Gilding the Lily
"Gilding the Lily," I said as I awoke and rubbed the sleep from my eyes and then wondered why I said it.
Looking around my room I noted two things instantly, I could see clearly, and had depth perception. Seeing clearly wasn't nearly as shocking as having true depth perception. I'm not really sure if I can actually explain the difference any more than I could explain colors to a blind man, let's just say that it added a whole new dimension to the world.
This also wasn't my bed or my room and I don't recall going anywhere the night before...
As my feet hit the cold stone floor I yelped. It wasn't a manly yelp at all, but considering my feet were nice and warm when they touched down on the floor and said floor was cold castle stone in Scotland, I think I can be forgiven.
Wait a second... Castle in Scotland?!
I groaned as I 'remembered' everything. Well not quite everything I had some rather large gaps here and there, but I'll get back to that in a moment.
I am John Flint, author's avatar. I was supposed to be an SI, but my author realized an SI of him would make for some really boring stories. For instance if he was here he'd already be planning his escape to the muggle world where he would make loads of cash quickly so he could retire and read books while waiting for the internet to develop.
Hell, he'd even worked out several ways to make lots of money fast and easy just in case he was ever stuck in the HP world and that was about as likely as him winning the lottery, without buying a ticket.
At any rate that means I have his knowledge and some of his traits with a large amount of hero skimmed off of characters he likes tossed in.
While he would have no problem letting the entire wizarding world collapse and destroy itself because of its own corruption I actually cared about it and couldn't stand to see all the innocents that would be caught in its collapse come to harm.
Sure it makes for more interesting stories, but it makes my life a lot more complicated than it needs to be. Is it too much to ask for to be written into a PWP with all our favorite characters?
TN: Yes, now get back to work John.
Apparently it is, because I am incarnated as Gilderoy freakin' Lockhart! Even my author's typist is against me!
This is what happens when he stays up late and reads an entire fic beginning to end before going to bed. Skysaber's a Gilded Life wasn't bad, definitely something to save a copy of and reread when there is nothing new out, but as an avatar insert, being forced to play Lockhart sucks!
'He could have added a drop of sex god to make me happy,' I thought to myself and quickly pulled out the waistband of my flannel pajamas to discover a whole new problem.
No, I wasn't female or suddenly had the equipment of a three year old, Gilderoy was perfectly normal possibly a bit above average. No, my problem was much, much worse.
Looking down I realized... that wasn't my junk. I could take having a new body, my old one was rather fiddly anyway with a host of quirks and probably a few mutations, a new face was also not that big a deal I never could convince myself that what I saw in a mirror was really me anyway, but that was not my penis.
I could deal with many things, but not with reaching down to scratch myself and feeling like I'm fondling someone else's junk. No this would have to be taken care of now.
"Zippy!" I called out, because with the number of elves at Hogwarts there was bound to be one named Zippy.
*POP*
"You's callin' fer Zippy, boss?" a short green creature dressed in a pillowcase smoking a short cigar asked.
I now knew what had happened to Hoffa. Ok, I'm being melodramatic here, it's more like I know what happened to some gangster or other because I swear to god Zippy sounded like I'd expect a New York teamster to sound, if given helium and I'm pretty sure house elves aren't supposed to bulge with muscles like Bill Bixby reading a 'Dear, John' letter.
"Yeah, I need someone to lead me to the Come-and-Go room, but first I need someone to get some things for me," I explained.
"Zippy knows a guy," Zippy admitted after a couple of seconds of silence.
"Excellent, I need two syringes and a couple of the anemone like growths from the back of a murlap pickled." I handed him a small bag of galleons. "If you need more let me know."
"Sure thing, boss."
*pop*
I laid back down on top of my bed and concentrated on my breathing.
Breathe in, hold it for three beats, then breathe out for the same amount of time.
After a few minutes it feels like you're floating and you start consciously withdrawing your awareness from your limbs turning your concentration inward.
The hard part is not falling asleep and remembering what you set out to do at this point. Fortunately I knew exactly what I wanted to do and unlike in real life, magic allows me to manipulate my memories via symbols.
I find myself orbiting around a silver and gold sun with one color chasing the other, like a giant yin yang symbol.
I'm not quite sure what it symbolizes but I have a braided silver and gold cord leading from my navel to it, so I'm guessing it's my soul.
The silver cord looks kinda thin compared to the gold one, so without pausing to realize that screwing around with my soul before consulting a manual was a monumentally stupid move, I tried to force them to equalize.
I'd thought it would be easy, but boy was I wrong. Sweat was beading on my brow as I forced my will upon the two stubborn cords.
I'm not sure how long I worked on it, time being rather fluid in the mindscape, but I was dripping with sweat and trembling from exertion by the time i was finished.
My sight had been almost greying out occasionally but I'd thought that had just been from effort, unfortunately I was wrong there too.
The sun was flickering, no longer a yin yang symbol of gold and silver chasing each other, it was now a rather muddied copperish red with rare flickers of gold and silver.
Is there a Darwin award for snuffing out your own soul?
As the flickers began to die down a coldness began to seep into me. Yeah I'm pretty sure that was the icy grip of death because for a second I thought I saw the face of Christopher Walken.
And just when I thought it was all over, I heard a single note echoing in space as my soul decided to go supernova.
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
I awoke in a nice soft bed, feeling like someone had stuck a branding iron on my chest and looking down at my chest I saw a baby bird in a pile of ashes that had probably been my shirt and chest hair.
"Wow," came an awestruck voice from the side.
Turning I found myself looking at Harry Potter who was in the next bed over as we were apparently in the school infirmary.
"Good morning, Harry. I trust you slept well?"
"A phoenix landed on your chest and rebirthed itself," Harry said stunned.
"I noticed. How much you want to bet there's a permanent scar that magic can't erase where his feet touched down?"
"No bet," he snorted.
"Well, I'm glad you're here, otherwise I'd have to track you down."
"Really, why?"
"Got a gift for you. It's not rare, but the people who know the secret of it are. I just discovered the secret myself and I can understand why they kept it secret. If you ever master occlumency I'll tell you the secret of it, but for now just know it'll make you resistant to curses and jinxes."
"What's occlumency and why are you helping me?" Harry asked, hoping it had nothing to do with his hated title.
"The secret art of guarding your mind, and because thanks to some idiot spreading around the tale about how you got that scar, you are going to be a magnet for trouble and since you seem like a good kid considering what you just went through, I decided to help you while I was preparing to do this for myself. Doing it for two people makes it work better anyway."
"Is there any way I could get it for Hermione and Ron?" Harry asked eagerly. "They were there for nearly the whole thing."
I thought about it for a moment and began to grin. "Let me check with Zippy. Zippy?" I called out.
*pop*
"You called, boss?"
"Yes, did you get what I sent you for?"
"Zippy nodded, which actually required a bit of bowing as he had no neck to speak of. "Yeah, boss. I gots two jars of pickled things and the syringes."
Zippy pulled out two good sized jars, filled with small floating purple things that looked like miniature sea anemones in them, and a small black case, and set them on the nightstand in between the two beds.
"Excellent work! Zippy, would like you like to join my family?"
Zippy's eyes opened so wide I was sure they were about to fall out. "Zippy can be part of family again?!"
"You and whoever you want to bring with you," I replied. I swear, house elves are worth their weight in gold!
"Zippy go check!"
*pop*
"What was that?" Harry asked.
"A house elf. They live to cook, clean, and whatever other chores you can think of. Accept them into your family, treat them right, and they will be the most loyal family retainers in existence. The only thing you have to remember is to never give them clothes as that's the ritual for firing them."
"How do you get laundry done then?" Harry asked.
"They can handle clothes just fine, it's giving it directly to them that's the problem. The wizarding world in general looks down on them and treats them as slaves, but I'm sure you've realized by now that people in general, regardless of society, are dicks."
Harry laughed.
"Now pick one of these floating things and swallow it."
Harry stopped laughing and examined one of the jars while I opened the other one and fished a small one out with my fingers.
"Down the hatch," I said and swallowed it. I looked around for something to wipe my fingers on and my eyes come to rest on the phoenix fledgling on my chest that I was still making sure not to dislodge.
"Chirp," it chirped disdainfully, eying my wet fingers.
I quickly wiped them on my blanket and pretended I hadn't been thinking what I'd been thinking. I could feel the bird's amusement.
"Eww," Harry said wiping his fingers on his shirt. "That tasted awful!"
"That's why I simply swallowed mine. I think when we give them to Ron and Hermione, I'll coat them in chocolate and tell them it's a pill."
"Is that all it takes?"
"Nah this was the first of half a dozen steps, some of which are fakes so no legilimancer can read your mind and steal it. Ok, and I'll admit the idea of making whoever tries to steal the idea from your mind eat countless baby sea anemones to find the right type is funny."
Harry laughed.
There came a sound like popcorn popping and my bed was surrounded by elves. "This isn't going to leave Hogwarts shorthanded is it?"
"No, boss," Zippy replied. "Lotsa elves at Hogwarts. So many elves that many gots no work ta do, boss."
"Ok, well I'll find work to do and stuff for you to clean even if I have to work at it."
Have you ever had a couple dozen house elves beam at you? Trust me it's both nice and creepy.
"I'll need elves who can clean underwater and locate, retrieve, and clean stuff buried in the dirt. I want elves who are good at fixing broken things and elves who are skilled at cleaning without being seen. I'd suggest everyone find an elf who has those skills to train them if you don't have those skills already."
All the elves but Zippy popped away.
"You are going to by my main elf, Zippy. I'll tell you what I need done and you can assign other elves to do it. If there is a better elf at planning and figuring out the best way to get things done you are the one that's going to assign him the job of doing so."
Zippy swelled with pride. "Thanks, boss!"
"Now I need two glasses of hot cocoa with cinnamon sticks."
"Right away, boss!"
*pop*
Zippy was back almost instantly setting down a couple of cups with cinnamon sticks on the side.
"Take the two jars and have the contents made into little chocolate pills, please."
"Yes sir, boss!"
*pop*
Taking a pinch of phoenix ash, once I was sure it wouldn't upset the bird on my chest, I dropped them in the cocoa and pretended to be muttering a spell under my breath while stirring each one carefully with the cinnamon stick seven times counterclockwise.
"Bottoms up" I said and downed my own while Harry did the same.
"My forehead feels warm," Harry said as his scar started smoking.
"Well don't poke it or it'll never heal," I said figuring the combination of making him more resistant to dark magic and drinking phoenix ash was destroying the horcrux. Sure I could be wrong, but it seemed likely and fit the facts.
Taking out a couple of old fashioned glass syringes I handed him one. "Fill 'er up, while I do the same."
Harry looked ill at ease, but he was much too indoctrinated to obey adults to object. I probably looked much the same. I don't mind needles, but I hate watching them go in and I had to because I was the one doing it.
"Zippy," I called out when we'd both finished.
*Pop*
"Yeah, boss?"
"I need you to spin both these until there is a clear fluid at the base and then vanish the blood leaving just the fluid and hand them back to us."
Zippy nodded and with a wave of his hand he spun the glass needles as efficiently as any centrifuge.
"Normally I'd say avoid blood magic and giving people blood, but as we are going to vanish the blood that's not a problem here. Oh, by the way if anyone tries to take your blood for a dark rite while saying anything about forcibly taken, and they will since its part of that kind of ceremony, try and be willing for them to have the blood as it completely screws up their ritual and ruins their day."
"Have you been through a lot of those?"
"Dark wizards are always trying to spread fear and increase their power base and the best way to do that is to grab someone everyone knows. If you want to know more it'll have to wait until you're older."
Zippy handed us our syringes and Harry copied me in squeezing the air out and making sure there were no bubbles.
"I willingly share any strengths or gifts that I have as if you were my own brother," I said formally before injecting my plasma directly into his veins.
"I willingly share any gifts or strengths I have as if you were my brother," Harry said before injecting his plasma into my veins.
Zippy cleaned the syringes and popped away with the cases as we both relaxed.
I stopped for a second and frowned. "I never did introduce myself did I?"
Typing by: Stephenopolos
AN: I stole… errr borrowed a number of ideas from Skysaber, but it didn't really gel for me.
TN: I wonder if this version of his SI is part kryptonian like the last one... kryptonian Harry anyone?