Summary: An sorceress contracts a witcher to capture a djinn, and everyone who has read The Last Wish collectively cringes at my lack of originality.
THE LAST WISH
III
An errant bit of intestine stuck to the wall, which had splattered onto it during the festivities the evening before, captivated Harry. He stared at it for near a full minute, admiring the gossamer-like texture and the pinkish hue on it, left over by the blood, before Hermione interrupted his reverie:
"So, Harry, thoughts?" the sorceress asked, looking about the room. They were alone, the others cleared out not five minutes earlier, including a rather reluctant Viktor.
"Yeah," replied the witcher, "just one, at the moment."
"What is it?"
"What the hell have you gotten me into?"
The chestnut-haired sorceress looked off in another direction, innocently. "I'm afraid I've no idea what you're talking about, Master Witcher."
"I'm sure you don't," said Harry as he squatted to inspect a book that had been cleaved in half. "The head sorcerer at the Magical University in Ban Ard, as well as the headmistress at Aretuza, hires me to track down someone who stole a lamp from them? And then used that lamp to summon a djinn, who then went and butchered the Chancellor at the University of Oxenfurt? I don't like getting involved in politics, and this reeks of politics."
"Yes, I know, all witchers are invariably allergic to politicking; I've read all about your sect and heard about your damned 'neutrality'. Honestly, it's all tosh, anyway," the sorceress huffed dismissively.
"Tosh? Well, that's easy enough to say when people aren't banging at your doors, hoping you'll turn assassin for them."
Hermione crossed her arms and leaned against the shattered doorframe with an expression of long-suffering weariness: "Oh, for pity's sake, stop being paranoid. I wouldn't dream of asking you to assassinate someone."
"It's a short, slippery slope from here to there," quipped the witcher, as he returned to the the gore and blood splattered across one wall and collecting on the floorboards.
"The books tell it true once more," smiled the brown-haired beauty, "you witchers are an ornery lot."
Harry scoffed. "Well it must be true if a sorceress, of all people, tells me so. So, how again, am I supposed to find this lamp?"
"As Professor Dumbledore said, all artifacts kept at the Ban Ard University have tracking charms applied to them, and they can locate these artifacts to within a mile radius. The lamp's signal led us here, and it's still close by, meaning our culprits can't be much farther."
"So, let me get this straight, these people murder a high-ranking member of the University and then remain within a one mile radius of the crime scene?" Harry said doubtfully. "That doesn't seem right."
"Well it's the only lead we have at the moment," sighed the sorceress.
Harry shrugged, and went back to the evidence before him. It was a room that had been in pristine condition before it was savaged last night. That was all visual inspection had gotten him. So, maybe it was time to change tack.
"Hm... do you smell that?" he said after a moment.
"What, blood and rotting organs? No, I'm sure it must be your imagination," intoned Hermione sarcastically.
"Less cheek, if you will, Madam Sorceress; it's neither blood nor organs," Harry said, sniffing the air. "It's more like... rosemary and basil."
"Are you suggesting our djinn moonlights as a chef?"
Harry ignored her, and followed his nose. Witchers, as a result of the numerous mutations they underwent, had keen senses, and as senses went, the nose was among the keenest. Eyes can be deceived in every way, but the nose, the nose never lied. He strode out into the hallway and down the stairs, to where their assorted companions awaited.
"Done already, Master Witcher?" asked McGonagall, eyebrow raised. Harry ignored her, and Hermione, who rushed to catch up with the speeding witcher, apologised profusely for the mutant's perceived slight.
Harry burst out the door and followed his nose down narrow, cobbled streets, past spires and a little cathedral devoted to the adherents of the Eternal Fire, until he found himself at a long drop to the sandy beach below, where he saw two sets of fine, unmarred footprints leading to the shore.
"Well," said Harry, "even if the djinn was the one that murdered the Chancellor, it appears that there were others in the room."
"How do you know?"
"Two sets of prints down below. Two males. That's where the scent goes."
Hermione crossed her arms and fixed the witcher an obstinate look. "I don't know about that," she said dubiously, obviously less trusting of the witcher nose than Harry was.
"Fine." Harry shrugged. "Don't come with me then, if I come back with that lamp, then you're paying for my room and board tonight," he trotted away quickly, only for Hermione to stubbornly keep up with him:
"We shall see where this goes," she said, eyeing the witcher appraisingly.
"Skinflint," he murmured.
"What was that?" the sorceress asked sharply.
"Nothing."
After a short trip through brambles and bushes, and traversing a sheer cliff-face, the witcher caught up to the sorceress, who had wisely chosen to teleport herself down to the beach below. The waves lapped up at high-tide, washing dangerously close to washing some of the tracks away.
"The tracks disappear into the surf. So, now what?" asked Hermione. Harry looked around, and saw a small beach just sat on the outskirts of the town, a few short dashes away from the Three Little Bells inn.
"Now you teleport us to the other side of the isles, where the main city is," Harry said, pointing across the short bay. "It's the way they would have done it."
"They?"
"The two men who came this way; one of them must have been a sorcerer. I'd imagine it would be pretty difficult to smuggle something out of Ban Ard otherwise. Teleporting would be the quickest way to get to the other side of the isles, and from this angle? At night?" Harry indicated how difficult it would be to see them from the bridge connecting the University to the main isle. "It would also attract the least amount of attention."
Hermione seemed to consider it a moment, then nodded. "Take hold of my arm, Master Witcher," she said, and Harry did so. A sudden, intense feeling of being squeezed through a tube roughly the size of a miniature sewer pipe, and they landed on the other side of the water. Well, Hermione landed, Harry rather tumbled rather gracelessly into the sand.
He spat out a mouthful of grainy stuff.
"It takes a bit of getting used to for first-timers," Hermione said, offering a hand up, "I ended up teleporting about ten metres too high my first time. And I ended up breaking my fool leg."
Harry took the proffered hand and didn't resist when the elfwoman said a few unintelligible words in the Elder tongue, which immediately removed all the dust and sand from the cerulean kaftan the witcher wore under his leather chestpiece.
"Thanks," he said quickly, and, once he received the customary nod from Hermione, the witcher went back to looking for tracks. "Here," he said, pointing to a set of two tracks, both male, "they were walking closer to the shore here, so the tide hasn't come in and gotten rid of them yet. So we can follow them for a while."
"It'll bring us out to a fishing haunt," said Hermione, "there are hundreds of people who walk by there every day."
"Then we'll follow the nose," said Harry, unconcerned, as they began to follow the tracks.
"I'm curious, Master Witcher," said Hermione as they continued following the tracks at an unhurried pace.
"Are you?"
"You claim to avoid politics, do you not?"
"I do."
"I saw you and Professor Dumbledore speaking, hushed and hurriedly. For a man so thoroughly repelled by the idea of statecraft and political maneuvering, it is a surprise to see you so chummy with the man."
"It was hardly chummy," scoffed Harry.
"Really? Surely, it seemed like you knew each other."
"I don't know him," said the witcher, "but he knows me."
"What on earth does that even mean?"
Harry grunted. "You're quite nosy, Miss Granger,"
"Some say it's my best quality," Hermione said all while fluttering her lashes exaggeratedly.
"He knew my father," the witcher said tersely. He had no idea why he told her that, but it merely slipped out, as though he couldn't control himself.
"Wow," nodded Hermione, "for your father and Dumbledore to know each other... he must have been important, indeed. Nor must he have been so dismissive of the state of the world, as you are."
"My father was a Temerian, with a country, a home, and a title; I'm a mutant who kills monsters. I have no need to care for the state of the world," snapped Harry, and he instantly regretted it.
"It seems the books were wrong about one thing," said the sorceress quietly.
"And what's that?" Harry asked, his tone and mood rough.
"You can feel, it seems. Anger, for one."
The tracks inevitably led to the fishing haunt, and a minute beyond that, to a small shack built in a deserted alcove, just above where the high tide would hit, and five ruffians sat outside it, surrounding a generous slab of hog roasting on a spit. It smelled strongly of Rosemary, garlic, and basil, among other things. Hermione, predictably, wasn't enthused.
"Tell me, Master Witcher: did you bring me all this way to find the lamp, or did you merely think to sniff out brunch for yourself?" she asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"No," deadpanned Harry, matching the sorceress's sarcasm pound-for-pound, "I was so entranced by you I decided we must share lunch together."
"Mm... with a gaggle of cudgel-swinging louts, no less. Quite the romantic you are, Harry Potter."
"It's good of you to be the first to finally notice that."
By then, those cudgel-swinging louts, as Hermione had so candidly described them, took notice of the two interlopers among their party.
"Oi, oi, Denis! Look alive, mate!" one of them, a bearded fellow wearing metal sallet for no reason Harry could fathom, shouted to a bare-chested thug whose face was less a combination of features, and more a collection of disfiguring scars.
Denis, the ugly, scarred man, stood from his rickety chair and faced the two intruders. "Oi, go find somewhere else to have a shag, this here shack is occupied."
"Lovely people," Hermione muttered so only Harry could here, and then spoke up to address the men. "Gentlemen, we're not here for a shag. We're here to ask you about the two men who stayed with you earlier."
Instantly, the demeanour of the opposing party shifted. At first, they had been aloof, but amused by the appearance of a well-dressed elf and her sword-bearing paramour, but upon learning that they were looking for two men, they became agitated, just short of hostile.
One of the men, a skinny, rat-faced one with the air of a man likely to start a brawl over a spilled drink, reached to his waist and readied a spiked cudgel in his hands. Harry's own hand wrapped around the familiar handle of his Zerrikanian sabre.
"So you're the ones, then," Denis said, stepping up and throwing his arms forward in a wild and ostentatious greeting. "Welcome!"
"We're the ones?" Hermione asked. "What do you mean?"
The scarred man smiled and grotesque smile. "What I mean, is that we've been offered a lot of money to kill the woman who comes to our shack, asking after two men who had stayed here. And if she had a bodyguard, kill him, too. I took the coin; I needed it. But I'm also a man of my word, and if here you appear, then here it is where you make your own grave."
Denis drew his own weapon, a sharp kopesh, and advanced slowly on the duo. With one quick swipe upward, the sabre was in Harry's hands.
"Should've known," the scarred man said, "she-elf wench is much too fit; she'd never deign to have a round in the hay with that ugly cocksucker."
"Great moments of irony," Harry murmured back to Hermione, "Exhibit A."
The sorceress laughed softly, and placed her arm forward. "Again, gentlemen, I'm going to ask you a series of questions about the men who stayed with you. If you don't want to answer, well, I'll just have to be rough."
A silence fell. Harry gave his companion a sideways look.
She does realise what she just implied, right?
If the sorceress didn't know by then, she learned it right after, when the thuggish coterie broke out into wild peals of laughter. They guffawed and slapped their knees like madmen, and one of them even overturned one of the chairs in his merriment.
"Oh, aye," said one of the lads, "with an arse like that, you can get rough with me anytime, knife-ears—"
There was a flash and a squawk, followed by a wet whump and squelching sound, and the man who had been hounding the sorceress quite suddenly fell to ground, groaning and grunting where he had been jeering and hollering a moment ago. Out from his back, and through quite a gaping hole in his gut, a bloodied canary flapped its wings, and tweeted shrilly at the downed man, before dissipating into golden smoke.
Instantly, the laughter stopped, and two of the thugs ran over to their comrade's side, and wrenched back the hand that he was using to cover the wound:
"Fucking hell, the bloody bird went straight through Cid! Flew right through his bleedin' gut!" the combative, thin man shouted in an altogether unappealing Northern Redanian accent. They all whirled around on Hermione, who dusted her hands and fixed them a smile that Harry thought was much too odious for lips like hers:
"There," she said smugly, "have I received your attention, yet?"
"Aye, you've got my attention, you she-elf cunt," Denis spat, no longer quite as jovial or mocking as he'd been a moment earlier. Harry wondered briefly how much more somber the mercenary would be after he cut off the man's arm.
"Now, you've two options, dh'oine," the elf said haughtily, in a manner not all like her own, "you can either tell me where those men are, and you can get your little friend to the clinic in the city before he bleeds out, or you can take on a sorceress and a witcher in a fight. Which do you think gives you better odds?"
Harry was privately impressed; the woman could play quite a convincing bigot when she tried. And, it seemed these men responded better to threats than they did to simple conversation, because they all looked to one another, and then moved aside, in seeming acceptance of the sorceress's demands:
"They was camping inside the hut," said Denis, "they've gone now, though. Don't bother asking me where, I don't know."
"The Kestrels!" exclaimed the thin man, jumping into the conversation. "I heard them talking about going to the Kestrel Mountains!"
"Thank you, you gallant gents," Hermione said, and made her way toward the shack. Harry, unlike his companion, wasn't quite ready to let his guard down, so he followed behind, blade still at the ready. When they reached the threshold of the hut, Hermione spoke lower, so only Harry could hear her. "Stay outside, Witcher; I should like to make sure our quarry haven't set any traps for the enterprising pursuer."
Harry nodded and turned right around, marching to the chair that had been overturned in the earlier festivities, and sat heavily on it, where he then placed his sword to rest against his thigh. From his waistbelt, Harry drew the smaller, gutting knife he carried and immediately attacked a piece of the hog.
The four standing mercenaries stared at the witcher as he proceeded to steal their food.
Harry eventually looked up, and cocked his head in mock-confusion. "Why are you lot still here? The clinic's that way," he jabbed his knife, on which a piece of pork belly was stabbed, in the direction of the town proper. "Reckon you'll not be able to do anything for him here, unless you'd like me to melt his insides with a witcher's potion."
As though suddenly remembering one of their men had been gored by an errant, insane canary, the remaining four picked up the bloodied lad and hoofed toward the fishing pier that would take them to the clinic, and hopefully to a sorcerer who was in a much more merciful mood than Hermione had been.
"Master Witcher!" Hermione's voice called from within the hut. "It's safe! You can come in now."
Harry speared the last pit of loin, and finished fashioning himself a makeshift roast pork kebab, before he went through the door himself. Inside, the shack was like most ordinary shacks, built of wood that was once strong and sturdy, but had been weakened by the years of ocean spray. Various useless knick-knacks littered the stone floor, from shovels and hoes to fishing nets, and even an iron anchor that hadn't seen use in at least half a century. The real centrepiece of the shack, and what Hermione was standing over, was a small, un-sanded work table, atop which was an intricately carved, golden lamp, and what looked to be a gnarled wand sat beside it.
Hermione looked up, preparing to launch into some speech, but stopped short at the sight of the witcher's ill-gotten gains. "Did you steal their food?"
"Hey, it's a free meal, and they had better things to do." Harry shrugged.
The sorceress shook her head despairingly. "So I was right, then. You did come here for a meal."
"Let's call it a happy accident," said Harry, through a full mouth. "Looks like you've found the lamp."
The brunette gazed down at the little thing, and sighed. "Unfortunately, that's all it is, now."
"What do you mean, all it is?"
"I mean this is just a lamp. No djinn, no magic. Look at your medallion. Is it vibrating?"
"Well," Harry started, fiddling with the bear sigil round his neck, "uh, no. It's not."
"Because there's neither monsters nor active magic nearby. There's nothing in this room but us, an anchor, and a lamp."
"And you're sure that's the right lamp?"
"Yes, I am. I've seen it before, with my own eyes."
"So, what does it mean?"
"Normally," Hermione began, "it would mean that our thieves are bleeding hearts who set the djinn free, and, in doing so, probably ended up getting themselves killed. Djinn are notorious ingrates."
"But?"
Hermione nodded to the side, her curls bouncing lazily toward the twisted, curving wand that sat beside her. "Sixteen-inches. Made of yew, with a core of unicorn hair. Quite well made."
"What, the wand?"
"Rod, Harry, it's a rod," said Hermione, "an binding rod, to be exact."
"Meaning?"
"Well!" Hermione exclaimed, seemingly instantly in her natural state. "Now, you see, magic doesn't necessarily need a focal point to be used, but as Stürgmann tells us in Intermediate Practicum of Magicka, a staff, rod, or wand, as you say, can be infinitely useful in amplifying power. What a binding rod does is take the... and you're not listening, are you?"
"No," said Harry, happily munching on his kebab. "Can you explain it in layman's terms?"
"This rod is specifically made to unseal and seal things from out of and into objects, respectively, especially in cases of extremely powerful spirits, such as the djinn," said the sorceress dully.
"So then, it's a possibility..."
"...That the thieves knew that the lamp was being tracked and unbound the djinn, only to seal it within their own receptacle, and thus, throw us off their scent. Yes, Master Witcher, that is a possibility."
"Well, the runty bloke said they were headed to the Kestrels," Harry said.
Hermione shook her head. "Hardly great evidence. You of all people should understand just how big that mountain range is."
"It continues for hundreds of miles."
"Yes, and that's not exactly a small area." Hermione sighed again. "Alright. Let's take back what we've found. After we've consulted with the Professors and our Redanian liaison, we'll be able to plan out our next move."
Viktor awaited outside the building the Chancellor had been murdered in, and perked up the moment he saw Harry and Hermione return by way of portal, and quickly ushered the two inside as he doted on the sorceress and pointedly ignored the witcher.
Once inside, Dumbledore was the first to speak. "Have you any news?"
Harry nodded and pointed over to Hermione, who reached into her pocket and pulled out a miniaturised version of the lamp she and Harry had found. Grasping it by its tiny handle, she uttered a few words and the lamp returned to the size at which they'd found it.
"Here it is," said Hermione.
"That looks like the one that went missing, but, Albus, am I right in saying you shouldn't be able to use spells on the lamp," McGonagall started doubtfully to the Headmaster of the Ban Ard University, "not while a djinn is inside it, at least?"
"You are correct, Minerva," Dumbledore answered, before nodding gravely to Hermione. "Are we to assume that this means...?"
"Yes," the brunette said, "the djinn was unbound from the lamp and likely placed into another receptacle, to lose the tracking charm placed onto our lamp."
"Give it to me," ordered the old man softly, and Hermione quickly complied, handing it off to the man as though it were a priceless artifact from a bygone age. The Headmaster inspected the lamp.
"Also, we found this," said Hermione, drawing the binding rod from the belt at her waist and brandishing it in front of their compatriots. There was the light of recognition in Dumbledore's eyes when he saw the gnarled wand:
"Ah, yes. It's as I suspected," he said cryptically.
"As you suspected?" McGonagall questioned, taking off her witch's hat, revealing raven hair that was starting to grey. It only then occurred to Harry that this Headmistress was like no other sorceress he'd ever seen, for the sheer fact that she was aged. He made a mental note to ask Hermione about it, later.
"I see why our thieves came here," said Dumbledore. "The best place to hide a secret to a dangerous item, and the lamp of a djinn is most certainly dangerous, is generally where no one would think to look, or so I thought. Some years ago, I asked Cornelius, that is, Chancellor Fudge, to hold on to an binding rod I had created expressly for the purpose of sealing this djinn. We told no one else of this arrangement, so, I assumed should anyone come looking for the djinn, they would never be able to use it unless they created their own."
"So, Chancellor Fudge hid it in his office?" Harry interrupted.
"What?" the old man asked.
"I followed the tracks of the thieves. They were only ever in the Chancellor's office," said Harry.
"Ah, yes, that is troubling," Dumbledore lifting up his spectacles to rub at the bridge of his nose.
"What's troubling?" Neville asked; the others in the room nodded their own confusion at the unspoken conversation between witcher and sorcerer.
"If what the Headmaster says about his conversation with the Chancellor is true, then Chancellor Fudge would have known to keep the rod in a safe place, hidden away from any prying eyes. Yet, if the thieves never left the office, it suggests that Fudge left the rod in there. Meaning..."
"...Meaning," interrupted Dumbledore genially, "I had judged Cornelius to not be the careless type. It appears, through the witcher's investigation, that I was wrong to believe such a thing."
Harry bit his tongue; he had an entirely different hypothesis, but would hold back for now.
"Still, Cornelius is dead, through a stolen artifact from my university, and I must take responsibility for that," Dumbledore said, "is there any other news. Any at all, that might help us track the thieves?"
"The Kestrels," Hermione said. "The thieves hired several mercenaries to 'take care' of anyone who would come round asking questions. They thought better of it when they realised they'd have to 'take care' of a sorceress and a witcher. One of them told us that the thieves were making their way toward the Kestrel Mountains."
Neville grimaced from behind Dumbledore. "That mountain range spans hundreds of miles. It's better than nothing, I suppose, but not much more than that."
"Perhaps it would be wise to petition King Vestibor for a few more men?" Hermione suggested.
"I could try," said the blond man, "but it would be difficult to sanction. The Kestrels are a border with Kaedwen, and they're quite touchy about their sovereignty; I'm not sure the King would be comfortable sending men to the borderlands in the company of sorcerers from a Kaedweni-allied University."
"Then maybe I shall petition King Dagread for a few of the Unicorns' men?" asked Dumbledore. "Perhaps it will go a long way to easing Vestibor's fears if this is to be seen as a joint mission?"
The Redanian soldier seemed to think it over and gave a tentative nod. "I can... push the idea forward. I cannot guarantee His Grace will accept your offer, however. If you have questions concerning why," he said, giving a not-so-surreptitious look to those in their company, "we can discuss these matters in private."
"I see, then let us find a quiet place to have a chat, shall we, Master Longbottom?" Dumbledore asked.
Harry took that as his cue to leave, and slouched out the door, with Hermione and Viktor following close behind.
"So, Miss Granger," said the Witcher.
"Yes?" Hermione asked as soon as she caught stride with him.
"What now?"
"Now, Professor Dumbledore will likely head to Ard Carraigh and petition King Dagread for several of the best trackers in the Kaedweni army, and presumably Longbottom will ride for Tretogor in hopes of convincing King Vestibor to do the same," Hermione said, though her tone sounded pensive. "I'd be surprised if the order is given, on either side, however."
Viktor scrunched his bushy brows. "'Vy do you think that?"
"It's an open secret amongst the Brotherhood of Sorcerers that Redania's relations with its neighbours are souring. Temeria has been encroaching on the Gustfields for quite some time..."
"What?" laughed Harry, "are they not satisfied with Velen, the pearl of Temeria?"
Even Viktor could not hold back a smile at that.
"And there have been several border skirmishes over the Kestrels over the past few years, to determine who the mountain range belongs to," Hermione continued smoothly, as if she'd never been interrupted at all.
"Why? The mountains are barely hospitable as it is. Who would even want it?"
Hermione shrugged. "I'll never claim to understand the minds of monarchs; though I suspect it's nothing more than peacocking. Still, despite how ridiculous the conflict is, it is still a conflict: one of the Sages who gave counsel to the Brotherhood predicts there will be war in no less than five years' time, and numerous men and boys will die, due to kingly vainglory."
"So it is likely then," Viktor said, "that these... Kings will not cooperate vith each other?"
"Very likely," said Hermione, as they stopped over the bridge connecting the main town with the University.
"So, like I said: what now?" Harry asked.
"Even aided by magic, it'll still be at least few days, perhaps even a week, before we can assemble a coalition large enough to effectively comb the Kestrels, if the monarchs agree to this mission at all. So, for now, Master Witcher, we wait."
Harry sighed. "I didn't expect to be side-tracked in Oxenfurt for so long."
"You should stop complaining, Harry," chided the sorceress, playfully wagging a finger, "I've already said you'd be handsomely compensated."
"It's not the gold that worries me, it's the staying still in one city."
Hermione's lips curved upward into a smile. "I didn't say we had to stay in Oxenfurt."
Harry stopped, and cocked an eyebrow. "Where do you have in mind?"
"There's a lovely town two days ride out from here, currently being besieged by a wyvern," the sorceress said. "The Duke petitioned me to come help some days ago, and I think it's my happy luck to have run into a Witcher. Now, we could take a portal there and be done in an afternoon, but if we take the slow route, we could be there and back before week's end."
Harry smirked; Sirius often told him to avoid sorcerers and sorceresses like the plague, because they only ever caused trouble for the average witcher, but he was suddenly becoming quite fond of this one: "Ah, Sorceress, you know the way to a man's heart."
"I do not think ve should leave Oxenfurt. 'Vat if Dumblydore or Ne-ville come back before ve do?" Viktor voiced his concerns, doubtful.
Hermione shrugged. "I shall give you my looking glass, then. You can stay here, and if the party does start before we've arrived back, you can contact me and I'll be sure to drag the Witcher back with me posthaste."
That particular option seemed to enthuse Viktor even less, but, nevertheless he nodded. "Fine. I shall stay. Be careful."
"I always am, Viktor," Hermione smiled reassuringly. "Harry, have you a horse?"
"Unfortunately, no."
"Well, I should very much like to see a witcher in his natural element, and we're on a strict schedule, so we can't afford to be late. So, we shall have to remedy your lack of steed before we leave, correct?" the sorceress said, and scampered ahead, in the direction of the town square, and the horse stables beyond the gate.
A/N: I believe the next chapter will be the last (and longest) part to the 'The Last Wish', then we'll return for a chapter with Geralt, Harry, and Dandelion. After all of that, we'll move on to the next arc, which again features Ron, and a little guy named Dobby.
Chapter Notes:
- I know a lot of HP characters have been introduced in this arc compared to The Lesser Kindness, which was more or less just Harry and Ron, but Denis the cunt mercenary bears no relation whatsoever to Dennis Creevey, from HP canon.
- Another character from the Witcher half of crossover was alluded to in the conversation Harry, Hermione, and Viktor had on the bridge; this character may or may not make an appearance in the next arc.
- Brotherhood of Sorcerers: This is more clarification for those who have only played the games. The Brotherhood of Sorcerers was the organisation of assorted mages of the Northern Kingdoms, prior to their overthrowing by the Lodge of Sorceresses during the Thanedd Coup, a significant event in the books. Despite the name, The Brotherhood of Sorcerers accepted both male and female mages, while The Lodge accepts only sorceresses.
- Seven Years' War: The political strife between Redania, Temeria, and Kaedwen, that Hermione was referring to is alluding to this particular war. Not much is really known about the war, beside that it took seven years to run its course, and that Redania lost a significant amount of land (most notably losing Novigrad to Temeria), until Radovid III, the Bold (not to be confused with Radovid V, the Stern, who is the witch-hunting Radovid most are familiar with), restores the original borders some years later.
Thanks for reading,
Geist.