August 1994, Domum Magicae, the Vatican, Roma.
Moving as fast as possible without losing the aura of dignity and command, Georgia, with two bodyguards at her back, tracked Harry, whose long strides carried him away from them at some pace. They had just found him leaving the great doors to the portico, saw him glance up at the sky, then vanish. The blast like that of an artillery barrage and the ground reverberated as he punched through the wards and on his way.
"Guard Commander!" Georgia barked to the most senior of the Court Men at Arms.
"Princess." he approached and bowed.
"To where does Mage Potter go?" she demanded.
"To the Training Area, when in such a terrible fury he goes there to throw his magic around." he answered.
"A portkey please." Georgia continued.
He nodded, producing a small amulet, and with a tap of his wand and a brief blue glow, ensorcelled it to transport her from the Vatican.
"To the observation area, it is not worth, even in the safety of a simulated body, crossing wands with an angry battle mage." he warned, handing it to her, and with her bodyguards taking hold, they vanished in a blue flash
August 1994, Mage Training Area, Roma, Italy.
A fast-paced battle was ongoing, the training area configured to resemble a small town on a hillside, a mission in progress as the red-robed war wizards of the Papal States, in squares five by five, assaulted the settlement from three sides. Utilised as unit troops, they specialised in low-level battle magic, blasting curses and fire conjuration.
Defending the hillside town were some of the Mage Court's Men at Arms, playing the part of insurgents, sniping with precision spells from windows, a church tower and any other position of cover. The blasting curses silenced the defender in the tower, allowing a five-man section to assault it, when a dark trail appeared over the building.
The assault team were enjoying their mission and the impending success. If they took and held the church tower, they could throw down spells on the other buildings. That was when it all went wrong. An obliteration curse shattered a ten-foot tall and four-foot wide hole in the wall and a dark figure appeared from a dark cloud, alighting on the steps.
At close range, less than four feet away, the assault team leader never stood a chance. An armoured hand, fingers outstretched, was thrust at him, a spell seizing his body. The mage swung around, hurling the team leader out of the gaping hole in the wall and releasing the spell to send him plummeting to the hard cobbles below.
"IGNIS ATER!" thundered the mage's voice.
Harry thrust his staff forward, great marauding beasts of eldritch flames bursting from the glowing gem encased in the tip, before releasing the spell and throwing himself from the newly-opened window, bursting into black smoke before reconstituting himself on a window ledge across the street.
The 'insurgent' within blinked in dismay and confusion as the half-open window erupted into shards and splinters. A moments pause and he flung a powerful trident piercing spell at the area, only for a figure to dive through underneath the piercers and a from the figure's staff burst a crackling fork of lightning, reeking of old, primal magic to catch him, ending his 'life' and mission in an instant.
The second insurgent in the building, keeping watch over the stairs and back window to prevent an ambush, was reacting to the blast of lightning with shook the house when the walls detonated. Thrown back by debris, he saw a figure, leaning on a staff, hooded and masked, as he strode over.
"Time for sleepy-byes." the twisted amusement could be heard, then a terrifyingly cold feeling as a sword-blade was thrust between his ribs, ending his mission and sending him, unharmed, back into the mission briefing room, his last vision being that terrible staff shrinking to the size of a wand.
Two War Wizards burst in the front door to meet the mage descending down the stairs, moving faster than they could bring their wands to bear. A flaming sword opened the throat of the first, two hands gripping it to draw a deeper slash. When he made to thrust the sword, half-swording it and ignoring the blazing blade, the remaining War Wizard conjured a metal shield, levitating it for a moment, letting it go as the point punched through it. He made the mistake of moving back to get a spell off, for his mission to end in a blaze of sickly green light.
August 1994, Mage Training Area Observatory, Roma, Italy.
Georgia watched in an almost trance-like state as with flashes of magic, Harry tore his way through both sides of the mission, slaughtering them without hesitation, or discriminating between sides. The blazing church, in the thrall of Fiendfyre was a pyre and a terrible signal.
More and more joined the observatory, having been traumatically removed from the mission, muttering mutinously as they watched the massacre. Nothing could draw her attention though from the terrible spectacle. Even from the observatory, Georgia could almost taste the magic, seductively dark, crackling with the smell of the ozone, like the aftermath of a great thunderstorm.
The roar of flames, the blast of the explosions, the smoke from the pyres that the buildings had become. The flashes of curses exchanged, the ring of steel on steel. Suddenly she was drawn from it by a quiet comment.
"I think it may now be time for my intervention."
Graf von Blucher was smiling wryly as he vanished from the observatory, followed by a dozen of the Varangian Guard.
August 1994, Mage Training Area, Roma, Italy.
Harry dodged a spell, sending out a conjured steel cable which he animated, wrapping itself around the ankle of the caster, hoisting him violently into a wall with a horrible crunch of bones. With one opponent down, he rained down gouging spells, on another war wizard, which he 'point-cast', simply pointed his staff, shrunken to be wielded as a wand, and let pulses of magic form the spells. The torrents of gouging spells, usually used for mining granite blasted fist-sized holes through his opponent.
They were fighting in a mock street-battle, so he took every advantage it gave him. A deflected blasting curse weakened a wall behind one of the skirmishing wizards, and one summoning spell from Harry caused the whole frontal facade of the building to collapse down on their position. Flashes of green announced his liberal employment of the killing curse. Spinning around to counter a bone-breaking hex, he shattered the overhang from the 'shop' next to the newest aggressor. The wooden sign fell onto the head of his opponent, putting him out of the fight, reinforced by a flash of sickly green.
Flicking his wand at a road sign as he noted a War Wizard who had the good sense to use a disillusionment charm, Harry let his hearing guide him to the footsteps, he attacked the hidden fighter with a bludgeoning hex. Shielding uselessly, his target collapsed as the spell was reflected off the road-sign right behind him, leaving him with a headache of some severity, demonstrated by the collapse of his skull.
Suddenly, he felt a dozen wizards apparate in. Spraying gouging curses every-which-way, Harry dashed towards a store-front, pausing in his torrent of curses to blast the window open. Diving behind the wall, he heard spells impact the other side, the impacts causing the wall to shudder. He turned his wand on the sole occupant, blasting him, and the wall behind him, into nothingness with a single obliteration curse.
He quickly spun up for a moment, wand appearing over the windowsill to unleash a ribbon-cutting curse, a blasting curse that brought the front of another building down, followed by a stream of Greek Fire, the oily substance seeping between every cobble and bursting into green flames.
Quickly disillusioning himself, silencing himself and even using a scent-removal charm, Harry waited. As he heard footsteps approaching the door, Harry simultaneously rolled his eyes, transfigured the door into methane gas, transfigured all the furniture into liquefied petroleum gas, and provided then dived out of the hole he'd blown in the wall, dashing for cover across the street, noting one of the Varangian Guardsmen holding the perimeter. Rising silently and invisibly, he struck the man in the back of the head, in the soft bone at the base of his skull, driving a dagger deep into the spinal cord where it meets the brain.
He then flung a blasting curse at the shop full of gas. The roar of exploding gas and the heat flash were overwhelming to the senses. The lower walls were blasted out, the roof thrown in every direction, shrapnel raining down on the mission-generated town. He watched, smugly, as the building collapsed. At the centre of it was a chimney-breast which held up the entire house with two central walls attached to it, and a few other structurally unimportant walls, soon the rest of the building crumbled into one heap of scorched and smouldering rubble.
Regarding the shocked stillness of the Varangian Guardsmen, unmoving in save for the wind pulling at the fine black suits and purple sashes of the elite guardsmen of the Byzantine Empire. It would make his dirty victory all the more sweet. Fully three-quarters of their strength was gone.
Appearing in the open, Harry attacked. His first torrent of curses overwhelmed one guardsman, a blasting curse aimed at his feet sending up a sheet of shrapnel from the cobbles, followed by a beheading curse to end the short fight. The remaining two wised up and spread out.
Returning his staff to its full length, he slammed it into the cobbles, releasing a pulse of magic which shook the ground, sending the Varangian Guardsmen stumbling back.
"Daemonium glacialis, qui vocat te. Daemonium glacialis, adiuro te. Daemonium glacialis, sine metu. Daemonium glacialis, hostibus meis.
'Demon of ice, I summon thee. Deemon of ice, I bind thee. Demon of ice, feel no fear. Demon of ice, bleed dry my enemies.'
Suddenly a cold wind ripped through the town, an icy mist descending, and from it strode two Frostfynds, Tall and humanoid, yet utterly inhuman, their assegais of ice deflected spell after spell, never interrupting their steady pace, then plunged the cold weapons into the two remaining guardsmen.
Then the pavement next to him ripped itself up. Blasting it apart, Harry spun, swinging his staff like a baseball bat, smacking a heart attack curse back at the caster. He allowed a feral grin to appear on his face as he saw Cardinal Graf von Blucher advancing towards him, calmly shielding from his own spell.
The building next to him groaned, then began to crumble. Harry burst into black smoke and flew from his position just as it was brought down upon his Frostfynds, taking them out from the fight. Drawing a wand from his boot to wield in conjunction with his battle staff, Harry landed and attacked.
Going on the offensive, he unleashed a deadly spell-chain which had brought low a number of his enemies. A blasting curse aimed at their feet to blow up the ground and release a deadly hail of shrapnel. A ribbon-cutting curse aimed at waist-level where it was difficult to jump over or duck under, especially for someone of the Cardinal's size, followed by a conjured block of concrete right above the Cardinal.
Von Blucher stepped back and deftly banished the shrapnel at Harry, who looked insulted and transfigured it into arrowheads and banished it back, accompanied by a killing curse. The Cardinal conjured a block of marble carved with Gothic motifs to take the killing curse, which split it in half. He then cut the two halves in half and banished them to the four corners of the falling concrete, transfiguring them into Corinthian columns.
Steadily stepping out from under the little shelter, von Blucher idly transfigured the concrete block which was supported by the columns into something slightly more aesthetically pleasing, a marble pediment. Noting the absence of his opponent, Von Blucher found himself encased in a fire-whip.
Flicking his wand to banish the young mage off the top of the temple-like shelter, he turned the fire-whip into steel cable, flinging it at the Englishman. It missed as Harry disapparated in mid-air. Von Blucher threw up a shield as a skydiving target unleashed a veritable hail of gouging curses which perforated the road around him like a heavy machine-gun ripping into old, brittle tarmac, leaving chaos in its wake.
Smiling slightly at the dirty tricks his young opponent was pulling to stay in the fight, the Cardinal conjured another length of cable which he used to whip his opponent out of the sky. Wincing at the steel cable digging into his skin, Harry promptly turned into smoke, ceasing to fall as the cable fell through him, before resuming corporeal form and resuming his fall. A cushioning charm allowed him to roll to his feet, sweeping every bit of debris and residue from their fight into one banishing charm which directed it at Von Blucher.
It gave him time to unleash a spell he had been dying to try out.
"Hniga inn Helgrind; hiti RAGNAROK!" 'Open the hell-gates; flames of Ragnarok'.
A massive, skeletal dragon, with thin, ragged skin adhering to its bones, burst from his wand, manifesting itself from grey flames, so thin, sallow and enraged that it was truly a terrifying sight to an opponent. Except the Fiendfyre taking the form of a double-headed eagle and fighting it back was a distraction, he suddenly realised.
Harry spun around, releasing the rampaging fire-dragon to see a smirking Von Blucher just a few yards behind him. Harry managed to get a last spell off even as he was splattered against the wall behind him by Haephestus's Hammer curse, a bludgeoning hex of enormous power and effecting a great area.
Cardinal von Blucher was just holstering his wand when he heard a whistling, and moments later a large black block with the words '16 Tons' written on the side wiped him out.
All this happened in under a minute.
August 1994, Mage Training Area Observatory, Roma, Italy.
Georgia saw the two men appear after the fast and violent skirmish that had 'killed' them both. With far more control and having only fought briefly with more simple spells, von Blucher wasn't breathing too heavily, or showing signs of fatigue. Harry however, while not fatigued, was radiating magic. A terrifying maelstrom of ancient, primal magicks of the Elder Days, with a dark tint to it, a sweet and seductive taste that was at once utterly wrong and utterly seductive.
Breathing deeply, Harry reined in his magic, before vanishing with a crash as he tore through the wards, Blucher following through the hole he'd opened with a quiet pop.
Magus Appartments, Domum Magicae, Il Vaticano, Roma, Italy.
Harry, having showered, was throwing together a meal for himself, having never trusted hospital food after an incident when a wizard he was hunting infiltrated the hospital in which he'd been put after being wounded in a duel. Poisoned food was unpleasant, even though he'd created an anti-venom using basilisk venom that had made it nigh-impossible to poison him to death.
Hearing a knock at his door, he quickly lowered power of the gas hob, and cautiously laying a hand on the pistol holstered at his side, walked out into the entrance hall. He opened the door to find Graf von Blucher stood outside, his powerful frame filling the doorway, clad in the scarlet and the black of a Monsignor of Il Vaticano, the title held in the non-magical world by Cardinal Mages who needed a title but not having to have such duties as borne by non-magical cardinals. He too appeared to have washed to clean himself of the earlier battle.
"Cardinal von Blucher." Harry said respectfully, gesturing for the man to step inside.
"Ah, Graf Potter." he smiled, a slight, subtle German accent sneaking through his impeccable English.
"Graf Potter?" Harry commented with a raised eyebrow.
"Are you not a noble?" asked von Blucher; "Were we in the Court of Mages, I would address you as Ritter von Potter, for there you are a knight. Though each is a different title, I would say that there are titles for places, or as you British say, 'horses for courses', indeed."
"I was just cooking myself lunch Cardinal, would you care to join me." offered Harry.
"I could not burden you." replied the Cardinal.
"A burden is a word I hear thrown around too often, and as you are not a burden, I shall take that as a yes." he commented sharply.
A few minutes later, Harry had served up two plates of a respectable chicken risotto, to the table at which he and the von Blucher sat, a contrasting pair. A man the size of a bear, with an aura of power, and a smaller, light, lithely-built young man who could make himself completely innocuous, the fact little power could be felt from him hiding the fact that he had managed to break the sound barrier with a levitating charm on a stick.
"I'll admit that our little battle in the simulator was the one of very few times I've been beaten in a one-on-one fight in many, many years. And most of those few times have also been to you." von Blucher commented, taking a forkful of the Risotto; "Your cooking is excellent, far better than I'd expect of a teenager. I thought these days teenagers live off old take-out?"
"I'm unique." Harry chuckled.
"Indeed. Where you lacked experience and numbers, you made up for with raw power and a great deal of cunning." replied the Cardinal; "You caught me off guard when I believed I was victorious."
"When I thought about it, I realised the combat potential of much obscure spellcraft, and while I'm perfectly willing to use the so-called Dark Arts, I prefer not to as there are some rather more destructive ways to do far more damage. However, I can fight with full lethality with simple magic." said Harry; "Though my knowledge of magic is rather better than many, my power has yet to reach its peak."
They ate in quiet before Blucher pushed his empty plate away, standing up and walking across the black-and-white diamond-tiled floor to a sword rack, drawing a cavalry sabre from it.
"Then perhaps your speed and reactions can be honed a little." he commented.
"Perhaps." Harry grinned, standing from the table and preparing for another fight.
Circling each-other, having put on protective gear made from the hide of Harry's basilisk, they waited to strike, serpent-like, seeking an opening. Harry lunged, sabre point-down, edge up at head-level. Von Blucher pushed aside his blade and swept it down towards his stomach, the blow quickly blocked with a point-down parry followed by a smooth circle and cut down to his head. The Cardinal used a horizontal parry above his head before retaliating with a second sweeping cut towards Harry's stomach, a swipe that could disembowel. Harry moved smoothly, stepping back out of the way before taking two paces forward and attacking.
Feinting to Von Blucher's flank, he brought his hand up, pronated, the blade flat as he lunged towards his chest. The bell rang as the Cardinal parried and riposted, a continued exchange of blows given.
"Come in!" Harry called, sending a wandless spell towards the door.
Slicing diagonally at Blucher's shoulder, Harry ducked under his parry and spun around behind him. The Cardinal moved equally quickly and smacked aside a lunge before retaliating with a vicious slash horizontally across Harry's torso, slicing open his linen duelling shirt to reveal a vest of basilisk hide underneath.
However, his younger opponent ducked under a second cut and lunged low, leaving a slice into Von Blucher's duelling shirt on his right flank before quickly slicing a second time at his left flank. Reading Harry's move as a feint when Harry hesitated slightly, the Cardinal moved his sword away to parry somewhere else.
The attack, unfortunately for him, had been a feint of a feint. Harry scored another slash as he continued the cut straight to his flank, exposing the dark green of the basilisk hide armour.
"Touché." said Von Blucher, relaxing from the en garde.
Harry saluted him before turning to the visitor.
"Princessa." he smiled, seeing Georgia stood next to the door.
"I'll leave you two to it." smirked Von Blucher as he placed his blade on the rack and pulled off his gauntlet; "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
He then disapparated before Harry's curse could reach him. Pulling off his glove, sheathing his sword and vanishing his torn shirt and pulling on a t-shirt, he turned to Georgia.
"So, what can I do for you?" he asked.
"I can't just visit one of my favourite mages?" replied Georgia.
"You can indeed." Harry laughed, grabbing two cut lead crystal glasses and pouring half a glass of brandy, handing her one before slouching on the sofa.
"Thank-you." Georgia said, sitting down next to him; "I was a bit too preoccupied to thank you for dealing with the Death Eaters a few days ago."
"It was my duty." replied Harry, continuing immediately; "As a friend."
"You know that I owe you a debt of life?" asked Georgia.
"And I call it in, asking that you continue to be my friend." Harry requested.
"A lesser man would ask for more." Georgia stated putting down her glass on a table next to the sofa. "I am glad that if I owe anything to anyone, it's you."
She leaned towards him, intending to kiss him on the cheek, when he turned towards her. Their lips met, and after freezing for a moment, she tasted that addictive scent, the warmth of his body, the sharp, fresh aroma of powerful magic and the seductive taint of black magic. It drew her in, and she wrapped an arm around his back, while a hand went around to his head, tangling in his raven hair. Harry put aside his glass and placed one arm around her shoulders and his second under the her arm which was reaching around his head, kissing back.
"You're okay with this... us?" Harry asked when they broke away.
"Us?" laughed Georgia musically; "Yes."
She leaned in again, kissing him hard. Harry reciprocated, pulling her onto his lap as he tentatively swept his tongue across her lower lip, seeking entrance.
"How long are you in Rome for?" Harry asked, wrapping his arms around Georgia, pulling a tartan blanket over them from where it was draped over the back of the sofa.
"A month more. But I'm certain I can make time to be here." she replied, enjoying the contact between them. While they'd not had sex, Harry was down to his boxers and she was clad in just lingerie and had somehow ended up with one of his t-shirts draped over her slighter frame. "Yet you leave soon for England."
"I have been assigned it." Harry said sadly; "And there are answers awaiting me on those shores, ones with questions that hae haunted me many years."
"What are the risks?" she queried immediately.
"Low. Nothing I haven't either risked before or been trained to deal with." said Harry with a reassuring smile.
"You are no older than I, and yet you happily face down such situations as I wish I never have to see." Georgia shook her head.
"The choices you make, they make you." Harry said cryptically, kissing along her jawline as his hands roved across her skin.
Georgia moaned, nipping his shoulder as his fingers skilfully played around her pressure points.
"Please. I can't stay for long, and I won't leave if you keep doing that." she said, arching her back as he hit a particularly sensitive spot.
"Maybe I don't want you to leave." whispered Harry in her ear.
She rolled them over, pinning his hands above his head, leaning down to kiss him.
"I have to go, but I'll be back." Georgia promised.
Harry made sure that she saw him watching with open interest as she pulled on her dark-blue elbow-length dress, which accented her curves and 'assets' quite well. Life would never be quite the same again.