Reviews
Shadowpawzzz
Not done with this world yet. I've still got the Triwizard Tournament to get through. Then I've got some ideas for adventures during his travels. I might just summarise his last year of schooling so I can move to his world travels it depends on if I have any more ideas.
Alan
He can seek out a Thunderbird once he's secured The Mask.
Avoiding the attention of MACUSA is always a good idea.
RiceHot
The Elder Wand isn't an option in the CYOA to acquire as an artefact and my thinking is that Dumbledore wouldn't want to fall into the wrong hands if the wand isn't part of his plans. As such he'd find some way of hiding or destroying it.
sandmanwake
I might use the idea in this story. Kol could easily mind control a few muggle doctors and have them remove the scar. The scar isn't a proper Horcrux so it won't have the magical defences that some of the others do seem to have.
Morkail
Not all the Dementors have been killed and there weren't that many Death Eaters in Azkaban according to the sources I found. In fact, there aren't that many true Death Eaters. They were just the followers closest to Voldemort. In this timeline, most of them are now dead with a few in hiding.
scyfly
Dumbledore's Petrificus Totalus on Harry at the end of the Half-Blood Prince fails when Dumbledore dies. Whereas the Sticking Charm used by Siruis Black's mother to keep her portrait on the walls lasts long after her death. Another example would be when Dumbledore died everyone he'd told the secret about Grimmauld Place became a Secret Keeper. I think some spells last until the caster dies and some depend on other factors.
I would have thought that teleporting long distances would be tiring even as a phoenix. Fawks doesn't do it very often. The killer gaze must use up quite a bit of power to slay all those Dementors.
Crossworlds 1 - Harry Potter
Part 46
Southampton. England.
Long before I'd ever come here I'd known that the city of Southampton was an important passenger and cargo port in the central part of the south coast of England. While it was a busy and large muggle settlement it had part of the magical community hidden away within it. Although much less so than London.
Given that the wand wavers hid the platform for the train that takes many of their children to school somewhere within Kings Cross I shouldn't have been surprised to discover that there was a magical port alongside the muggle one in Southhampton of all places. Or at least the entrance to the magical port was here, the actual port could be somewhere else, like how Platform Nine and Three-Quarters didn't seem to be in London once you got on the magical side.
My patron Loki, or perhaps one of his agents, had dropped off a ticket to New York on a ship that left from this port and now that my fourth year at Hogwarts had come to an end it was time for John Hiddleston to disappear for a couple of weeks while Tom Hiddleston did what needed to be done to appease Loki. I dreaded to think what could happen if I somehow failed to recover The Mask.
At least I didn't have to worry about that for a few days as the trip across the pond, as some called the Atlantic Ocean, would take some time. Hopefully, the boat that was taking me to America would have some comforts onboard. I would at least be able to study as long as the ride didn't get too bumpy.
I could have arranged for a long-distance portkey or maybe tried to make the trip as a fast-moving magical creature, but I figured that if it were necessary for me to rush overseas that Loki wouldn't have made the arrangments for me he'd have just used his powers to send me there directly.
The agent or Loki himself hadn't just left me a ticket, there had been a whole pile of papers, including a wand permit, the American version of the Ministry was much more paranoid about breaking the statue of secrecy than Britain's magical government so you had to have a permit just to carry a wand.
They also monitored spellcasting quite a lot in the States so I would only use my wand if I really had to. A note from Loki had assured me that they would not detect it when I used the powers he had granted me. This made sense since The Mask was his creation, and the American wand wavers never detected it.
Loki had kindly booked me rooms at an expensive-looking hotel that according to the confirmation letter I'd gotten, claimed to have rooms that overlooked Central Park and I hoped to have some time for sightseeing. I wanted to check out the twin towers before 9/11, assuming that the event would happen in this universe, and then there was the view from the top of the Empire State Building to admire. I also wished to visit the Statue of Liberty as it was supposed to be quite an impressive monument.
My thoughts about seeing tourist sites came to an end when I made my through customs and saw the ship that I'd be travelling on to reach the US of A.
"That's the Titanic!" I yelled.
Someone heard my unexpected outburst, well several people did, but only one person actually bothered to address the remark. It was odd for me to so openly display such emotion due to my training in the Mind Arts, but I wasn't a master and no one ever had perfect self-control.
"Sure is," said a wizard who looked familiar to me.
It took me a moment to place his face as he looked a bit different.
"Stan Shunpike?" I asked.
The young man who looked a lot like the conductor of the Knight Bus seemed amused by my words.
"Nah, I'm Dan Shunpike, Stan's my little brother," he said "No much imagination my parents".
I didn't really care. I had something more important on my mind. The huge ship that should be rusting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean had my attention. It was a massive ship and it gleamed in the sunlight.
"How the hell did the Titanic end up here?" I asked the wizard.
Judging by his uniform he was some sort of porter.
"Took it from the muggles," he said "Not that the toffs who sail around in it would ever admit that. Must have been a bit of an operation to mess with the memories of all those muggles to make them all think it sank. They had to relocate a lot of them in the States with new identities".
I shouldn't have been shocked to discover this. The wand wavers were a load of smug hypocrites. I really shouldn't have spent so much of my time trying to remove some of their problems. Very few of them were worth saving.
"Got your ticket?" Dan asked me.
I presented it to the wizard and he soon showed me to my room. I'd half-expected for Loki to put me in the worst room on the big boat just for a laugh, so it was a pleasant surprise to find myself in such a posh suite. Sure I could have afforded it myself, but it was nice to have these things arranged for me. It also served to remained me of how much importance my patron must place in the recovery of his relic.
"This fancy boat goes all over the world" Dan was telling me as he showed me around the suite "Stopping off at every country that has enough rich toffs to make it worth their while to dock. Err no offence".
In terms of offence, I took none.
"I was born into a middle-class family," I said, speaking more truthfully than the wizard knew "I only became wealthy rather recently".
Not that I'd really worked for it.
"Marry into a nice family did we?" asked Dan.
He wasn't afraid to ask personal questions.
"No, I'm a treasure hunter" I answered.
Since I didn't really want to talk to the man any further I gave him a generous tip and sent him on his way. Once alone I decided that I was going to relax for a little while.
"Draw me like one of your French girls, Jack" I whispered as I took a seat on a chair that faced a nice-looking couch.
My AI companion made her image appear in such a way that she seemed to be lying on the sofa. She was always naked, but since she'd taken the form of Cortana from the Halo games it was hard to tell.
Before I could think about perhaps going out and finding some idiot pureblood woman to seduce there was a knock at the door, and a slip of paper slid under the egress. It turned out to be an invite to dine with the captain this evening. I didn't know if Loki had arranged this or if the captain knew that Tom Hiddleston was a friend of the Ministers.
I knew enough about such things to know that I was being honoured by this request and that it would be very rude of me to refuse so I confirmed I would be going before the slip of paper vanished off somewhere.
Dinner wouldn't be for hours and I had more than enough time to change into some tasteful formal robes so I would rest for a while before going out and exploring this wonderful ship.
(Line Break)
The Titanic. The Atlantic Ocean.
When I entered the grand dining room I noted right away that the guests wouldn't have looked out of place during this ship's maiden voyage as wizard fashion lags far behind muggle fashion and that is when the magical make something of an effort to blend in.
Lucky for me a basic black suit and tie ends to work well in a variety of social situations and while it did look Muggle in design it was actually from a wizarding catalogue I'd found in the Room of Requirement years ago that had still been available to order.
"I'm here to dine with the Captain," I told Dan Shunpike, who was again busy working, or at least working while looking busy "The name is Hiddleston".
If he didn't remember me from earlier despite my large tip I wouldn't be offended as there were lots of people around and I imagined that over time the faces of passengers would blur in his memory.
"This way Mr Hiddleston," said Dan after checking a book that rested on a stand near the entrance "You're a little early".
It hadn't taken me long to get dressed. It doesn't require much effort to smarten yourself up when you know the right charms and I did so love my charms. I preferred to use muggle methods when possible as for example the teeth cleaning charm doesn't leave you with minty fresh breath.
"You'll be sitting with the Delacour family," Dan told me "They haven't arrived yet".
Once I got over the surprise of the name I realised that I would get the chance to practice my French, but not until after they arrived, and they were late, hardly shocking given that the family was made of three women, well two women and a girl, who all looked as if they were expecting to attend a ball alongside Cinderella.
"Monsieur and Madam Delacour," said the Captain when he joined us "This is Tom Hiddleson of Magical Britain. Renowned treasure hunter and personal friend of the British Minister of Magic".
Since I read a little about Wizarding customs I knew to kiss the air above the hand of the ladies and to make actual contact when shaking the man's hand. A lot of wizarding customs were similar to older muggle ones and that made sense since the magical had only separated from the mundanes in recent centuries.
"These are my daughters Fleur and Gabrielle" introduced Mr Delacour.
Because they were half-breeds, these three witches with Veela ancestry may have experienced the same prejudices that befell other half-breeds. Although they looked fully human and I couldn't sense anything wrong.
"Charmed," I said.
Veela were an interesting species. They were all female and they have to breed with humans to reproduce. If a Veela breeds with a normal human the offspring will be Veela unless they are born male, but if they mate with a wizard the daughters will inherit their father's talent while also having Veela abilities unless they are male, then they will just be a wizard. Male offspring of Veela are quite rare if the Veela is a pureblood.
The Allure of the Veela combined with their habit of luring men away to breed make them the stuff of legend, they are the truth behind stories of Succubi as Veela will seduce a normal human make and use their powers to leave him unsure of what happened afterwards. Arguably this is rape but they have to do it so their species will continue and because magic needs to be hidden not due to malice.
My studies told me that the Veela are always seen to be physically perfect, graceful and flawless beings, who lack anything that would make them look unattractive, but I doubted this was actually true. I wondered how much of this was some subtle magic and how much of it had to them being genuinely attractive. Given that non of them were pure Veela the magic might not work as well for them. The ladies seemed pleasant enough to me to look at.
From what I knew the Allure was a type of magic that affected men, and possibly others who were attracted to women, some went into a trance-like or hypnotic stance, in which they lost sight of their surroundings and focused solely on the Veela. Others were less affected but began to feel the need to impress the Veela, going as far as to make up accomplishments.
Some wizards seemed more immune to this than most others, though the first-time exposure would have a stronger effect, also age was a factor as the older a man became the much easier it was for him to resist the Allure. Something to do with hormones I suspected.
I seemed to have great resistance. That could be due to me not being fully human or a result of my explorations of the mind arts, most likely it was a mixture of two. Given the look that Fleur gave me I must be doing a good job of resisting as she seemed pleased that I wasn't drooling over here.
While studying the different magical races I'd read that men who were exposed to the Allure over a period of time became more resistant to it. There are also some males who never really stop being affected by the Allure, it's a matter of willpower as well as having some self-control.
Since my mind was remaining clear I figured that meeting this family would as hoped be a good time to practice my French. I ended up setting next to Fleur who was trying to keep her little sister under control.
"Are you going to America?" I asked in French with Cortana helping me.
Fleur seemed surprised that I'd spoken in her native language.
"I did not think you English knew how to speak in a civilized tongue," she remarked, ignoring my question.
Since the English language was the Lingua franca in many regions and the most commonly spoken form of speech in the world, aside from Chinese, I might have chosen to take offence, if not for the fact that I knew that the English language was actually a big mess with loan words taken from lots of other cultures many of which the British Empire had conquered.
"I have travelled a lot," I said.
As best I could I remained focused on what I was saying and on my food so that I didn't look at Fleur too much as that could lead to me doing something foolish. As such, I only made eye contact when talking to her and she spent the time mostly talking about her life without enquiring much about mine.
I wouldn't mind getting it on with even a part Veela, but with her father right here and us only having a few days to get to know each other I didn't think that anything would happen. Besides she might not yet be even seventeen.
"Mr Hiddleston, there will be dancing later" Fleur informed me in English "Will you dance with me?".
I should practice for the Yule Ball later in the year.
"Sorry" I replied, "I don't know how to dance".
The young French woman was shocked to hear this.
"Then tomorrow I will teach so that we can dance before we part company" she insisted.
This was a generous offer so I took it.
(Line Break)
Central Perk. New York.
Aside from studying, taking dance lessons with Fleur Delacour, and attending meals I hadn't done much while on the ship. Once I got to America I didn't waste any time.
"So there are no guys called Stanley working at Goliath National Bank," I summarised.
Cortana had been able to hack into the bank's servers once we'd gotten inside the building, and she'd copied a lot of information, more than enough to ruin the organisation if I so wished as they were performing some shady deals, and there wasn't a single Stanley working for the bank, there never had been.
My AI didn't have unlimited processing power so it was taking her some time to go through the sheer amount of information we'd acquired today when visiting many different banks. While she handled that I'd stopped at a coffee shop that was familiar to me as it was often frequented by the cast of the TV show Friends. I'd not know the place actually existed.
Perhaps I would have been more shocked by this in times past, but if The Mask can be a real thing why not have this dimension also be the setting for a comedy show? I'd never been a huge fan of the show, I mostly knew it due to my sister being such a big fan and her dominating the TV remote back when my family only had one decent TV and a few channels to watch.
None of the Friends was here as it turned out, and they might not exist, but given the time of day and the fact that it was the middle of the week they could all just be at work, and that was a shame as I wouldn't have minded meeting real-life versions of them if they actually existed.
"I found him," Cortana told me as I enjoyed what turned out to be a well-made and reasonably priced cup of coffee "Stanley Ipkiss, works for New York City Savings and Loans. He's a teller who takes care of opening and managing new savings accounts".
Once she showed me the picture I was sure that we had the right man. He didn't look like the actor who played him in the movie, but his image screamed loser nerd at me.
"I have his home phone number and address," she said "He's not that far from here as the bird flies".
Cortana really was amazing.
"You just save me days of work," I said.
No one was giving me odd looks for talking to myself as I'd long since learned to talk to my AI internally.
"So do we go straight to his apartment?" the person who lived in my head asked.
I had from now until my ship was due to leave to locate The Mask, and the papers I'd checked out weren't reporting anything that suggested Loki's brand of mischief. As such Ipkiss might not yet have The Mask, and for the life of me, I could not remember where he gets it from. The Mask was protecting itself magically.
"Yes, but I want to check out the National History Museum before it closes" I replied "They should have a record of every artefact that's ever been on display and there can only be so many masks. I'll know it when I see it".
Since Cortana would be able to hack into the museum's computer system she'd be able to show me the records and save me from having to wander around the exhibits.
"What if it's in some private collection?" the AI wondered.
I'd considered this.
"We can stake out Ipkiss's apartment tonight," I said, "I don't want to go too near him at night as he's dangerous if he puts on The Mask, but we should be okay with some simple observation. If he doesn't have The Mask yet we'll need to start tailing him".
I still had some work to do today so I headed out of the coffee shop.
(Line Break)
Rooftop. New York.
Omnioculars looked like brass binoculars, except that they are covered in all sorts of weird knobs and dials that had taken me a while to figure out. Upon experimentation, I learned that they can be used much like a video camera, with them I could zoom in, slow down scenes I'd just seen, and one button caused commentary in purple letters to appear. These tools were useful to referees at Quiddich matches as they could use them to go over fast-paced actions that they might have missed so as to decide if there had been foul play or not.
The wand wavers could seem rather primitive most of the time, but every so often they came up with something rather clever. Yet their inventions still paled to what the muggles of this city had created. The New York skyline was very impressive and it was nice to see the twin trade towers standing tall. As for the majestic Empire State building I hoped to have time to visit it before I left this city.
The view I needed to focus on, that was much less impressive, Stanley Ipkiss's Apartment and the man himself were rather boring to watch, and Ipkiss himself didn't look much like the actor who played him in the movie. Things got more interesting as I watched him, while hidden by a Disillusionment Charm, through my Omnioculars, and saw that he had The Mask.
I considered teleporting myself into the apartment and taking the artefact from him, but it was after dark and if he put The Mask on things would not go well for me as I couldn't be totally sure that this version of Stanley Ipkiss would be unwilling to take lives while wearing Loki's lost toy.
There was a light show from inside the apartment and then a little time passed before a green-faced figure stuck his head out of the window and looked right at me.
"He can't possibly see you?" wondered Cortana "Can he?".
The powers of The Mask weren't fully understood. Perhaps he could somehow detect me.
"Let's get out of here" I decided as I put the Omnioculars away "We'll come back when it's daylight".
I turned on the spot only I didn't teleport as I suddenly found myself face to face with a person who had a big green head.
"What you looking at?" he asked as the man in The Mask jabbed me in the face with a comically oversized telescope "Is it birds?".
If I'd been the captain of a Starfleet vessel I would have been yelling to go to red alert at this point, but since I was a wizard I simply used magic to escape, taking myself to a bit of Central Park that I had visited earlier in the day.
"That was close" I muttered.
I took a few deep breaths and got myself under control.
"Found you!" a happy voice called out.
The Mask had somehow tracked me and caught up very fast, not something I'd know it was possible to do, but the man wearing the artefact was channelling Loki's power so he'd be able to do things that would be impossible for other humans.
"Fuck" I swore.
I fired off a stunner, only for it to be met by the shield of a full armoured knight. The spell would have hit me if I hadn't put up a magical shield of my own without even thinking about it. I could only hope that whatever power it was that kept The Mask off MACUSA's radar also worked on any wand magic being cast nearby. Still, even if this was the case it would be best to leave.
With another crack of displaced air, I was now hiding inside the building I'd been on the rooftop of mere moments ago having scouted it out earlier. I locked the door of the abandoned building and took a moment to think. Not that I got long as suddenly the blade of an axe broke through the rotten wood of the door.
"Here's Jonny!"
As soon as the door broke apart I acted.
"Expelliarmus!"
The axe went flying away.
"You're expelling me, but what will I tell my parents?" said Ipkiss who now looked like a schoolboy.
Now I was getting annoyed and a little worried. He was pointing his slingshot at me.
"Stop bothering me" I yelled.
And to my surprise, he just walked off, but since I wasn't so easily fooled I transformed into a phoenix and flamed away, hoping that The Mask couldn't track that form of travel.
(Line Break)
Stanley Ipkiss's Apartment. New York City.
Knowing that the use of wand magic might be detected even if it was a minor spell I didn't take out my wand, and while I should be able to do the spell without a wand I didn't want to take the chance that the American version of the Ministry of Magic might detect me and send Aurors after me. Their detection method wasn't precise as far as I knew, and last night's spellcasting hadn't gotten me into trouble with them, but there was no sense in taking a chance. Not when I had other ways.
Aside from obtaining immortality when I became an agent of Loki I had been given other gifts. The ability to change my form to mimic that of any living things I'd seen in person had always been very useful to me as the power to create illusions, but they weren't the only divine talents that I'd been given upon my ascension.
I also had the ability to heat my hands to hundreds of degrees and my hands could withstand such heat. Aside from removing my need to ever use oven mitts, and avoiding burns from touching hot cauldrons, I'd not gotten much use out of this gift so it was a nice change of pace to use it now. I used it to melt the lock of Mr Ipkiss's door so as to gain entry into his apartment.
While I knew the man who called his place home was out at work, because I'd seen him at his desk, that didn't mean that getting my hands on The Mask would be easy. He might have kept it on his person or put it somewhere else secure, my memories of the movie were faded and even Cortana couldn't help me recover them. I suspected The Mask was somehow protecting itself even from people's memories.
That would explain how I'd completely forgotten about Stanley Ipkiss's dog. The small mammal attacked as soon as I entered the apartment and made a good show of savaging my trousers as I lost my balance before I crashed into a bike. This resulted in more things getting knocked over. It made quite a mess as well as some noise.
"Get off me, you mutt" I ordered.
This resulted in some strange woman banging a door shut and then she started yelling at me. Only that didn't last long as I was a master of the mind arts so I soon had both the angry woman and the hyperactive dog calmed down.
"You saw nothing," I told the woman as I performed the wizard version of the Jedi Mind Trick "Go back to your apartment".
She had a glazed look in her eyes
"I saw nothing," she said "I'm going back to my apartment".
She was thankfully weak of will and was unlikely to ever remember this event. Wandless magic was hard to detect and mind magic spells are subtle so the American version of the Ministry might have missed it.
As for the small canine, I had no desire to harm the creature, it was only attempting to protect its home and pack, and despite the futility of the action it kept going. I found the animal's courage and loyalty to be touching so I was gentle when picking the dog up, and I made sure to keep him at arm's length from my face as even a small dog can have a nasty bite.
The dog was a brown and white Jack Russell Terrier who wore a chain collar with a tag that told the animal's name was Milo.
"Okay, Milo," I said, "I'm not here to hurt you or your human. I just need to pick up something that is too dangerous to be left lying around".
Unlike with snakes, I couldn't be sure if the dog understood me, although I wouldn't rule it out, and the soothing tone of my voice was what mattered.
"I need the green mask your human found," I said as I probed the animal's mind.
Dogs don't see colours so the canine's memories were all in black and white. The memories were also more fragmented than they would be in a human's mind and it was harder to understand what it was I saw.
"He didn't take it with him when he went to work" I realise.
Hopefully, he hadn't robbed the bank yet, as long as he hadn't done that then Stanley shouldn't have too much trouble with the cops.
"Really?" I whispered.
Once I found the right memory I moved a pillow on the couch and got my hands on The Mask that Ipkiss had no effort to secure. As I took the relic Milo made to grab it with his jaws. Lucky for me I'd probed his memory so I knew that the dog could be distracted by a frisbee, and once I had the animal occupied I soon headed out of the apartment with my prize.
Then on the way out, I started to feel a bit bad about ruining Ipkiss's chance to get a better life and since I was very rich it seemed like a good idea to leave some money behind. At least he could go on a nice vacation or something so I left thousands of dollars where The Mask had been moments ago.
"That turned out to be easy," I said to myself.
I just had to keep The Mask with me until Loki made contact. I couldn't summon him, because I had no idea how to do that, but I knew that he would seek me out before the ship was meant to take me home. Loki knew that there was only a certain window of time before The Mask would be lost again.
"Let's go find a Thunderbird" advised Cortana.
There were magical creatures that could only be found in this part of the world and those special animals had abilities I might find useful one day. As such being able to see them in the flesh so that I could mimic their form was important.
Thanks to Newt Scamander I knew that Thunderbird is a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture. It is considered a supernatural bird of power and strength. It is especially important, and frequently depicted, in the art, songs and oral histories of many Pacific Northwest Coast cultures, and is found in various forms among the people of the American Southwest, Great Lakes, and Great Plains.
"Which means talking to someone at MACUSA and finding out if they have any magical creature reverses I can visit" I complained.
I really did want to have to visit MACUSA, but finding a Thunderbird was important.
