Disclaimer- I don't own HP. Terry Pratchett, Patricia C. Wrede, Adamo Redamo, the Sigma Protocol, David Eddings, The Death Gate Cycle or AD&D.
A/N- Since restraint is not one of my better qualities, you get to find out who the 13th is! Amongst other things… THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR BREAKING 100 REVIEWS!! And you know how I said this had maybe only 10 more chapters in it? I take it back, this thing is going to just go on and, I can tell…
THE UNVEILING
Lucius was tired. He and Narcissa had ridden almost the entire night with only a brief 2-hour nap to sustain them and now it was mid-day and he exhausted. His horse looked exhausted as well, and he decided they needed to stop. He looked at Narcissa and she looked at him and nodded, even her hair was drooping. Lucius took out his wand shot a flare up into the sky.
The two waited for a moment before a demonic form spiraled down from the air to where they were on the ground. Gazeroth alighted gently on the ground and summoned the cane that he always seemed to carry with him.
"Time to stop?" He inquired and Lucius nodded.
"Yes, we both need to sleep for some time and eat." Gazeroth nodded.
"Go over that way, until you see a large stone and then turn directly left. You'll see what looks like a dying oak tree and about 100 meters to the right of it you'll see a small mound. On the other side of the mound there's a pond, I assume you can purify water easily enough. Set up a fire, I'll bring you some food." With that the daemon prince launched himself into the air, changing as he did so until he resembled an imp, small and black with blazing yellow eyes.
Lucius looked at Narcissa and the two set off. There would be time enough to find Draco.
"All right boys?" Parvati asked. Dean and Blaise glared at each other mildly before nodding slightly. Lavender smirked to herself, it felt so good to be fought over…
"Good, let's get on with this." Padma said and straightened her robes absently. She motioned to Greg and Vincent who hauled up the cauldron. Dean, still scowling, took a quill and dipped it into the mixture. He then began to scratch out a large design on the floor with Blaise and Parvati watching with eagle like eyes.
Dean wiped a bit of sweat from his head and thanked god he had such a steady hand for such things. Blaise was trying to find fault with the design but damn it Dean was too good at it for him to find any faults.
When Dean finished he stood and Lavender gave him a cheerful and chaste hug that still made Blaise practically glow with fury. Parvati grinned at Padma who just wrinkled her nose slightly. Then she broke out into a grin. Vincent and Greg just looked befuddled and then shrugged, they were used to not understanding half of what went on around them.
"HOLY SHIT!" Ms. Figg burst out suddenly. The rest of her research group stared at her in astonishment. "IT'S VOLDEMORT!"
"Vat is Voldemort?" Victor asked curiously. Along with most of the Durmstang students he had no compunction with saying Voldemort's name.
"Think about it, the 13 disappeared from Hogwarts right? Well there's only 12 unless" She said and her face drained of color. "You count Voldemort, who is trapped in Draco's head because of that Bustrode girl." The assorted witches and wizards stared at her in horror and incredulity.
"Oh dear sweet god." Jacob whispered.
"This just gets better and better doesn't it!" Sirius snarled and slammed the table. His face was contorted with rage and Remus gently ran a soothing hand down his back.
"Well 'e is still trapped is 'e not?" Fleur asked delicately, although her features were drawn with worry over Snape. Professor Flitwick shifted uncomfortably, his eyes bright and brimming with emotion.
"I honestly don't know my dear, the passage could have unbound what shields I put in place, but I think we can trust Harry and Seamus to spot any changes." He sighed. "All we can do is wait."
"I am tired, it is time to stop." Declared Queen suddenly and King snorted. But he didn't disagree either. Jester nodded and slid from his seat. Queen glared distastefully at the ground and sniffed, she would sleep on a bed or would not sleep at all. She waved her hand and a bed soon contorted itself out of the ground.
"Waste of energy." Lord muttered. Queen turned to him raising an eyebrow.
"I absolutely refuse to sleep on the ground, we worked for the power to control the lives of thousands, someday billions, why should I sleep on the ground?" No one argued with her. Countess looked at Jester who created a bed for Count since Count couldn't.
"Shall we keep watch? I don't think you should need sleep…" She trailed off and Jester nodded with a small smirk.
"Countess, would you go find something for breakfast?" Duchess asked as she raked her fingers through her frizzy hair. Countess's aristocratic nose wrinkled at the thought of actual work and then shrugged.
"Very well." And with that she closed her eyes before gently floating up from the ground and turning to a beautiful sleek wolf. She turned and loped of-ward, her paws striking the ground with a firm beat that soon vanished. Soon the others were asleep in beds that appeared so very out of place in the meadow they were in. Jester sat silently, and watched, he was good at watching…
"Time to keep moving." Dumbledore said. Neville groaned softy to himself and Ron frowned, was Neville all right? But the boy merely stood and stretched before looked around grumpily. Dumbledore looked at the group and then sighed, he didn't know if he had the energy to transfigure enough horses for the group…
Suddenly in place of Neville there was a great big stallion attached to a wagon. The horse seemed to snicker.
Neville? Dumbledore asked and the horse looked at him nervously.
Yes headmaster? Dumbledore smiled.
Good job.
"I get dibs!" Ron shouted jubilantly and hopped onto his transformed boyfriend's back.
"Well if we're going to do it this way…" Dumbledore said and pulled out his wand. He began to slowly wave it, whispering an incantation until horselike shapes began to pull themselves out of the ground, and then they were faced with-
"Oh my." Ginny whispered softly at the unicorns. Dumbledore grinned and slipped his wand back into his sleeve.
"Everyone please hop on." He said.
"Where do we go now Albus?" Snape asked quietly as Lockheart helped Dobby up onto the horse. Dumbledore looked ahead vacantly.
"We follow the signs."
"Just what are we doing here Jester?" King asked. Jester grinned.
"We are assembling the access key and the scepter of creation." Jester laughed and pointed at a distant mountain range. "And that is where we are headed, the place of high winds." Queen snorted derisively.
"You can't be serious, I'm not climbing a mountain." Duchess chuckled.
"Queen, you can turn into a bird, we all can except dear Count over here." Count sneered.
"I will be assisted, you will most likely have need of me at some point." Count snapped angrily, never being one for creative insults.
"Quiet all of you, something comes." Lady snapped. The group stopped and looked at Lady who held a vacant expression in her eyes. The group followed her eyes and saw distant shapes floating in the sky, dragons.
"Well, what do we do now?" Lucius asked and Narcissa shrugged. The men before them all held bows and were obviously not too happy. They had been gabbling at them in a tongue that Lucius didn't understand.
"I have no idea, where is Gazeroth-" She began and then Gazeroth shot down from the sky like a bolt of thunder. The men all stumbled back and stared in fear at the towering daemon prince, his eyes flashing with rage and power.
"Begone." Gazeroth commanded, and his voice was laced with intense power. The men turned and ran, power and fear urging them on. The demon then seemed to shrink as he turned to look at the two.
"I saw two of those that were your companions, the ones known as Wormtail and Igor Karkarov. They are up ahead but I shall detain them until you catch up." With that the demon leapt up and sped off, his wings beating furiously. Lucius raised one aristocratic eyebrow and smiled to Narcissa bitterly.
"Well it's not Draco, but I guess they can be of use." Narcissa shrugged. And the two set off.
"Who are you?" Wormtail asked sharply. The strange beast before him smiled crookedly.
"I am Gazeroth, a high daemon prince from Hades, the realm of fire. You are Peter Pettigrew also known as Wormtail, a poor wizard but in this new form you have great potential. And you are Igor Karkarov, formerly a headmaster at Durmstang school for wizardry, and now a Wraith just as your companion Wormtail. And now both of you shall wait." Gazeroth said quite calmly. Wormtail's eyes widened and Karkarov frowned. The clip-clop of horse hooves alerted them to someone coming near.
The three looked up and saw two figures on horseback and Gazeroth nodded.
"There they are." Wormtail felt a chill of apprehension as he watched Lucius and Narcissa approach while Karkarov felt nothing more than idle contemplation.
"Hello Peter and Igor." Narcissa said brightly and both wraiths felt an idle sort of happiness. Lucius smirked inwardly, Narcissa could be incredibly charming when she wished to be. "I guess we shall journey together, we're looking for Draco, what are you doing here?" She asked while running her hair around a single finger idly, showing them how harmless she was…
"We are hear for our own reasons, they do not conflict with yours." Wormtail interrupted smoothly. Narcissa cursed inwardly but smiled sweetly on the outside.
"Ok then-" She began but Gazeroth burst out laughing.
"Oh you humans are hilarious!" He crowed and chuckled some more. The four looked at each other incredulously and smiled tentatively. And so the last group was united.
"Well, now we can begin this little game."
"Yes, you do realize that I shall win, your groups have- possible conflicts of interest."
"Don't be too sure, Draco will follow his lovers before his parents I have a feeling."
"Both of you are fools, so shut up, the only way to determine the winner is to play, are we agreed on the rules?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Done."
Dean woke groggily and slowly. He rubbed his head with one hand and shook himself-
Aw shit, not gonna do that again. He thought as the shaking made his whole world spin with pain. Suddenly cool hands were on him and he was drinking something and then-
"Gah!" Dean spat, the medicine tasted like crap, but his world had snapped back into focus. And the debilitating head ache was finally gone. He shook himself and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He looked up into the eyes of a disapproving Madam Pomfrey.
"I swear, what with Albus disappearing with students and this I need a pay raise." She bustled off to the other beds and Dean looked around shakily.
"Wha- What happened?" He murmured and he heard a soft cluck by his side.
"You attempted a true divining without enough safeguards for a night when incredible power was at your disposal, I would not have tried such a feat with out at least a contingency group of 5 well qualified seers of great power, you are lucky to be alive." Trelawney explained factually, quite unlike her usual bumbling self.
"You are just lucky the fates saw fit to inform me that you would try such a thing." She said with a disapproving look over her glasses. Then she smiled.
"However you did unearth something that could be of great help, although you all were unconscious at the time." She said still smiling. "So no points were taken from your houses." On the bed next to Dean, Greg groaned and began to wake up.
Dean flashed back to what had happened-
"All right guys, let's do this!" Shouted Lavender. The group grinned at each other as Parvati and Lavender stepped into the drawing Dean had created. The two stood apart and then joined hands. In unison they began to chant.
"Kel sol kaz, kel sol kaz, kel sol kaz." And so on. For a bit nothing happened, but then the sigils and runes Dean had drawn began to glow, bathing them in eerie blue light. Up above them the stars seemed to increase their twinkling. When the glow began to change to red Lavender and Parvati switched chants.
"Patefacio, patefacio, patefacio, patefacio, patefacio." And they kept chanting until the glow became green. Then Greg and Vincent drew their wands and rumbled "Lumos" along with Dean and Blaise. The light from the four wands shown brightly on the two in the middle. Slowly an image began to form above them, giant floating islands and a trio of robed figures, a dark forbidding land of water, all underwater until it shown brightly with light, a bright fiery image of a hell like land where fire ruled and then-
The light broke out and burned them all and Dean cried out in agony as it seared into his brain.
"Ah, so what did it mean?" He looked at Trelawney who suddenly looked vacant.
"You saw the realms, all but Magic. What you saw was brought to you by power greater than we can imagine, you were a conduit for intense magical energy that you had no business in toying with, you are lucky to be alive Mr. Thomas." Professor McGonagall said sharply and looked at Trelawney.
"Are you finally dropping the charade Sybil?" Trelawney smiled and nodded.
"You Know Who is gone, there is no need for me to hide anymore. Besides, I need a little more credibility." She teased gently and McGonagall's lips twitched.
Dean sighed and lay back gently against the pillow, sighing softly into its comforting embrace. Time, they had time, but how much? They had knowledge but not enough. This was big, bigger than anything else, this transcended You Know Who and left it in the dust, the stakes here were large, too large.
"We are agreed then? Let them know their fate?"
"Yes, I still think that the daemon should be pushed out, it is too powerful."
"We agreed, denizens of any realm could be placed in, like a Lich or Sorcerer are any less powerful?"
"Shut up both of you, let the game begin, winner takes all."
The stakes were larger than any of them could have guessed.
"What do we do now?" Count asked as he scratched the underside of his chin. The group of nine watched as the dragons descended, they had riders.
"Well first, Lord do you still remember that translating spell?" King asked. Lord nodded and took out his wand and cast it.
"Excellent, now we just wait for them to speak-" King said and was interrupted by a streak of fire streaming out to hit the group. Or tried to as 7 wands came up to shield the group from it. Jester wheeled his horse around and galloped a little away from the group. Then he turned and held up a hand. Power slowly gathered in it and then he threw it. It hit a dragon and the great beast squealed in agony before crashing to the ground in a flurry of flesh and pain.
"Avada Kedavra!" Duchess shouted and killed a rider, and then another as Duke followed up with a lightning spell on the eyes of the beasts. Queen merely shouted Avada Kedavra and killed a dragon, something that took great power and force of will. King eyed the battle and nodded in satisfaction.
Lady stared blankly as the group killed the entire attacking force, something was wrong…
"Oh shit." Count whispered.
"Well this looks tall." Draco remarked. The mountains loomed before them and the group halted only to hear screams coming from far off. They turned and Harry magnified his glasses. He could just distantly make out-
"Dragons fighting something." Dumbledore said and looked at Harry. Harry sighed and went into his meditative state and cast out his mind, feeling Dumbledore riding along with him. Within a second he was back and his face was pale.
"The- who is that?" Dumbledore sighed.
"That is the Court, you would have been told about them in-" A sudden rumbling made them all look up as the wind began to pick up. Dumbledore's eyes widened.
"Everyone get together!" He said leaping off the cart. Snape jumped off his horse along with Lockheart and Dobby flew right off his.
"What is going on sir?" Dobby said carefully and quickly. Dumbledore grimaced as Neville transformed back and collapsed limply against Ron whil Hermione pulled Ginny closer to her.
"This is the realm of air, and we are about to get caught up in the wind." He trailed off and looked at the ground. He pointed his wand and bellowed something that Harry didn't catch. The earth rumbled as the wind began to pick up and was soon blowing small things every which way.
Then the earth split apart to reveal an underground cavern.
"Everyone go down!" Dumbledore shouted and one by one they all hopped down. Finally Dobby grabbed Dumbledore and they vanished with the transformed horses, leaving only Pansy who wanted to watch the wind. The wind became intense then and trees soon were waving around and rocks began to fly through the air. Pansy watched in amazement as snow was blown off the mountain peaks and flew down to the lowlands.
"Hmmm…" Gazeroth murmured. "This could be bad." Lucius clutched his horse and glared at the daemon prince who was unmoved by the furious winds.
"Will you shut up and do something!" He bellowed and Gazeroth gave him an icy look.
"Shut up Lucius, I'm thinking." Lucius rolled his eyes and grimaced as the wind chill began to hit him. Beside him Narcissa looked distinctly uncomfortable. Suddenly Gazeroth looked down.
"You know there are a surprisingly large number of caverns below us, gigantic ones that appeared to have been crafted by sentient life forms, let's try one of those." Lucius gritted his teeth with impatience as Gazeroth waved one clawed hand to rip a hole in the earth. Suddenly he and his horse were flying as the demon lifted him into the hole…
Finally the Wraiths floated down and it was only Gazeroth who sighed and changed his form. He was no a strapping young lad with great big shoulders and a sword slung across his back. He hopped nimbly down into the hole and let the wind blow.
Shout Outs-
Rannchan- It sounds good, I may go check it out, and trust me, I know that I am not the best author here, I constantly read stuff by better authors than me, one of my favorites being Al and a few others. But so long as people enjoy this I'm content and I get to write as much as I want!
Zipporah- But now you have reviewed, and as long as you keep doing that that nasty little guilt won't bother you! I'm glad that you like my villains, but what do you mean by minor characters meshing, let me know and I can fix it mayhaps!
Myr- Thank you, I hate finals… But I feel pretty confident about a few of them, and I'm glad you aren't so confused now.
Prophetess Of Hearts- Well is it amusing that Voldemort is the 13th? More like jaw-droppingly mind-boggling. At least that's what I'm going for, hee hee… But I'm glad you like it.
DragonSoul ()- Ah yes, thinking… It is soooo overrated. Hee hee, but here's more so you don't have to think!
Demeter- I do like my Fleur/Snape, but Fleur Snape is a horrible sounding name, I need to fix that somehow… But I do hope the 13th was mind blowing enough. It will be interesting.
Twins of Destiny and Fate- Pansy and Ms. Figg are both pretty sarcastic, I'm glad that you like the humor I slip in, I try to keep things balanced between the death, fantasy, confusion, love, humor etc…
LdyLazarus- Well between your reviews and your stories I wonder just how good feeling I can get, reviews like your make me go off on a writing tangent, although with finals lately… But thank you so much for that! Dumbledore is difficult to get across, to mix that seeming omnipotence and yet make him still mortal… It is difficult but I am very glad you like it. And Pansy is iffy, she is the perfect Slytherin, she has her ambition and her survival plan, nothing else, and nothing else needed. THANK YOU!
Broxs- If you would like to borrow him, just mention my name as his creator and do whatever you want to him!
Gazeroth- I resent that!
MiniMe- Shut up and do what you're told.
Gazeroth- Go to hell, or better yet come to my house.
MiniMe looks at the daemon and runs. Gazeroth chuckles.
Coriander- Draco and Harry still haven't resolved nearly 5 years of constant fighting, and have issues that will play large parts later on. It's all right, for a little bit I had to keep a list to remember who was going and who stayed.
Night Walker- Hi Lithin and Chris, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it sounds like it. And you're going to pull a Seamus/Harry? Good luck, you need two guys for most of it, but I bet you can improvise… ^_^
Whitebearwrites- Well you've found it now, and you can enjoy it constantly with good left over Chinese food and maybe some hot chocolate like I do!
Mizzy- You know I uploaded this chapter just before I got your review, so this has been reposted just so I could respond to your review! Is it a bad thing this is like Eddings? I mean I just needed the sort of quest like atmosphere that it supplies, I am borrowing a lot of stuff from several different people, is it too much? Oh well, so long as people enjoy it I'm happy.
I AM SDYING FOR FINALS AND THEN WILL BE RECUPERATING FROM THEM, DON'T EXPECT MUCH FROM ME FOR ABOUT 3 WEEKS OK? SORRY.