Selias
You know I didn't consider that. The Traveller took Damien's soul apart and then put it back together a bit badly so it might not be attached/connected (or however it works) like other peoples is, so Damien might not be able to make a Horcrux or have his soul devoured by the Dementors.
He'd still have to worry about the happiness sucking thing the demons do since he can feel, joy, love and happiness.
Also given that a Fidelius Charm implants a secret into a person's very soul he might not be able to be a secret-keeper either.
He wouldn't be able to become a ghost either. Not that he would as it seems to be a sucky existence.
I can make use of that idea, thank you. Its just a shame we never see Voldemort deal with a Dementor as that would give me an idea of how they react to people with damaged souls. I could just make him outright immune to Dementors due his soul not being right, that could freak the soul-suckers out perhaps.
I'm a bit put off by the whole Dark Wizards can't cast a patronus charm idea so I might have to make Damien outright immune or just ignore that silly rule as its not as if bad people can't have happy memories. On the other hand Damien more gray than dark since he's not out to commit genocide or kill innocent people nor does he attack children.
Douchiesnacks
I'm glad the alerts are working as I seem to updating a lot for this fic.
No writer's block so far, keep your fingers crossed.
The First Gothic. Book One. A Wizard In Training. Part Eight.
The School Grounds. Hogwarts School. The Wizarding World.
Given that we didn't want Hannah and Susan, the reporters for the Outcasts paper, to know everything about the group Luna had sort of created we didn't head up to the Room of Requirement when having a full group meeting. Instead we went for a walk around the school grounds and once we found a quiet, and more importantly dry, spot to relax in we stopped. We'd done this before and we would do it again, for at least as long as Outcast paper existed.
While it might be spring now it was still cold so warming charms were applied liberally to the spot picked out and I walked around the area we settled near, but not to near, the forest in order to apply the protective charms.
Mostly they were to stop us from being overheard rather than to prevent us from getting harmed as the Forbidden Forest wasn't as dangerous as most thought it to be. At least not during the day anyway. I didn't think we would be overheard but one couldn't be too careful around here given how many creatures seemed to understand English despite not even being human and I had no doubt that many of them reported to Dumbledore.
I'd learned a few minor wards while in library and finding that Half-Blood Princes Potions Text Book had been a major boon. I'd not used it in potions class so far because Snape would have recognised his own work but the spells scribbled inside were really coming in handy. I loved the muffliato spell it made it so much easier to have private conversations.
The Half-Blood Prince AKA Snape had been quite the spell inventor while in school. The hex to make toenails grow amazingly fast was like the jinx to make someone's tongue stick to the top of their mouths were both minor bits of 'dark magic' but even the most hardcore 'light' wizards would just consider these spells a bit of schoolboy mischief.
Still I knew it could be a slippery slope as there were much darker spells in the Half-Blood Prince book. For example Sectumsempra was nothing you would use as a prank yet it had no warning about how dangerous it was and on paper it seemed to be as harmless as Levicorpus which was more comical than anything else.
I couldn't imagine why Snape had left the book lying around, the man wasn't the careless type, as double agents can't afford to be, yet I had been able to steal the book during detention with him remaining none the wiser as far as I could tell.
Thankfully I was smart enough to figure out why the Half-Blood Prince's notes on potions were useful so I wouldn't actually need the book during lessons and while I hadn't been able to use the knowledge (since Snape would of known his own work) but I was going to ace potions next year.
Still more than once I'd wondered if Snape had purposely left the book where someone could find it. Was so that they could marvel in his genius, without ever knowing who had written the book? Or maybe he wanted some student to get into trouble using spells that he knew they could of only gotten from his book? Perhaps he even got some sort of sick pleasure from having his legacy passed on that way? Well whatever the reason was he hadn't caught me using his book and now he never would.
The book was also inspiring me to try and create a few spells of my own. Granted this wasn't a new idea with me as I'd quickly come to realise that that most magic used in fighting was mostly useless outside one on one duelling. Before deciding to write a few spells of my own I'd even checked out some of the older history books (ones that dealt with fighting muggles rather other Wizards and goblins) and I'd noticed a complete lack of spells that would harm a group of people that could be cast in a battle.
In fact I couldn't recall there being any such spells in the Harry Potter books and films either. Sure there were a hundred ways to main, kill and wound people even when using 'light' spells, as long as one was creative in their use, but there was nothing in the books I'd read that would be helpful in dealing with a group of people who need to, if not die, then at least be disabled.
This made me wonder if the real reason why magical people and creatures had gone into hiding was because muggles simply outnumbered them to such a degree that war between both groups would end in muggle victory simply due to them having such great numbers.
"Master Damien be wanting his picnic lunch now?" asked my House Elf who had bypassed the wards I'd set up so far so easily I sometimes wondered why I bothered but to be far if the castles' wards couldn't stop her mine didn't have a chance, so I'd simply stopped trying to keep her out of these meetings. Still it was rather humbling to have someone who spent most of their time either in the kitchen or washing your clothes bypass your magical protections with such ease.
Moving back over to the group I saw that my Elf had laid out an entire picnic in the same amount of time it had taken me to circle the area while waving my wand. That was rather impressive in my view considering that she would of needed time to heat the coffee pot and sandwiches don't make themselves. But everyone saw it as a normal, they seemed to have no idea just how powerful House Elves were. Nobody ever said thank you to an Elf (aside from myself and Luna) so I just hoped that that total lack of respect didn't one day come to bite us all in the ass
I went and sat on the blanket with the other Outcast members (although given that Hannah and Susan were quite popular the name didn't seem to be as appropriate as it use to) in order to join in with their discussion about what was going on at the school.
The big news these days was what had happened mere days ago involving Professors Lockhart and Snape. To everyone but Luna and I the whole thing seemed like a horrible accident but in reality that accident had been a combination of Luna's prophetic vision and my and my advanced spell work.
After Easter Luna had informed the the time to make a strike at Snape was close at hand. The curse on the position of the Defence Against The Dark Arts ensured that no one who took the job lasted more than a school year. As far as I could tell the curse did this buy making sure that by the end of the school year the teacher got incredibly unlucky.
In the Wizarding world luck was an active force. You could, if highly skilled, even brew a potion to give someone good luck and there were curses that would work to make sure someone was very unlucky. Just like the one Lockhart had been under the moment he'd taken the job.
Exactly how Voldemort's curse worked was unknown to anyone but him yet its effects could clearly be seen so I'd known that Lockhart's time teaching here at the castle would end badly. What mattered in the end was how badly his teaching careerer would end. But according to my research (which had involved asking the older students and the ghosts about who had been teaching the subject since from the 1970's up until now) very few Defence teachers had met a bad end on the job. Granted a few professors had been hurt or driven away for some reason or another but no one had actually died due to the curse since Potter's first year. Which made sense to me as it was the job that was cursed not the people doing it.
At its most simple the curse seemed to just make people more and more unlucky towards the end of the school year. I suspected that Potter's arrival at the school had somehow made the curse worse and if this was so then I had simply taken advantage of the situation to create a desired result.
"I still can't believe that Snape won't be back next year" commented Hannah who like Neville, Ginny and Susan hadn't been in on the plan.
Not that I had either really, not until it was actually in progress.
"I can't either" agreed her best friend Susan "Its great isn't it!".
My smile was well hidden but it didn't go unnoticed by Luna who didn't approved of me being happy about me following her plan. She'd only told me of how I could rid of Snape because she was worried I might go as far as to kill the sorry excuse for a human being.
"I never imagined that even Lockhart could be that clumsy" added Neville.
Sure that was it had looked but truth be told (not that it ever would) it wasn't just bit of bad luck that had gotten both men's memories wiped. In fact the whole thing was my fault really as if not for my actions none of it would have happened at all.
It had all started after my article had been published. Because of me Lockhart had changed his teaching methods. Knowing that simply acting out scenes from his book would add credence to what I'd pointed out about his book sales increasing drastically due to them being added to the school equipment list last summer, he'd stopped us from even reading them and tried to actually teach us something.
This had involved a few disastrous practical lessons with 'dark' creatures which had ended after one kid got sent to the infirmary due to somehow getting horrible burned while handling a creature that didn't breathe fire. Yet ironically during the lesson with the creature that breathed fire no one had gotten burned.
Then a few days ago my class had the dubious pleasure of getting to see Lockhart in action. There had been no duelling club like the one in the book but duelling practice was pretty much the only idea Lockhart had left so as a class we'd gone to the prepared space in order to see our teacher duel some first year Hufflepuffs who weren't very aggressive or that talented so even Lockhart could bet them.
However Professors Snape had joined us halfway through the lesson along with his second year potion class under the pretence of wanting to show his class how certain potions could be used to heal injuries a person could suffer when duelling. No doubt he'd actually been intending to show off by repetitively humiliating Lockhart, but that wasn't to be.
Before even counting to three Snape had disarmed Lockhart with such power that the Defence teacher's wand and the teacher himself had gone flying. Lockhart's wand landed between myself and Ron Weasly. Everyone had been distracted by watching Lockhart fly that they hadn't noticed his wand land right before me.
The ginger pat had noticed as the wand had nearly hit him in the eye and suddenly I knew why Luna had wanted to me to learn a rather advanced bit of magic called the switching spell. The red head never even noticed that he had handed over his own broken wand to the teacher while Lockhart's wand was still in other hand.
I'd always guessed that Luna saw possible futures and so I guess that the reason she had waited until now to tell me exactly how I could get rid of Snape was that those events might not have come to pass at all.
Without doing anything else but that switching spell I got see both Snape and Lockhart be taken out with one spell. It all happened so fast that I'm still not sure how it happened but what do recall is Snape summoning a snake (perhaps it was fated to happen as it could of exposed Potter's gift for speaking to them) but that didn't happen because Lockhart tripped over his own feet and somehow ended up face to face with the snake which freaked him out.
Naturally he fired off a spell to defend him, as who wouldn't when facing an animal that looked was about to bite, but since he only knew one spell that he could make work he tried to memory wipe the serpent. Not a smart course of action since the snake's urge to bite was built it rather than a reaction to any memory but people often panic when they face danger.
Sadly for the two men on the stage Snape banished the serpent in a rather dramatic fashion before Lockhart finished the spell as while Snape is a jerk he wouldn't allow his actions to harm another teacher (at least not with witnesses present) and this ensured that the spell intended for the snake hit the head of house who just about managed to put up a shield charm in time, deflecting the spell back at caster. Lockhart ,for once showing some skill with magic, performed his own shield charm.
The spell should of frizzled out doing no harm but since Lockhart was using Ron's broken wand rather than his own it happened to explode at that point. All of the students had backed off when seeing the snake so only the two teachers got caught in the magical green blast which led to both teachers having no idea who they were or where they were either.
Other people remember it differently than I do but in the end the only one who got into any sort of trouble was the ginger prat who still had Lockhart's wand in his hand when the other staff members appeared. Ron's own wand had vanished but given he had Lockhart's wand it was hard to pin two and two together.
Lucky for Ronald the prat everyone brought the excuse that he had simply handed Lockhart the wrong wand as he'd been holding as the time expecting that he would have duel someone as part of the lesson. No one thought that ginger idiot would do something like this on purpose as it was far more believable that he just made a mistake. After all Lockhart was an adult he should have been more careful and checked over his wand to make it wasn't damaged after it went flying from his hand.
But in the end it was ruled as a terrible accident. The ginger prat only lost house points for carelessness Dumbledore would have come to the truth had been able to read my true mind while asking me what I saw. I'd told him that I'd just seen Ronald pick up Lockhart's wand and give it back to the teacher. I was able to lie right to his face and Luna wasn't even asked given that she already had a reputation for not paying attention to her surroundings.
Slytherin house wasn't so far reacting too badly to losing their head of house. They already lost their team's Seeker and now with Snape gone I think they'd come to conclusion that they were in trouble.
And they were right to be a little worried 'Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is an enemy action' after all and while we weren't up three 'attacks on Slytherin yet I could stand why the Snakes had decided to skip to part three and assume that they were under attack in some way. It wasn't such a bad assumption as despite the fact that they looked to be winning the House Cup this year they had otherwise been rather unlucky.
The rest of the school just saw it as karma. Snape was a bad person and he'd gotten his just deserts. He'd sat back and let the children that were suppose to be under his guidance and protection be bullied by the students he was most responsible for.
Ginny brought us all back to the present (as we'd all been thinking about that event) by voicing an opinion we all shared.
"Maybe we shouldn't do anything about Binns until next year it seems wrong given what happened to Snape and Professor Lockhart".
"That would be for the best" agreed Luna who still seemed rather depressed about her plan working.
"So what are we going to write about, then?" questioned Susan "I've got lots of gossip for the newsletter but we need some good stories like the one on Lockhart".
"We could set the record straight about what happened when he and Snape lost their memories" offered Neville "everyone at the school knows but the Prophet got it wrong. Their report doesn't even mention Snape by name. We should tell the world about Snape but not that he was a bad teacher we just mention that he was head of house and a potions master".
"It would be respectful" supported Luna
"I agree" I added "I'll write it. No mention of him favouring the snakes or that he used to be a Death Eater. Only the positive stuff".
Which was wasn't much but I could focus the article on this good qualities without actually lying. He had after all been a spell crafter and brilliant with potions so there must other achievements to speak of, and Lockhart's achievements were well known enough not to require research. I could write his fame and success with his book writing without lying. I'd have to be careful about what I wrote and about and how I got my research materials but I was sure that I could write something worth printing.
Luna asked me to take her for a walk before Tizzy served the pudding and once we were out of earshot she started talking. I had to stop her so I could cast another muffliato, once cast we could then talk freely.
"I hope it was worth it Damien" she said "it wasn't nice for me to guide you to do that".
I sighed before replying.
"I know you can see some of our futures but I know the past. Snape was a Death Eater and the fact that he was working for Dumbledore doesn't redeem him in the slightest. He still escaped justice for his crimes but at least now he can't hurt anyone else. Besides you did save his life as Snape wouldn't of survived the war to come and Lockhart was doomed anyway all you did was ensure that they can't hurt anyone else. And you stopped me from becoming a murderer because let's face it at some point over the next few years I would have killed him.
There was truth in what I said. I would not have put with his abuses for much longer. Nor could I of stood by and watched him abuse children and young adults without doing something about it. Luna helping me get his memory get wiped so that he would have to relearn everything was a mercy in comparison to what I might have done had she not shown me another way.
"Oh I found this taped to a letter from my current Daddy".
She passed me a letter, one from the Traveller, which explained more about what we would be doing this while school was out.
"So why did your 'friend' write to me?" inquired Luna.
"I guess he figures your the brains of our little operation" I replied as I read over the letter.
Luna squeezed my arm playfully and said in a teasing tone of voice.
"So that makes you the brawn then but you don't have much muscle".
"Your comments wound me my lady" I said by way of reply in a mock hurt tone.
I re-read the letter again trying to make sense of it and then once more in order to try and find a way it could be explained to Luna.
"What does the letter from your Dad say?" I asked wanting to make sure she could actually come with me before I told her where we were going in a few weeks from now.
"That its okay for me to go with you this Summer as long I visit him before I go back to school"
I imagined that having an arranged marriage made it harder to say no to Luna's request for her to spend time away from him during the holidays given that Luna and I were suppose to marry and provide him with grandchildren to spoil it made sense for us to spend time together now. Well it made sense to me, Wizards had little common sense in my opinion so that might not be why he was letting his daughter go away with me. Given that
"So where are are we going?" she questioned "the letter made no sense to me and I can't see anything that clear about our trip either".
That was a little bit worrying. She normally knew more about what was going on than I did these days, at least about the future anyway. I knew more, a lot more, about the past than she did but what was to come was normally known by her. So either something was blocking her vision or what she was seeing made no sense to her. If I hadn't know exactly where we were going and have a good guess who we'd be staying with I'd be even more worried than I was now.
"Where going to the Discworld" I explained "its a very magical world that lies on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of turtle that flies through space. But to be precise we will be dropped off at a place called Lancre which is in the Ramtop Mountains. Once there we will be tutored in witchcraft by one of the locals.
"Oh okay" she replied.
Only Luna would accept something like this without totally freaking out or by refusing to believe that any of it was true.
"Apparently the Traveller will met us at King's Cross Station" I informed my partner in crime.
At least he wasn't coming to the school to pick us up, that was something to be thankful for. The last thing I wanted near a load of spell casters was a Cosmic Horror, although come to think it magic might actually hurt the Traveller he'd been contained once so he must of some weakness that or his jailer was something so powerful it made me look an ant in comparison.
"So whose going to be tutoring us?" inquired Luna.
"No idea" I answered "well actually I have a few ideas but I don't know who it will be".
When it came to being thrown into another reality by the Traveller one didn't just have to consider where they were going they also had to take into account when they would arrive. Time and space are playthings to the Traveller and whatever barriers or distances that existed between dimensions seemed to not matter either.
"Come on" urged Luna wanting to go back to the picnic rather than watch me muse about higher powers and what they could do "we'll miss pudding".
A Luna who missed pudding was not a happy camper so I left my deep thoughts about the Traveller and headed back to the food. I could worry about such things later for now I was going to hang out with my friends just like someone my age was suppose to.