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An Old and New World
by Lens of Sanity
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Chapter Eighteen: A Jabberwock in Seven Nineteen
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With messy blood matted hair and a severe limp, Albus Dumbledore eased his way into his brother's bar. Although the two had been estranged for much of the early part of their lives, they had eventually mended their relationship for the most part, and Albus just knew what was coming.
Carefully seating himself on the barstool he concluded that he had in fact suffered a fracture to his pelvis, and sighed knowing that none of his injuries would heal until Ms. Riddle released her curse. He had been fortunate enough when Severus came to his aid so swiftly, however that had brought about the quite hairy moment when the Potion Master's trademark Dark Slicing Curse had been reflected back at Albus by some form of altered duellist's shield.
After a short wait Abe came in from a back room, took a long look at his brother's ragged state of appearance... then promptly burst out in loud guffawing peals of laughter.
"If you are quite done, I would not mind a large volume of alcohol." The bearded man dismally stated. He was quite certain the phrase 'die the hero, or live long enough to become the villain' was going to crop up next time he was around a Dementor.
At least I am still Master of the Elder Wand.
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"Are you sure you picked up all of my fingers Bella?" asked Harry, clumsily making his way down a flight of stairs on crutches. "No, don't put my leg on the windowsill, what if it falls out or something."
"I could just levitate you?" Sirius offered. He had quite the brutally blackened eye, but was by far the least injured.
"Hell no!" he spat. "I'm getting to Poppy under my own power if it kills me."
Tam glared at him, and would undoubtedly have made some scathing comment had her teeth not all been shattered. Although she was happy to learn her brother wand theory actually had some merit, neither side had really won but neither had really lost either.
Walking, hopping, and hobbling around a corner in various states of injury, the battered little group came face to face with Hermione Granger. A woman who none of them had exchanged any words with at all for days, due to the fact that she was not talking to them over the whole "cold-bloodedly murdering people" incidents.
"What the hell happened?" she screamed at them.
Swaying a little dizzily it was Luna who responded. "We had a small disagreement with Dumbledore. It ended up with us working out some of our frustrations on him."
"Come on Hermione, give me a hand down to the Hospital Wing." Harry attempted to deflect her, the one legged gait both clumsy and distracting.
"What were you disagreeing with him about?" she asked, taking him under the arm.
"Doesn't matter," Harry declared, sweeping an imperious glare over everyone. "As far as I am concerned it's in the past. Understand?"
The group nodded at the order of silence, not telling Hermione things was important and they all knew the score. Walking through the door to his favourite wing of the castle, Harry smiled a terrible blood splattered smile at the nurse.
Poppy didn't even bother to ask.
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A few days later everyone was healed and back in fighting shape. It was decided that what had happened in the Room of Requirement would stay in the Room of Requirement, and nobody would ever mention it ever again, and they would all pretend that it had never happened.
They had clued in Hermione as to the location of Petunia Dursley, which of course just happened to be in something called "the Necropolis," the most secure building in the City of the Dead, and that meant that they would have to infiltrate the Dark Lord's main base. Unfortunately this necessitated fighting and killing the Jabberwock.
Hermione had not liked the plan, and once she had finally decided to help, had given Harry a hug. He'd nearly said, y'know... things. That was how touched he'd been!
Now they were sitting about in the main room of Caerbannog working through their monster slaying strategy. The headmaster had already turned down Harry's anonymous appeal to the Board of Governors for improved zeppelin access to the school, stating the glaring lack of other students bringing their own zeppelins with them when they embarked on their education, as worrisome in the extreme.
But the headmaster and the governors had publicly informed the "anonymous" zeppelin advocate, that only one student in the school currently owned a zeppelin. To which Harry had replied that the fact of this was due only to the horrendously bad zeppelin access currently employed by Hogwarts School.
He'd still been turned down though.
The Wizengamot had done the same thing on his first, and hopefully last, meeting. Seriously, he'd been forced to sit through three hours of broomstick legislation recommendations, and was in no hurry to ever repeat the experience.
"So what do we know about Jabberwocks, other than that Vorpal Swords work well against them?" asked Harry.
"Yes," Tam agreed, "there are bound to be some glaring weaknesses we can exploit."
"What makes you think that?" asked Sirius.
"Well it's a Dark Creature." she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "When you breed, say a Basilisk, you are creating an intelligent, magically resistant serpent, with nigh unhealable venom, which can kill with its stare. On the down side, the day's first crowing of a rooster will kill it dead to the ground. Dark Creatures all have weaknesses like that. It is a kind of balance."
"She is of course correct." Luna agreed. "However that doesn't help us very much."
"It doesn't?" the redhead asked in confusion.
"No, because Jabberwocks are not actually Dark Creatures at all," the blonde informed tiredly. "They are Guardians spawned by a magical forest. They act as a protector, which technically means they are Light Creatures. Our problem is that Voldemort has ensured the Jabberwock is protecting the Holy Forest. And anyone intending to go against the Dark Lord's will, will be perceived as the monster's target."
"So," began Hermione. "You're saying that if a person is working with Voldemort, then they have nothing to fear passing through the Holy Forest at all. Why is it called the Holy Forest by the way?"
Luna laughed. "Because the City of the Dead is, or I guess was, a place of pilgrimage. And you have to carry a Dark Mark to even get inside. There is a good reason why the only person I know who has so much as set foot into the Necropolis is Se-, Snape."
Sirius was about to make a comment, not quite asking, whether or not she knew what happened to Remus Lupin, but Harry interrupted "Back to glaring weaknesses everybody!"
"They do not have any, save the inability to leave their forest." Albus informed. "Even should we slay the beast, it will eventually be respawned by the forest's magic."
"What if we shoot it in the face from long distance using ninety millimetres of Valyrian Steel?" asked Harry.
"They don't have brains." said Luna. "They do have a nerve cluster which means removing the head will kill it, but as they don't have brains, shooting it in the face is something which it would heal from."
"Great. More good news!" he stated despondently. "Just tell me everything you know, I'll think of something."
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This was by a wide margin, the worst plan Harry had ever devised. Such a staggering number of things could go wrong, and if any one thing went wrong, they would all get eaten by the Jabberwock.
Of course he was going through with it anyway.
For the most part Harry was into plans which were a variant of; '...and then we kill whatever is in our way in a laughably straightforward manner.' However their simply weren't any laughably straightforward methods to kill the monster, that had been repeatedly and successfully pounded into his head over the past few days.
Here's one fun fact, they are all but immune to direct magic. Luna's little right cross seen in the Pensieve was one of the most powerful spells she knew, it required a Double Seal one of which was a five point elemental, constructed using all five fingers on one hand simultaneously, and it necessitated direct physical contact to cast.
It did no damage bar a slight dazing, and was used to physically move the Jabberwock into position for the ninety seconds of forest binding she'd manage to set up.
Harry had been more sanguine with regards to the dreadful plan back when he thought he was invincible. Unfortunately Luna had informed him that she could only resurrect him should his forehead survive. That if his head were to explode, and perhaps even if he were hit with a Killing Curse, then he would be just as dead as anybody else. So he could take a let them eat cake, guillotine special, and still be revived, but was not unkillable.
Should the Jabberwock win, it was doubtful that enough would be left to resurrect. Hence the lowered level of belligerent overconfidence.
Hearing a kind of "galumphing" noise in the distance, Harry knew it was almost time. Another fun fact about Jabberwocks, they had one bitchingly effective first line of defence; a kind of muttered, burbling sound which they were constantly releasing. A sound which was piercing in a way that could penetrate silencing spells and earplugs, and caused a sort of confounding, wide spectrum confusion ward. The upshot rendered targeting difficult, and could even go so far as to make the person affected by it, attack friends and allies.
Harry made an intimidating twitch of his nose and laid back his menacing floppy ears. He went with that red eye gazing thing he'd learned from Voldemort.
Here's one fun fact about Luna Lovegood; apparently she can play the guitar.
At her opening note Harry took off like the hounds of hell were fleeing from him.
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"Okay, so that takes care of the seventh problem," said Harry wearily, five days earlier. "What's next on the never ending problems list?"
"Burbling," came Albus' response. They'd been at this all day and had decided to break out the alcohol to make the process more bearable. Holding the stem of a tall wineglass and sipping a 1956 Mouton Rothschild, Harry concluded that Fleur really did have good taste. He would have to tell her that at some point. "That is the effect which-"
"I remember what it does," he said tiredly. "A multi-octave soul rending ward."
"Perhaps we could record some white noise and blanket the area when the creature attacks." the old man said finishing off his glass.
Luna seemed to be frowning, but she didn't comment, so the leader of this ridiculous, and blatantly impossible quest, continued "Is the monster not supposed to alter the Burble's speed and frequency in an intelligent way? It can anticipate nonliving sounds using a narrowband form of Precognition right? Thus preventing something recorded previously from being successful."
"Unfortunately you are correct Harry." Dumbledore admitted, pouring himself yet another glass. They were going to have to stop soon, because more than just Harry's world was swimming in an alcohol induced haze.
"How fast would the amplitude changes be needed?" asked Luna, eyes crossed and bleary expression on her face. "Like if we were thinking of this as if it were a piece of music, and we were assuming the varied sounds as being notes?"
"If this were a piece of music," Harry shared an uncertain glance with the headmaster, the two looking over at the clearly inebriated blonde. Albus scribbled a few hasty calculations before finishing his thought, "...at times it would require in excess of fourteen notes per second."
Luna stood and on unsteady legs.
"...only I do not know of any composition which would meet the requirements." finished Albus.
"Fetch me a guitar!" Luna declared, and from her faceplanted position on the floor mumbled, "You have seven minutes nineteen seconds to defeat the Jabberwock, and I'm going to need to record a backing track."
She curled up where she lay and eased her way into a drunken asleep. Harry conjured a blanket and carefully wrapped it around his friend. After a time asking:
"So what's the ninth problem?"
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This piece of music had at some point in the—probably far distant—future, been composed by two psychopaths from the distant outskirts of fablemenace, or some other made-up hellscape.
It had many notes.
Many.
No really, it had many notes. And Luna seemed to be able to hit, every, single, one-of-them.
Seriously.
Harry was bounding toward his opponent at an incredible speed, but he had to admit that what he was listening to had to be impossible. Luna was Time‑Turned, and had a similarly Time‑Turned yellow ostrich-racehorse creature acting as her steed. As it happened a Jabberwock found noises which drowned out their Burbling defence quite disagreeable, and so the two blondes' and their Ibanez S670's were quite objectionable to the creature. Hence the fast footed Chocobo–or whatever she was calling it—acting as her legs.
On lead guitar Past Luna was accompanying Present Luna—who was also on lead guitar apparently—for the promised seven minutes nineteen seconds she said they had to defeat the Jabberwock.
Hundreds of flying magical amplifiers were animated and imbued with protean behaviour, which would keep them close enough to the battle zone, and go a ways in preventing them from being destroyed by the enraged behemoth. Fire-Friend rune sets were a given, and all the people present on this fool's errand had similarly been made to drink a Master's Brew of the Fire-Friend Potion.
It should help a little defending against those damned eyes of flame.
Harry managed a vaulting dodge off a one year old—yet somehow ancient—oak tree, as he saw a flash and imagined a distant crack float across the clearing. It was one of those awesome 'camera follows the bullet' moments, as Tam unloaded a Valyrian Round from her Lee-Enfield bolt-action, magazine-fed, repeating rifle. A weapon she surprisingly already knew how to operate thanks to a naturally curious temperament, and a squaddy she remembered talking to back during the Second World War.
The .303 rune enhanced bullet span from the barrel, leapt across the gulf between the redhead and the Jabberwock, and lanced straight through the reptile's flaring right eye. As the creature dropped to the ground, Sirius revved his motorbike and the two shot off through the air attempting to get into a better position.
Having used the distraction to get close, Harry did a rapid transformation, took Vorpal Sword in hand, and with an almighty 'Swish' scored a single deep slash down the Jabberwock's flank.
Bounding away on powerful white legs Harry managed a brief thought:
Well that was once.
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"What do you mean you are going to fight it in your animagus form?" Luna and Hermione yelled with identical outraged expressions. It was the day following Luna's declaration of having dealt with the Burbling problem.
Noting that those particular two were agreeing something was impossible brought a smile to Harry's face. "Vorpal Bunny remember?"
"YOU'RE JUST A NORMAL RABBIT!" Luna shouted at his ridiculousness. "It's only you that adds the word Vorpal to it."
"We should do another polyjuice tour of Hogwarts. You're acting all stressed and crazy." Harry commented. "I know you almost died last time, but we'll be careful."
"I'm acting crazy?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes," Harry confirmed in his signature infuriating way. "You didn't even stop to think why it might be a good idea. And that is plainly not like you at all." After a speculative frown he finished "Seriously though, polyjuice tour? It might help."
Instead of continuing to shout, Luna and Hermione went off and had a muted discussion while Harry went back to stroking Bella behind her feline ears. He should probably ask why she still spent so much of her time in animal form, but if it made her happy then why not.
"Protean behaviour?" Hermione questioningly concluded, while thinking: Damn Harry and his stupid ideas!
This was another thing she agreed with Luna on; did Harry have a plan which made a twisted kind of sense, or was he making it all up at random and getting lucky?
"Correct," their friend confirmed. "The ability to leap, jump, outrun, and change direction. And do so at random, without a moment's notice or hesitation. My animagus form rocks!"
"If you get hit even once you'll die." Luna flatly stated.
"I'm not going to come close to getting hit though am I?" He challenged "I'm Vorpal unlike you lesser mammals."
At that Luna decided to kidnap Fleur Delacour. With her around maybe Luna would have enough free time to get her head back in the game. She didn't like being the second most chaotic person in the room.
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Harry was getting into it, it was fine. Okay, he had maybe been backhanded into a tree and briefly lost consciousness, but Dumbledore used that to lop off one of the damn thing's claws with his massive claymore. And okay, maybe doing that had knocked one of the Lunas from her Chocobo's back for a time, however in her defence she still hadn't missed a note.
And well, the loss of one of its limbs hadn't really been a setback for their opponent, as a replacement claw had instantly sprang from the stump in a gooey mass of white... something... which seemed to have crafted a new arm from nowhere. They hadn't known it could do that, and for the time being Harry was naming the process hyper-healing.
Transform, 'Swish', blood splatter, flee.
That was his world. At least the wounds inflicted by Vorpal Sword and Valyrian Rounds seemed to be difficult to heal. Crafting a new limb dazed the thing for a few moments, shame Harry had been down at the time and couldn't capitalise on that.
Transform, 'Swish', blood splatter, flee.
Where the bloody hell were those reinforcements from Gaul?
As if the thought had summoned her, the perfect goddess that was Fleur Delacour came padding in on the back of a gigantic Cerberus, man but that woman was hot! Barrelling into a sideways roll to barely avoid the insanely sharp, insanely fast moving talons, Harry would have been skewered in an instant more. Had it not been for the regular unheard clattering sounds, which were emanating from the platinum woman coming to his rescue.
Have you ever heard of a M2 Browning .50 Calibre Machine Gun?
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you mounted one on the back of an enraged three headed dog, armed it with Valyrian Rounds, and then put a pissed off Veela behind it?
There was a reason Harry liked the woman after all.
And surprisingly enough it wasn't because of her more obvious charms.
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"You cried at my funeral!" taunted Harry.
"Merlin I hate you so much!" declared Fleur.
"You cried, I've seen the Pensieve memory," he said in a sing-songy voice. "You like me, nah, nah. Don't bother denying it. We all know now!"
"The only reason I am here at all is because your idiotic blonde friend kidnapped my sister Gabrielle, and sent a ransom note saying she would not be returned until either I come to Hogwarts, or my father puts one hundred thousand galleons into a suitcase and meets her at Charles de Gaulle Airport." Fleur protested.
Thinking it over for a while Harry responded "So you're implying that your sister's life is not worth one hundred thousand galleons then?"
"Gah!" the platinum blonde exploded.
"Seriously, I could use the money." Luna informed.
"Coming to England to compete in 'ze Tournament was the single worst decision I 'ave ever made." The French woman voiced her dismay. "What do you want? I am certain it is not 'ze ransom, so out with it."
"We're fighting a Jabberwock and are probably all going to die horribly in the attempt." Luna clued her in. "I was wondering if you wanted to help."
"We've had as many runescrives as we could find set up the base iron, but because it's so illegal to forge Valyrian Steel we have to do the last four stages ourselves. As well as craft the stuff into bullets." Harry said, already onto the next thing. "It's taking ages, and we could use an extra pair of hands."
Wondering whether it was worth attempting to go back to the whole 'kidnapped sister' thing, Fleur asked "How illegal?"
"War with the Goblin Nation illegal."
She closed her big blue eyes for a long time in prayer, before getting down and helping.
"Oh, and Fleur," he went on as an afterthought. Seeing her look up at him Harry finished "...thanks for the whole crying thing. It meant a lot."
Her damn traitorous lips cracked a small pleased smile before she could stop them.
Merde!
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Say what you will about the woman, she was of the type that would voluntarily face a dragon and not even really blink at being asked to help take down an invincible monster. Round after round of unheard clattering impacted the Jabberwock, opening up vicious wounds on its flank. Fleur had been kept in reserve, but Harry concluded that not getting skewered was probably a good enough reason to play 'big damn hero' at his expense.
Withdraw woman, withdraw! He mentally commanded, the damn thing was charging a big old ball of flame just for her, while she wound down her first belt rather than stop firing. Screw this.
Harry ran barely outside her field of fire and met with the behemoth, hopping as swiftly as his form could move he tried for a coup de grâce by heading up its back. The ball of flame was unleashed but Fleur was a big girl and could take care of herself, so he'd assume she was fine. His strike got a nice deep gash, but the head was still on.
Whoa! Watch those teeth there Harry. That was close.
He got clear yet again by virtue of a truly outstanding piece of transfiguration form the Headmaster. A bloody direwolf, a thousand pounds and ten feet at the shoulder. That was impressive.
Oh it's dead.
Well it was still impressive, and it gave Harry the moment he needed to escape.
As he heard Luna start on her sixth solo, Harry was beginning to wonder if this was a good idea, whoever came up with this plan had to be mental.
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From her reclined position a few days before, and just outside of Hermione's line of sight, Tam noticed that little frown of concentration. She always scrunched up her nose that way when working through the meaning of a particularly complex theory, pouring over one of those massive tomes she was forever reading, and unintentionally distracting the redhead as she was forever doing.
Giving up as a bad job the seemingly endless task of transmuting all of this iron into Valyrian Steel, Tam crossed to the far side of the Room of Requirement.
"You are looking a little worn out Hermione, what are you reading?"
She startled a little at the interruption, and a fleck of that wild chestnut hair fell across her brow. "I have discovered a reference to the super fast method of motion which was described to me, and I think I may be on the way to figuring out how to counter it." Hermione shared, brushing aside that lock of hair with an understated elegance which was a constant of the woman.
Tam sat, resisting the urge to run her fingers through the brunette's hair. "Do tell. I agree with you that whiffling is not the real word, so must be a reference for something else. You know the word is actually a method of dive used by ornithologists?"
"Is it really?" Hermione asked in a wondering tone. "Fascinating. Regardless, I believe that what was being described is a line of sight apparition variant, utilised primarily by spell casters in Japan. Or some magical creature deviation of the ability at any rate."
Arching her back the woman let out a long yawn, and flexed her limbs. If Tam didn't know better she'd swear the woman was doing it on purpose, those simple clothes she wore tightening at the overextension.
"Worn out like I say." Tam flashed winning smiled. "Would you like a massage? Loosening the muscles will help you concentrate better later on."
"I really should keep on at this, it is important-" Hermione began, tempted but instinctively twitching to return to her books.
Time to Griffindork this thing out. Tam thought, physically taking hold of the woman's shoulders, gently commanding "Lie down! It has been a long time since I have done this, but I assure you I am quite skilled."
Books put aside and a transfigured table top later, found her strong delicate fingers working their way up and down Hermione's back. Finding tension and working it loose, the occasional grunts not really helping Tam's concentration, and Harry's briefly wandering into the room and smirking as he left not really helping either.
Okay, so Tam may have been forcing a little magic through her palms and fingertips which was making them glow a faint blue light, but it did enhance the experience so that was what mattered. When she was most of the way through, Hermione let out a long low moan:
"You are a really great friend Tam."
"It's my pleasure," she replied with an indecipherable tone.
Not long after that she went in search of a shower. A cold one. Like glacial cold.
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It was the "Thu-Dum" noise—or maybe feeling—that Hermione had been trying to explain, Harry realised. Rapidly returning to human form, he span his unwieldy blade like it were an aluminium rapier, aiming for clear air, which was filled a moment later by their gigantic foe. Attempting to vanish and reappear directly behind him, bastard, as if that would work against him!
Erm-, again.
He scored another hit. Arm lopping off, nice. And even better, the thing didn't re-grow!
They were making progress.
Harry had thought they were all doomed when Hermione had almost gotten tagged, but Tam's leaping from the motorbike directly overhead, scoring a long slash with her serpentine blade, had been exactly as awesomely dangerous as if to be something Harry himself had done.
He came around for another pass, light on his paws.
Come on Harry, you're a Bunny Rabbit, top of the fucking food chain! You can take such a pathetic little reptile with ease.
A wandless mouse to hippogriff transfiguration dove into yet another annoyingly well targeted fireball, and it absorbed most of the force, with the Fire-Friend Potion taking care of the uncomfortable wash of heat.
Fleur was on her last belt of ammo, Dumbledore was still around here somewhere but hadn't been seen for a while, and Luna was well into what had to be her climactic guitar solo. Meaning it was down to one of the Vorpal Bunnies in this forest to kill the Jabberwock, and one of them better do it soon!
Heading directly through the scorched hippogriff mist, Harry let his instincts be his guide. Left, left again, right. Bound behind that boulder, sidestep the horrendously fast talon impact, brute force a solid shield. It was another silverback gorilla, scamper through some charred gorilla mist. Transform. Bring Sword of Vorpal to the fore.
Harry and the Jabberwock locked eyes. It was time to see beyond doubt, just who was top of the food chain.
Snicker-snack!
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"Right on the last note!" shouted Harry. "How fucking badass was that!"
Sirius flew over on his bike with Albus in tow, Fleur padded her way toward the headless beast, and Hermione was watching Tam as she set about chopping relentlessly, looking to pull out the things heart against the off chance it would somehow recover.
"You guys owe me a shiny fiddle made of gold!" Future Luna commented as Past Luna vanished across the sands of time.
"Yeah yeah, fine. Nice tone by the way." complimented Harry.
"Honestly, magicing those extra two frets was the hardest part." she negligently replied.
"ARE YOU TWO COMPLETELY INSANE!" yelled Fleur. "We 'av almost died so many times today."
"True, but we didn't." Harry pointed out reasonably. "What annoys me is that we now have to use Essence of Snape to get through the final ward."
As they took off deeper into the forest, Hermione's hand offered a consoling squeeze to the French woman's shoulder. "You'll get used to it Fleur."
Harry's voice called from the distance:
"Onward!"