Disclaimer: I don't own nofin gov, ceptin the cloves on me bak. Please don't whip me yur honor

Chapter 2

--- / ---

It was a strange sight, now that I was closer I could clearly see the effects of the flames on the building. Where most of the structure had been turned to glass, where the fire had been at work longest it had melted and formed other shapes. The fire itself definitely had some sort of intelligence, and was actively probing every inch of my defences, trying to find a way in. Hoping I had not left it one I hurried through the main door and ducked under a fallen beam.

Trying to orientate myself on the move I passed what looked like a muggle that had been caught in the flames, but I couldn't be certain because its face had been wiped smooth. Whatever it was it was made of glass and was clearly not yet dead. I blew it apart with a Reducto curse and scanned the room for any more. Finding none I decided to try the doors in order around the room. The first was either locked or jammed and the second led only to a toilet, but the third opened into what I guessed was once a kitchen.

Realising that whatever was the cause of all this could well be concealed in amongst the food and groceries contained in the kitchen I started to search the room.

One of the greatest ironies of my curse was that I kept me alive so that I might suffer for longer, and in doing so increasing my chances of freeing myself from it. In this case Raven showed me the danger in my mind, and I dropped to the floor just in time to avoid having my head removed by a wicked looking blade of glass. I kicked back, adding Ravens strength to my own and felt the satisfying crunch of impact as whatever was behind me lost one of its legs

I rolled over onto my back, wand in hand, ready to finish off my foe. Only to discover that it was already dead, shattered into a million small pieces of glass which lay twitching on the floor in a pile. I didn't have much time to think about that though, because two more of the blank eyed humanoids closed in for the kill

I flicked my left hand at one and a small dart, no larger than my little finger, flew out and embedded itself in the chest of the closest one as I blew the other one apart with a trio of Reducto curses. The dart was one of my most recent inventions that, when it hit, could either plant some very strong suggestions in the mind of the caster, not quite the imperious curse, but close, and most definitely illegal. As a secondary function they could also self destruct, and not in a subtle manner. Due to the utter failure of the dart to control the probably nonexistent mind of the glass man, I chose to activate the second, glass fibres impacted on my shield as the final automaton spread itself across the room in a colourful explosion of gold.

This was looking better all the time, now the artefact had all three call signs of a stone, and I thought that I recognised this particular one as the stone of Vas, although I do not claim to be any expert. Swiftly finishing the search of the kitchen I moved through another door, that took me deeper into the house.

I searched three more rooms before I found the stairs leading down into the basement. The presence of four more of the glass men standing around it also seemed to make it clear that I wasn't supposed to be searching down there. A bludgeoning curse to the head proved sufficient to kill the first and the second fell to another of my darts. The third ran at me with unnatural swiftness, and would have impaled me in the head if I had been any normal human. But I am not normal. Using the Ravens powers over myself, I ducked under the fist blade and met the second with a cutting curse that shattered most of the things arm, Ironic that the curse meant to kill me routinely saves my life. Spinning I delivered a powerful punch to the abdomen of the third as it tried to move around me, following up with a series of cutting and exploding curses that disintegrated it.

The fourth retreated, and I drew my short dagger from its concealed position in my boot with my free hand. It was wary now, and every time I tried to close the distance to it danced back out of the way, dodging my curses with a perfect grace I knew no mere human could ever match. Luckily for me I didn't need to. Channelling my power again I cleared my mind, and wordlessly disintegrated the near immobile glass man with a nasty variation of the bone shattering curse, that will instead shatter anything it touches that can be shattered. One of my personal favourites

I ran down the stairs to the basement, aware that the flames where constantly eating away at my shield. I needed to finish this swiftly. The room was full of smoke, but I could still make out enough to realise that I was in a large, unused room. At the centre a stone was suspended in a magical field that glowed with a golden light, tinged with streaks of earthy brown and flashes of fire.

I had found it. The first stone was within my grasp, and I could feel the excitement running through me. In one swift move I crossed the distance to the stone and reached out to grab it, but my hand passed right through it with no effect, the colours playing around it undisturbed.

After casting a few detection spells and studying the spot for a while I was stumped. Where was it? I knew it must be close, the magic being controlled was too great to originate from any distance away, and this was clearly the focal point of what I had seen from outside. I bent down to study the floor where the light originated, and noticed two things. First that the light appeared to continue down into the floor; and second a wicked looking glass blade was now occupying the space my neck had been in a few moments before.

Thanking whatever luck had saved me from decapitation, I rolled forwards, right through the illusionary stone and turned, just in time to see the blade rushing towards my abdomen, I threw myself to the right, my shield of water clearly slowing my attacker enough that I could get away again, but I could feel it draining my strength more now.

A third time the automata lunged at me, and this time I rushed forwards, deflecting the blade with my dagger, and trusting my mind into whatever its consciousness was. To my surprise I found myself in my own mind, and my surprise was such that I never saw the next blow coming towards me. It hit the right side of my ribs, and bodily lifted me to the other side of the room, where I was barely able to slow myself down enough with a wandless charm that I did not end up looking like a seeker on the wrong end of a Wronski Feint

My ribs where clearly broken, and I had lost hold of my wand and knife, and just to make things even better when I had been hit I had felt a huge drain on my endurance, and with the magic required to save myself, I was painfully trying to suck in air. No time to think about breathing though, the thing was already back on top of me, and I had to roll to the side to avoid being impaled on that blade again. Scrambling to my feet I noticed that the sword seemed to have shattered against the wall, although the glass man came at me regardless, and the next couple of minutes was filled with no thoughts other that avoiding the still lethal looking half blade of what must actually be a golem, since it's lack of consciousness clearly denoted control from an outside source.

Having regained my breath by now I banished the thing to the other side of the room, and used the few moments to consider. What was controlling it? There was two possibilities; First the stone, but I doubted it had the strength for conjuration and control of a magical object, and I would have found the remnants of the stones control system, not my own mind in its. Which leads me to the other possibility: that I was the one controlling it. But that was clearly not correct, as I would notice the drain on my magic.

But of course, I had felt a drain; when it hit me into the wall and similar lesser occurrences when they appeared with objects that I knew to be real such as the one I hit with my dart, that I had ignored at the time, and my hand had passed straight through the stone. Smiling to myself I reached into my own mind and, after a few moments looking found the tendril of foreign thought, cleverly concealed. I seized it and pulled, hard.

One of my most useful assets is my force of will, especially when driven by self preservation. I pulled at the tendril with all my strength, but it did not come away as easily as I had been expecting, and I redoubled my efforts. The air around me grew hotter, and beads of sweat appeared on my hands as I used all my will to move the mind on the other end closer to me. After what seemed like an eternity of pulling, although can only have been a few dozen seconds, a spot on the floor near my feat began to crack and boil, the power of my mind magic manifesting itself in the real world, and with a crack and a shower of stone the floor erupted outwards. I caught the small glowing lump in my hand, cleaned the mud off of it, and examined it with my mind and hand.

And realised I had done it. I had the stone, now all I had to do was get out and home. Know knowing that the golems where harmless, and in fact had never even existed, that should have been a simple task.

I had forgotten the Unspeakables; Law unto themselves.

The disarming curse tore the thing from my hand before I even registered that they had entered the room, the fire having disappeared now that I controlled the stone. I was too tired to protest as the ministry official smirked at me before pocketing the stone and apparate away, his fellows joining him and I groaned as Sneaker poked her face around the door and gave me a condescending look as I fell backwards onto the floor.

I sighed and began to clean up the mess.

--- / ---