One Eyed Alchemy Chapter 11. Of Stones and Hounds.
As Harry and friends walked across the woodland path towards Hagrid's hut, crickets chirping in the grass, the topic's once-more turned towards Ron's newfound visions. Their initial research had turned up only a single most likely contender. The demigod Chu Chullain, Son of the god Lugh and half of their current topic of discussion.
Ron had managed to stubbornly convince himself of the gods identity, arguing that he fit the visions perfectly. And Harry could see where Ron was coming from.
Taken individually, almost every aspect of Ron's vision was accounted for in the Hound of Ulster's legend. The puddles of red liquid? Blood, a simple universal symbol of both violence and life. The hound and music? The demigod was known mostly for his connection to dogs, and had been raised by a bard.
The strange army of sun-eyed warriors? He was the son of the sun, and famously had inhuman otherworldly eyes.
The black Horse? Hermione's leading argument against Celtic figures in general as they ascribed the beast to the sun rather then the darkness of the underworld they represented in certain European nations, would be the horses that drew the gods chariot, black and grey respectively.
To be perfectly honest, Harry'd almost been swept away in Ron's argument… And had privately started focussing himself on the creation of specialised venoms to use against the god, just in case Ron was right. But had in the end sided with Hermione on the matter for a simple reason.
Amergin, the so-called "bard" that he'd been raised by, had upon further research turned out to have been a poet instead. And while not unlikely for Amergin to have been a god of both, It had thrown in just enough doubt for Hermione to convince Harry to continue their search, and to start breaching out to other mythologies.
Which was why Hermione had almost walked into a tree multiple times, her nose stuck deep in a book as Harry placed a hand on her shoulder to steer her out of the way of any further obstacles.
Looking over Hermione's shoulder, The book was filled with a beautiful illustration of a man, carrying the leaf-gold image of a lyre, followed by a female figure through a darkened cave.
"Orpheus"
The son of Apollo, who's name derived from darkness, who perfected the lyre and who travelled through the netherworld. Who sang songs which had power over Hades, who's favoured beast had featured prominently in the dream.
Both theories admittedly had a lot going for them, but neither seemed to describe the dream perfectly. Leading to his friends current argument.
"Ron, I'm telling you the graveyard is just meant to represent the underworld."
"And why, would my brother Bill, who may I remind you is currently in bloody Egypt, be in the Netherworld?"
"ENOUGH!" Harry shouted, before taking a deep breath to calm himself. "Im sorry, but can you both please calm down? We're not even certain the visions refer to a god at all, so there is no reason to get this heated up over it.
And either way, My contacts within the Witangemot have been looking into both those options at my request. And agree that neither is likely."
Ron and Hermione both looked a bit ashamed of their heated temperaments, but both seemed unwilling to apologise. But that was fine with Harry who just went on.
"In regards to Orpheus,"" Harry said, taking the book from Hermione's hands and handing her a stack of paper that his raven had delivered to him earlier that day. "While you are right that he shares a lot of domains with the vision. Historical records show the arrival of a heretic god in December 1979. Who's mere presence caused oracles the world over to go insane, and caused reports of unnaturally darkened skies by various Greek associations. While proof of this gods identity remains nonexistent, the various supernatural phenomenon were centred around the isle of Lesbos, the city of Dion in Pieria amongst a variety of other sites associated with the exploits of the Heretic God Orpheus.
While no living person bore witness to the events that played out, and the wording varied between oracles. They all had similar themes, referencing a dark being who falls by one similar to them. The current leading theory is that the Heretic god was in fact Orpheus, and was slain either by Eurydice, or his brother Linus."
"So seeing as he was driven back into his legend less than a century ago, we can rather safely assume it wasn't him." Harry said as the woods opened up to reveal Hagrid's hut.
"And while I would love to talk in detail about the Hound, I think it would be quite impolite to keep Hagrid waiting, wouldn't it?"
Looking at his friends to see their slightly miffed, but ultimately agreeing expressions Harry reached out and knocked.
Hagrid's little wooden hut was an almost the absolute opposite to the grounds he kept outside, by which Harry meant to say. "cramped and hotter than that time I was running through a forest fire".
Well not "cramped", Cosy would probably be the right word for it. But he would not budge on the temperature, Harry was fairly certain that the flames spewed by some of the lesser dragons he'd encountered in his travels where almost chilled by comparison. Harry was half-expecting the wooden cottage to light itself on fire any second,
"So Harry, Heres that book ya wanted." The friendly, over-sized man said as he handed Harry a slightly singed copy of Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit, Harry took it only to recoil a bit as he felt a strange slime stain his hands. "Hagrid, What is this?" the boy-who-lived said, as he looked at the translucent, vicious fluid that had stained the back-cover.
"Ah, Fang must've gotten into it." The groundskeeper said, head nodding towards the dog sitting by the raging fire. "He's got a bit of energy ta burn, with Fluffy gone." Hagrid whispered under his breath, sending a sympathetic glance at Fang, who was currently standing upright looking into the cauldron over the fire clearly intend on getting into whatever soup or stew Hagrid was cooking.
"That big dog on the third-floor Corridor?" the question slipped out from between Ron's lips before any of the three could stop it, causing Harry to grasp his forehead in shame at his friends apparent inability to keep a secret. Hagrid's eyes seemingly bulged out of his head.
"Why can't you just bring Fang to Fluffy then?" Harry attempted to move the conversation forward, desperately relying on the groundskeepers love for all living creatures to distract him from Ron's accidental admissions of rule breaking as to avoid getting into trouble.
"I've been busy 'll-right, haven't had the time. Between feeding the giant squid, helping professor Kettleburn with the Thestral's whatever's been plaguing the unicorns… I just haven't had the time." The overlarge man said, "Poor Fluffy, stuck inside all alone without his-" The now crying giant blew his nose into his handkerchief. "friend Fang, just sittin' in that tiny room alone all day. I've barely had the time to…" the became complety incomprehensible as his sobbing guilt took over.
Suddenly an idea popped into the young king's mind, if he played his cards right… maybe he could not only avoid detention for going into the corridor… but even get some vital information about what lied behind the door from Ron's nightmares.
"Calm down Hagrid,-" Harry said as he sat himself down next to the fireplace, scratching Fang besides its ears as the dog continued looking into the cauldron, apparently unaware that it didn't contain the stew Fang was looking for. "What If someone else could help ensure Fang and Fluffy still get time together? I've got a way with animals, and Fang seems to like me-" Harry hugged the hound as if to emphasize his point. "So... How about I take Fang and Fluffy together in the morning, and you don't tell Headmaster Dumbledore about how we accidentally found our way into the forbidden corridor?"
Honestly, it was too easy. Harry hadn't known Hagrid for long, but the giant man was almost unbelievably simple to read, and clearly carried his love for his "beasties" on his sleeve. Tapping just a tiny bit into his authority to make Fang seem excited about the prospect of getting to spend time with Harry just guaranteed that Hagrid was going to go along with it. Even if Harry had to whipe the slobber off his cheeks afterwards.
And as expected, Hagrid readily agreed, though not without giving Harry a true laundry-list of instructions on how to care for the two hounds. From the rarity of Fluffy's steaks, (Each head apparently liked their steaks just a little differently, the rightmost head liking them raw whereas the leftmost preferred their meat well done. The middle one was, fittingly enough, in the somewhere in between.) to the favourite spots on their body for brushing, (behind the ear, as if Harry hadn't figured that much out already) and their favourite songs for bedtime (Clair de Lune, which Harry sadly didn't know how to play).
"Allright Harry, and don't forget, Fluffy's a trained guard dog through an through so under no circumstance should you touch the trapdoor, What's behind there is for Professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel only, you understand?" Hagrid finished his list as Harry promptly spat out his tea.
"Nicholas Flamel?" Harry half choked going stiff as a board, before straightening his face out and trying desperately to pretend he had not noticed Hagrid's unintended slip.
This was big… like, bigger then big. The bigger then his sister's golden buddha's kind of big.
Looking at Hermione and Ron on their respective chairs Harry send them a message with a look.
They had a lead, and a pretty good one at that.
As soon as they closed the door to Hagrid's hut behind them, Hermione was already on him.
"So… Who's this Nicholas Flamel, and why are YOU so afraid of him?" Hermione asked. "And don't pretend you don't know, we both saw how you reacted to hearing the name."
"Well,-" Harry was about to respond, but was cut off by a slightly desperate Ron
"Yeah mate, do you know this bloke? cause if you do you have to tell us mate."
"I mean… by name and reputation, I guess? But not personally… though I've heard a lot about him from my sister. " Harry paused for breath as he grappled with the words that were about to come out of his mouth, "That man… he's the world's greatest alchemist and the only living man older then Voban."
A hand on his shoulder stopped the young king, as he turned to look at his red-haired companion, "But Harry… I thought you said that your brother was…"
"Over three-hundred years old?" Harry finished.
The look on Hermione and Ron's faces was almost worth the knot Harry felt forming in his stomach as he looked towards Hogwarts. "At least now we know what's in the third floor corridor, I just cant imagine who'd try and steal the philosopher stone?"
The next weeks flew by as the trio cancelled their research into Orpheus and moved onto researching the history of the stone,
But besides waiting for the Witangemot to have a breakthrough, Nothing much happened until one morning when Harry returned to Hagrid's hut to fetch Fang for their daily walk towards the 3rd floor corridor. When Hagrid suddenly pulled Harry inside the cottage.
-"A dragon's egg?" Harry's jaw hit the floor as he looked at the large rounded shell lying on Hagrid's table, wrapped in steaming hot blankets. The American-football sized, thin bone shell decorated with a ridges and scales was honestly the last thing he'd expected to see when he came over to visit Hagrid's house at the half-giant's prodding invitations.
He'd expected something more modest, for lack of a better term. Something like a foal from the unicorns he'd witnessed during his nightly meditations, or a rare magical bird.
But a dragon's egg?
Where did Hagrid get a dragon's egg? Why did the groundskeeper think he was going to care for it…
Well that question was probably an easy answer, knowing Hagrid he'd probably decided that the no-doubt one day fearsome beast would make for an adorable pet of sorts, and hadn't adequately considered the factors involved in raising a tiny dragon.
Factors which included biting, providing sufficient food, space for housing and their alarming tendency to burn down homes and villages, the latter of which being quite more relevant to the current situation then the others.
Hagrid, who lived in a small wooden cottage, was trying to raise a large fire breathing lizard… Surely even the sometimes dim-witted man would be able to see the problem here.
Well… seeing as both Hermione and Ron were currently back in the castle doing homework, it seemed it would befall onto Harry to talk some sense into the man. "Hagrid… You live in a wooden hut. That thing"-Harry pointed towards the egg, a tiny crack beginning to form in it's shell. "is going to breathe fire… I know you didn't finish Hogwarts, but even you understand that two plus two is four".
"So? Tis here 'sall up to code, Not a board in me home that don't meet DMAC guidelines"
"DMAC?"
"That'd be the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes? Is'n abbreviation Harry." The giant clarified. "They're the bit'o the wizardin' gov'ment in charge of makin' sure houses and buildings be safe. Once ev'ry two or three years they'll send a wizard ter inspect yer house and make sure yer lightning redirecting wards are up ter snuff amongst others. And lemme tell you my fire-repellent charms are still in tip-top shape." Hagrid boasted as he sweeped his arms pointing towards the wooden rafters as if to show them off.
Come to think of it, It had been true that a lot of the wizarding housing seemed to be wooden. Maybe not all of them but more so than the brick-stone houses he remembered from his days in privet drive. Idly Harry wondered whether there were any other cultural differences he hadn't noticed yet… Resolving to look into the matter in the future, he put the issue aside to address the proverbial elephant, and literal dragon, in the room.
"Well Hagrid, Clearly you've at least put some thought into this…"Harry lied, knowing the whimsical giant had definitely chosen to walk this path as a spur-of-the-moment idea prompted by gods-knows-what. "But how do you intend to feed it, I've read up on them a bit and a growing dragon can eat as much as an entire sheep a week. How do you plan to feed it? Hell! How DID you even scramble together the money to buy the egg in the first place?" Harry screamed out in incredulity.
"Ah won 'im in a game of cards."
Of all the possible answers, that was probably the one that made the least sense. Harry could imagine Hagrid making a spur of the moment decision to take out a ridiculously inflated loan, or to have made money co-writing a book about the fauna inhabiting the forbidden woods. But for him to have just won it? There was something fishy there.
There was no way anyone in possession of a highly illegal and prohibitively expensive dragon's egg would just gamble it away under normal circumstances, especially not without a similar prize to gain from their opponent.
But what could Hagrid have had to bet that would equal the value, and risk of exposure to DMLE attention. Perhaps his house? Looking around the room Harry couldn't help but conclude it highly unlikely, a dragon's egg would probably go for a prize closer to a mansion then this (admittedly quaint) little hut of Hagrid's… And that was assuming the hut was even Hagrid's to bet away. The young kind was fairly certain it'd merely come with the job as groundskeeper, probably belonging to the school rather than to any private individual.
No… there was nothing Hagrid could've provided that a sane man would deem worth risking the expense and threat of punishment involved, there was nothing here for them to win in the first place.
There was something there in that thought, what if it hadn't been a thing they'd wanted. What if it'd been a creature instead. Betting one valuable magical beast in exchange for another?
Steeling himself, Harry decided that the only way to get his answer would be simply to ask.
"Hagrid, I need you to answer me honestly. What did you bet in exchange for the egg"
"Well ye see, ah mus' admit ter beein' a bit tipsy at the time…" the half-giant winced, clearly feeling guilty about whatever he was about to admit.
"ah might've bet Fluffy?" The man half said half asked. As a thought hatched in Harry's brain like the little dragon on the table from its egg.
Whomever Hagrid had bet against, they hadn't been playing against Hagrid in the first place, and they had never cared whether he won or lost the hand. They'd never been playing for money, they'd been playing for gold. And a lot of it… as much as a man could ever want, along with an eternity to spend it in.
They'd been playing against Flamel, and Hagrid had just gotten caught up in the crossfire.
The cards could've gone either way on that table, and the result would've been the same. Hagrid could lose the game, and remove one layer of protection from the stone. Or win, and through a simple anonymous tip to the DMLE about Hagrid's illegal dragon he'd be arrested and with him Fluffy would've been removed from the board.
Looking the half-giant in the eye, Harry channelled every bit of kingly authority his sister had rubbed off on im over the years and decreed: "Hagrid, whomever your mysterious gambler is, he's after the philosopher's stone, and is looking to get you and Fluffy out of the picture.
That thing"- Harry pointed towards the scaly lizard on the table "was only ever meant to get you fired.
We need to get rid of the dragon… And we need to do it quickly."
The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was no-doubt processing the anonymous tip as they spoke.
Ordering Hagrid to keep close all the blinds, and keep the new-born drake in his sight at all costs Harry ran towards the castle to retrieve his best friend. This promised to be a long night, and he could use the assistance.
So… This took a while, and I'm sorry.
Long story short, there was a lot that needed to be done this chapter, from showing that the trio are both pro-active enough to do their own investigations, but still smart enough to rely on experts. Getting Hagrid to somewhat organically reveal Fluffy's name and drop the stone-hint, and the whole Norberta thing. The whole thing just kept feeling bad, and I just couldn't get it all to work.
So I rewrote, and rewrote. And it just kept messing it up until one day, I read a thing on Tumblr:
"Technically the Wright brothers made the worst airplanes." Something about that just made me think, Its either do it imperfectly and learn, or don't do it at all.
So… time to accept some hokey-er seques between subjects.
I did manage to get an entire separate chapter pre-written already, but I can't post it yet due to narrative reasons. (also I realised like a month ago that I made a pretty bad flaw in there that needs to be edited out before posting it, it'll probably be a book 2 thing)
Let's hope that I can really get back into the flow again soon. And that the upcoming chapters don't need me to do as many things at once.
I tried to make Harry's concerns more logistical then legal, but Harry's still not going to allow Hagrid to keep Norbert due to the simple issue of "it's a dragon near a school full of children".
Honestly, At first I couldn't figure out a single logical reason Quirrell would've bet the egg against Hagrid, all he needed was to get the giant drunk enough to slip his lips, but on closer thought things made a lot more sense, even if Hagrid hadn't told him about Fluffy's weakness to music, the egg would've caused Hagrid's arrest, and an anonymous tip that the dragon wasn't the only of his animals he wasn't qualified to keep would've gotten the Cerberus removed.
Honestly, quite an excellent plan on Quirrellmort's behalf, and it kind of makes me respect the guy as a villain more than any of his later plots.
Now, as far as we know, canonically the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophe's really only deals with accidental magic, oblivations and other statute of secrecy related things. But in a regulated society there'd be laws on basic health and safety, and as that is all about preventing accidents and catastrophe's I decided that rather then make a separate department for the Magical OSHA, I would just make it part of their job, just the preventative part.
Dialogue is still the second worst (second only to dialogue involving Hagrid's damned accent), but at least I feel like im doing better then before.
Now onto non-OEA related subjects, I've scrapped the RWBY-Campione thing I had semi-pre-written, (The ideas just wouldn't work beyond a rough draft. I'll still put in the time to see if it can be salvaged but it's on the backburner.) and have moved onto a BNHA-Campione thing, that I hope will write itself a bit better.
So, should only be 3-4 chapters left in this book. Then i'll put the One Eyed King on hiatus to work on the first story-arc for Godslaying Bowman before returning for the Chamber of Secrets. Im thinking of naming it "One Eyed Aspis", cause it's the only snake with an A besides an Anaconda)