Master Xander

Chapter Thirty-One

The week before the first tournament challenge, Alexander 'Xander' Harris knew that the monster he worked so hard to create was born healthy, strong, and messy. It was exactly what he and Ceraine (well, mostly him) intended.

Professors, students, and several sets of parents attended the movie presentations and all of them had scores of questions, some of which Harris slyly refused to answer. Narcissa Malfoy was particularly insistent, attempting to nudge tidbits of information out of him. He supplied a lot of information to her, most of it useless. But there were just enough details to keep her interested and titillated enough to start a friendship with him.

-For her own purposes, of course.

Alex let her believe she was achieving her goals and solidified her suspicions that he was easy pickings when it came to information. He also played the amateur when it came to using his wand.

The wand, Jessie, almost burned him twice out of irritation. It didn't like being downplayed. But it did remind Xander that at its core, it remained a combination of two slayers, a witch, and an ancient hyena spirit. It didn't like doing weak, even for show. Chastened, Alex spoke to it, calming the instrument down. It was a slayer of evil and it wanted to do what it did best.

"These were simply no-mage movies, a product of the author's imagination," Alex insisted.

He spoke the truth. That was exactly what they were, just a fantasy. In this world, R R Tolken had existed and, like his counterpart, authored a series of books about Hobbits, elves, goblins, dark lords, and The Ring. In this world, however, the Wizard enclaves deemed his works suitable for reading by the no-mage population. The works were destroyed, and the man obliviated into senility.

It was for the greater good, they, of course.

That action triggered a deluge. Other authors suffered the same fates. It signaled the beginning of the great game played by a group of very powerful wizards and witches whose intentions were to dominate the world, forcing it to return to a simpler time where it would be easy to control. Their subsequent actions were also the reasons why this world was forty years behind where they were supposed to be. It was all part of a long-term plan designed to cripple both the non-magical and magical populations of this world.

"This work is fantasy," Professor Harris announced with finality.

Every single one of his classroom students took him at his word–and then promptly ran to the classroom computers and proceeded to verify every word he said. Their searches eventually confirmed his words.

As their professor constantly drilled into their minds, over and over, "trust, but verify."

His students listened.

None of them believed what they found out about the author or the books in the first rounds of research. The class computers were important, but they needed independent collaboration. Some enterprising students asked their parents and relatives to find any information about the author. Parental searches came up empty. Of course, that didn't mean it wasn't true, as their professor always lectured.

But one of the parents of a no-mage born heritage did find something. They discovered a small biography of a man matching R R Tolken, written by his wife. She called him a genius, a master of language and who had an unsurpassed understanding of literature. The fire that crippled him and destroyed his mind was described in her own autobiography.

Everything he was was lost. She blamed herself for the accidental fire, although she never remembered exactly how she had started it.

Every single student reflected on what was revealed that day.

Later, Hermione would be the one student who voiced what everyone was thinking. "How far had the government gone to obliviate the truth?"

Harris, looking as serious as ever, said in his most solemn voice, "the truth is out there. Keep searching. If there is no evidence for something that you search for, then your hypothesis must be wrong, and the movies are only fiction. Maybe. Of course, the movies exist, so what does that say to you?"

It took everything he had not to break into laughter. The looks of exasperation and naked suspicion plastered on their faces matched Willow's at her worst. He loved the dark looks some of the professors gave him, especially Snape. It was giving them all something to think about.

What else had the wizarding world lost? What had the no-mages lost? Why was this happening, if anything was happening at all? And, if it was, was the Ministry behind it or someone else, as Professor Harris had hinted at so many times?

The dam was breaking, and questions were flooding into the minds of other professors as well as the students.

Dumbledore was very suspicious but couldn't focus on what was happening under his nose yet. The tournament and Harry's safety, along with the other participating students from the other schools, dominated his thoughts.

The two Americans' testing was almost complete. They were close to finding the young ones they searched for.

As for Harry?

Delane was not sure, neither was Alex. The young boy had strength and, considering everything he went through and would go through, he possessed courage and flexibility. Covert scans confirmed that his magical core was partially blocked by several powerful spells designed specifically with him in mind. Those blocks had been there for most of the boy's life.

Those spells could be broken or circumvented, but overall, magical strength was a secondary concern. Strength of character was what they were looking for, sometimes in the strangest places, and the kid had that in abundance. But like the others, he was still a child, one under tremendous stress. Therefore, the final decision about him could wait. The last thing the master sorcerers wanted was to break the boy. What Dumbledore was doing, trying to shape the boy for some yet unknown reason, was bad enough. He obviously cared for the young man, but whatever purpose he served for the headmaster, he wasn't budging from his plan.

The next few days were busy for the two professors. Their meetings with the British government spooks were enlightening and productive. MI-5 and MI-6 were a lot more respectful lately. They discovered two spies in their organization. The first was a long- time employee. He tripped over one of the magical wards and was promptly shot with a charmed bullet as he tried to escape the building. He discovered the apparition spell did not work. Shocked, he hesitated. That pause was fatal. That individual was from the Ministry of Magic who would never find the body, curtesy of the goblins.

The second incident was more insidious. Two agents died and one of the government wizard agents was severely injured. The witch wasn't from the Ministry, but from another organization. Those incidents galvanized the non-magicals in a way that nothing else did. Now, they were actively striving to establish closer relations with those ornery goblins and the others. Relations were coming along nicely with the Faerie who were dangerous, but could be reasoned with as long as they were respected and treated fairly. Some of them were being considered for training and would become passable agents. The Fae were interested. They and the ultra-secret British non-wizarding magicals were actively working with the British government, using their own brands of magic to help secure all sides from infiltration.

Ceraine was bemused at seeing fairies flirting around and speaking to the head of MI-6 and his secretary, who was furiously recording everything while taking notes.

The Thursday before the first trial, the class was in deep discussion about no-mage folklore, specifically supernatural horror stories.

"Ghost stories are not really that interesting to wizards," he told them. "There are ghosts floating around, visible to the naked eye for all to see. You even had one teaching no-mage history for a while." Alex laughed at that, shaking his head. "Most of your horror stories have to do with dark wizards or magical curses heaped upon poor no-mages or unwary wizards. Well, in the non-magical world, ghost stories do frighten non-magicals, because they are afraid of what they can't see or don't understand. But they had other supernatural stories that might disturb you."

Everyone perked up at that comment, including the visiting students and a couple of ghosts who happened to attend the class. That made Alex smile hysterically. He wanted to see if a ghost could be frightened.

"This isn't about giant ants, is it?" asked a nervous Neville Longbottom.

"No, Mister Longbottom, it's not about giant what's-its. Those creatures were creations of science. And this isn't about people-eating plants with baritone voices that sang like angels before they ate you."

The whole room erupted.

"WHAT!?"

Alex raised his hands in mock surrender. "Calm down, everyone," he ordered. "That was just a story, and the plant was an alien from another world," he told them. "And I am not talking about the one that the American military had to kill in the Artic. Besides, you have crazy plants like mandrakes that scream and stuff. There are other stories, things that go bump not only at night, but in the middle of the day so that everyone would know and despair at their comings."

Not everyone agreed. Even the visiting ghosts were shifting about nervously, and that was because Professor Alex Harris's tales were fast becoming the stuff of legend in Hogwarts. Sir Nicholas de Minsy-Porpington, otherwise known as Headless Nick, and the nuisance Peeves, or Mr. Peeves, as Harris called him, loved the American stories and were actually respectful when they did peek in on the classes. Peeves was a pain, but he was wary around Ceraine, probably because of the fact that she threatened him, suggesting that she would send him to the Underworld of gnashing teeth.

He did not like the sound of that.

"Okay. Ready?" he asked, pleased as everyone prepared themselves. None of them were sure if he exaggerated or told the truth because he never confirmed anything to the students' satisfaction. The professor continued making them search things out. The students assumed this time was going to be no different.

Giles would be so proud.

"The story I am about to tell you is fiction. It isn't true, well, for the most part," he added, making his audience groan. They knew he was going to say that. "On Halloween night, you call it All Hallows Eve, my friends and I told one another stories that we heard over the years, or what we had experienced. Those of us that had children later on passed on these stories, so that the tales wouldn't be lost and that they would always remember," he solemnly announced, as if it were the most important thing in the world.

"Those children and their friends weren't much younger than you are. For no-mages, Halloween was a fun time to be frightened, unless you lived in Sunnydale, Sleepy Hollow, or several really weird towns in the state of Maine in the United States.

"So, when my friends and I were obligated to take the youngsters' trick or treating, we added some spice to the night's festivities to distract them while we watched out for vampires and other night creatures. We didn't want any of the kids to be eaten, or souls drained, or whatever. It would have been too hard to explain to the parents or our principle. Principal Snyder was not like your headmaster. He was a worm and blamed us for everything. The stories I could tell you! That isn't important now. But I am giving you this information to give you some background about what went on where I grew up.

"My friends and I, which included no-mages, witches, a vampire slayer whom you would call a magical creature, ran into a major problem. By the way, did I mention to you that a vampire slayer, considered wizards and witches magical creatures, instead of her? Therefore, you would fall into the 'I will slay you if you are evil' category? But I digress," he casually informed them.

A lot of people in the room shifted uneasily, including one recent visitor monitoring the class.

"As I mentioned before, these vampires are not like the ones here in England. These have no souls and are demon-possessed, walking corpses who exist to torture, gorge themselves on the hot, fresh blood of the living, and infect the living. Their preferred diet was humans with magical cores. They tasted better. They are far deadlier than anything you have here. but I digress.

"On a dark chilly night when we were on patrol weeding out the walking corpses, something happened that changed the world, although most people would never know the true magnitude that almost doomed us all. It began, like most things, uneventful. My friend's younger sister was making a nuisance of herself. That was usual, but was unusual was that my friend didn't have a sister, never had one. But we and everyone around us knew her, remembered growing up with her, taking her to school, and trying to keep her ignorant about the things that went bump in the night in Sunnydale. That last part was wasted, as you students well know," he added, smiling. "In an instant, she was created by ancient magic, using the stolen blood of the Slayer, and a magic called the mystic arts, not regular magic that you are used to seeing. Is ancient magic dark magic? No," he clarified. "It is something completely different." His voice was barely above a whisper, adding to the effect.

"We didn't know it at the time, but she was a Key, a magical key to everything."

Hermione couldn't help but to ask the obvious question. "What does that mean, Professor? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but this person was a key to what?"

Alex smiled. "Why Miss Granger, a key to the dimensional doors that separate all realities from each other."

"That's impossible," she blurted out before another visitor could voice a complaint.

"Maybe," he shrugged. "Shall I finish this story, or do you wish to discuss no-mage theories on dimension realities?"

"Be quiet, Hermione!" Pansy hissed. "You're wasting our class time!"

The bushy-hair young lady huffed but didn't say anything else. Her questions could be addressed later. She wanted to hearthe professor's story, too.

"In my former town of Sunnydale, which you know is a salt-water lake now, Lake Sunnydale. There was a war. A hell god named Glorificus, also known as the Abomination, the Beast, and incidentally, That Which Cannot be Named, appeared in our town, seeking a key that would allow her to return home. I admit she was cute in her human form, but she was a true example of a dumb blond," he said, not looking at a boy who now endured snickering from the others. He'd retaliate later.

"She was powerful but unstable in her human form, and I'm being polite here. She was as stable as a glass of water, needed the memories of my town's population to remain sane. In her world, she was a soul-eater, but in her human form, she needed the minds of people. "Magicals tasted better to her," he added as an afterthought. "Ghosts were especially succulent, so any of the smart ghosts haunting Sunnydale evacuated. At first we didn't know why. People were going insane. What made them-them was being sucked dry that monster." As he spoke, the entire room darkened. "You have to understand, in her human form, she subsisted on the minds of humans. In her natural form, she was a soul eater. In her reality, she consumed souls, digesting them for centuries before regurgitating what was left. She wasn't known as a hell god for nothing. But here on Earth, feeding on memories and minds had to do. Although she needed more and more, the longer she remained in this world. Her victims went insane or closed in on themselves. This left them prey for the vampires flooding the town."

He reminded them again about the demons he dealt with. "These weren't the same as the Turok-Han, but another strain far worse than what you have here. So, we fought her, and we lost most of the battles. Our magic and our gifted warriors couldn't handle her raw strength, but we could take out her minions. But they were killing us. We fought her and her minions for days. We had little hope. If she found the key, then she would tear open the dimensional curtains that separated the worlds to get home and if she did, all worlds everywhere would merge and there would be destruction for everyone."

He paused dramatically. "Here is an image of the Beast." He said as he pulled an image of Glory from his mind, making it life-sized, something that surprised everyone. That spell was unknown to them. She was beautiful but had an aura of hideousness that everyone could see, especially the ghosts and sensitives. They recoiled from the image. The two ghosts were terrified in a way never seen before by the students or professors. Both Peeves and Nick could feel the malevolence and the hunger of The Beast, even though it was only an image. "We tried everything. We even used a magically enhanced troll hammer couldn't kill her. We didn't think we would survive." The students could see the revulsion and weight of the memories of his past.

"We believed things couldn't get worse. We were wrong."

"We were in trouble," he explained.

"Professor," Draco asked. "You've changed your narrative. You keep injecting yourself into the story. Is this a simple no-mage story, or is this something from your past?"

"Mr. Malfoy, that is an excellent question. This story is fiction, but there is always an element of truth in every good fiction. Is it a fable, or is there truth in what I am telling you?" he pointed to the two terrified spirits who desperately wanted to leave the classroom but couldn't. "Ask them if it's just fiction." Alex sighed and looked as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Those in the room tensed, waiting for what he had to say next.

He slowly continued. "Gozer, the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Gozer the Traveler, Volguus Zildrohar, Lord of the Sebouillia, was released from her containment unit and smelled Glorificus.' We didn't even know it existed until it landed in our town. Now, I have to explain something. Gozer was, is," he corrected, "a Sumerian hell-god, come to Earth. Several no-mage scientists and their family, and friends, trapped her-it in a science-based, non-magical containment unit in a small town before she could have killed everyone in that town in the USA, forcing them to self-sacrifice themselves. She would have killed hundreds of millions more the previous time she was here, but she was stopped by those same no-mage scientists. But again, I digress. We believe she sacrificed every soul in the containment unit to gather enough strength to break free from her prison. The instant she got free, she headed directly for Glorificus. It was instinct. Notice that I call it a 'she'. It was whatever it wanted to be, but it did choose the female shape, as did Glory. My friends and I found that interesting," he mused.

"It didn't really matter. Neither one of them could stand the presence of the other's existence on Earth, which they claimed as their own. Glory could have cared less about Earth, but she would never have submitted in any way to Gozer. Neither one was at full power because they were not natives to this world, but they were powerhouses. All around Sunnydale, the skies turned black, and the clouds bled as they fought, and we were stuck in the middle. We had to stop them before the destruction could spread. So, we made an alliance with another ancient power who was just as upset at their presence as we were, and we went to war against the Abomination and the Destructor. Warriors came to our aid from everywhere, but we were still outclassed. The wizarding world never helped us. They never knew what was going on, partially because it wasn't their concer. But mostly, the ancient speclls created by the dark wizard, the mayor of Sunnydale, was still in effect and it specifically blocked wand wizard from detecting and coming to investigate. So, what remained of us gathered together and…"

"And that is a summer's break in the good old town of Sunnydale before it sank," he finished. The story you've heard is just a no-mage Halloween story. It is fiction. Of course, there are elements of truth in every story. I encourage you to look it up during your study period, if you want to find out the whole truth," he said as innocently as possible. Time's up. I want a two-page summary of your opinions on this story and why no-mage stories differ from wizarding ones. How are they similar? For the ghosts here, since you are here. I want a ten-minute summary of your opinions on what you've seen," he smirked. "Since you are here today, you get to have homework like everyone else. For my students and visiting students who want to participate in this homework assignment. two pages only, using ink pens from the class. No parchment."

"'I'm never going to the Americas," he heard someone mutter as they began talking amongst themselves.

"Ahem…"

Took her long enough.

"Ah, it is wonderful having the mother of one of my students looking in on the welfare of her child. What's the name of your son or daughter? Wait, let me guess."

The lady in the pink dress smiled. She looked like a predator, and Alex would know. He saw quite a few during his lifetime.

"I am not a parent to any of these…lovely children," she giggled. "My name is Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Ministry of Magic."

"Excellent, Alex exclaimed, cutting her off before she could continue. "Minister Fudge mentioned you when he visited my store. I've so wanted to speak to you. But hold on for a moment." He turned to his students. "That is all for today. We all know what is coming up! Mister Potter, good luck and try not to die."

Harry gave him a dirty look. Alex returned the stare, and the boy could feel him say, "don't worry. It will be alright. Keep safe."

"Class dismissed."

"Professor Harris…"

"Call me Alex," he told her as his eyebrows rose slightly. "Let's go to my office, where we can talk." Then he paused for a moment's contemplation. "It is safe for us to go to my office alone, isn't it? He asked. "I mean, you are a lot of woman, and the last time I had a private meeting with one of the mothers, she wanted to attack me for some reason," he said, smiling as he thought about the non-existent act and how the assistant minister would respond.

The look she gave him was priceless.

"Professor Harris!"

The game was on.