Disclaimer: I don't own Mage: the Ascension, nor do I own Harry Potter.
Consequences
Chapter One: Valora's Arrival
"I can't believe he's sending me instead of one of his guys," Valora murmured to herself, groaning inwardly and looking around Platform Nine-and-three-quarters, "I'm not a Hermetic." She adjusted the shoulder strap of her backpack and grabbed one end of her rolling trunk, making her way toward the train amidst the chattering schoolgirls and boys who attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She tilted her head as she dragged the heavy trunk Horst had given her.
"Though he does trust me more than Caleb or Trevor…" She laughed, boarding the train and listening to the whispers about the odd girl they'd never seen attending Hogwarts before…and who was apparently talking to herself.
They stared at her as she walked calmly to an empty compartment, the oddly dressed 22-year-old with symmetrical tattoos on her face and arms. These tattoos, which spanned five over each eyebrow and six down her biceps – circles which decreased in size as they moved inward toward the bridge of her nose and down her arms – were among her foci. They represented grains of sand as they fell through an hourglass, and were utilized when she endeavored to manipulate Time.
According to all the mages she'd met after Awakening, it was very rare that someone should be so natural at Time magic, but the raw power she'd had from the very beginning seemed to explain everything to them. It was only after weeks – or was it months? – of practice that Valora could even control the magic, which would always do things she least expected. Her first attempt at Time manipulation ended up causing the Time in the room she was in to fracture. It had been a rather startling sight indeed, as she and the others in the room could see the fractured time in large blocks hanging in the air. Penny had been surprised, and so had her friend Trevor, who tried to put his hand through one of the boxes and saw it moving faster than the rest of him.
She had other foci – an ankh necklace she had made served to help her when healing or altering herself, along with checking the health of her friends. A cheap plastic ring an old high school friend had made for her helped her manipulate others' emotions, thoughts, and to read thoughts. These items were the keys to her magic – each one helped her as much as wands did the Hermetics.
She smiled secretively, knowing that if these kids – these students were to journey outside of their sanctums, Paradox would hit them so hard the first time they did magic they would never want to do it again. Her ways were much more subtle, every magical effect coincidental, as it were. Or rather, most of them were. Flashy effects drew more attention, and Penny had warned her many times of the things that could happen – Paradox being the worst of them.
In the world, more people don't believe in magic than do, and this creates what she knew as Consentual Reality. The mind of a Sleeper, or Muggle as Horst said these kids called them, will try its hardest to rationalize magic it has seen so that it makes sense to that person. When a mage does magic that is vulgar - that is, when he does something that cannot be explained easily - this Consentual Reality has to bend and reach past its limit for any explanation that isn't magic, and the harder the Sleeper pushes, the harder Paradox hits the mage.
On top of the tattoos was her outfit. Valora dressed in the more common garb of her Tradition, which was very stylistically gothic. Occasionally she'd shake things up in her wardrobe with a splash of something bright green or even pink, throwing off the stereotype of the typical Hollow One. She always enjoyed those moments, and the reactions from Horst and the rest of the cabal – her non-mage friends included.
She was a pretty girl, but even though she was in college, she looked more like she was only sixteen instead of twenty-two. Unless she wore makeup; then she looked something approximating the early twenties. She had long black hair, which sometimes seemed to move of its own volition, and large, green eyes that seemed to look out on the world with renewed wonder. Even without being the strange new girl she would turn a couple heads.
Stepping into the compartment, she smoothed her skirt down, very aware of the curious stares and politely pretending not to see them. Penny had taught her many things, but the one thing she had hammered into her head was that being polite never hurt. In fact, it could help when dealing with spirits or even other supernatural creatures. Unfortunately while she had taken that to heart, Trevor and Caleb had become more and more rude as they grew used to their new powers. They weren't mages, but they weren't Sleepers or acolytes (ordinary mortals who believe in magic) either. Caleb was possessed by a demon with an affinity for making plants grow, and Trevor was a werecat. Both had been physical creatures before these changes, Trevor being GMU's basketball star and Caleb being a bouncer at a nightclub, but now they were so much stronger.
Her smile changed, amusement evident in her eyes and the way the corners of her mouth curled as she closed the door and kneeled in front of it, beginning to mold the lock to the door and wall to ensure privacy. Her fingers danced over the metal, the way they always did when she played with matter, working at it like clay and smoothing the lines into the door. "Let them try and get in now…"
She sat down with a satisfied sigh, rummaging through her backpack until she found her reading material for the journey, a book Penny had leant her called Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Once the large book was in her hands, she stretched out over the seats on her stomach, facing away from the door and its windows where the students were still staring. Occasionally there would be the sound of someone pushing on the door, almost always followed by howling laughter. She sighed and shifted positions so she could be sure she her skirt wasn't flashing anything at them.
After everyone had settled in, she was relieved to find that things were a lot more relaxed. She guessed it was because, in a fit of annoyance, she taped up a piece of sketchbook paper to the window proclaiming she was a human being, not a zoo animal. She was taking a break from her long novel to sketch some of the scenery running by her window – a house here, a lake there…sometimes drawing some of the more interesting-looking students conversing nearby.
She'd lived in England years before, but those days seemed almost as distant a memory as her childhood in Greece, overshadowed by the events of the past few years that had turned her world upside down and still sometimes made her tremble in fear.