Author's Note: I don't really like posting triggers, but just know there are some in this chapter. If you need more specifics, sorry.
Balrogs and Barrow-wights
Despite her not being arrested, the entire school had been talking non-stop about the minotaur hauling Hermione off and MacNair claiming she had released the basilisk. As she walked around the school on Sunday, people whispered about her and kept their distance. At dinner, Dumbledore returned from the Ministry and approached Cedric first to pass him a note that he had successfully demonstrated a stunning spell for his checklist on becoming a prefect. While he embarrassingly accepted congratulations from other students for his stunning of MacNair, the headmaster continued to Hermione at the Ravenclaw table to tell her that she was not being arrested but to report any more dealings with her secret admirer.
That just made things worse for her.
Now, not only was the rumor mill talking about her plans to petrify all the purebloods in the school but also that she was receiving love notes written by everyone from Gilderoy Lockhart to Marcus Flint. Just because she didn't know who had been sending the messages didn't mean that people weren't going to speculate.
Fred and George decided to take things to the next level and started to grab Hermione at the beginning of every meal and carry her into the great hall on their shoulders announcing her as the Heir of Slytherin and for others to protect themselves by sending her the most poetic love notes. It would have stayed a joke until someone actually did send her a poem.
Tuesday morning, an owl dropped off a note in front of her. She read it silently before crumpling it up and throwing it over her shoulder. One of the twins snatched it before it even hit the ground.
"What's this?" he said. "Let's see what it says."
The other twin snatched it from his hand, "You shouldn't read that, aloud, in front of the entire hall."
"You're right," the first one said, with the attention of all the students on them now. "I shouldn't read it… You do it!"
The second one jumped back to avoid Hermione jumping up to take the note back as he stepped up onto the table behind him, his foot on someone's plate, and began to read.
"We don't have dances, nor a fancy ball,
So I just look at you across this Great Hall
I see you reading and think it's grand
So I wrote this poem with a plan
I'll send this so you'll postpone
Any plans you have to turn me to stone."
"Awww, that's adorable," Twin #1 said to a very red Hermione.
"Why didn't you like it?" #2 added. "Huh? Why? What is it?" he pestered.
"It's a bad poem!" Hermione blurted out. "It started kinda romantic, but then started begging. And the rhymes are bad. I grew up reading Shakespeare. How could anyone think that's a good poem?"
From the other side of the room a boy jumped up, "I'm sorry! Please don't feed me to the basilisk!"
"Arrrgh!" Hermione groaned. "I'm not the Heir of Slytherin!"
"That's just the kind of thing the Heir of Slytherin would say," Blaise chimed in with a chuckle.
Hermione growled at him, then stomped out of the hall.
Harry was also getting a large amount of attention because of his Gandalf impersonation and his attack on MacNair. The man still hadn't returned to the school, but the rest of the team including Morris and Boovie, the minotaur, were still sniffing around the school. Any time they crossed paths with Lyra, her hair exploded into flames and the fearsome man-beast kept its distance.
All of their classes were doing their final assignments and biggest spells for the year. For Charms, that meant the animation charm. The spell took inanimate objects and gave them complicated movement. Professor Flitwick informed them that one of the practical portions of their final exam was going to be making a pineapple dance.
The spell combined elements of the levitation, repair, tickling, and what Flitwick said were the basics of summoning and banishing. Levitation for movement, repair for making sure none of the parts you were moving fell apart, and tickling to make sure tiny adjustments and pushing helped with the movements of the object you were working with. Flitwick informed them that this was only the first step in combining spell elements and they would be adding more in the future. The spell required a lot of focus and a lot of practice, which led Harry and Lyra to the Ravenclaw common room to practice the spell on Wednesday evening.
Rowena's common room was typically a very quiet place with people reading or writing essays, but recently the noise level had gone up drastically. With exams approaching, there was a lot more spell casting for practice, and the room was also flooded with students from other houses that were getting tutoring from those in the most studious house of Hogwarts.
Harry and Lyra were each currently working with a wooden cube, trying to get it to perform a choreographed dance that Flitwick had given them for homework. They needed it to roll without leaving the ground three times forward, then twice to the left, then back one, balanced on an edge, then balance on a corner, and spin. The assignment would have been a piece of cake if they could use the levitation charm, but also if they didn't need to plan everything in advance. The real annoying part of the charm was that the entire set of movements needed to be part of the original spell with only minor adjustments along the way.
Lyra was getting better with wooden objects, but even now, when she got frustrated, the wooden cube started to smoke, and she broke her spell to calm down a bit. Harry was having problems of his own, as he was putting too much power into it and one roll would knock the cube five feet away from him, and there was no chance of it balancing on an edge, let alone spinning on a corner. Both of their frustrations were solved with the approach of Anthony Goldstein.
He waited patiently for Harry to look up, before saying, "Hey Harry? Can I ask a favor?" Harry shrugged, so he continued. "Hermione told me about your Gandalf impersonation. Any chance you could do a reenactment?"
Harry was about to roll his eyes when he saw Lyra's eyes light up at the idea and knew he couldn't back out of this.
"I guess so," Harry told him as Lyra smiled in anticipation. "I only said the one line."
"Doesn't matter!" Anthony started to push students out of the center of the common room to clear a space for Harry.
Once there was room, and everyone was watching, Harry pulled out his staff, looked around, and called out, "YOU CANNOT PASS!" before slamming the butt of it into the floor and a bubble shield burst out all around him.
"That felt different," one of the onlookers commented.
"It's not the same without that Ministry nut," another student added.
"What we really need is a Balrog," Hermione mentioned. Then, she looked to a table of older students, "Do Balrogs exist?"
Apparently, they didn't, and only a scattering of the Ravenclaws had read the Lord of the Rings books. That kicked off a full explanation of the series around the room as those who had read the books started to preach the Gospel of Tolkien to the others. A number of the more artistically inclined drafted up a sketch of the balrog from the details in the book and began to fight over the different features.
Most of the students who were raised in the magical world hadn't even heard of the books and were interested in the muggle take on how magic worked, even if it was completely wrong. Elves being tall, Goblins being filthy, Dwarves always having beards, and tons more inconsistencies with the world they knew. What made it interesting to those with magical backgrounds was that it was fantasy, and to see a different take on the normal lives they had grown up with was… magical.
As Lyra was espousing her love of the eagles to a few others, Penny joined them and commented, "I bet Lyra would make a pretty good Balrog."
The conversation got instantly silent as they stared at the girl who had outdueled Draco Malfoy with a fireball as shadows pooled at her feet. Lyra looked at their expectant faces and towards the students that were sketching out images of the Balrog. Without asking she walked over to them and took one of the drawings, then went over to Hermione's bookshelf and pulled her copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. She flipped through it towards the end and examined something before returning to where Harry was sitting.
"I'll be right back," she passed the book to Harry. "Practice your lines," she ordered him while pointing to a place in the book. Then called for Whispers who was lounging on the windowsill and the two of them ran out of the room.
A few others had gathered around him and looked into the book she had passed him to see it was Gandalf's confrontation with the Balrog.
Penny smiled, "I think she's going to play the Balrog. Practice your lines, Gandalf!" she repeated Lyra's orders to Harry.
It was only a few paragraphs, so Harry had reread them numerous times by the time Lyra returned with Whispers. She grabbed Hermione and Penny and disappeared to one of the dorms, leaving Harry still a bit confused, but he tried to practice the magic portion of his role in the reenactment.
A few students came out of the dorms and cast spells on the giant window to darken it and lowered the lights until it was almost pitch black. Not wanting to ruin the atmosphere, Harry only let off a tiny bit of light from his staff, which bathed him and only the nearest surroundings in white light. It wasn't long until he heard the chanting coming from the hallway to the dorms.
"Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom." A few people watching began to chuckle. Someone doing the chanting called out, "We don't have drums!" and then continued the chant.
A red glow was seen from the hallway as the chant continued and a small figure bathed in shadows, with flames pouring out of its head marched out of the hallway and into the common room. Harry could see a couple of people following to make sure the fire didn't catch anything else around Lyra the Balrog.
In the low light, he saw that she had small patches of the sigbin leather on different parts of her body, all dripping with darkness as she moved. They would have been invisible in the dark, but the light from her fire and the bit of white light from his staff made it look positively eerie. She even had one piece, hastily cut with eye holes, covering her face like a last-minute Halloween mask. Harry tried his hardest to stay in character and not smile at the sight.
Harry leaned on his staff and said in a voice he thought would be deep enough for the great Gray Wizard, "A Balrog. Now I understand. What an evil fortune! And I am already weary." He gestured to the other students around the room, "Fly! This is a foe beyond any of you. I must hold the way. Fly!"
Lyra stomped her way into the room and let out what she thought must have been a mighty roar as the fire in her hair grew stronger. Harry thought it was adorable. Then from behind her back, Lyra pulled out a glowing rope and as she swung it, it burst into flames. That surprised everyone, though Harry could see Penny and a few others running around the edge of the room, in the darkness, casting fireproofing and flame freezing charms on everything in the room that was in her range.
Harry stared at his little sister with a smile. She screamed at him again, forcing his concentration on his role, "You cannot pass," he stated firmly. Then switching into a dramatic voice, "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. You cannot pass." Harry drew as much light into the tip of his staff as possible, so it was shining like a bright beacon instead of the light spreading onto nearby objects. "The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udûn. Go back to the shadow! You cannot pass."
He saw Lyra pull out her knife, which had little bits of hair hanging limply off of it. Harry realized that's what the whip was; she had used her hair to make it. While he was figuring out what she was going to do with the knife, he noticed Hermione crawling on her stomach through the shadows and casting a spell on the knife so the hair stuck out straight and was now about six feet long, off the tip. As soon as Hermione rolled away, Lyra raised the knife in the air and the strands of hair ignited to create a burning sword of fire taller than she was.
She walked right up in front of Harry and swung the fiery sword down on the staff he was holding, the rigid, burning strands of hair shattering at the tip of his staff and scattering around the room as Penny and the others with her made sure they didn't catch anything on fire. Harry was grinning like a crazy person, this was awesome!
As Lyra backed off and cracked the whip again, Harry drew himself up to his full height and raised his staff again while yelling "YOU CANNOT PASS!" and slammed it into the ground.
Maybe it was the heat of the moment, or something else, but everyone heard a very sharp cracking sound as his staff hit the floor, breaking them out of their roles. At that same moment, from one of the upper balconies of the room, someone called out, "HALT!"
No one moved as the voice commanded them and the lights in the room came back to their full brightness. On the top balcony sat Professors Flitwick, McGonagall, Sinistra, and Headmaster Dumbledore with his phoenix perched on the railing.
Dumbledore stood up, "A splendid performance, though I believe you have managed to crack the floor of Hogwarts." Harry backed away from the spot to see splintering cracks from where the impact was.
"Sorry!" he called out to the professors.
Dumbledore casually stepped off the fourth-floor balcony as the phoenix gripped his shoulders with its talons, flapping to slow their descent down as they majestically landed in the middle of the common room. He pulled out his wand and tapped the spot where Harry's staff had cracked the floor, which caused the fractures to recede until the stone floor was healed.
"Again, I apologize for stopping such an incredible show, though we don't want the Balrog and Gandalf to actually fall through the floor, now do we? I award twenty points to Scamander and another ten for each of the Ravenclaws who were helping the production from the shadows. Maybe you can put on another performance in the future with a few more safety precautions." He surveyed the audience, "Now it's nearly curfew, so please get ready for bed."
The other professors had joined him on the main floor and took their leave together. Harry and Lyra got mobbed by the other students who were cheering for their performance and asking them questions. Lyra was busy pulling off all the patches of sigbin leather and stashing them in her pouch as she explained about the creature that Harry had killed.
Eventually, Professor McGonagall had to separate the other students from questioning Harry and Lyra to take the few Gryffindors in the room back to their tower. Sinistra took Lyra, Harry, Whispers, and the Slytherins that were studying there back to their dorms.
On the way, the Astronomy teacher asked them, "I heard you both had an encounter with the centaurs in the forest. What was that like? They never seem to like me."
One of the other students walking with them chimed in, "They predicted their fight, by saying their constellation and the spider's stars were fading, and then the basilisk attacked them."
"Is that what they were talking about?" Harry asked.
Sinistra nodded, "That sounds like a pretty clear message. Sagittarius, as you know, is the Centaur constellation, made up of the Centauri stars. Auriga is the spider. The Centaurs have quite an interesting talent with divination, by reading the stars and seeing glimpses of the future. Did they say anything else?"
"They said some stuff about some people competing for a crown," Lyra told them.
"They were probably speaking of the Corona Borealis," the professor mused. "It is visible this time of year." She stopped at the bottom of the flight of stairs, "I think you can make it to your common room from here, I will take my Slytherins down to the dungeons."
Back in the common room, Whispers retreated to his tree while Harry and Lyra stared at the stars on the ceiling. After a few minutes, Harry told Lyra to wait there and ran off to his dorm to grab the star charts he had made in astronomy. While he enjoyed spending one night a week at the top of the astronomy tower for class, discussing the legends of the constellations, he hadn't seen many purposes in the class so far. Now his attentiveness might pay off.
He brought out the charts and laid them down on the ground with Lyra. They had been making maps throughout the year, so they had nearly a chart for the entire year. With everything spread out the full map was nearly as big as Harry with his arms and legs spread wide. Looking around they quickly found the 'crown' that their astronomy professor had mentioned, Corona Borealis.
"What did the centaurs say again?" Lyra asked, trusting Harry's memory.
He thought for a moment before replying, "There is a crown between players in a game, but another may take it as well."
"The crown has to be the basilisk," Lyra stated firmly. "The King wears a crown," she pointed to a spot right next to the constellation, "And here is the Serpens constellation, that must be the Usurper."
The next nearest constellations were Hercules and Bootes. They weren't quite sure what to make of that until focusing further out and spotting both the Lyra and Draco constellations.
"Is Draco involved in this?" Harry asked curiously. "It felt like he's been trying to be less of an idiot recently."
"He hasn't bothered me at all since the train incident," Lyra commented. "Though if he is, that means he was sending the notes to Hermione."
"Ewww..," they both said together and shook themselves as if they had tasted something disgusting.
"I don't think he would do that, he hates her too much," Harry said, still with a repulsed look on his face from imagining Draco as Hermione's secret admirer.
Lyra nodded, "Anyone who would even think they'd make a good couple should get their head checked. Could it be Anthony? He seems to like Hermione. Also, you're probably Hercules, since you've got the strength of the Lamassu."
Harry frowned, "I don't want to be the hero, I'd rather be Ophiuchus - the snake handler and healer. That makes more sense to me."
From there, the conversation got a little sidetracked discussing the different constellations that they each thought represented them better. Lyra was in the middle of convincing Harry that The Giver was Ophiuchus and he was the Hercules constellation because the stars had the hero's foot firmly on the head of Draco the Dragon when Patricia called out from the door to her room for them to go to sleep, which they reluctantly did.
Something Brandt occasionally forgot was that he was a glorified servant. When he first took up the stewardship position, he was treated like a house-elf. He was actually less than an elf as his first instructors were the elves themselves. Each one walked him through every job they performed to manage the Black estates and oversee certain aspects of the businesses that didn't require a wizard to do.
Lord Black said some of the reasons for this was so he would be able to show gratitude to their servants and know when one was not doing their job or performing to the appropriate standards. He also told Brandt that he too needed to know his place. He was nearly last in line for the inheritance of the family Lordship, and at the time it looked like Draco would be the next Lord Black. He was terrified of this as a possibility as Lucius was not the best role model for a leader, and unless his son wanted to be the next Dark Lord of the British Isles, he might just submit the Black and Malfoy families to whomever next took up the title, as they did for Voldemort.
In the few years leading up to Lyra's return, he was given more training in the Dark Arts and a promise to pass his training to another when Arcturus died, plus more guidance in British politics and business, anticipating his ascension to regent until Draco came of age. He and his betrothed held one hell of a party when Arcturus decided to extend his life and make Lyra the heiress to the family instead of Draco.
When Arcturus had approved their betrothal, he had warned them not to be seen together before Brandt was officially appointed Regent - for reasons of protection and her career. So for that night of celebration, he visited a Knockturn Alley polyjuice shop and purchased a whole night's worth of pre-loaded doses of polyjuice to disguise themselves as Kiefer Sutherland and Samantha Fox then went crazy touring muggle nightclubs around London. He still had framed copies of the tabloids from the next day.
Now, in addition to schmoozing with politicians, running the day-to-day of the Black businesses, and looking out for Lyra and Harry Potter, he had nearly forgotten how much of a slave driver Lord Black could be. Then he stepped foot on The Crimson Augury and was given a remedial course on how bad it could be. It was also a reminder of how unbelievably scary the man could be, and that he could have easily become a Dark Lord, had he desired.
The old pirate ship was crewed entirely of inferi, which he had chosen not to learn how to create at Durmstrang for a few reasons. The first was that zombies creeped him out. However, the stronger discouraging reason was that those who did study that section of necromancy always seemed a bit off and he didn't want to turn out like them. From what he did know about them was that they were always used as shock troops. Insanely strong, resistant to most magics, and bloodthirsty; they were just unleashed on the world, tearing their way through anything in their path.
So, to see nearly twenty of them crewing the pirate ship was a bit strange. They were performing delicate tasks that, if subjected to brute force, could destroy the ship or set them adrift in the middle of the ocean. However, they all performed their tasks with perfect precision, and Lord Black even had one rotting corpse playing the fiddle while they worked. During the first two days on the ship, Brandt was assigned to follow different 'crew members' around and perform their jobs alongside them. It was nerve-wracking and terrifying as one scratch from their cursed limbs or teeth would mean an amputated limb or certain death if the wound was close to his heart or head. Though they seemed to just ignore him until it was his turn to repeat a task. At the end of the first day, he was exhausted and was shown to his bunk while they dropped the anchor and let the Usurper go into the ocean to find a meal.
Before he was allowed to sleep, Arcturus took him to the ladder down into the hold, but before Brandt could lift the trap door, Lord Black's cavalier boot stepped on top of it so it wouldn't move.
"We aren't going down. You're going to open the door and look inside, but you're not going in."
Brand hesitantly lifted the door and shined his wand down into the hold. There inside were hundreds of bodies, all neatly stacked on top of each other in rows. The ones he could see on top had the white eyes of inferi. Against the wall were enough weapons to equip every zombie down in there and even included a few muskets. As he stared at the army of the dead, he noticed a large white orb every twenty feet or so, projecting a shimmering effect of what must be the most powerful preservation charm he had ever seen.
"What is this?" he asked fearfully.
"This is the raiding party," Arcturus told him. "There's a reason why I've made sure you mastered the preservation charm. It needs to be refreshed once every twenty-five years. I'm hoping to get Sirius out of Azkaban in time to get to the other island before the inferi start to rot there. If not, you'll be in charge of restocking the ships there with fresh troops."
Arcturus closed the door and walked Brandt back to his bunk. He needed a dreamless sleep potion or he would have been dreaming of zombies all night. Restocking that many inferi would be haunting, to say the least.
On the third day, when he had finished being given an overview of the ship's day-to-day activities, they started on a new project. One that was incredibly delicate and required him to wear thestral leather for protection. Arcturus showed him to a wardrobe of incredible fifteenth-century pirate clothes and was told that every inferius working above deck needed to be dressed like a pirate.
Brandt looked at his Lord in disbelief, "My apologies Lord Black… but WHY?"
"Because we're on a pirate ship!" Brandt stared in annoyance until Arcturus chuckled and took him out onto the deck and pointed off the port side. On the horizon was a great muggle ship, stacked with metal containers that would come across their path.
"The muggles are everywhere now. I came across nearly four a day on the way down and they all wanted a look at the pirate ship. One of the drawbacks to being on such a grand ship as this is that everyone wants to take a gander at us. So the inferi get clothes."
It was a remarkably good idea, but incredibly annoying to do. When he finished the job, Brandt removed the thestral coat and gloves and threw them into the ocean before burning them with fiendfyre after they floated far enough away. Then he went and dug through the closet to dress in something just as extravagant, though he was careful not to outshine the captain.
On the fourth day, he was in the middle of polishing the brass doorknob of the Captain's room when Arcturus called him over to the helm of the ship. Next to the enormous wheel was a mounted telescope with a crystal lens. He had looked through it on a few occasions and anything he could see through it looked fractured. It was definitely magic but its purpose was unknown.
"What do you see off the starboard?" he asked Brandt.
"A great deal of water," he replied as sincerely as he could.
Arcturus beckoned him to the telescope after it had been turned east towards the watery expanse. Brandt looked through it and saw a large island near the horizon. There were a few piers sticking off one end and a lush jungle with a chateau on the hill near the middle. He tried to focus magic into his eyes and cast a supersensory charm to find the island without the spyglass, but it was completely invisible without this device. Even the clouds above it were hidden by the magic protecting it.
"That over there is the Buzzard's Nest, the secret Black Island which is the port of The Crimson Augury," Lord Black told Brandt, smiling at his wonder.
"How does the telescope work?" Brandt asked in astonishment.
"Part of the spell that hides the Black Islands uses enormous, solid quartz warding stones, submerged off the coast of the islands. A small chunk of the stone is used in the devices on each ship, making sure that only the captain of the ship is able to locate the islands and only a ship that contains one of these devices can penetrate the spells that hide the island from others."
Brandt took some more time to admire the island through the telescope before his concentration was broken by what sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Arcturus approached the side of the ship and looked down into the water. When Brandt joined him there was a group of mermaids looking up at them and speaking in shrieks towards them. He had only seen cold water merfolk before, they were quite ugly and covered in scales head to flipper with small fins near their ears and sharp jagged teeth.
These, on the other hand, were gorgeous. These were the mermaids that muggles put into their myths and legends. Beautiful women with stunning bodies and long flowing hair. They were completely unclothed, with not a clamshell or starfish present. They saw his attention and started to whistle at him, making sure to toss their hair over their shoulders to give him an unobstructed view of their bodies.
Arcturus grabbed him and pulled him back onto the boat, "Rule #1 of mermaids - Don't even think about bedding them. To begin with, they don't have the necessary equipment downstairs. More importantly, if you get too close they will try to kill and eat you."
While Brandt was trying to replace the image of the beautiful women with creatures that would eat him in his mind, Arcturus wandlessly summoned a false eye out of one of the nearby inferi. It didn't seem to mind. He then cast a cleansing spell on the glass eye and then a portkey enchantment, then tossed it to Brandt, who juggled it a few times before casting another few cleansing spells on it.
"Go take your pleasure carpet and park it on top of the island's chateau. Take the telescope with you. When you're done with that, the eye will bring you back here. I promise we'll come back to this island over the summer to retrieve it and take a tour. I'm going to have a chat with the mermaids while you're doing that."
Brandt wanted to ask questions but decided just to get the job done. When he arrived at the stern of the ship, the Usurper was on the edge of the carpet, mostly tucked under the spire of the house, getting what little warmth it could from the charms there. That had been what it had been mostly doing when it was on the ship, occasionally swimming alongside now that they were in warmer waters. Now, however, it was craning its head high and staring off in the distance where the island was.
Brandt thought he was understanding the creature little by little. Mad-Eye Moody's eye couldn't see it. Magical photographs couldn't capture its movement, and he assumed that the basilisk's stare wouldn't affect it either. That would be a very short fight if it could, not to mention Harry and Lyra's comments on the matter. As a blanket rule, it seemed like optical magic did not affect it.
"You can see the island, can't you?" Brandt asked the serpent, getting only a hiss in response. He shrugged himself and began casting warming charms all over the deck of the ship. "I need the carpet, you'll need to move," he delicately told the monstrous snake.
It didn't move, so he slowly entered the house on the carpet and forced it to fly straight up so the carpet dangled beneath it, and the Usurper needed to move itself to the deck. It hissed angrily at the floating building as the carpet unfolded and lay flat while the building expanded itself as well. With the help of the spyglass, he flew over the island and observed two smaller ships docked at the piers before flying over to the roof of the chateau. On one side of the island, there was a very well-maintained sugar cane field, which was a bit strange, but he landed the carpet and put the spyglass into his pocket before pulling out the glass eye portkey.
Just as he was about to activate it, a house-elf with dark gray skin popped next to him with a bright smile which quickly changed to a frown, "Yous are leavings already, Sir Black?"
Brandt was surprised at being addressed as Black, but rolled with it, "Lord Black has asked for me to return promptly, I'm sorry."
"Can I's get yous anything before yous be leaving?" the elf pleaded. "Water? Tea? Juice? Rum?"
So that's what the sugar cane was for. They were making rum. "That would be nice," Brandt replied. "If you could bring me a glass of fruit juice with some rum." The elf cheered and popped away.
Moments later, it reappeared with a glass of deep orange juice on top of a large barrel, "Papaya, as yous requested, along with some rum." Before he could say anything else, the elf vanished.
"Some rum!" Brandt called out. "Not a whole barrel!" though the elf didn't return. Brandt sighed and drank the delicious fruit juice which also had 'some rum' in it. When he was done, he laid the glass eye on top of the barrel and activated it as he held it there.
Back on the ship, he went back to the side of the boat where the mermaids were and peered over the side. Down at the water, Lord Black was hanging upside-down from a broom while he was passionately kissing one of the mermaids under the surface of the water. Brandt was shocked as the kiss went on for nearly three minutes before one of the others broke the kiss and latched on to him to take her turn. The others must have already gone, as this kiss took five whole minutes with their faces connected at the lips. Finally, the group of fish-tailed women swam back to the depths and Arcturus flipped back up on his broom to fly back to the ship.
"You told me not to fantasize about the mermaids," Brandt said to Arcturus.
"Different rules for me. I was enjoying the kiss, they were trying to steal all the air from my lungs to drown me. Obviously, that wasn't going to work."
Brandt nodded, that made sense, he asked, "So what did you talk to them about?"
"Just gathering some intel on where we will drop anchor tomorrow night. It will be a learning experience for you."
Brandt smiled with a bit of nervous anxiety. Any time that Lord Black told him he would be having a learning experience, that meant they would be doing something related to his Dark Arts mastery. The last time he had a 'learning experience,' Brandt had been taken to a haunted castle in Germany and taught the Spirit Lash spell to capture and torture spectral creatures. It worked on ghosts, poltergeists, boggarts, and more. If it didn't have a physical body, this spell was able to ensnare it and cause it something similar to pain.
When they arrived at the castle, Arcturus had given him enough of a tutorial to cast the spell once on his own and then abandoned him there for the night. He had to stay up the entire night fighting off vengeful spirits and mastering the spell while keeping his magic from being exhausted.
Whatever was coming next, he was sure to learn an incredible lesson that he would not like at all.
The following evening, Arcturus led Brandt and the Usurper below deck while the crew of inferi lowered the sails and dropped the anchor. They had passed by many small muggle ships during the day as they moved close to the coast of Africa. Many of them were small fishing boats or pleasure craft, and a few followed the strange ship out of curiosity.
Brandt had been instructed to get out on the bow of the ship three times during the day and polish the great golden buzzard that was the figurehead of the ship. It sparkled in the sunlight like a beacon.
Now they arrived in a large room below deck where there were a great number of large fish and dolphins, caught over the course of the day, as a feast for the kingsbane.
"Eat and relax," Arcturus told the serpent. His words seemed to carry more weight than they usually did like he was forcefully giving instructions that the creature could understand without speaking the language. He added on, with even more weight, "Do not leave the room."
The Usurper hissed what might be an acknowledgment before passing into the room and started eating one of the dolphins. Brandt cast a few warming charms so it would be comfortable before Arcturus closed and locked the door.
Back on deck, the zombie crew had vanished. They had left a record player and many lanterns hanging around the main deck, giving off lots of light.
Brandt stared at the strange sight and realized part of what was going on, so he asked, "Why are we attracting thieves to the ship?"
"Go get your barrel of rum," Arcturus told him. "You'll need to be more relaxed tonight. You're going to be learning the Black Family Method of creating an inferius."
Brandt tried not to think of the reasons why he hadn't taken necromancy at Durmstrang, and now he was being press-ganged into doing it anyway. Arriving at his bunk, he levitated the barrel back up to the main deck. Arcturus had put on some festive music, with the flaring horn for the gramophone amplified and pointed towards the land off in the distance.
Lord Black had two silver chalices, rimmed with rubies on the table which were filled with the rum after Brandt conjured a tap and stuck it into the barrel.
Brandt raised his glass and asked, "What are we drinking to?"
"To education," Arcturus replied, "and the human soul."
That last part made Brandt a little uneasy, but he repeated the toast and drank.
Arcturus asked him, "What do you know about the process of creating an inferius?"
Brandt shook his head, "I didn't study it. I didn't like how it affected the students that did. You are corrupting a corpse with a dark magic ritual so the base instincts still respond to your command. It's like an Imperius curse that cannot be resisted and has only limited purposes."
Arcturus was about to say something but Brandt continued, "However, I know that's not right. The inferi on this ship perform complex tasks and that one even plays the fiddle. It also makes me wonder why I had to dress them in pirate clothes when they could have done it themselves. The Black Method obviously differs from what was taught at Durmstrang."
"Correct, and the reason why you needed to do it is that I told you to." Lord Black smiled while stroking the cracks in his face. "Now, listen…" he pointed off the side of the ship and Brandt could hear the near-silent noise of a boat's motor. "Let them board the ship. If there are more than ten, let three escape. If there are more than twenty, let five escape. Do not use any dark magic on them. None."
"Let some escape?" Brandt asked, surprised. "What about the Statute?"
"I said let them escape, not that they will live. I made a deal with the mermaids. Also, I want to have some fun. It might work better if you just stun any that aren't trying to kill us."
Brandt nodded and approached the side of the ship. He could see two small craft approaching. After casting the human revealing spell, he informed Lord Black that there were two boats with eight and ten people on each. He was told to let both ships escape with no more than four total on them. Then, he rejoined his Lord at the table and poured another cup of rum for each of them, while Arcturus applied a glamor to his face to cover the dark cracks while they took a moment to relax before they killed a large group of muggles.
After the motors of the approaching boats stopped there was silence for a few minutes before several sharp noises of metal banging on the side of the ship and a dozen men climbed up ladders and jumped onto the deck. Nearly all of them had muggle firearms - assault rifles. However, three had pistols and machetes on their belts. That left three in each boat down on the water.
Arcturus jumped up in fright, "Ahh! Pirates!" he called out in faux fear… while dressed as a pirate. Brandt channeled as much of his occlumency as possible to not laugh out loud and put on an expression of fear instead.
The three men with pistols exchanged looks and one stepped forward, "You are English?" he asked.
"Please don't hurt us," Arcturus begged, "take anything you want."
"Yes, we will take anything we want," he replied and pulled out his pistol, shooting Arcturus in the chest twice. He fell to the deck with a thud and didn't move.
Brandt just stared in shock at what had just happened, knowing he might be next, he drew his wand and fired a percussion blast at the men, damaging their eardrums and dazing them. They screamed and started firing their weapons randomly. Brandt barely managed to cast a kinetic shield in time to intercept a hail of bullets directed at him.
His left hand coalesced a green skull made of mist but then he let it go, remembering not to use dark magic on them. Despite being deafened and disoriented, a few managed to look his way and started firing, focusing their gunfire on him. With practiced ease, he shot off a mass disarming charm that ripped the guns from their hands and fell behind him on the deck in a pile. Now, they realized they were in trouble because something unnatural was going on.
Now that he clearly had the upper hand, Brandt killed two of them with piercing hexes through their foreheads and summoned one of the machetes the men had to his hand. The remaining men from the boats had heard the fighting and climbed up just as three of the men he had been fighting jumped overboard into the water below. He now needed one more back on the boats before they left. After disarming the new arrivals, he spared a moment to glance at Arcturus's body, which still hadn't moved.
Brandt needed to end this quickly so he could check on Lord Black. If there wasn't urgency, he could take his time with the muggles and be more creative with his spellwork. For the next two minutes, the night air was filled with screams as he finished off the rest of the group with a combination of piercing hexes, electrocution spells, and a swipe with the stolen machete at one man's neck who charged him. The man who shot Arcturus was one of the last and received a reverse bubblehead charm which acted like a plastic bag over his head that he frantically tried to rip off, but his hands couldn't grip the magic that was suffocating him. Finally, Brandt banished one more pirate over the side so he could join the others in the water and four would be able to escape.
Once the boats below started to retreat, Arcturus sat up and moaned, "Bloody hell, that sucked. I didn't think they were actually going to shoot me."
"Are you sure you're alright?" Brandt asked with concern.
The glamor on the side of Arcturus's face faded as he stood up and ripped off his jacket and shirt, revealing a silver disc that seemed to have been implanted over his heart. Small spidery lines came off the edges as they appeared to branch out into the veins of his chest. Right next to the disc, there were two bullet holes in his chest with black blood staining his skin. Reaching down to pick up his torn coat, he pulled out his silver flask and took a long drink from it, which seemed to cause the black sludge on his chest to retreat into his body. The wounds didn't heal and left holes in his body where he had been shot.
Brandt stared in shock. Up until that moment, he had been 98% sure he knew the method for Lord Black's extended life, though he had no idea what the silver plate could be. There were no runes on it and it didn't seem to have a magical aura, so there was no way of identifying its purpose. Knowing Arcturus, if he didn't say anything about it, he wouldn't answer any questions about it either.
"I guess it's my turn now," Arcturus said with a smile and he strolled to the side of the ship to see the fleeing thieves moving away from the ship in the two boats.
From somewhere on the lower deck a rolling noise was heard. Brandt looked down to see twelve cannons sticking out the side of their ship, probably manned by the inferi below. When the boats got far enough away, Lord Black shot a flare from his wand into the air, illuminating the sky around his targets and the cannons fired off a salvo. The cannonballs were probably enchanted as each boat was precisely struck with six each, though they weren't the exploding kind. There were holes in their boats and the motors were destroyed as all the men jumped overboard into the water.
Their punishment wasn't over just yet as Brandt saw shapes approaching the floating men just beneath the water. One of the men looked happily at the woman's face in front of him before it grabbed him and pulled him below the water, a plume of blood coming up seconds later. There was just a little more screaming before the other three were taken below and eaten as well. Arcturus smiled and turned back towards the main deck as the cannons fired off another salvo of cannonballs. However, this time, they all exploded on impact making a fiery silhouette around the Dark Wizard, as the ships sank.
Arcturus walked over to the pirate with the reversed bubble-head charm, who had just stopped struggling and gone unconscious, popped the bubble with his wand, and pointed it at the man's chest, incanting, "Rennervate!"
The man sat up sharply and took a deep breath of air before looking at the shirtless Lord Black with the silver disc and two black holes on his chest, then looked at his face to see the dark splintering down one side before he started praying in whatever language he was born with. Arcturus smiled as the man realized that his prayers wouldn't be answered and waited for the man to speak to him.
"Y-y-you are d-d-demons!" he cried out.
Arcturus delivered a sinister smile, before saying, "No, we are English."
"Please, take anything, anything you want!" he started crying as he soiled himself.
"I am going to take anything I want, just like you were going to. Truthfully, if you had just joined us for a drink, I would have let you go. There is another encampment of thieves a hundred miles north that I've been told is more vicious than your lot." He looked down at his chest and rubbed the dark holes there, "Though maybe I should reassess my intel. I guess I will save them for another time when I need to provide someone with a teachable moment. Would you like something to drink while I tell you what I am going to do with you and your friends?" he gestured at the corpses bleeding into the deck around them.
The man was trying to understand everything that had just been told to him. English wasn't his first language, though he understood it well enough to be the spokesman of his group when dealing with their victims who did speak it fluently. After looking at the barrel and the table with the silver chalices, and the promise of a final drink before the demon dealt with him, all he could do was nod. Arcturus helped him to his feet and conjured a chair out of thin air for the man to sit on. He was shaking at the display of magic and tears were rolling down his cheek as he sat down. Brandt sat to his other side and conjured a cup, then poured rum for all of them. Arcturus wouldn't be sharing his cup with the man, and unless he was ordered to, neither would he.
Arcturus raised his glass and said to the man, "We will drink in honor of your soul. I honestly didn't think you would be able to get a shot off before we killed all of you. You are a warrior, be proud."
The man hesitantly took a drink, then looked surprised at the quality of the rum, and drank the rest quickly. After receiving a nod, Brandt filled the man's cup again.
When he had finished the next glass, Arcturus asked him, "I saw you praying, praying to some god or another. What do you know about the human soul?"
When he understood the question, he replied, "I did not believe. I hoped my prayers were heard by God, but I heard nothing."
Arcturus nodded sagely, "You have a soul, but there is no god." The man looked conflicted. "Let me tell you what is going to happen to you." Now he looked afraid and reached for the barrel for more rum, but the stand it was on walked out of his reach. "I am going to kill you, but your soul will live on. Where it will go, not even I know. However, once it has moved on, an echo will remain in your body."
Lord Black made a complicated movement with his wand and mumbled an incantation in some dead language as the bodies laying on the deck glowed with a blue light dripping upwards towards the sky.
"Those are the echoes of the souls of your friends. They have already passed on, these are just the remnants. My apprentice and I are going to take those echoes and corrupt them," he spoke with viciousness as he continued, "and we will fuse them to their bodies so they cannot escape." He squeezed his fist for emphasis like he was gripping an invisible heart. "From there, we will bind their essences to this ship so we can command them for all of eternity."
Brandt was just a little bit scared, though Lord Black's lesson made a lot of sense. While he was just a little scared, the man sitting next to him was terrified beyond any rational thought. He was trying to get up and flee, but magic was holding him in place. Arcturus gave Brandt another nod and he filled the man's cup again.
"The fear you are feeling now will make your soul flee your body quickly after you die and generate a more substantial echo for us to work with. Making your enemies fear you is always the best policy if they live or die. Now, let me show you what is to become of you and your friends."
Footsteps were heard as a dozen inferi came up the stairs from below the deck. At first, the man didn't react, as he saw men, dressed as pirates. When they came closer, and they stepped into the light, he could see the flesh falling off their faces, the bones in their fingers, and the mouths without lips. He started to hyperventilate and go into shock. Arcturus sprung to his feet, grabbed him by the hair, and poured a calming draught down his throat.
"Don't go crazy just yet," he told the man as his breathing slowed. "I'm still lecturing my apprentice, I need you here for that. Now drink your rum and stay still. My elves worked very hard making it and can feel your gratitude while you drink it." He was clearly confused by the concept of elves, but under the calming effects of the potion, he took a few sips of the rum and paid attention to Arcturus.
"Now, my apprentice expressed some concerns with the process of turning corpses into inferi. That's what we call these walking dead you see here. He was concerned because when the process is done improperly, some of the magic that corrupts the echoes of the souls of the recently deceased will rebound on the wizard and corrupt them as well. Over time it can cause even the most rational of Dark Wizards to go as crazy as you are probably feeling right now."
That made a surprising amount of sense to Brandt.
"Y-y-you are w-wizards?" the man asked.
"Yes, we are." He showed his wand to the man, and continued, "A wand, like this one, acts as both a focus and a buffer for magic. An untrained wizard that tries to cast without a wand might end up getting burned." He made a cupping motion with his hand and conjured a ball of molten fire, then let it drip onto his hand, causing it to burn his arm before casually tossing it over his shoulder and the side of the ship, into the water. He then pulled out his flask and put a few drops of silver liquid on the burns which seemed to reverse the damage.
"That is one problem most wizards have with creating inferi, they don't use a proper buffer and the cursed magic affects them as well as their target. A wand will not be a proper buffer for this level of dark magic, and something additional is needed to completely protect yourself. Another problem is waiting too long to reanimate the corpse. The longer one waits the less useful the body will be. The best inferi will also be the ones that you were responsible for their deaths. Harvesting corpses from a battlefield that wasn't of your making or even worse, a graveyard, is only done when someone requires quantity over quality."
He waved his wand and from the captain's cabin, a golden chest floated out towards him. Despite his situation, the condemned man stared at it with greed in his eyes. Lord Black stood up and opened it. Brandt felt the corruption and wrongness of its contents as soon as the lid was open. What Arcturus pulled out Brandt recognized instantly as a unicorn horn, but this one was entirely black.
"As my apprentice knows, this is the horn of a unicorn. Normally they are among the purest of creatures on the planet, however, I have corrupted this into a tool of Dark Magic. I'll teach him another time how this is done, for now just know that the only purpose for this is to create more inferi like them," he gestured to the zombies in pirate regalia lingering near them.
Lord Black walked purposefully over to one of the dead men on the deck and stabbed the horn straight into the heart of the body. The blue glow showing the echo of the man's soul started to move chaotically and tried to escape into the sky, but with focused concentration, Arcturus pushed the horn deeper into the chest of the corpse and the echo slammed back into the body, vanishing from sight. There was silence for a moment as both Brandt and the living pirate stared at the body with Arcturus holding the horn in its chest.
All at once, Lord Black jumped backward, pulling the horn out of the body. A second later, the fingers of the corpse scratched at the deck, digging deep gouges into the wood, then stood up. When it opened its eyes, they were a glassy white and showed no signs of life, but it still walked past the living man to join the others waiting silently.
Arcturus addressed both him and Brandt, "Any questions?"
Brandt had one, but was beaten to the punch by the other guy, "That's going to happen to me?" he asked. There was almost no emotion left in his voice as if he had accepted the inevitable.
"That's going to happen to your body, something else will happen to your soul. You can be relatively sure there is no hell, as there is no god."
Brandt raised his hand, "I have a question." After getting Lord Black's attention, he asked. "You told me not to kill any of them with Dark Magic… why?"
"The corruption," he replied. "Dark Magic corrupts everything it touches. I wanted to make sure the echoes of their souls were pure upon their deaths; it makes for more functioning inferi later on. Idiot Dark Wizards throw out Dark Magic like confetti and then are surprised that their inferi can't move properly or try to attack them when they have risen."
Brandt nodded in understanding, remembering something that Kaja told him a week ago; "... nothing like a true Master of the Dark."
"Now it's your turn," Arcturus told him. "Take a horn from the chest and pick a body."
Brandt reached into the chest and took one of the black horns. He could feel the dark magic contained within it, but it was contained, not seeping out or infecting their surroundings. The magic of the unicorn's horn must be keeping it under control while at the same time allowing it to be used for such a dark purpose. Whatever Lord Black had done with the horn must be embedded deep in the core somehow.
One of the bodies had Lichtenberg scars from being electrocuted running up its arm and the side of the face. He picked that one and kneeled next to it with the tool. After a few practice swings, he stabbed it straight into the dead heart of the body. There was an immediate reaction as he felt energy pushing against him. There was enough power in the horn that he didn't need to focus much to push the echo of the soul back into the body. Once that was done, he felt a pulse as the corruption spread to every limb. As soon as he felt the Dark Magic infect the entire body there was a feeling similar to a solitary heartbeat, which caused him to jump backward and yank the horn out.
He could feel the body now, it felt similar to the Imperius Curse, but heavily muted and with no thoughts of the owner of the body needing to be influenced. Stretching his fingers inside the dead mind, he slowly made the corpse stand up. It was like learning to walk all over again, and the corpse tripped and stumbled as it walked across the deck to join the others. The one that Arcturus had just turned raised a hand high in the air as if it wanted a high-five. Brandt chuckled and forced his corpse to do the same, but didn't realize the strength of the corrupted limb as he swatted the arm clean off Arcturus's zombie.
"Good first attempt," he laughed as he walked over to the fallen limb and picked it up, casting a spell to reattach it to its owner. "Now, do the others. You can use the same horn many more times. Try to exchange a high-five or something else when you're done with each. Have some fun with this."
Brandt took a deep breath and proceeded to the next body. When this one was standing he had it march over to the man in shock watching his friends get reanimated, the new corpse took the cup from his hand, and gently filled the cup. It slowly drank the rum and Brandt had a good chuckle as he had indeed hit the man in the stomach with the piercing hexes, so the rum poured out two holes in his body. Then he returned the cup and marched the body over to the other and they exchanged a high-five.
He tried other creative things with the others including complicated handshakes, a very awkward tango, and had the last two arm wrestle until one of them snapped the other's wrist clean off. The man stuck to his chair had stopped crying long before the last one, and asked hopefully, "Is it my turn now?"
Arcturus nodded, but added, "You have been a good assistant to teach my apprentice. Would you prefer just to die, rather than have your body turned into one of our crew? I can even offer you a sailor's fantasy as your method of demise."
There was a large amount of gratitude in his eyes as he smiled, and said, "I would like that, thank you. How will I die?"
"Swim to shore," Arcturus told him. "You might even make it, but I doubt it."
He tried to stand up and it worked. Hesitantly, he walked to the side of the ship and looked out over the dark water into the night. Arcturus walked over and stood next to him, then tapped him on the head with his wand, "You can see the land now, right?" The man nodded. "Go, I won't stop you."
He smiled weakly and leaped over the side. Brandt and Arcturus watched him swim out for a while until a mermaid surfaced next to him. He stared with delight and lust as three more surfaced one after another. Finally, one of them took his head in her hands and kissed him deeply as they sank beneath the water.
He did not resurface.
It was good that Brandt had learned all the jobs on the ship as now he had to do it with his inferi helpers. Brandt was also supremely thankful that Arcturus had brought the ship as they were crossing an absurd number of muggle shipping lanes with crafts that dwarfed their ship in height and length. If he had been still on the carpet, they would only be traveling at night and he wasn't sure they would have been able to reach their destination before the end of the school year.
The passing ships would blare their horns and the crew would wave to them. Brandt made the mistake a few times of waving with his inferi simultaneously which was scolded by Arcturus. He needed to make sure they acted like fingers on a piano rather than fists on a drum.
At one point, a muggle helicopter approached them and Arcturus led them to the aft deck of the ship to land. They were law enforcement of some kind, possibly military, but Arcturus handled them with ease. They were each given some muggle currency and a memory charm. When they departed, Brandt was asked to try and explain why Arcturus had used such a method rather than kill them or just wipe their memories completely.
Arcturus was a bit surprised when Brandt answered and explained the radar and tracking capabilities of modern militaries. The elder Black had heard of radar but didn't understand its full capabilities. He told Brandt that the memory charm he used had also planted a trigger in their minds that they would be more inclined to obey him in the future, should they meet. Brandt asked to learn that bit of magic immediately.
Nearly two weeks later, right after they passed the northern coast of Africa, the Usurper started to get highly energized. It would spend as much time as possible on the foredeck staring towards the north. Every time it would hiss, the red crest on its head would swell and stand up.
Brandt retrieved the rib bone of the other basilisk and showed it to him, "Can you sense the other one?"
The serpent let out a bone-chilling hiss and it crowed loudly.
He reported this to Arcturus who seemed happy with the development. The observation was communicated to Newt Scamander who reported another petrification at Hogwarts and sounded giddy at the confirmation of the connection between the two magical serpents and wondered if the basilisk could sense the kingsbane as well.
Author's Note: So far, I had been showing Arcturus and Brandt as helpful and friendly towards the protagonists with little hints at nefarious dealings and their true nature. I wanted to make it as clear as possible in this chapter that they are both practitioners of Dark Magic, that they have both killed and can kill again, but are not psychotic in that regard. This obviously was not Brandt's first time killing, though I'm not sure if I will ever tell that story…