Familiar (To Be or Not To Be)
Haltia's Prompt:(#9) Harry being kidnapped as a child (on his way from school?) and raised and taught as a (mad?) sorcerer's apprentice/familiar (in human form only when alone with the sorcerer, otherwise he's forced in the form of an animal) who has disparaging opinion of witches and wizards of magical world. Maybe the sorcerer sensed Harry's magical blood and didn't want to see him "ruined" by "those wand-waving fools".
*I made this a crossover of Harry Potter with The Sorcerer's Apprentice (movie, 2010)*
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
It's a funny little thing about history that Merlin was a title long before it became a famous wizards name; the title came from the name of the breed of falcon that was Morgana le Fey's familiar, a symbol of her favor.
It was she, born of the blood of fey and wizard that became the first of her breed – that which came to be called sorcerer. They who had a magic in blood that kept them all but ageless once they found a mastery of their blood gift, and a primeval magic that gave a birthright over all the elements of nature, known and not; they could bare the touch of cold iron but never birth children with their gifts, as wizard and witch might and fey sometimes do.
The dragon became Merlin's familiar, and so the breed of sorcerers was said to be ever afterwards born; sometimes under star sign of Draco - thereafter called a Merlinean - and sometimes under that of the constellation of stars the Romans had called Aquila marking a Morganian. The difference being in belief, if the magic is meant to serve and protect those mortals without magic, or if magic was meant to make mortals serve those with magical talent.
Never was a sorcerer born without one star constellation or the other shining down bright and clear, and never – it was thought – with both, but both it was, when a baby who would be titled the Boy Who Lived and scarred by the curse of a Dark Lord (a Morganian of Slytherin's blood) was born – born out of the pure blood line of Merlinean Gryffindor, and chosen by Morganian's heir as equal to his line and blood.
Only wizards and witches saw the stars as they were meant to be seen, as the Draco and Aquila fought by day and by night one would shine brighter than the other; sometimes it went on for weeks that one would win over the other. The old saying went, as below – as above – and while to those with no magic saw no difference in the shining of the stars, to have magic in the blood meant they saw the stars clearest.
They knew the meaning of the signs, that the sorcerer breed – born of the most ancient and pure blooded families of wizard and witch, by nature of their star sign called either Morganian or Merlinean fought a war with no ending, a war of Light and Dark (called so not only for the magic one side or the other favored, but by shifting brightness of the very heavenly stars) – and one day, the wizards and witches saw Aquila burn brightest, and took it for omen that the Morganian sorcerers had won.
It was the day the Boy Who Lived, aged eleven, went missing.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
They say that it is the wand that chooses – and makes – the wizard or witch, and that is true.
Yet they are not powerless without their wand, as a sorcerer is without ring; there are two ways to get a ring, for they are not found in sold in a shop; they are given (as is the nature of the Merlinean sorcerers) or taken (as the Morganian most often do) or made. Only a sorcerer with a familiar can make a ring; and while an apprentice can be made into a familiar, a familiar can not always become an apprentice.
Yet, to the Morganians, it is better to be a sorcerer's familiar than to be merely a witch or wizard. It is why Midas takes the boy who crosses the wall of King's Cross, before he knows what it truly means to be wizard – but knows what it is to be mortal, young and helpless - to be a familiar. Midas already has an apprentice in Drake Stone.
He does not ask the boy his name before he changes the boy's body into that of a lion cub, little and fuzzy and white with wide green eyes. He mewls but once, confused, but Midas only smiles. A familiar will find their true shape on their own, when they are ready to form a bond.
"You will learn to live in this shape, child, before I will let you loose from it. You could be a powerful wizard, I'm sure." Midas looks down upon the boy's wand, and steps down on it firmly. Despite the grip about the cub's neck, he writhes and wiggles in protest – he is strong in body and will, and that is for the best.
The crack of the wand braking makes him cry out, pathetic and soft. A lion cub's cry that would make its mother comes with her sisters at her back, in a running lope that would end a leap that would end in Midas's messy death. Yet he smiles down at the familiar, there is no bond between them and so much the better, it is the familiar that chooses to bond to a sorcerer and Midas has had a lioness at his side since before the building of pyramids.
This cub though, does not have a mother or father, he knows it, because what family would send a child to school without first seeing him safely on the way?
"Which means you will make a far better familiar than a wizard, it is a great honor I give you;I know you think the worst of me…but…in time you'll come to see this for what it is." Midas tucks the cub out of sight and steps off Platform 9 ¾ where no witch and wizard had seen him lurking.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
Sekhmet stretches before mirrors, lithe and lethal, she smiles as she stands from a crouch and meets Midas's eyes in the mirror. They are warm brown that find his hazel, and catch upon the sight of the white cub that Midas shows to her with the quickness of a hunting cat. Midas's smile is small.
"What's this?" Sekhmet asks softly, her voice rumbling out of her chest. Her skin is golden with a scattering of scars and her hair a bloody red, but every bit of her is tensed and worried at the sight of such a small thing that Midas shows her. It is with her, his familiar, that Midas entrusts his apprentice Drake Stone's care while he is away. She has never failed to be loyal to him.
"A gift, my dear; a newly made familiar in need of your tender care..." Midas lets the little white cub drop to the ground from his fingers; he lands upon all fours, awkward and huddling at their feet.
Sekhmet's nostrils flare as she scents the child as he begins to shiver.
"He is powerful; I will have to take care with him." Sekhmet crouches letting the cub see her empty hands, her fingers outstretched peacefully.
"Of course…" Midas turns away and never sees Sekhmet's brown eyes flash murderously upon his retreating back.
"You need never fear me, child. I am as you are. We should be family. I was like you once, when I met my sister Lucy - only he called us Sekhmet and Bast, but my name was Susan once and hers was Lucy. It has been lion familiars for him and his apprentices since his mentor Cybele taught him sorcery, and turned his father into one of hers. So Lucy said, I've no reason to doubt her – as I will give you no reason to doubt me." The cub comes to her, drawn perhaps to a friendly voice or the rumbling of a purr in her throat, a soothing croon. She does not know, and he will only be able to say when he finds his true shape again; when he might bond, or might not, with a sorcerer that is worthy of him.
Sekhmet does not doubt that Midas hopes Drake Stone is that sorcerer.
The white lion cub sniffs delicately at her fingertips before letting her run her hands over his shivering fur, soothing him into calm.
"I will tell him your name is to be Apedemak – an old Nubin god, but I will call you always Maahes. It will be our secret, yours and mine. When you are yourself, you can tell me your name – or not, my brother." Sekhmet does not mind the cub clumsily climbing into her lap, his claws catching on her skin leaving thin red lines. She is only pleased he is clearly not afraid of her.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
Harry Potter wakes one day, and he is not a young lion, half grown into his huge paws – but a young man, and he doesn't know how old he is. He looks to Sekhmet, who has been like a mother to him since Midas dropped him upon the floor at her feet, and he snarls at the memory – and beside him, Sekhmet wakes, a lioness with brown eyes and tawny hide.
She'd been like a mother to him, but really, she's as old as he is. She was only taken at a younger age, so young this is the only life she's ever really known. A Dark Lord (the same she was told, who gave a baby a scar and made him into the Boy Who Lived) took her and traded her to Mides.
She sees him, at last a familiar – made so between taking his true shape over the form given to him, and licks his cheek, and she shifts his hair upon his brow and sees the scar there – and once Sekhmet was a Susan, and she was a witch, and she sees that scar and knows – knows who her brother is. A growl echoes in the dark, and Harry looks at her – and knows she knows.
He watches her as she stands up and leaves him behind.
There had been a promise of blood in her brown eyes. Harry hears it when Sekhmet kills Midas, and leaves nothing left of him. In the morning Drake Stone comes to Midas's manor, and finds nothing of his master but a Encantus – his master's dead familiar, and a unclaimed boy familiar.
Harry sits still at her side, by the body of Sekhmet, for a familiar can not survive it when the bond between their sorcerer is severed – unless they are in truth meant to be a apprentice – but Sekhmet, Susan – she's only a witch, and she dies as a lioness. Harry looks at Drake – only a boy, really – only fifteen, and Harry is maybe thirteen, maybe twelve.
"What happened?" Drake Stone asks, shy, but knowing what Harry is, and knowing that Harry can't tell him a lie (not because he would not if he could get away with it, but because he can not) – a familiar without a bond is like an open book to any sorcerer.
"Susan…she killed him. Ate him." Drake's eyes are wide and horrified.
He never asks why – or Harry's name.
The first dark spell Drake Stone learns is how to skin a lion, and he keeps her hide – and Harry, Harry can't walk away into the world because he knows that he isn't a wizard – not really, not any more – and that a free familiar isn't done. He'd be either killed or claimed without a bond, by a sorcerer – or something worse - so he stays with Drake Stone, accepts a ring to be worn about his neck – but does not bond to the sorcerer boy.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
Maxim Horvath steps into the domain of a sorcerer, a Morganian according to the Encantus – the only one within New York, and he hears a low menacing growl echo through the shadows and shiver down his spine. Horvath knows the feel of a familiar when he senses one, and he turns wide eyes upon the green eyed white lion that comes at him, herding him with claws and teeth and threat toward a sorcerer – the first sorcerer to have a familiar in the New World.
The boy is only not yet thirty, Horvath is sure, and yet he smirks at the sight of Maxim Horvath backing away – hands raised and ring in plain sight – from a familiar – his familiar, Horvath thinks.
"Well, well, look at what my lion brought home! Hello there, sorcerer? Of course…we don't like sorcerers do we, Apedemak?" The low snarling does not cease, and Horvath thinks when the boy opens his hands, it's to offer peace – but the white lion, his familiar, comes to those open hands, greedily Drake Stone's fingers sink into a cream mane, and the white lion's snarl stops as those hands pet him.
They are close, Maxim Horvath knows at that sight.
"My apologies for trespassing…." It isn't done between sorcerers, least of all the Morganian, to trespass between territories lightly.
"Leave." Drake Stone was supposed to be a sorcerer of minor talent, a seeker of fame and fortune with a talent for illusions. Yet the familiar at his side speaks otherwise. Not all secrets are in the Encatus, Horvath knows.
"That, I will be glad to do – but you should know, before I go - Balthazar Blake has found the Prime Merlinean and will seek to kill Morgana le Fay. If you are any kind of Morganian you will –" The white lion roars, and in the face of that blood freezing sound, Maxim Horvath bows and takes himself elsewhere, knowing he is unwelcome.
"I'm not, you know." Drake says into the silence, watching the lion at his side carefully. The green eyes do not change as the body does; a young man stands naked and unashamed beside Drake Stone's side. That's the only place Drake has ever wanted the familiar, at his side – not a servant, not a slave. The ring about his neck is Drake's – he wares Midas's now, and they are not bonded, not really – only sometimes Drake thinks they are friends.
"It was one time, and I was fifteen, and I haven't used black magic since – I have what I want in the world, fame, fortune, riches and glory – why would I rule it? I might not be nice, but – but you aren't my slave, and I'm not a Morganian like Midas was." Drake's eyes go to where a lioness's hide hangs upon the wall, a painful reminder between them of what has been and what could be.
Slender golden fingers gently touch the fringes of fur there, and Drake looks on him, the boy familiar that isn't his – and isn't a boy either. It's always amazed Drake, that he's got bronzed skin and black hair in human form and white hide and cream mane in the other.
"I know, but that doesn't make you a Merlinean, does it?" It's softly said, thoughtful.
"I saved you, didn't I? I could have let you go, and you…you would have died, instead we are this – familiar and sorcerer and no bond between us but my ring around your neck. What do you want me to do, to prove I can be what you want me to be?" Drake doesn't stand up, as he knows the familiar that Midas called Apedemak would see that as a sign of gaining dominance, and to be perfectly honest, Drake is happy to sprawl upon a comfortable chair and admire the view. He's happy, with Apedemak to look at – in whatever form, man or lion.
"We have saved each other, Drake Stone, more times than either of us has kept count – I pretend to be your tame pet so you have in the eyes of the Morganian more power than they thought, and I sit and stare at any Merlinean that comes too near and they are sure that you aren't worth the bother – and I am safe from both kinds of sorcerer that would bond with me, willing or not – but, there is one thing I have that no one can take, do you know what that is?" Green eyes catch Drake's and he swallows down his want, hoping his lust doesn't show on his face – it's getting harder and harder as the years go on to show to Apedemak that he isn't the sort of sorcerer to take advantage of him – that they are simply in a mutually beneficial relationship – or facing mutually assured destruction.
Drake Stone on his own, a mostly untrained apprentice, would be swallowed up and used up by any sorcerer with a whim to do so. He thinks, sometimes, that Apedemak needs him less and less – and one day, might kill him like Sekhmet did to Midas, or might simply leave him behind.
"Your name is yours, it's not that I can't take it Apedemak – it's that, I won't. I want to earn it." Drake doesn't take his eyes from Apedemak's, as he takes up Midas's Encatus and looks up the Prime Merlinean and Merlin, and Maxim Horvath and Morgana le Fay and, finally, the current address of Balthazar Blake at Arcana Cabana. He smiles to see it's nearby.
"I think I've found just the way to prove I'm not a Morganian, says here Maxim Horvath who you just chased away – he was a Merlinean, and if a Merlinean can become a Morganian – an untrained Morganian apprentice can become a Merlinean. Well, what are you waiting for, let's go on a trip!" Drake Stone heads for the door, a white lion padding calmly after his heels. Drake keeps the door open for him, watching the lion's tale sway and his hunches walk away and he thinks he sees heavy testicles before Drake makes himself look away to lock the door.
*~o~*~o~*~o~*
It's with Apedemak at his side that Drake Stone finds Balthazar Blake and the Prime Merlinean – a college kid, not at Arcana Cabana but after sensing powerful magic in the underground subways and following it to it's source, he's twenty years old, a glimpse burned into Drake's mind in a moment– and it's only because of Apedemak that he doesn't die within the first minutes of that meeting. Balthazar swings a bolt of blue at Drake and there isn't time to duck out of the way and seeing that blue like lighting, he just freezes – and it's Apedemak, not a spell that saves him, tackling him down and getting in the way.
For a few minutes, underneath the weight of white lion, who's growl is menacing and who feels warm, Drake thinks that it's alright, he's alright –and Apedemak is okay, but Drake looks to his hands, warm and slick and wet with red, and he thinks he's going to be sick.
"Get off, get him off me! It's alright, I'm alright, I'm not here to hurt anything, damn you – Apedemak!" Green eyes glance down at him, and blink dazedly, and Drake pushes and only because Apedemak has never fought him does he get off, rolling to his side with a lighthearted snarl. Apedemak closes his eyes, and Drake Stone has never been so afraid not to see them open again.
He doesn't care that he hears a pair of thundering steps coming up the stairs, or questions being asked – demanded – that he can't answer.
"No, come on, you've got to change back, open your eyes you idiot! I can't heal a lion, I...I can't heal this." Drake's fingers are shaking as he looks at the wounds, gaping and bloody, red blood upon white fur.
"You can't save your familiar? What kind of sorcerer, are you?" It's said in disgust, and Drake looks to Balthazar Blake, who hasn't aged a day since Veronica Gorloisen took the soul of Morgana le Fay to save the world. All that time searching for someone to save her – Drake Stone sees the age of him in his eyes, and the link between them is forged is pain, it feels like dying.
"He's not mine." Drake Stone admits, softly, petting white fur and smudging it with red, his eyes are blurry, and he knows he's crying fit to sink a ship.
"Please, please, we – I wanted to come here, to offer my help – save him?" Balthazar looks down at Apedemak, eyes upon the ring that once was given to Drake by Midas, and his eyes look to Drake's hand and the ring there.
"He's not a familiar at all! Why didn't you say?" Balthazar Blake lays his hands on Apedemak's head, they look small upon the face of a white lion, but light, golden and glowing grow from them, spreading over a white hide, making it gleam like snow kissed by sunlight.
"What is he?" Asks the Prime Merlinean, gawky looking as if he hasn't grown into his body yet – or perhaps, the truth is that he hasn't grown into his power. With a sorcerer, sometimes it's like that.
"An apprentice, like you – Dave..." Balthazar looks to Drake, and frowns as if he sees into Drake Stone. As if he guesses – the first sorcerer to ever do so – that they both are apprentices. Balthazar pulls his coat off, and in a moment Drake sees why he did it – the white lion melts away, leaving a naked young man unconscious beneath a sorcerer's coat.
"What's your name?" Names have power, and for the first time Drake Stone wonders if he should tell his name to another sorcerer – but he won't be a coward.
"Drake Stone." The Prime Merlinean nods, and it's clear he doesn't recognize either a famous face or famed name, and it's almost funny -painfully so.
"Dave Stutler." The Prime Merlinean looks to Apedemak, and it's clear that he expects Drake to tell him his name too. He keeps his mouth shut, watching as Balthazar takes the ring about Apedemak's throat and putting it onto the ring finger of his right hand. There is good reason it's called a ring finger, it's one of the key places to draw energy from uon the body.
"And his name?" Balthazar Blake asks pointedly.
"I don't know." Drake admits it, feeling like scum.
Green eyes open, meet his and hold that gaze – Drake can not help grinning like a manic.
"It's Harry Potter, my name. Susan – Midas called her Sekhmet, she called me Maahes." Drake is startled when Balthazar runs his fingers into Harry's bangs, showing them his scar. At the sight of it he presses his lips into a hard and thoughtful line.
"So it is. You've been missing for a very long time, Harry Potter. One day, I expect to hear the whole of that time." Harry Potter glances between Drake and Dave and Balthazar, and shrugs as if he might -or might not – and as if he hadn't just protected Drake from them and now had his life debt. It was something Drake Stone was very aware of.
"So, I'm a sorcerer's apprentice – like Drake – and…Dave?" Harry asks Balthazar, who hides his smile, but the sorrow in his eyes is gone with the look on his face.
"If you want to be, you can be – I expect I'm going to be kept busy with three of you." Balthazar doesn't sound upset over it, but pleased – and Drake and Harry share looks, remembering Merlin and history seeming to repeat.
"We'll have to take care of the Dark Lord Voldemort – and Morgana le Fay, first." Harry says, firmly, and Balthazar looks to Dave and Harry and nods thoughtfully.
"Of course – Dave, do you have something in his size?" Dave blinks as if he hadn't thought of it, but looks at Harry – bare skinned but for Balthazar's coat, and he doesn't notice Drake glare at him – but Harry does and rolls his eyes, and Balthazar hides a smile with a bowed head.
"You know, I think he'll fit…" Dave trails off with his words and goes looking for who knows what, Drake helps Harry to stand, and makes sure the coat that drapes about him hangs just right to hide everything just so – but Harry walks ahead of Drake out of habit, and Drake doesn't mind in the least following behind.