surrounded by constant conversations?
Soft voices had tickled his ears as they walked, wanting of food, or sleep, or for less noise scaring off said food. The quiet voices had grown and multiplied in volume and quantity as they marched out of the woods and into a small grassland area.
That night they made camp on the edge of the dark woods. Harry's side burning from exertion.
That night he ate with Nic.
He missed the loud sounds of laughter the camp had always brought. Harry missed the exhausting energy that came from knowing that soon they would sleep. He missed sparring with his master, smiling as the pain came. Instead, now the nights only brought with it, remembrance of a cruel ambush which saw a friend and ally murdered.
Now he could hardly look at the man he once called teacher without remembering the hate he had against the vampires who had yet to commit a crime beyond existence.
The stew was as delicious as it always was. The natural ingredients enhanced by magic lit up tastebuds more than anything else had.
"What was that the other day?"
"A prototype before the actual one is made," Nic said before sipping his own stew. He seemed the least moved by the deaths of his peers than Harry or Cepheus had been, or even the nameless faces of the group.
"It let me cast magic or at least a bastardized version of it."
"Do not swear, it is unbecoming," Nic responded in a voice that rang like Cepheus.
"What word would be better used?"
"Crude. Perhaps unrefined, much like your speech," the thinly veiled smile failed to pass Harry.
"How did it work?" Harry placed down his bowl and propped his head with both hands, giving his wound rest. He smiled at the conversation. It was unstrained unlike the conversations of the larger part of the group: familiar and kind.
"Simply?" Harry nodded, "It converted your magic to something usable by your wand. Your magic is volatile, but it also is bad at changing from one type to another, which is what a mage's body usually does, that stone did the process of changing type for you."
"And it couldn't handle that strain, which is why it failed?"
"Well," he scratched his chin, "I could have done a better job of increasing the efficiency of the rune, by altering the instructorial language from a proto language into a more modern one I could increase the capability at the cost of power, something that you have in spades, although the charging would take longer in that case, however…" Harry sat with a growing smile as his guardian devolved into a long and high leveled single-sided discussion over the runestone he had crafted Harry and the theory behind it.
Something about the passion in his voice had turned a switch in Harry's mind. Nic was doing all of this for him. Nic cared about him and wanted a better life for him.
He smiled even after laying down for the night, with the comforting strokes of Selphie's hand lulled him to the earliest and deepest sleep of the journey.
The Knight of Wands.
The grassy planes continued to create the horizon line as the days passed. Every step burned into his side, a remembrance of his failed fight. The flat grasslands brought little in the way of game, the stew now had the tougher meat of bird and snake and fieldmice rather than the deer and boar and rabbit of the wood. Being out at night left him and the camp feeling vulnerable with the cover being completely absent. Their progress marching in the day had drastically decreased, to the point of progress feeling like nothing. As the sun sat heavily on their backs and the view never changing.
Until the mountains changed the trip.
The first glimpse of them was hardly different from the plains before, until they had set a progress marker.
For their destination was within those mountains.
It took three days to meet them, and in those days something changed. The small voices he had heard left. As if the area was warded of them. It pressured on him as well, warning that something like him did not wish him here. It felt nothing like magic, instead, it was a natural instinct.
Selphie said she did not feel it, odd sense her connection to nature was greater than his. He noticed the slowing and wondered if others did too. The elves who before made the walk with no effort were growing tired by the end of the day. Their breathing began to waver slightly as the hours passed.
They made it to the mountains after midday. Small ridges that grew into towering monstrosities appeared devoid of any life.
But the watch of the path knew of them. It saw them. Harry knew it, but not of it.
"Leave," one voice shouted, the sound ricocheting and leaving no hint of location.
Not one of his group responded.
"Be gone from my home and never return," a second voice added in a faraway voice, as if only waking.
"I do not wish to harm you, manlings," the third pleaded.
His group continued the desperate march up the sloping side, moving into a low valley. Something tugged on his heart. Something would happen.
"Nic, we need to find a different way, a different pass" Harry stopped walking as some men moved passed giving him odd glances. He stayed rooted.
"Why Harry, the guides say this is the best route forward?" Nic responded, confused but walking to him regardless.
"Don't you hear it warning us?"
"Hear what, Harry?"
The voices grew louder, telling them to leave. The three voices wished nothing more than to be left alone.
"Our eggs must be safe, do not come any closer."
"Stop," Harry shouted, still not moving from his spot, the sound echoing through the upcoming gorge.
His plea fell on deft ears. No one listened to him, they never did.
Master Fanucci did not have the time to raise his blade before a gargantuan snake blindsided him.
"I warned you, and now you will die," the left head said. The same that wished them no harm before.
"That was a dumb move, useless manlings," the right head added with a ka ka ka at the end.
The snake in the middle continued working on the body of Harry's instructor, watching the group with its emerald eyes over dusty brown skin.
Spell and weapon alike crashed against the enormous creature but the tough scales rebuked them. It coiled and struck at the attackers, bludgeoning them with a body wider than a car and biting with teeth the size of Harry's forearm.
Charlie and his master moved forward, amidst the cover of Elven warriors, who used their mastery of their crude imitation of Ildilyntra's weaponry against the humongous tail of the monster, stalling the swipes.
Harry could do nothing as elves lives were snapped shut in the blink of an eye.
Then the dragon handlers' spells hit the target. Bright chains of energy sprouted from the ground, wrapping the three-headed snake, and bringing it tight to the ground.
"Way to get trapped," the right head said to his other heads.
"I was not expecting that," The left retorted.
"It doesn't matter," the middle said as its head slipped backwards as the slender form of the snake wriggled one head free of the chains, rearing to strike against the dragon handlers who had beads of sweat dripping from the spell's exertion.
"Save them," he commanded.
His follower did so.
Stepping forward, she asked for aid; she reached out to the things that loved her so. The wood and plant were her greatest allies, so upon them, she called. Her poem was quickly uttered as a song, with lyrics ringing incoherently in his mind, but the image they painted of could only be Avalon.
What was Avalon?
The grass grew and snatched the head before it could strike the men who held their spell.
Nic had left his side when Harry did not know, and threw a stone at the raised head, struggling against the reinforced nature. When the stone reached its peak, it exploded in a rage of energy, bringing the choking head screaming for help to silence as only a burning stump remained.
With a scream of rage, the other heads broke containment, the visible backlash bringing the two spellcasters unconscious. "We will kill you all," the left head spoke as the right brought another human to death, not swallowing it but throwing it against the rocky mountainside.
A spell hit the eye of the speaking head, making the thing flail around helplessly.
"Calm yourself, idiot," the other head berated it.
"We must protect," it wormed, "protect the children."
Nic ended that head next with a nimble toss of stone.
"Death, you will all die," the last head went to strike Nic, who thumbed through his bag of tricks and trinkets. He had no time to save himself.
"Selphie," Harry said, tears streaking down his face.
Another lot of grass hits the face of the beast. The action was the last of the battle for the young elf as exhaustion took over.
"Weaklings bow before me. Die." It screamed again, rearing to finish.
"Stop," Harry hissed at the beast.
"Speaker?" It locked eyes with him, confused, "Speaker, protect the-"
A bolder crushed its head.
"That was for Fanucci," Florian shouted with a vicious grin as the weight of the spell brought him down, a victorious grin on his face.
All Harry could feel was numb. They shouldn't have come this way. It warned them, and they didn't listen. It was his fault people were dead.
He killed Master Fanucci.
He killed the beautiful snake.
It was his fault.
Around him, people looked at him in horror.
Perhaps they finally saw what Harry did in the mirror every day.
The Knight of Wands.
The trip through the mountains was a test in isolation for Harry, a feeling he knew too well. When people looked to him, it was with untrusting glances. He could feel the hatred for him in their looks.
If everyone hated him, that did not matter. Here? The Dursleys? Hogwarts? Isolation appeared his normal state of being.
He had Nic and Selphie still.
Bill looked at him with disgust and Cepheus with fear.
Harry did not cry for them.
He held Selphie closer at night.
He knew she tired greater than he did with each passing day. Every step into the range had her constitution lesson, something that was more noticeable on her then her kin, but the signs of exhaustion had mounted on them as well.
Time folded while they hiked the crooked paths of the mountain ledges, the ever-present kind voice of the guide no longer present. The constant warnings, once a familiar company, were gone as the elf who accompanied the man before took the lead of the group.
Why?
Why did he die?
He still had more to teach Harry. Harry needed to learn why he supported killing the vampires. What allowed him to smile. Harry wanted to know, and yet he would never learn.
Why did he die?
It was you, Harry.
"Shut up," Harry muttered to himself.
"Harry?" He was eating dinner with Nic. When did that begin? Was it night? How many days had it been? Bringing the spoon to his lips had the food fill his stomach, though why the chef chose to not flavor it made no sense.
"I know you and I know you are hurting."
Was he? Did Nic know anything about him? He barely knew Harry. The man took him in on a whim.
Nic cared for him.
But what if he didn't?
"Harry, come back," the voice was soft like he was approaching an injured dog, "come back to me Harry."
"Hmm?"
"Can you talk to me? About what is wrong." Harry looked at the alchemist. For the first time in many days, he truly looked at him.
Nic seemed so much older than he was in his home. Worry and failure had weighed down his strait back and disarray had made residence on his forehead. At home he was carefree. With his wife, he always smiled. When was the last time Nic smiled in happiness?
"I am so confused," Harry started. Nic waved him on. "I just feel, overwhelmed. People who I think are good do bad things. People who I think are bad do good things," his thoughts trailed to the follower of God healing the wounded after the runespore attack, without a doubt saving many men, "people think I am bad, but not because of what would make them right in that judgment."
"You are not a bad person, Harry," Nic spoke in soft tones. His grey eyes looked into Harry's conveying comfort and security.
"I am responsible for everyone who has died," Harry argued, though his argument sounded flat. Harry felt that in his heart, it stayed in him a true conviction. Why then did it sound so weak?
"Am I responsible for their deaths?" Albus stole it. That thought almost made him smile. Albus could gift anyone with a smile.
"No, of course not."
"But it is my expedition. Thus, their deaths are my responsibility." His argument was irrefutable. Even in the contracts, everyone signed it stated that Nicolas alone was responsible for compensation after death.
"Why did no one stop when the snake told us to?"
The elder aged further, "so it is how I feared. You are a parslemouth."
"A what?"
"It simply means you can speak to snakes."
"Oh. Is it rare?"
"Can I tell you a story, Harry?"
"Of course."
"I will tell you of the most famous speaker in the last one hundred years, and the only one I knew personally," he paused, "it starts with a boy named Tom Riddle."
The Knight of Wands.
Dear Tracy,
I know it has been a while since my last message. Near a couple of months, if I am guessing right. Sorry to say, but I forgot about the notebook… sorry. I had… much on my mind.
The last time I penned you were before vampires attacked us. They were undoubtingly evil, and we killed every attacker. But we killed everyone who was bitten. It was so wrong. They were still good people, and now, nothing.
People I trusted agreed with the idea. I still can't understand that.
Then we walked more. So much walking. Directly into a trap. A giant runespore, Charlie guessed over one hundred, killed many more people. Including Master Fanucci.
I never got closure on his way of understanding the undead.
I never will.
Later, we ran into some trolls, but no one died there.
I saw a pack of hippogriffs and a griffin the other day. They were so beautiful.
A few of the crew said they saw a Patupaiarehe, but Nic says they are not native here, and doubted their sight.
We are near the dragon's layer now; it is in a cave in a really deep valley. They plan on striking tomorrow. I just needed to talk to you before that.
I miss you, Tracy. If I never see you again, I wish I could tell you how important you are to me.
With love,
Harry Potter.
The Knight of Wands.
Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.