When we arrived at King's Cross train station there were no Weasleys shouting about muggles and Platform 9¾. That might have been because we got there at ten in the morning instead of right before the train left. The train ride itself was annoying. I had to shoo Ron Weasley away from our compartment several times, and it kept interrupting the lovely conversation I was having with Harry, Ember, Neville, and Hermione. I extolled the virtues of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, indicating that to go anywhere else was to show you were more interested in politics and posturing than education and friendship. Neville looked a lot more cheerful after that, Harry had heard this all before over meals, and Hermione looked very thoughtful. Draco Malfoy never showed up.
The trolley lady came and went, selling sweets and other edibles to everyone she could. I wasn't sure exactly why a boarding school that required an eight-hour train ride and provided food the rest of the school year was charging for lunch on the train, but it didn't bother me enough to gripe about it. About thirty minutes after the trolley lady left, Guinevere showed up. Everyone else was appropriately awed at my "phoenix familiar." I was just annoyed.
"Where do you keep going?" I asked her telepathically. Phoenixes were supposed to be intelligent, right? Or was that fanon? I got back a feeling of contented laziness, and decided I'd been given a defective phoenix. Or at least an unmotivated one. For some reason it trilled a reply that seemed amused and affectionate, even though I'd stopped projecting. Was my phoenix both lazy and telepathic? Weird.
I kind of withdrew from the conversation after that, and when we got to the school I got to see the results of some of my actions. All of the children of the people I'd robbed were wearing second-hand robes worse than Ron's, and they looked miserable. I felt guilty. These were children. Bratty children with horrible parents, but children. Hopefully being poor would be character-building, because I wasn't going to risk trying to give the money back. Were those second-hand wands, too? Good grief I'd forgotten to make sure people had their wands when I tossed them on the lawn and burned their houses down! Awkward.
Wasn't Ron a child too? Crap. He was. Also bratty, but still a child. That gave me an idea, though. Second-hand robes wouldn't make much of a difference in the long run for education, but unmatched wands were bad. At this point Ron, Neville, and most or all of the children I felt bad for screwing with had wands that probably weren't ideal. I'd send a note to Ollivander. Also, I should probably give Flamel his stone back after I study it a bit. And Dumbledore needed a note.
'I should get on that. Eventually.'
The ride across the lake was fun, the castle was very pretty, and for some reason the ghosts never came through the wall like they did in the book. I had my aura in check, right? Yep. No idea what that was about, then. The sorting ceremony proceeded as normal, corny song and all. The only differences were that Harry and Hermione both ended up in Hufflepuff with me and Ember. The value of friendship and hard work had easily won over both the famous boy and the girl who desperately wished for companionship when Hogwarts Houses had come up on the train.
The students of Hogwarts slowly became accustomed to the Boy-Who-Lived and apparently just wanted to be normal. Hufflepuff house stood together, and he and Miss Granger became close friends. A certain redheaded Gryffindor first year found himself pranked a few times just so I could complete the quest, and blamed it on his confused older brothers. None of the pranks were anything more than mildly annoying. Since his opinion of Hufflepuff house wasn't great and he didn't like Hermione, he didn't get very close to Harry.
[Quest Complete! Spite Ron Weasley!]
As a group I approached the school librarian with Ember, Harry, and Hermione about learning to care for and restore old books. Madame Pince was only too happy to share knowledge of her favorite subject, and we were actually allowed out for a while after first-year curfew to help her with such tasks. With the occlumency teachings of Ember and the mission of ensuring everything was in good condition we over every page of every book in the Hogwarts library. I remembered every word, and finally got my crafting skill to the point of making books from materials instantly. The Cosmic Warehouse soon had a copy of every book in the Hogwarts library stacked in boxes on shelves, and I finally copied then learned the ridiculous skill books I'd picked up from Anime Attack.
The third week of November 1991 Harry Potter was reunited with his godfather Sirius Black and, though Dumbledore tried to interfere, Sirius was awarded guardianship by the Ministry. That reminded me to finally send out the notes I'd been holding onto, with Ollivander's including a sack of galleons for his trouble. The man came to the school and matched everyone that needed them with new wands, and Dumbledore looked a lot less stressed a few days later. The obstacle course holding the fake philosopher's stone I'd conjured was taken down, even though I was pretty sure Dumbledore knew it was a fake.
[Quest Complete! Eliminate dangerous elements around the school!]
Really? I was pretty sure the school would never be completely free of dangerous elements, but the quest reward was welcome anyway. I ended up having to send the philosopher's stone with Guinevere since mail owls wouldn't go anywhere with anything addressed to Nicholas Flamel, and I got back a very angry letter with a beginner's guide to alchemy that I already had a copy of. None of it was cursed or hexed, thankfully. Guinevere seemed to think the whole thing was hilarious.
I ended up not actually noticing the effect of the Bully Professor drawback until I realized I was getting the worst possible grade on every potions assignment. I'd just assumed Snape would be an asshole, and hadn't let it bother me. It was kind of his thing. I snuck into his quarters one night and removed the now-faded dark mark from his arm in thanks for not being any more of a prick than he normally was. Actually, he seemed a little more mellow than he acted in the books and the movies even before I removed the mark. That had probably been part of the reason I didn't notice his behavior. The one time he allowed himself to mutter around my class I heard him talking about "that stupid spawn of Potter and his cheerful idiot friends that almost got me arrested." I'd no idea he'd been caught up in the accusations I threw at various Death Eaters, and only found out later that night pretty much all of them had been arrested and sent to Azkaban since they no longer had any money to bribe people with.
My magic got a hell of a lot more flexible. Finite incantatem helped me improve [Dispel], [Mystical Energy (Void)], and [Remove Curse]. I'd already learned the spell to vanish things from Pettigrew's mind, but formal study allowed me to adapt it such that I actually got back either raw materials or mana when I used it. There had been quite a few inefficient parts the spell. The books I'd acquired from various Death Eater homes helped me to learn fiendfyre, obliviate, a few rituals, and round out both my [Buff] and [Debuff] skills. I really needed to buy the Fiendfyre Master perk. I could control the stuff, but it wasn't at all effortless. Also the Room of Requirement needed quite a few massively-overpowered reparo spells. Those were great. Probably the most complicated thing I learned was how lasting curses in the Harry Potter world worked, which allowed me to develop my own [Curse] skill. I could now arbitrarily put long-lasting spell effects on people that would require specialist skills to remove!
With the advent of the [Curse] skill came something I'd been wondering about but hadn't quite figured out for a long time: adding permanent spell effects and such to myself as passive buffs. I'd bound [Holy] to my soul and hadn't ever seen any difference from it, but I'd assumed it allowed me a measure of resistance against necromancy. I'd also anchored my soul in place with a very specialized piece of magic. I combined what I'd learned from these and [Curse] to create [Regeneration], [Force Field], and [Mystical Energy (Resistance)].
I wasn't sure why it happened, but the "Neutralize as many Death Eaters as possible!" quest just popped up as completed in the middle of class one day. Maybe the DMLE had finally gotten all of them? Or at least enough of them to get me quest experience? It didn't really matter why it happened, just that I'd completed all the quests I'd received when I started the Jump. I was still getting quests to do homework and such from the teachers, but the experience reward was pitiful and improved relations with my teachers didn't help with the only one trying to cause me trouble: Snape. The key word there was trying. He was picking on what he thought was an eleven year old with a fragile ego that required validation in the form of good grades. I was something like seventy years old mentally and while I still acted like a child sometimes (often), I'd gotten plenty used to ignoring pests.
When the winter break came along, Ember and I went to take our OWLs and passed them. All of them. Even divination. We didn't show off anything that was too far beyond the scope of this world's magic, we just appeared to be extremely talented prodigies with very good memories. The rest of the holiday was spent with Sirius, Remus, and Harry. Guinevere was still lazy, and slept through most everything.
The end of winter break brought with it the chance to audit sixth and seventh year classes and a lot more free time. I asked Dumbledore about alchemy tutoring, but he reluctantly informed he he had too many responsibilities to attend to. Also he'd had a heart attack at the sorting and Madam Pomfrey wouldn't let him take on more work. I was getting pretty bored, so I forged on ahead studying for the NEWT tests and asked Remus to teach me how to cast a patronus. The patronus spell turned out to be exceptionally compatible with [Holy], and I got the technique for it down in under an hour. A pygmy hedgehog was not the most intimidating patronus I'd ever heard of, but it was adorable and it reminded me of my wife.
The end of the school year came and went, Ember and I passed the NEWT tests for everything, I bought a ton of plant cuttings and seeds, and Remus Lupin moved in with Sirius and Harry for the summer. They were living in one of the Black properties I'd never heard of since Arcturus was still alive and well. I visited them with Ember and Guinevere after cleaning out my Gringotts vault for a tearful goodbye, and we moved on. Ember left Remus a book with the technique used to remove his curse. It was labeled only 'Holy', but contained a fascinating forward about a travelling deity by the name of Wren, and a handwritten note in the back explaining how to use the energy described therein to remove a curse more easily than what was printed in the normal text. Remus remembered what I'd had done for him, and belief took hold.
-
Our arrival in the Cosmic Warehouse was unusual. Washu greeted me with a glomp, then proceeded to give Ember a hug and wink at Guinevere. I think the bird might have winked back, which was also strange. Ember wandered off to the housing area while I looked over the console Washu presented. She'd already set the next Jump for Ranma ½ as per my wishes, and there were some options locked-in.
"Washu, why did you force the Spring of Drowned Girl and Locked Curse options? And why am I locked into mastering Anything Goes?" I asked carefully.
"Weeeell… you got the metamorph talent and shapeshifting and all, but you've never used it to see how the other half lives! Think of it as becoming a better, more understanding husband for when you're re-united. Also, I've given you something special to make things more fun! Take another look at Spring of Drowned Girl!" I groaned, then checked the description. Holy shit. I was going to be an exact copy of Ranma's female form? I was suddenly very very glad that I was near invulnerable. The starting location was the cursed springs of course, and Shampoo would be on the lookout to try and kill a person who looked exactly like me and knew the same martial arts that I did. As a bonus, Locked Curse made my shapeshifting powers even more useless since I couldn't shift in cursed form.
"You are an evil, evil woman Washu. This doesn't override Body Mod or my Gamer stats, does it?"
"Of course not! Even if you turned into a cat they would both carry over. Unless of course there was a drawback that specified otherwise."
"Awesome. So I'll be an oddly Irish-looking asian girl. I'll go by Wrin when I'm female. Is this manga or anime appearance-wise?" I asked.
"Anime where applicable, manga everywhere else. The opposite for plot: I'll be putting you in the manga timeline with possible anime tie-ins. The anime was more consistent appearance-wise, anyway."
"Alright. I guess that works. I have a build I like, but I don't know Cantonese, Mandarin, or Japanese. Is there a way I can pick those up without changing my build?"
"Well...you really don't need them. As per the Jump-Chain rules you understand everyone and everyone understands you. The only exception mentioned is Pokémon, and this Jump Doc doesn't negate that."
"So does that mean I actually learn the languages or that I'm getting some sort of translation power? I picked up Korean when I accepted a normal background for The Gamer." Washu contemplated that for a moment.
"I won't give you the languages for free, but I can do just about the same thing. Your intelligence score is so high you remember everything you experience at this point, so I can make it an obvious translation effect to you and you can learn the languages that way."
"Works for me. I've got points banked, but I'm not going to use them quite yet. Drop-in for background, Some Kind of Ninja for stealth, Homemaking Skills because doing all your chores in minutes is amazing, Anything Goes Martial Arts mastery to go with what I know from The Gamer, Medical Genius to make my healing more efficient and get me a job if I need one, then I'll pick up Under My Protection from The Gamer and Fiendfyre Master from Harry Potter. That's still discounted, right?"
"Yeah, technically," she replied with a smile.
"Great. I'll also take Curse of the Cat Fist, since having claws that cut through anything by fiat will be amazing after I get over my terrible new phobia. For gear I want the Bandanna of Infinite Bandannas, a Collection of Magical Incenses, a Dragon Whisker, and a Flask of Water of Life."
"Alright. That leaves you with 250 points left, which is going to put you up to the maximum 500 points in the bank. Will you be taking Ember with you? Companion imports are free this jump," Washu reminded me.
"I think I might as well. This should be a relatively safe jump for her as long as she stays near me. Ember! Can you come pick out what you want? Or do you want to sit this one out?"
"I'll come. What are my options?" She said as she wandered back over, a half-eaten turkey leg still in hand. I simply indicated the console. The options were limited, and she picked up the Innocent Bystander background with Homemaking Skills for free. I offered her some of my banked points, but she refused citing that being in the Gamer's Party was enough to get most everything else especially with [Tutor] and the magic she already knew. She rolled for her curse and ended up with the Spring of Drowned Boy, which made me laugh a little and pout. I didn't know exactly what she was hoping for, but her results amused me.
"Alright," started Washu. "Before you start making your own plans, I've got a special objective for you: defeat Saffron personally at his full power. Given your skillset and elemental immunities it shouldn't really be difficult, but your ascent to divinity requires a few things. One of them is that you have to be harder to kill than a mortal. If you do this I'll reward you with a phoenix-like rebirth ability. Got it?" I blinked incredulously.
"Are you fucking serious? That would be amazing! It also changes some of my plans. Ok… there's a few moves I absolutely want to learn: whatever the Tendo ability to manifest weapons of pure ki is, Ranma's ability to fight in his sleep, the Breaking Point, the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken speed technique, the Yamasen-Ken and Umisen-Ken, Hiryu Shoten Ha, the Ultimate Weakness moxibustion, Hinako's energy draining and returning moves, Happosai's one-finger block and pipe-throw techniques...there's bound to be something I'm missing. Can those be optional quests?" Washu nodded and made a motion to continue.
"Also as optional quests I'd like to break the lock on my curse, keep the wishing sword out of Kuno's hands, and grab a whole lot of the series artifacts: the Locking Ladle, the Kettle of Opening, the Nanban mirror, the enchanted gi, and whatever else is interesting. I'll do my best to help people while I'm there. On that note, am I allowed to outright break Jusenkyo curses?"
"Sooo… you want to break your biggest drawback, learn all of the best techniques, steal all the cool stuff, and help a few people. Yes, you can break the curses with a little practice. It would probably kill the fun of the series if you did it to anyone else though, so please refrain from curing anyone that's not already an accomplished shapeshifter. You're making Saffron your end-of-Jump goal?"
"Yep," I replied. "If I can't beat a phoenix demi-god how am I supposed to become a creator-level deity?"
"Ok. I'm going to go ahead and say your curse itself will immediately turn into an alternate form when you manage to break it, but you won't be able to do that while it's locked. Capische?" My eyes lit up.
"Does...does that apply to any other Ranma ½ curses I might pick up? And what about Ember? And why an alternate form instead of just a shape I can assume?" Washu shrugged.
"Sure, take all the curses you want. You're a shapeshifter, after all. Ember's capable of learning the shapeshift skill via The Gamer if you keep her in your party, or she can just use Transform. Finally: alternate forms are guaranteed by the Jump-Chain itself. If you somehow lose your normal power to shapechange or don't have any MP left you can still take those forms."
I hit finalize with the widest grin I could manage and Ember and I were suddenly falling from the sky.