The Three Kings: Strike
Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
Warning: Mentions of kidnapping, magical possession, fantasy classism, inbreeding, severe physical health problems, past minor character death, child murder, starvation, live burial, and the unintentional misgendering of a closeted character.
Chapter 18: Inverse
"Minister! Minister Bruneau! Wait a moment, s'il vous plaît!"
Richard pauses, his hand still on the doorknob to his office, and turns to see his Junoir Undersecretary hurrying to catch up. She's holding a stack of parchment so large that it seems to engulf her entire body.
He tries not to sigh. This is what he'd been afraid of.
"Tat, please tell me that you don't need me to look over all of those," Richard says, barely holding back how tired he is.
Tatiana gives him a withering look, "I'm sorry, sir. But they can't wait until the morning."
"Rosaline is not going to be happy that you are keeping me in the office so late," Richard's voice is teasing, but he knows that his wife will be miserable about the floo call that he now has to send her. He'd promised her that he'd make it home tonight in time to see their children to bed.
"I know, I'm sorry," Tatiana apologizes. "But it's about the Confederation visit."
"Merde, " Richard swears, running his hand over his face. Tomorrow he was travelling to Italy as part of the delegation to discuss the Department of Mysteries. After the incident in America over a few months ago, combined with the attack by a wizard-born mage on British students, and now with the appearance of an Unplottable island in the Pacific that turned into a volcano, the question of increased transparency by the organization was being asked.
France had stayed out of the chaos until this point, but Richard doesn't trust the Department of Mysteries as far as he can throw them. His primary contact with the Unspeakables is a plain-faced man with a gratingly smooth voice whose name seemed to change every time Richard spoke to him. But the idea that a Minister of Magic could have no clue about what is going on in an area of his Ministry bothers Richard like nothing else.
Richard sighs, "Alright. Bring them in."
Tatiana politely smiles as he opens the door for her and walks through. Once they're both inside, she pulls her wand on him.
A flash of red renders him unconscious. When Richard comes to, he's bound to his office chair with a pair of ties made out of a thin, translucent material that he doesn't recognize. Across from him, a beautiful woman is sitting on his sofa dressed in muggle office clothes and shoes with a subtle heel. Her dark hair is streaked with grey and pulled back into a sensible looking updo.
Beside her is a significantly more intimidating man. He's nearly seven feet tall and bald, half of his brown face marred by a series of intricate scars. The man stares, unblinking and unflinching, and Richard swallows hard.
"Richard Bruneau," the woman says, her full lips red against her pale skin. "You are the French Minister of Magic."
"I don't know who you think you are, but if you believe you can get away with this, you've got another thing coming," Richard snarls.
"I am Nathalie Bleu, French Ambassador to the United Nations," the woman says.
Richard clenches his fists against the wood of his chair, She's a muggle.
Ignoring that she is utterly shattering the Statute of Secrecy, Richard says, "Mrs. Bleu, if you need to speak we me, I assure you that this," he pulls at his bindings, "is completely unnecessary."
The man standing beside Bleu scoffs, and someone behind Richard starts to laugh. He turns his head and sees Tatiana leaning against one of the walls, Richard's wand in her hands.
"Tat?" He wheezes. He doesn't understand.
"Tat's not home right now," Tatiana says, tapping the side of her head with a finger. Except, it's not her voice that comes out of her mouth. Instead, a rattling, distinctly male murmur makes its way past her uncharacteristic wide grin. Tatiana moves like there's someone else inside her body, twisting her curly blonde hair in between her fingers and shifting from foot to foot. It makes Richard sick to his stomach just watching it.
"What have you done to her?" Richard shouts, hoping that someone will hear him.
"Ms. Barthet will be returned to normal after we leave. I'm sorry that we had to use her, but you might not have cooperated otherwise. But in the meantime, there is something that you need to know," Bleu tells him. She stands, her heels clicking gracefully against the hardwood floor as she crosses the room.
Bleu eases into the chair on the opposite side of Richard's desk and places a large file in front of him. He recognizes the symbol displayed on the front.
"That's a Department of Mysteries file. Where did you get this?" He asks, astounded. I can barely get anything out of the Unspeakables. How did a muggle get her hands on something so classified?
"You would have been informed of an Unplottable island that erupted in the Pacific two months ago," Bleu says, and Richard finds himself nodding. "That island had been the main headquarters of the Department of Mysteries for nearly a hundred years. Just before it went up in flames, it was raided by the Department's enemies. This file was lifted from a senior level Unspeakable."
"The Department's enemies?" Richard asks.
"Mages," Bleu says, as blunt as a flying mallet.
Before he can ask any more questions, Bleu flips the file open and Richard's eyes flick across the pages within, his heart thumping against the inside of his chest.
"Is this real?" He whispers, praying for a lie. To think that this is happening only a few floors below my feet...
The tall bald man nods, "It is. We can put you in contact with some Department defectors if you don't believe us."
Richard barely even hears him over the blood rushing in his ears.
"They're kidnapping wizarding children to fill their ranks…" Richard gasps. "They start wars to… to do this…"
His thinks of his daughters, Marinette and Alya, and how his wife is probably sitting by their fire, watching over them with her warm brown eyes. If Richard and Rosaline were to die and the Department of Mysteries had their way, his little girls would be taken and turned into soldiers, ready to die for an organization that only saw them as cannon fodder.
He can't even begin to comprehend the atrocities that he's been blind to this entire time.
"We have a common enemy," the bald man says, leaning down over Richard and stares down at him with his horrifically scarred face. The thing inside of Tatiana sits on Richard's desk, kicking her legs against the wooden drawers and stretching her arms over her head, cracking the bones in her back. Whatever is controlling her seems to revel in its ability to make her breathe, as Tatiana smiles when her ribcage swells beneath her robes.
Richard shudders, remembering that Bleu had said that mages were responsible for getting the file in the first place. He tears his gaze away from Tatiana and, Merlin, when had mages gotten so powerful that they could infiltrate a wizarding Ministry without anyone knowing?
The bald man continues, regardless of the distraction, "In two days you will be attending the International Confederation of Wizards to hear the American Minister speak. You leave tomorrow. Is this true?"
Richard nods.
"When the signal is given, we want you to release this information to the wizarding world and support the move to sever all connection with the Department of Mysteries," the bald man says.
"What signal?" Richard asks.
"You'll know," the thing inside Tatiana smiles, its voice a rasping whisper. Now that he's heard the bald man talking, he notices that they carry the same, unfamiliar accent.
"You're welcome to conduct any raids on the Department between now and then," Bleu tells him as she rises to her feet, brushing the non-existent dust off of her muggle pants suit. Nodding at the bald man, she turns away and gathers her purse that she's left on the sofa across the room.
Richard jumps when the bald man pulls out a knife and approaches him. He tries to scoot away, but Tatiana grabs hold of the chair and keeps him in place. The bald man cuts the ties with two flicks of his wrists as Tatiana chuckles at his antics, amused in a way that the actual woman never would be.
"We'll be speaking again soon," Bleu promises as Richard's wand is returned to him. The bald man joins her at the door. She and the man slip outside as the thing inside Tatiana slides over Richard's desk and onto the other side.
"Remember, old man. I'll be watching," it taps the side of Tatiana's nose with a single finger and winks. Then, Tatiana seems to shake herself, frowning. She looks up with a confused look in her eyes. "Sir?"
"Tat?" Richard asks, reaching forward to encircle her hands with his own. "Tat, is that you?"
"Sir, what…? How did I...?" She looks around the room and then down at the red marks that mar his wrists. "You're hurt! What happened?"
Richard swallows, trying to control his fear, "Tat, I need you to do me a favour?"
Tatiana nods, still looking unsure of everything.
"I need you to get me François Boissonade," he says, naming the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. "Tell him that it's a Code Red."
Her eyes widen, her body going tense, "Code Red, sir?"
Richard nods, "Now, Tat. It's an emergency."
She snaps to, rushing out the door to pass on the message. A Code Red meant only one thing: a declaration of war.
Richard sits down hard in his office chair, rubbing the red marks on his wrists, and gives himself a full three minutes to collect himself. Then he rises, moving towards the fireplace and sticking his hand in the back of floo powder that he keeps beside the coals.
He has to tell his wife that he's not coming home tonight. But if Rosaline knew what he was about to do, then she would understand.
Reyna sits in the back of a black enchanted muggle car, staring out the window at the street beyond. The driver rolls up to the curb outside the Forum Romanum, a series of ruins that had once been the epicentre of the Roman Empire.
"I don't like this, ma'am," says Neal Pendergrass. Reyna glances over at her Head of Magical Law Enforcement, who sits beside her in the car with his son. "The Department is too powerful an enemy and we have no solid evidence that they're even behind all of this. All it will take is one slip up and the Unspeakables with nail us to the floor."
"We have to take action, Neal," Reyna tells him but lets her eyes flick over his son, Shawn. The boy has looked anxious. "If what your son says is correct, then Unspeakables used the chaos that they caused to kidnap suspects from a wand theft case before we could speak to them. A Ministry employee is still missing," she says, thinking of Gerry Maller from security who had yet to show up for his shift. "And now with the muggle President breathing down my back about a hijacked airplane and blackouts on the western seaboard, I cannot sit by and do nothing."
Neal grimaces, "I know, ma'am. Just…" He sighs, "Please be careful."
"Come on, Neal. You know that 'careful' is my middle name," Reyna jokes, remembering full well how the two of them used to be back in their Auror days. She sobers quickly, "Well? Shall we?"
Shawn reaches over the seats to tip the driver with a silver Sickle before the three of them clamber out of the car with their protective guard of Aurors. Reyna watches the boy whenever his father's back is turned. Shawn has been pale and shaky to the point of distraction in the last few months, but in the last couple of days, he's seemed strangely calmer. Today though, Shawn's every motion appears to be filled with anticipation.
The Forum Romanum is a tourist attraction, bustling with muggles holding cameras and children. Neal's nose crinkles at the sight of the swarming, wandless masses, expressing his distaste for their kind in the only way that Reyna will allow him to. Shawn, on the other hand, barely seems to care, leading them to the secretive wizarding entrance, where they are joined by the British delegation.
"Minister Fudge," Reyna calls out to the portly man in a lime green bowlers hat and long travelling cloak. The British Minister turns and smiles politely at her.
"Minister Palamo. How good to see you again, my dear," Fudge returns her greeting and stretches out a hand for her to shake once his Auror guard is told to stand at ease. "May I introduce you to Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts?"
Reyna had heard of Dumbledore, of course - there was barely a witch or wizard alive who hasn't. But there was something about actually seeing the man, tall and thin with a crooked nose that hinted at an old break, that made him so much more real. They call him the greatest wizard on earth, she thinks and now she can understand why. He's the Supreme Mugwump, the one that I'll have to convince if I have any chance of succeeding here.
"Reyna Palamo," she introduces herself. "American Minister of Magic."
"It is wonderful to finally meet you in person," Dumbledore says graciously, his blue eyes twinkling behind his half-moon spectacles.
"And this," Fudge interrupts, gesturing to the woman on his left, who reminded Reyna of a pale, pink toad, "is my Senior Undersecretary, Dolores Umbridge."
Umbridge gives Reyna a forced smile. The hand that she offers is cold and clammy, "Minister Palamo. So you're the one kicking up all of the fuss here."
"I don't consider it 'kicking up a fuss' when my citizens are in danger, Madam Umbridge," Reyna says firmly and pulls away as quickly as she can, not wanting to touch Umbridge for much longer. Her heart sinks, If I can't count on British support, then I'm going to be in a lot of hot water.
"Now, now, ladies. Let's not starting debating out here," Fudge chuckles, clearly amused in an aggravatingly dismissive way. "Shall we?"
The boy who mans the entrance is surprisingly young, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. He's heavily muscled in a way that most Italian wizards are not, a mop of dirty blond hair atop his head. He doesn't speak English but he's surprisingly friendly none the less, wildly grinning as he checks their wands and provides them with their passes, waving them through the gates.
Shawn turns to the boy before they leave, "I'm sorry, but do I know you from somewhere?"
"Non parlo Inglese," is the response Shawn gets, complete with a shrug. The boy moves to help the next group of people coming through.
Reyna frowns, Something is going on here. The boy's accent sounded far too much like he was from New York for him to be a local kid.
Just beyond the gate was a shimmering sheet of magic hanging in the air, the world beyond distorted as if they were underwater. Passing through the centuries-old illusion felt like walking through a dense mist. Reyna opens her eyes and sees the Forum Romanum in its full glory.
Nearly four hundred years ago, when the Statute of Secrecy was in its early drafts, the first witches and wizards of the Confederation pulled the true Forum Romanum one second out of time and restored it to its former glory. Instead of the ruins that the muggle travelled through each day, the plaza was filled with pillared buildings of shining white marble wrapped in green ivy. Beautiful cobblestone streets were lined with trees and gleaming statues as a massive fountain took up the centre of the courtyard.
Witches and wizards from all over the world walked the streets openly under the afternoon sun, darting around in a myriad of brightly coloured robes and golden bangles. The temples used to be home to nearly fifty pureblood clans that could trace their lineage back to the beginnings of the Roman Empire. But now many had been converted into shops and apartments for lease, as Italy's fascination with wizarding supremacy had dwindled those families down to four.
Reyna attention is drawn to her left where she sees a girl no younger than thirteen dressed in a long woollen gown as pale as her skin, a white ribbon threaded through the six braids in her hair. She is seated inside of a litter, held afloat by four house elves that flanked each corner, and is attended by nearly two dozen Italian Aurors in the traditional bronze armour of the ancient Roman centurions.
Nearly a century of marrying brother to sister and this is the result, Reyna thinks as she notes the shaking in the girl's hands and the way her eyes seem to point in different directions. Reyna believes the reason why the girl is sitting is that she can no longer stand.
As a single centurion detaches from the rest of his group, coming forward to address them, Dumbledore whispers, "Do not look at the girl and only speak the man." Then the man raises his voice and declares, "I am Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. I am accompanied by the delegations of Great Britain and the United States of America, along with their associated Ministers for Magic."
The centurion stands at attention and seems to translate for the girl in the litter. She nods and responds in what Reyna can only assume to be Latin, the native language of the Forum.
"I am Tiberius Oceanus," the centurion responds when the girl finally stops speaking, his words carrying a heavy Italian accent. "Speaker to the Unclean for the Honourable Vestal Luccenia, Vestalis Maxima and wife of Rome. If you come with us, Supreme Mugwump, we will escort you and your companions to stay at the Tempio di Vesta, where you may stay until the Confederation meets tomorrow."
"'The unclean?' What's that supposed to mean?" Shawn Pendergrass hisses and his father steps on his foot to keep him quiet.
"We are honoured by the Vestal's presence," Dumbledore answers, ignoring Shawn's outburst. "Please, lead the way."
"Are you stupid?" Neal whispers angrily at his son as the delegation begins to move. "What did Dumbledore just say?"
"He called us unclean, dad! How else was I supposed to respond to something like that?"
"Things are different here," Reyna explains, trying to defuse the situation a little bit but nonetheless agreeing with him.
"Things are wrong here," Shawn frowns. Reyna has never seen him so outspoken before. "Who the hell is that girl anyway?"
It is Dumbledore who answers his question, "She's the leader of the Vestal Virgins. In ancient times, they worshipped the goddess Vesta and tended to the Eternal Flame that existed beneath the city. Now they're more figureheads, but they still possess incredible power in the Italian Ministry. However…" he frowns and then addresses the centurion again, "If you will excuse me, Tiberius, but the last time I visited the city, Vestal Atronia was the Vestalis Maxima. May I ask what happened to her?"
"Atronia was stripped of her titles following the discovery of her treason," Tiberius answers. "She was punished in accordance with our laws."
Dumbledore frowns, "What was she arrested for?"
"Aiding and abetting the criminal Cassiopeia Zabini," Tiberius answers.
"Vestal Atronia was fifteen years old," Dumbledore says.
"Atronia was a traitor and was punished as such," Tiberius responds and says nothing else.
"What does that mean?" Reyna asks Dumbledore once she's sure that the centurion is no longer listening.
"No one is allowed to physically harm a Vestal, so they must have locked that poor girl in a tomb and let her starve to death," Dumbledore murmurs to her under his breath, barely able to keep the disgust from his voice.
"This is so wrong," Shawn says, his fist clenched at his sides. Reyna might have imagined it, but she thinks that she sees Luccenia turn in her litter to look at Shawn, a small grin playing on her lips.
When they reach the Tempio di Vesta, a stunning marble palace with three stories and over a hundred rooms, Luccenia's litter is set down on the ground. The four house elves crowd around her, helping her to her feet and assisting her in her walk up the stairs. Reyna tries her best to ignore how Fudge and Umbridge seem to stare at the young girl with hungry eyes. She thinks, The Brits and their fascination with wizarding supremacy will be the end of us all.
"This way," Tiberius calls as he separates from the Vestals' guard to lead them to their rooms.
Reyna's balcony overlooks a grove of beautiful trees and flowers, the green grass shimmering as the wind passed through it. A wizard-made river passes through the garden, where Reyna watches Luccenia kneeling before a giant bonfire, their wands aloft over their heads and casting their spells to keep it alight, dressed in identical white dresses and shawls. Dumbledore had told them that this was not actually the Eternal Flame, only an imitation of the one said to exist under the Forum.
Luccenia leads the four other girls; none of them are older than Luccenia, the youngest of which looked no older than six. They had been carried in by their house elves, as they didn't appear to be able to walk without help. One of the girls had seven webbed fingers on one hand and four on the other, while another didn't seem to be able to close her jaw. All around the grove stood their guard of red-clad centurions who watched over the girls with blank, dead eyes.
A knock comes from the other side of her door. Reyna frowns, I'm not expecting anyone until dinner.
"Come in," she calls.
A man enters and she recognizes him as the French Minister for Magic, Richard Bruneau. He closes the door, pointing his wand at the knob and locks it.
"Minister Bruneau, what-" Reyna begins to ask, but he cuts her off.
"I haven't got much time," he says, his voice betraying his urgency. "Last night, my government performed a raid on our section of the Department of Mysteries."
"You did what?!" Reyna exclaims, "Minister, that's practically a declaration of war!"
"I know," he stressed. "But what we found down there… Minister Palamo, you need to conduct a raid of your own." When she opens her mouth to argue the legality of it, Bruneau interrupts her again, "Fuck the law, ma'am. If you saw what I saw last night, you'd be saying the same thing. And I know that after everything that they've done, you're seething for the opportunity."
"What did you find?" She asks.
"I can't tell you. I'm under watch," Bruneau tells her. When she asks if it's Unspeakables, he shakes his head. "No. I don't think so…" He looks towards the locked door and then turns back to her, "We have a common ally against the Department, Minister. And whatever happens tomorrow, despite everything we've been told I think we can trust them."
Bruneau pulls out his wand and unlocks the door. Just before he leaves, Reyna asks again, "What did you find, Minister?"
He hesitates, audibly swallowing. Bruneau gives her an utterly desperate look and says, "Have you ever wondered why there are no wizarding orphanages, despite all the blood supremacy wars we seem to have? Because the answer is the same as why there's no recruitment process to get into the Department of Mysteries."
He leaves her with that, exiting just as quickly as he came as he came it. The gears in Reyna's head turn at incredible speeds before finally coming to a conclusion that she prays is not true. She takes one last glance at the Vestals in the grove before she goes to find Neal and gives him the order to return home.
When she tells him why, he doesn't argue.
The house elves lower Luccenia into the wheelchair that she uses to traverse her personal quarters just as Tiberius enters her room.
"Leave us," she dismisses them and the elves disappear in a puff of smoke. Luccenia turns to Tiberius. "Is it done?"
Her centurion drops to one knee and bows his head, "It is."
"No one suspects anything?" She confirms.
"The Pendergrass boy from the American delegation almost recognized the mage at the front gate, but you said that we were not to touch him," Tiberius tells her. "If it becomes an issue-"
"I've been told by our ally that Shawn Pendergrass already knows some details surrounding the mages operation. He may have just been identifying himself to Wheeler. Besides, we only have to hold out for one day," Luccenia reassures him. "As long as Minister Sidonia stays in the dark, then we should be alright."
"Of course, my lady," Tiberius answers. She dismisses him as well and waits.
A golden glow illuminates her room and a man seems to step out of a crevice in the middle. He's younger than Tiberius, with short black hair, bright purple eyes, and a blue neckerchief around his neck.
Luccenia smiles, "Em."
The bright light disappears from around him and Em puts his hands on his waist, sighing as he looks over Luccenia.
"You told me that you'd say something if your liver started acting erratically again," he complains, producing a vile of something bright green out of nowhere. He offers it to Luccenia, but she can't hold it, her hands shaking so badly that it drops to the floor. The vile shatters, staining the rub beneath her with its contents.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. Her eyes burn with embarrassing tears.
Em kneels before her and gently tilts Luccenia head up so that she looks at him.
"Hey, none of that," he smiles kindly. "Come on. It's nothing I can't fix. Reparo. "
Luccenia watches as Em's eyes glow golden and he waves his hand over the mess. The vile reassembles itself as the potion flows upwards from the carpet and back inside.
"There. Good as new," Em grins and he helps her to swallow it down. "Better?"
Luccenia nods as the uncomfortable pain in her gut disappears.
"Thank you for helping them today," Em says as he stands.
"I don't understand why you're helping them, though," Luccenia asks. "They're mages. They're not your people."
"That kind of thinking is what got us into this mess in the first place," Em says. "And who says they're not. Back in my day, when everyone else was focused on fighting each other, I was the only one who stepped back and said, 'No. We need to evacuate. We need to help everyone.' I saved wizards and mages and non-magics alike that day. Doesn't that make them all my people?"
Luccenia tilts her head to the side, "You're not what I expected."
"Sorry to disappoint you then," Em snorts. "Look, I got to go. I told my boss that I'd be right back-"
She interrupts him.
"Why are you really here?" She asks, "The Eternal Flame is the grove is a lie - the Rip that Cadmus Peverell carved beneath the Forum closed centuries ago when Rome fell. The same as the one in Egypt. There's no passage left for you to take back."
The man shakes his head, "There is one Rip left. But only the Daughter of Albion can open it. And she still has to find me - to learn who I am. Call it a quest, if you will. 'The Daughter of Albion and the Queen Consort To Be must find the find the God Beyond The Rip to discover the truth and restore balance to the world.'" He shrugs, "Prophecies are more always trouble than they're worth."
The warm light envelops him once more and Luccenia is left alone, staring out at the evening sky.
Em had been a frequent visitor of her predecessor, Atronia, keeping the former Vestalis Maxima supplied with enough potions to ensure that Luccenia and her sisters would live as long as they could in as little pain as possible. He could not stop death, Em had told them, but he could prolong it.
Atronia knew that Em been based somewhere in England. So when Cassiopeia had come to the Tempio di Vesta looking for sanctuary for her granddaughter and great-grandchild, Atronia had given Cassiopeia Em's contact information and sent them his way, knowing that he would take care of them as he did with the rest of the Vestals.
But after Minister Sidonia found out, Atronia was arrested. Luccenia never saw her again. Em said that he made sure that she didn't suffer.
So when Em had come to her about a week ago, telling her that he needed to help to smuggle a group of mages into the city without letting them know who was assisting them, Luccenia called upon her guard, Tiberius, to help.
The boy at the front gate was just the first of many. Supposedly, he'd been positioned there alongside a mage who could become invisible to the naked eye and see the names of everyone that he passed. Somewhere in one of the abandoned temples, home to the extinct Vulso clan, the remaining mages had found a fully stocked kitchen, detailed maps of the city, an itinerary of tomorrow's events, and enough beds for a small army. The closets had been filled with clothing to disguise them in case they needed to go out into the city
It was treason, but Luccenia didn't care. She had no loyalty to the Ministry, nor did she have any for the family she left behind to take on the position she currently holds. Luccenia was a bride of Rome, like every Vestal that had come before her. She was loyal to her city, to her people, and to the wizarding world at large.
And who was she to question the god of that world when he came calling.
Amane is awoken in the middle of the night by a tapping noise.
"Wha'zat?" Blaise mumbles from the other side of the room, ungracefully rising from his slumber and glaring bleary-eyed at the window. The two of them had been forced to share ever since Viola had insisted on Natsuki taking the guest room. The door had to remain open at all times, they had to change in the loo, and neither of them liked it at all.
"Go find out," Amane growls, squishing her face into her pillow and pulling the blanket over her head. She just wants to go back to sleep.
Amane hears Blaise's bare feet pad across the floor toward the window. She feels the cold night air wash over her when he opens it and then bolts upright when she hears a hoot.
Whipping her head around, she sees Blaise standing there with a standard brown post owl latched to his arm. Attached to its leg is a long scroll of parchment.
"There's a letter," Blaise says awkwardly, holding up the envelope. "It's addressed to you."
She's across the room in an instant, tugging the letter from Blaise's grasp and ripping it open. Amane's heart stops beating when she sees that the message inside is written in code.
Ryou's code.
Amane rushes to the kitchen table, scrambling for a piece of parchment and quill to write the translation down, remembering only at the last minute that she would need a muggle dictionary to translate. When she tells Blaise this, he wanders over to one of the bookshelves to pull one from the stacks.
The numbers on the page match up with the letters in the book. Amane writes so fast that she splatters her clothes with ink, barely comprehending the message until its fully translated. When she's finally done, she leans back and reads:
Amane,
I know you don't want to talk to me but hear me out.
A goblin named Nurnok wanted you to have this before she died. I don't know what it is and I don't know what you're supposed to do with it, but the people who gave it to me are really insistent that you have it.
Also, if you get the chance, try to catch the Confederation radio broadcast tomorrow. Apparently, something is supposed to go down during the speeches.
Keith
"What?" She gasps. Nurnok is dead? How? And how in Merlin's name does Keith fucking Howard even know about that?
"Amane…" Blaise draws her attention away from Keith's letter. He's staring at the open roll of parchment with a look of intent curiosity on his face.
"What is it?" Amane asks. He flips it around so that she can see.
"It looks like a map," Blaise says. "But… you remember what you said that that goblin lady told you? About something called a Rip?"
She nods. Blaise's finger points to something on the page. Amane leans in closer to see a jagged symbol marked on the very bottom of the page.
"'The Rip,'" she reads. It's the only words written in English. She glances up at Blaise. "What goes it mean?"
"I don't know…" Blaise frowns. He flattens the map out on the kitchen table and points to the edges of the parchment. "Look at the edges."
He runs his fingers down the sides of the page, over something that Amane had first dismissed as a twisting, decorative border. Except now that she's focusing on them, she sees that it's actually four distinct snakes, each eating the other's tail.
"Each one is a different colour," Blaise says out. "Red and gold in the top left. Green and silver to its right," he slides his finger along the green snake and down the parchment, "Then there's blue and bronze in the bottom right and yellow and black in the bottom left." He pauses, looking at Amane. "It's the symbol of Hogwarts."
"Except it's all snakes, which is the Slytherin symbol," she points out. "Apparently, during the first war against You-Know-Who, some people on his side were tossing around the idea of a united Hogwarts under Slytherin House." Her father had mentioned it once after Ryou had been sorted. "Maybe it has something to do with that?"
"I don't think so," Blaise shakes his head.
"Why?"
"If you wanted a single house, why represent the colours of the other three?" He asks and Amane has to admit that he has a point. Blaise licks his lips, "I don't think we should tell anyone about this."
Amane agrees. Together, they roll the map up and stuff it in one of the bags that she'd brought from her old house.
The two of them try to go back to sleep, but they can't, still too wired from their midnight delivery. Amane tries not to think about Keith's letter, about the postscript that she'd left untranslated the moment she realized that Keith had been trying to tell her something about Ryou. About an hour later, Amane hears Blaise whisper her name in the dark.
"What?" She asks, equally as quiet.
"You're… going to come to Hogwarts, right?"
She hasn't wanted to think about it, not with the semester just around the corner. Amane had been considering begging her mother to take her to Japan to avoid it all. But now that she's received the map, she's reconsidering.
"Yeah," she answers. "I think I am."
"Oh," she hears Blaise shift on the sofa, turning towards her. Amane glances over and catches him staring at her. He offers her a rare smile, his face illuminated by moonlight. "Good."
Hello again!
I'd like to thank those who reviewed for the last chapter: Safiruu, Tz342, Moonfirekitsune, anita15, green lilah, Dana Sto Helit, and dragomira. You guys are awesome!
This chapter was originally going to be combined with the next chapter, but the combined page total would have been close to forty, so I split it up. Inverse plays the role of introducing (or re-introducing) a few new characters that will be further explored in Resist, like Reyna Palamo, Luccenia, and, of course, Em.
The Vestal Virgins are an actual historical group, though the Vestals that appear in the Three Kings have had some adjustments made to their order. We also get a bit more of a look into Cassiopeia and how she helped Viola escape Italy. Atronia's fate is based on one of the actual punishments dolled out to Vestal Virgins who took on lovers.
The Forum Romanum is real as well and I suggest that you look up pictures of it on Google. It's a beautiful set of ruins.
We also learn more about what Amane is going to be doing in Resist. She and Blaise have Nurnok's map of the Chamber of Secrets. We get some more information on the Rip that the Daughter of Albion is supposed to find - that there have been Rips before under Rome and Egypt, but the only one left is under Hogwarts castle. I wonder what the connection is? :)
As for the question that I posed to you all last time about the side stories, it seems that you guys do want me to write them. So once Strike is finished (which shouldn't be too long), I will start to work on them.
Until next time,
AlcatrazOutpatient