A/N: Ok everybody; it's time for a lecture! I've been reading over my story, and I've noticed something very strange. Harry seems more like Hermione than Hermione does! That's not good, so I'm going to make this chapter Hermione focused. I'm dedicating this chapter to Shreve, who wants to know the difference between enchanting an object, and practicing enchantment on an object. On with the show!
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Chapter 11: Enchantments. Explanations, and Extermination
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It really was beautiful; the way Harry worked his magic. Hermione was brewing a potion, while Harry practiced his enchantments on the ingredients. Enchantment was a very fascinating magical art for Hermione. She found the books on it inside the magical library in Prague, while her family and Harry were touring Europe over the summer. The vacation was perfect for Harry, who couldn't stay in one place for too long, lest somebody find him.
Enchantment was using magic to modify the way a certain object behaves. At first, Hermione thought it was like Mr. Weasley enchanting his car, so that it could fly. Once she and Harry had started studying the principles, however, she found it to be very different than what Mr. Weasley had done. Casting spells on an object to make it behave differently is easy. Thing is, those spells can be broken, tampered with, and they had a tendency to lose power over time. Hermione remembered the bludger that Dobby tampered with during second year. She also remembered Ron's old rickety broomstick.
Enchantment, as an art, was fundamentally different than enchanting an object. While learning about it, Harry had told her everything he knew about the mirror of Erised. The mirror was over 750 years old, but the spells that made it work were still fully functional, and would remain so until the mirror was broken. To properly enchant an object using enchantment, the magic would need to be tied directly into the molecular structure of the object. This would mean that until the structure of the object was lost, the magic would stay in place. The spells could not be broken either, because they were part of the object. It would be like taking the magic out of a Phoenix. It was literally impossible to separate one from the other, without destroying the object.
The hardest part about enchantment was not the tying of the magic, but the blending of it. Most objects required several different spells to make them behave the way one wanted, and spells, though non-sentient, seemed to fight for dominance in the object. The results of this 'fight' were always the same. All of the spells would weaken over a couple of days, and eventually stop working all together. Wizards and Witches rode broomsticks for this reason. A broomstick had enough twigs in the tail that some could have thrust charms, the others braking charms. Then the stick itself was enchanted to control the charms in the tail. Mr. Weasley had charmed the pieces of his car separately, and then put them together. Enchantment solved the problem with spell-dominance by requiring that the different spells be blended together in such a way that they worked together flawlessly.
That was the reason Enchantment was no longer practiced. The Wizarding world seemed to be in the middle of an age of ignorance. Blending Enchantments required one to feel the magic, and manipulate it to interlock, like a jigsaw puzzle. Wands did not allow for the precision manipulation that was required. It had to be done with instinct, feel, and your bare hands. For the last few hundred years, the Wizarding world had been caught up in using wands and potions for everything. The true magical artisans had disappeared when their magic no longer generated interest. Without the artisans to teach younger generations, the magics were lost. It wasn't until Harry's awakening that they decided to bring enchantment back.
When Harry had awakened as a Shadow Master, Hermione's powers had become active. Harry had knowledge of what was happening to them, but all Hermione had, was her information filled brain. They both felt the need to feel death, so they began to plot. They decided to become assassins. Talking about it late at night, after her parents had gone to sleep, they decided to form the Imperial Dragon Circle. They had discussed joining the Order of the Phoenix, but Harry believed they would be opposed to killing the people needed to sustain their hunger. They even thought about joining the Death Eaters, because they were, in essence, eating death. Harry and Hermione both hated the idea of killing innocent people. Harry later revealed that, being demons, they actually hungered for the death of dark souls. Innocents would barely feed them at all.
Hermione couldn't help but smile at the thought of their secret little group. There were, in actuality, only two members in the entire circle. It was Hermione's idea to call it a circle, that way the other powers in the Wizarding world would believe in a fourth power controlling the Assassinations. On the other hand, Harry had come up with the absolutely brilliant idea that they each create three separate personas, and divide their powers up between them, so they looked like six different, and extremely talented, assassins. That would confuse the other powers even more. He also suggested that they make a leader for their organization, but not really. Hermione thought that was brilliant as well. They referred to the leader as 'Leader,' and he didn't actually exist. She thought the breakdown of their personas was perfect.
Venificus and Toxis were their enchanter personas. Right now, Harry was the only one who could actually do the enchanting. Once Hermione awakened fully, she would be able to see the magic like Harry did, so she could manipulate it properly. Right now she could only feel it, but that was perfect for her. She could feel the way Harry added enchantments to her potion ingredients, then made them dormant so the potion could be brewed. After she was done brewing the potion, (Harry was not nearly as good at potions as she was.) Harry would bring the enchantments back, and blend them together. Hermione smiled to think about it. Harry had lied to Snape in class. Using a wand, there was no way to distinguish between enchantments, once they were blended. The wand simply was not precise enough. She was reveling in the feel of the magic, filing the experience away for when she could do it, in less than a week. They had chosen the names Venificus and Toxis to make their targets afraid of poisons. With enchantment on their side, they could poison pumpkin juice, and no poison test would ever show it. It was brilliant.
Another talent that Shadow Masters had was Occlumency and Legilimency. The pair of assassins that used this talent was Nytemare and Dreem. They used their talent in legilimency to determine what the intended target was afraid of, and then utterly terrified them before killing them. Nott, for example, was afraid of crowds. They made him nervous and feel vulnerable. By making his senses go haywire, he was effectively terrified. He was also deathly afraid of bleeding. Odd that he would be, considering the fact that he loved to torture others. The way he was killed combined his two greatest fears.
Nytemare and Dreem were also what they called technomancers. Technomancy was a magical art that Harry and Hermione developed themselves. They combined certain muggle technologies with magical artifacts and organics to create magic that was totally different than wizards were used to. For example, while touring Europe, Harry and Hermione had found some interesting items in a sporting goods store. They found a small collection of Graphite shafts for golf clubs. Immediately, and idea popped into their heads. Graphite was used as a club shaft because it was strong and flexible. It was also carbon-based, and hollow in the middle. They purchased two shafts, and cut them into wand sizes. Then, they ventured into Hogwarts, using their shadow walking abilities to get in, and Harry's knowledge of the school to enter the Chamber of Secrets. Hermione couldn't find it, because she didn't know where to look. Inside the chamber, they found the remains of a large basilisk. They took two of its smallest fangs, and used them as the core of their new wands. They weren't the best wands for practical use, but they were untraceable.
Finally, Hermione reflected, there was Flame and Blade. Magical freaks, they were. When the Shadow Master demons possessed them, the magical presences conflicted, causing a very odd mutation of magic. In Harry's case, he could summon a type of fire that he called Dragon Flames. It would consume anything magical, and could not be put out until it ran out of fuel. Avery found that out the hard way, when Flame set his wand on fire. Hermione had no idea how in the world Harry's magic evolved like that, nor did she know how she came to have her specific oddity. The swords and other edged weapons she used as Blade were summoned from nothing. Hermione had no idea what kind of metal it was. It was coal-black, and impossibly sharp, although Harry told her it was because of a built in severing charm. They jokingly called the metal unobtainuim. It also disappeared the moment she didn't need it anymore. That, coupled with their Shadow Master abilities, and their Cloaks of Shadow, they were nearly unstoppable.
The Only major weakness that they had was their lack of spell-casting power. The dormant abilities, once awakened, took a large portion of their natural magic to sustain. Harry could no longer cast a Patronus Charm, for example. It didn't really bother him because, as a demon, he was immune to Dementors anyway. Even with the fact that their casting power was nowhere near Voldemort's, they were technically, for pure magical power, the strongest magical beings on the planet. With the cloaks on, they were harder to stun than four dragons, and it would probably take the entire Order casting Killing Curses to kill them. They could die, being in mortal bodies of course, but it would take a whole lot of magic to get through their defenses.
After Harry finished enchanting all the ingredients, Hermione finished making the potion. They wouldn't trust Snape with the information about who had made the potion because it would raise too many questions, but Harry was fairly certain that Snape's life depended on getting his hands on a counter-potion for their 'special' tea. So, here they were, inside the Chamber of Secrets, brewing up the antidote for Snape.
After the potion was finished, they were going out to test their newest deadly draught. Harry called it 'The Leaky Faucet Potion' because of what it did. Basically, it was a very simple sweating solution, with a few enchantments thrown in for good measure. The enchantment applied to the potion caused the person to sweat blood, rather than just salty water. The drinker would bleed to death, over about twenty-five minutes. Just long enough to feel totally helpless, then die without complaint. It was sure going to be a fun night for Rodolphus LeStrange, the recent Azkaban escapee.
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Not a lot was happening tonight. Rodolphus LeStrange was sitting in the Hog's Head in disguise. He was on the lookout for any information on the Imperial Dragon Circle. The Dark Lord wanted the information, and he always got what he wanted. LeStrange was working hard, so that he could be the one to get the information that his Lord sought. If he was to find out who was behind the assassinations, the dark Lord would reward him, and maybe even give him back his rightful position, as his right hand. That sniveling coward Wormtail had it now, but if this evening paid off, it would soon be his.
He watched as two strangers entered the pub, both wearing black cloaks with the hoods up. They walked over to the bar, and ordered drinks. They sat down at a table close to him, and Rodolphus could see the cloak fasteners bore a strange insignia. It was a dragon, biting its tail to form a circle. There was a Capital Letter 'I' on the inside of the circle as well. Wait a moment. I? As in Imperial? A dragon in a circle? The Imperial Dragon Circle! Rodolphus almost fell out of his chair. He had been looking everywhere for them, and here they were. He stood and walked to the bar, where he ordered himself another firewhiskey. The bartender said it would be a minute, and he went and sat back down where he could hear them talk. He would wait until they were outside the Hog's Head, then he would stun them and take them to his Lord
The bartender brought him his drink, but he was too busy carefully listening to the dragons to notice the blank look in the bartender's eyes. The dragons were talking about an assassination attempt on a prominent death eater. Rodolphus almost laughed out loud as he took a long drink of his firewhiskey. These dragons were amateurs! They should not be talking about secrets in here, of all places! He finished off his drink quickly. Suddenly, the dragons in question both turned to look at him.
"Do you think he realized we were talking about him?" One of them, the man, said to the other. Rodolphus felt his insides go numb. Him! They were planning to kill him! Rodolphus started sweating, but he put on a superior air, and a sneer that not even Lucius Malfoy could match.
"Do you honestly think it will be easy for you to kill me?" He hissed at them. "I'm probably the Dark Lord's most powerful servant!" There was no way these two would be able to take him on. The firewhiskey was heating him up, and he was sweating. It was uncomfortable. He wiped his brow with his robes.
"Correction, we think that it WAS easy to kill you." Said the woman, sounding rather bossy. "You shouldn't trust what you drink in shady places like this." Rodolphus' insides froze. They poisoned him! He was sweating profusely now, and he wiped his brow with his hand. The liquid was red! He was sweating blood! "You'll be dead in about twenty minutes, Mr. Lestrange. Enjoy your last moments." The two assassins got up from the table, and walked out of the room.
Rodolphus was panicking. He had to get help, but from where? He couldn't go to the Hospital; they would lock him away. His Lord! He would be able to cure him! Rodolphus got up from the table, but he felt a bit wobbly. He was losing blood fast. He made it out of the pub, but collapsed in the middle of the street. He felt helpless, his vision was blurring, and then he blacked out. He would never wake up.
The next day, the Aurors would find the body of Rodolphus LeStrange, lying in a pool of his own blood, in the middle of the street in Hogsmeade. Attached to the body would be a note.
Cheers!
Venificus and Toxis
Imperial Dragon Circle
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A/N: Fun way to die, eh? Shreve, my friend, I hope that clears up your confusion. Ok, my friends, now you know just about everything there is to know about the Imperial Dragon Circle, as well as the powers associated with each persona of my favorite two Gryffindors. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Next time: Harry and a portrait, Ron gets manipulated, and fun for everyone!
Bellatrix: Don't worry. I have a plan for our favorite red headed Weasley boy. Thanks for the review!
Blank_eyes: It makes sense that the Order was aware of the Fidelius Charm. If they didn't know about the secret keeper thing, there would be no reason to condemn Sirius as the betrayer.
Maven: Wait and see!
Raven Dragonclaw: Not willingly, but maybe without realizing it.