Interval 3: Awakening
It took barely a minute for me to return to the ice cream parlor I had mentioned to McGonagall as my desired meeting point – she had arrived early, as I should have no doubt suspected, though I was preoccupied with 'ancient history,' so to speak. When I reached the table at which she was seated, I briefly appreciated her proud posture before taking my own seat across from her.
"I hope you haven't been waiting for me very long, Professor?" I formed the question in way of a greeting, allowing myself a small half-smile along the right corner of my mouth.
"Not at all, Mr. MacKay. Have you received your wand from Mr. Ollivander?" Nodding, I pulled out the Wand my uncle had given me.
"This is it, Professor," I said simply, placing it on the table between us. Curious, the deputy headmistress picked up the wood, twirling it this way and that in examination. The Wand had no prefix or special name about it – it was created by Vili as an experimental focus of magic for the Vanir in order for us to blend in with the Wizarding folk of this world.
"Peculiar," McGonagall murmured, entranced by the way light bounced off of the Wand, and I curled the half-smile I had worn into a smirk as I cleared my throat, startling the professor, who nearly dropped the Wand as a result. Almost guiltily, she handed the wood back to me as we stood.
"That's what the creepy old man said," I replied innocently, taking the opportunity to snub my uncle's chosen form once again. "He didn't even tell me what it's made of!" That part was true at least; the only being who had any inside knowledge on what materials the Wand contained was its creator, not that I had any desire to know anyways. I had a feeling it was one of those lists that would literally break my mind from its impossibilities.
"Well, Mr. MacKay, we shall just have to let that go for now," the deputy muttered distractedly. "Go and get fitted for your robes, then meet me at the entrance to the Alley. The time has long since passed that we should have returned to the school." Nodding again, I set out for Madam Malkin's.
An hour well-spent later, I Flooed back into the school, appearing in the Transfiguration office from which I had departed just that morning as a human, only to return as a Vanir. This would be surreal in any other circumstances, I thought amusedly, stepping to the side and dusting myself off as my company for the morning came through the fireplace a few moments later with a worried frown on her face.
After I was dismissed from her presence, I dropped the day's purchases in my room and made my way to lunch, sitting across from Harry and Hermione, with Ron on one side of me and his sister Ginny on the other. "Hey guys!" I said brightly, genuinely glad to see my friends of the universe, especially with the plans I had for them courtesy of my alter-personality. The ultimate vengeance, I laughed maniacally in my mind, enthusiastic for the future. Will have come to pass after this year is out.
"Hey, mate," both Harry and Ron greeted in tandem, Hermione following a few seconds later with a pleasant "Hello, Charles. How was your first visit to Diagon Alley?" I smiled benignly, adding a slight tilt to my tone.
"Hmmm… you might say it was… enlightening, perhaps? I learned a lot." Hmph. That was an understatement if I'd ever said one.
"Enlightening, mate? Really? I'd have thought you'd find it bloody brilliant, being a Yank and all!" I chuckled at Ron's incredulous look. "Oh yeah, and in case you haven't met her yet, this is my sister."
"Pleased to meet you, Ron's Sister," I turned to the other redhead in my vicinity, catching her hand in mine and bringing it to my lips, brushing the moist skin across her knuckles. The girl blushed, from anger at her brother for not introducing her properly or embarrassment from my gesture I knew not. Maybe it was both. "My name is Charles Vithar MacKay."
"Ron! You could've at least told him my name!" she scolded, not bothering to remove her hand from my grasp, and I smiled a little wider, letting my teeth show slightly as she reached around me to smack the insensitive lump. "Sorry about him. I'm Ginny! Nice to meet you!" Her cheeks were still tinted pink, and she seemed to realize only belatedly that her hand was still held gingerly in my own, slipping it out as the pink darkened to a deep red.
"I'm sure it's no problem, Miss Ginny," I continued smoothly, not wishing to draw any further attention to her brother. "After all, what better way to meet a beautifully independent young woman than receiving an energetic greeting from her while she slapped her brother at the same time?" The blush darkened further, if it were possible.
"Oi! Quit flirting with my sister!" Ron blurted, and I leaned forward as the youngest two Weasleys began brawling behind me.
"So your middle name's Vithar then, Charles?" Hermione asked me, her eyes sparkling with scholarly desire. "You do know that name comes from the Norse god of vengeance said to have survived Ragnarӧk, right?" I nodded, absently wondering why I got such a weird feeling of familiarity from the Golden Trio now I had retrieved my memories.
"Yes, and he's the same god who killed the Great Wolf Fenrir during the cataclysm itself, snuffing out its existence in a magnificent battle worthy only of two nemeses as great as they," I finished for the bookworm, letting my full grin be known to the world at last. "I'm pleased you know of my ancestry, Miss Granger."
"Y-Y-Your ancestry?" she managed to splutter, and I cheered victoriously at having made the great Hermione Granger stutter over her words at my half-truth. Well, it actually might be wholly truth, since I was both human and Vanir at the moment, but that's beside the point. "B-But those are just myths, right? The Norse gods and goddesses of old couldn't have existed, could they? And Vithar was never mentioned to have a wife, let alone children in any of the books!"
I threw the girl a lopsided smirk and a wink before digging into my plate of food, hoping to finish it before it disappeared. Ignoring her further inquiries, I gazed at the other tables in between bites, eyes widening in shocked displeasure when I met those of Draco Malfoy. A well-known shiver ran down my spine as he sneered at me, a beguiling glint in the back of his silvery irises, and my breaths became shallow.
No, I thought with a sense of the purest fear. It cannot be. He cannot have survived the Culling. I WATCHED HIM DIE! "Charles," Wait. But if he's alive, then – then does that mean the others could still be around? "Charles?" Shit, it does. Now I know why these three seem so familiar – oh shit. And Voldie – oh dear Creator – "Charles!" I was snapped out of my mental revelations by Hermione's worried gaze fixed on my panicked one.
"I-I'm alright, Hermione. Is Dumbles – I mean, is the Headmaster around? I remembered something which I desperately need to speak to him about."
"No, Charles, he isn't. Are you sure it can't wait or be passed to another of the staff?" I shook my head, muttering incoherently to myself, my speech slipping in and out of Old Norse as I fought against the truths that had been revealed to me.
"Fuck!" I exclaimed, the dots connecting to the same grisly picture again and again and again. "Harry, I need to speak to you and Hermione. Now. Alone." My tone was that of the most extreme urgency, and the two only looked at each other for a moment before nodding and leading me through the ancient castle and into an abandoned classroom.
"What is it? You looked pretty scared back there, mate," Harry enquired, staring at me suspiciously. "You just looked at Malfoy and your eyes got all wide and you started hyperventilating. Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing?"
"No, no, I'm not injured or anything, don't worry," I assuaged their concerns about my physical health, crossing my fingers and hoping I was right to do what I was about to. Whipping out the Wand with one hand, I willed it to perform the ancient rites of breaking on the pair. A wind whipped up in the room with us, the door slamming shut and an impenetrable barrier coating all surfaces of the room in case the magic leaked out.
"Charles, what the bloody hell are you doing?! Stupefy!" Harry shouted, the spell dissipating before it could reach me. "What? Stupefy! Confringo! Reducto!" The spell chain erupted from Harry's wand in a flurry of colors, but every one of them dissolved into nothing mere meters away from me.
The pressure of magic in the room grew as the Wand absorbed the ambience to break the bonds on Harry and Hermione, and I redoubled my efforts to finish this as soon as possible, beginning the final chant of the rites at a low but rising volume. When I reached a shout, I brought my other hand to support the movements the Wand made, blind to my surroundings as the words I needed to speak flowed into and out of me.
"Brjóta sási bálkr! Brjóta sási illr! Heither forvitnask their sannindi innan!" I cried, breaking the connection as identically-colored blankets of magic coated the two students in front of me. Panting, I watched with a slight smile on my face as they convulsed on the floor, the barrier between the room and the rest of the castle weakening as the wards broke it down. "I was right," I whispered with a smirk, falling onto the floor myself, barely holding myself up as Harry and Hermione stopped their seizures and lay still.
Well, I was holding myself up anyway, at least until the price for using the rites alone hit me and I vomited blood onto the ground, nausea filling me as the nigh-unbearable pain of loss tore through me, knowing I had shed a century off my life with my actions, lost the foreknowledge of my death.
It could be worse, I thought to myself as darkness crept into my vision. I could have accidentally reawakened Loki or something. My lips formed a smirk of their own volition as I fell into oblivion. Won't that be the day?
When I next awakened, all I saw was swirling white above me. "Sváss?" I whispered, my voice hoarse from disuse. "Saklauss kván?" There was no response, and I tried to roll onto my side, worried for my beloved. She usually answered me, comforted the demons in my heart and soul, and for her to remain still meant there was something wrong.
I had misjudged my weakness, however, and I only managed to turn partway, unable to move far in my condition. I caught sight of her flowing blonde hair and reached out a trembling hand to run my fingers through it, eager to feel the love flow through me that the contact would bring.
Almost there, I thought, begging my muscles to obey me, beseechingly calling her name in my mind. "Fǫgnuðr?" With a mighty lunge, I grabbed hold of the enticing sight only to pass through it. Tears came to my eyes as I plummeted back into unconsciousness. An illusion, I thought brokenly, crying visibly, sobbing silently in grief.
"Ah, you're awake," a stern voice registered in the back of my mind, though I was still too lost to despair to respond properly. "Welcome back, Mr. MacKay," the voice continued in a firmer tone, scolding me with words that refused to process in my addled state. "That was a very dangerous thing you did, magically exhausting yourself like that. If it weren't for Mr. Potter and Ms. Granger, I daresay you'd be in a much worse position."
"P-Potter?" I questioned, repeating the words said to me confusedly. "Granger?"
"Yes, Mr. MacKay, Mr. Potter and Ms. Granger. They brought you in here yesterday afternoon, mentioned that you had been practicing some advanced spell you had found interesting in a book somewhere. Didn't anyone in the colonies ever tell you not to play with things you don't know anything about?" Oh. That's what happened.
"W-Where… they?" I asked, not bothering to stem the sorrow venting down my face from my eyes, knowing it would be useless. "Need… speak… them."
"Don't bother, Mr. MacKay. They're down in the Great Hall for dinner right now. I'm sure they'll be back up to visit in an hour or so. In the meantime, you should rest. You shouldn't even be awake, let alone speaking." That's right. I broke the bonds surrounding the two students' memories and passed out from the pain and exhaustion that followed.
"Who… you?" I enquired, throat raw from disuse. I had a feeling I knew already, but I just couldn't bring myself to think of the name attributed to my conversation partner. It was a woman, I knew that much, and she sounded eerily like someone from my past, but I couldn't name her for the lives of me.
"I'm Madam Pomfrey, Mr. MacKay, didn't anyone tell you? I'm the school Matron, and you currently reside in the Infirmary. Lucky for you, classes don't start up for another two days, so you won't be missing much while you recover." Huh. So that was what the Hogwarts Matron sounded like. Now I just had to determine why her speech patterns were so familiar to me… It was almost as though someone else I once knew had returned to Life…
"Vithar! Wake up, Vithar! It's us!" I had fallen back into a fitful slumber following the illusion and accompanying one-sided conversation with Pomfrey. With a start at the mention of my true identity, I sat straight up, regretting the motion almost immediately as my back seized in nigh-unbelievable soreness and stiffness.
"Urgh," I groaned, blinking the stars out of my blurry vision, making out two pairs of worried eyes fixing their gaze on me – one emerald green and the other chocolate brown. "'Arry? 'Ermione?"
"Yes and no, brother," the voice I knew to be Harry Potter's snarked at me, and I blinked again, noticing multiple things about my friends: first, their fingers were entwined with each other, a previously unnatural closeness between them. Second, Harry had a rather out-of-character smirk on his face, leading me to believe that my experiment had been a smashing success. Lastly, both of their irises had a light tint of gold to them, lending credence to my conclusion along with the fact that Harry was significantly-better built in the torso.
"Don't confuse me, Harry," I spoke back, sarcasm layered over my words liberally. "Are you my brother, or are you Harry Potter? Or did Harry just spontaneously get a massive confidence boost and ask out his best friend by himself?" the two of them blushed, and I rolled my eyes. "Alright, alright, no need to get all embarrassed. I'll shut up." I softened my gaze. "So how are you coping with everything?"
'Harry's' face visibly brightened. "It's brilliant, brother! Thank you so much for bringing us back!" I grinned, putting aside the pain to clasp my newly-awakened sibling's forearm.
"And how are you, sister-in-law? Getting on well with my bumbling, awkward little brother well enough?" 'Hermione' blushed again, this time only slightly, and slugged my shoulder. "Ow! Come on, woman, it was just a joke! Aren't you glad I snapped the two of you out of your infuriating game of cat-and-mouse?!"
"Of course I am, Vith," she replied softly, and I eased my façade of indignation back to a smile. "I was just thinking about Ron. He isn't like us, is he?" She sounded oddly hopeful, and I knew that it was around this time that the canonical Hermione had fallen for the jealous redhead. My sister-in-law was probably feeling pretty conflicted right now with butterflies in her gut for Ron and a deep love for Harry stemming from the memories she inherited.
"I don't know, Né," I said after a minute. "It's too early to tell. I have my suspicions, but it could be that he's only a half- or quarter-Vanir. Some of us lost our way after the cataclysm, and I only survived because I jumped into a different dimension." She sighed, and I used Harry as leverage to pull her into a hug, rubbing her back. "You forget that I have the advance knowledge of this world's future, Né. I'll keep him safe until this is all sorted out."
"I know you will, Vith. I trust you," she murmured into my shoulder, and I nodded to Harry as Pomfrey approached. He knew that we had to do some fast acting for the moment until I was out of the Infirmary and we could talk clearly.
"Why, pray tell, are you sitting up, Mr. MacKay?" The dangerous undertone to the matron's question made me shiver, and I quickly released my sister-by-marriage, sinking back into the comfortable hospital bed with a sigh. "Much better. Now, as much as I'd like to have these two stay with you, visiting hours are now over for the day, and I have to keep you until tomorrow morning to make sure you've recovered sufficiently."
"See you later, mate."
"Bye, Charles."
And I was alone again. My warden for the next twelve hours grumbled as she ran diagnostics on me, shaking her head at whatever peculiar readings she received; my physiology changed slightly when I retrieved my history from my cabin, giving me an improved immune system and recovery time for most injuries and illnesses, barring the life-threatening ones of course. It also neutralized all but the most potent poisons, a pleasant side effect of my time in the center of the World Tree.
"Well, Mr. MacKay, you seem to have unusually large magic reserves for someone your age. I'll dismiss you in the morning." Pomfrey walked away, muttering about stupid foreign teenagers, leaving me with a vial of a potion I suspected was the fabled Dreamless Sleep that was so addicting. With a smirk, I swirled the clear liquid in its container, popping off the stopper and downing it in one gulp.
I guess we'll just have to see if this actually works for me, I thought. I've had just about enough weird dreams lately to worry about whether a stupid concoction made to eliminate dreams will—My thoughts cut out rather amusingly when I passed out, the mixture working faster than I had thought possible.
Once again, the sound of voices woke me up, this time belonging to a furiously whispering Hermione and Ron while Harry stood off to one side, close to my bedside, with a smug look on his face. Tapping his hand discretely, I motioned to the pair, giving him the opportunity to lean over in order to hear my own whispers. "I take it from Weasley's increasingly red face that you told him you and Né are 'dating' now?"
Harry's sheepish chuckle drew the attention of the other two parts of the Golden Trio, and they ceased their arguing to come to my side. Hermione snuggled into Harry's chest, Ron glaring at them before standing somewhat-awkwardly across the bed from them. "How're you feeling, mate?" he asked, stumbling slightly over his words as he no doubt tried to rein in his anger at his best friends.
"Fine, Ron, thanks for asking. Mostly just glad to get out of this stupid hospital bed. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind a hot meal before I return to the Common Room. Breakfast's pretty soon, right?" he nodded, glad for the distraction from the lovey-dovey couple on my other side.
"Yeah. Speaking of, I'll leave you three alone before I throw up," he nearly snarled, a dark shadow covering the right half of his face. "I need to talk to Seamus and Dean about something anyway…" And Ron left, leaving me with my brother and his wife.
Once he was fully out the door, I swung my legs off the bed and stood up, losing my balance for a short second before regaining it, holding on to Harry's shoulder for support. "Thanks, bro," I said. "We should get down to the Hall too, just as soon as I can get some real clothes on." Hermione fixed that problem with a swish of her wand, expertly transfiguring my gown into a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved black tee.
"Alright, I'm not even going to ask how you knew what size underwear I needed, Nanna," I raised an eyebrow, saying her name for the first time. Truthfully, I preferred the nickname I had come up with when she had first met Balþr, or Harry Potter as he was known in this timeline. "Thanks, though. To breakfast?" They nodded, and we departed, my arm around Nanna's waist from the other side.
Of all of Odin's sons, I was closest to Balþr and, ironically, his first murderer Hӧðr, at least before the aforementioned event happened. According to the books written by the humans while we were still well-known by them, Odin conceived our brother Váli in response to Hӧðr's actions, but what actually happened was quite a bit different.
The year that the slaying of Balþr occurred, I had briefly returned to Asgard for a supply run and to visit with my favorite little brother. Therefore, when he was killed, right in front of both myself and Nanna, his wife, I was understandably furious, having caught a glimpse of Loki from behind when Hӧðr shot the infamous spear of mistletoe.
In a blind rage, I went to my father and demanded he let me take revenge, but Odin knew that beyond all my posturing, I didn't want to be revealed to the humans yet, since Balþr's death was such a massive event in their religions of the time, and I had thus far greatly enjoyed my neutrality among them.
In response to this, my father faked a conception with some jӧtunn and correspondingly altered my appearance to hide my identity from the humans – not that it really mattered since Loki also had a son named Váli. When I 'hatched' my way into adulthood, I immediately made my way to Hӧðr, making quick work of my former friend through judicious use of my more… primal… powers, tearing him from the planes of his existence and making certain he could never revive, spreading pieces of him in pocket dimensions everywhere since I could travel the realms without the use of the Bifrӧst (similar to the way Loki was said to be able to travel).
Needless to say, Loki was pretty angry with me for killing his pawn and exposing his treachery to my father afterwards, so he naturally set Fenrir specifically on the task of killing me, forcing me to flee from Asgard lest he and my family discover the woman I had bonded with in the center of Yggdrasil. I knew above all it would be disastrous if my enemies, let alone my mother and father, knew she could be used against me.
See, after I had first met my beloved, she set me free from my obligations to my home. I still cared deeply for my family, visiting them often, and I still listened to my parents to an extent, but once I had bonded directly with the woman in the World Tree, I was no longer a servant of my father, and began to act accordingly of my own volition outside his realms. Knowing Odin as I do, he never really suspected me of the 'treachery' I had committed, so I was safe until much later in my life – much closer to the events of Ragnarӧk.
Once I had finished my grisly task and the enormity of the events that had occurred had sunk in, I broke down and was near-inconsolable until news of my brother's resurrection reached me. After that, though I never saw him until the Cataclysm, I was in semi-frequent contact with his wife and son, Forseti. I had no desire to repeat what had happened earlier in the timeline, and thereby kept my distance from the family to avoid drawing untoward attention to them.
I was broken out of my reminiscence by Balþr's arm on my shoulder. We had reached the Great Hall, and I was standing aside with a blank look in my eyes that darkened with every passing moment as I remembered the pain of losing my brother. "I'm sorry for staying away," I said, wanting nothing more than to be forgiven for leaving him to die during the end of the world.
"I forgive you, Vith," he replied with a small smile. "Not that there's anything to be forgiven for. You did the right thing, and we're all together again anyways, you, Nanna, and I." I clutched at his shoulder hard for a minute before choking down a cry and pulling him in.
"Thank you, Bal," I murmured, steeling myself for the people I knew I would have to fend off, considering I had 'disappeared' into the Infirmary two days since. "It means everything to hear you say that."
My brother laughed and patted my back before pushing me away with a smirk. "Enough of that, Vith. If we stay entwined like that any longer the students will think we're seeing each other!" I blushed slightly at the insinuation, a look of false indignation coming over my face at the thought.
"Wouldn't that be a shame," I ended up snorting, my sarcasm returning to me in the instant I realized I was blushing at my younger brother's jibes. "For the great Harry Potter to not only be a poof, but also in a relationship with the exchange student! What a tragedy!" It was Bal's turn to blush, and I grinned, throwing an arm over his shoulder and leading him into the Great Hall, exchanging increasingly vulgar and inappropriate insults with him.
As the two of us passed between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, I glanced over and noticed a couple of the younger 'Puffs staring wide-eyed at us, and I knew they had overheard our banter. Unfortunately for us, McGonagall brought an end to my amusement, approaching us with a look of scandalized fury. Oops, I thought sheepishly. I forgot there were professors here… And eleven year olds… My bad.
"In all my years at Hogwarts…" McGonagall began to scold us. My brother looked sufficiently cowed by the powerful witch, but I tuned her out after a moment, seeking out Nanna with my eyes and winking at her in our typical way of communication. She, like me, knew full well that Bal had quite the potty mouth on him despite being the so-called 'god of purity'. When he had heard that he had been christened that by the humans, he first swore up a storm for a good hour, then he laughed uproariously at their imagination, and finally he decided to just roll with it and act all ditsy and innocent in front of the other gods to prank them into thinking his IQ lower than it actually was.
Né rolled her eyes and pointed her spear of a glare at the Professor, and I noticed she had stopped speaking and was looking at me expectantly. "Uh," I replied eloquently. "Could you repeat that? I lost you at 'Hogwarts'." Three of the four Hogwarts house tables broke out into laughter, and it looked like half the staff table was close to following. Next to me, Bal put his head in his hands and groaned wearily.
My professor spluttered in a roaring fury, opening and closing her mouth repeatedly. Eventually, she just stopped and glared at me, and I wondered if she was trying to imitate the Greek Medusa. Summoning a parchment out of the air, McGonagall scratched a few sentences into it with a floating quill and thrust the offending paper in my direction. Taking it in the face, I ripped it off and read it aloud.
"From tomorrow forward, you will be having detention once an evening three days a week with either Professor Hagrid or myself, and you will report to Mr. Filch for the remaining two nights. Don't bother to bring your wand." I looked up to her, and she nodded victoriously at my acceptance of the punishment. "Your sentence will end two weeks from this point," I continued, and met the angry professor's eyes. "Thank you, ma'am, and I apologize for my public brazenness. I seem to have forgotten that there are other students around with more… innocent… ears."
The Deputy Headmistress softened her glare slightly and regained her voice. "You had better be, Mr. MacKay. Tomorrow, you will be present in my office at 7 o'clock sharp, or you will be appending another detention to your list, is that understood?" I nodded slowly, making sure to keep eye contact with the Scottish woman. Once she was sure I was clear on the terms of my punishment (one I thought was rather harsh for the infraction, though we did break a few of the kids' innocence with that last statement about Né's prowess in bed), she turned sharply on one foot and stormed away from us.
After we sat down at the Gryffindor table across from Né, she glared at us with arms crossed over her chest, and I knew it was because we had blown her chances of alone time with Bal. I made to apologize with a wince before thinking better of it, opting instead to cast my gaze across to the Ravenclaw table, the only House I had not perused.
From my knowledge of the future gained through my alter ego, I knew that there were a few important characters from the main, fictional, plot of my current universal state, and I was admittedly curious as to their potential to be family of my own from the Vanir side of everything. Digging into my memory banks, I separated my two identities and isolated the names and appearances of the Ravenclaws of any significance, scanning their faces in my mind while I perused their table with my visual receptors.
Cho Chang, I thought distractedly. No match to anyone I knew. Terry Boot… No. Anthony Goldstein… Human. Marietta Edgecomb… Perhaps a good match for my mother dearest, but human. Luna Lovegood… Why is that so familiar… Holy "SHIT!" the last word erupted from my mouth as my gaze alighted on the object of my musings, my jaw hanging down to the floor in astonishment and shock.
"Vith?" Bal whispered, prodding my elbow. "Do try to be a little quieter with the profanity… McGonagall's glaring at you again…" His words failed to register, and I brushed away his arm without thinking, standing and making my way over to the girl a year younger than the Golden Trio.
"Charles, what on earth are you up to now – Oh!" Nanna's stern scolding sounded in my ears, stopping with an exhaled exclamation as her own eyes found those of little Luna Lovegood. Oblivious to the stares of those around me, I fell to my knees behind the aforementioned girl, reaching out with a shaking hand to her shoulder. "S-Sváss?" I stuttered quietly, hardly believing the beauty of the woman in front of me was actually real.
The girl turned in her seat and I admired once more the silver-grey of my memory, the cascading dark-blonde hair to her shoulder-blades glinting in the magical light of the hall, the peculiar aura of something else, something different, that was so familiar to me that I nearly wept on the spot from the tension suddenly sinking into my gut.
"Ah, you're Charles MacKay, aren't you?" she assumed in a tone that suggested more a statement than a question. Her voice was identical to my mate's, a melodious tinkle of airy indifference that I knew could be scarily focused into a single overarching emotion or feeling. A lone tear ran down my cheek without permission, but I ignored it, unable to tear my gaze away from the creature in front of me.
"Sváss?" I asked, my voice tinged with absent confusion. She wasn't responding to me. She should have responded to me by now. Was this another nightmare, another illusion like that in the Infirmary? My hand brushed her cheek tenderly and I knew it was real, but what I didn't expect was for her to lean away from my grasp, a curiousness in her eyes that I knew meant she hadn't been Awakened yet.
"I had heard you could speak the Old tongue, Charles MacKay, but I hadn't known that one person could be drowning in as many Wrackspurts as you. Are you alright?" I choked out something between a sob and a laugh, withdrawing my arm reluctantly and standing.
"I'm fine, thanks. I just mistook you for someone else. What's your name?" I meant to say. Instead, what came out was the Old Norse equivalent, and I smacked myself in the side of the head to jolt my language differentiation mechanism into place again, repeating the question in the native tongue of the Englishmen with whom I was staying.
The woman laughed, a marvelous sound reminiscent of bells and evoking the same feelings one would receive from viewing a sunrise. "I'm Luna," she replied, and I finally managed to regain my wits, aware now that I had lost my composure in a room full of now-silent wizards and witches. "Luna Lovegood. Pleased to meet you, Charles MacKay." I cast my eyes around the room to see every eye on me, and tried valiantly not to blush at the students' attentiveness to my actions.
"Nice to meet you too, Luna. I have to go right now, but I'll see you later, alright?" I rushed the speech, fleeing through the main doors to the castle and into the bright mid-afternoon sunlight and warmth. Spotting the lake, I turned and sprinted towards the banks, finding a rock near the tree line of the Forbidden Forest on which to relax and put my head in my hands, taking deep breaths from both exhaustion and panic.
"What the fuck," I muttered under my breath. "What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck! Why?!" I shouted to the empty lake, slamming a fist into the rock before me and relishing the dull pain that the much-harder material rewarded me with. My breathing sharpened, and I fought the urge to let loose a wave of pure energy from my tense form. Taking a deep breath, I found myself unable to push away the intense rage at the world for throwing this bombshell at me on top of everything else.
With an inhuman roar caused from the buildup of furious incoherence in my mind, I whipped my body around and slashed a ribbon of solid magic at the trees behind me, then another and another until I was spent, breathing heavily and staring at the destruction caused by my hands – a hundred massive oaks and pines toppled by the power inside me. No longer caring who saw me, I let go of the glamour surrounding my body and drew the Sword, stabbing out with one hand and letting loose a jagged bolt of fire and lightning that boomed in the distance, creating an impressive cloud of smoke.
"Fuck," I snarled harshly, my sneer fierce and my anger bleeding away into a cold despair that hardened my emotion into a ball of diamond that I remembered from the time of silence before Her. "Why is it always me?" I knew my statement wasn't strictly true, and I was in reality honored that the Creator had made me for such a noble purpose, but sometimes I couldn't help but feel despaired by the life that had been dealt to me.
The Sword flowed over my arm, sensing my discomfort and trying to ease my concerns with its calming presence, and I took a deep breath in the air, smelling the results of my rage and chuckling softly, the giggles bursting into a deep laugh that shook the trees I had felled along with the ones still standing. With a wave of my Sword-covered hand, I restored the natural landscape and stood, facing the castle.
"I'll awaken you, Sváss. I know you're different and I can't just break the bonds like I will with the others, I know I have to get you to love me. I know. But I promise you that it will be done, and I will be reunited with you, and you'll finally be able to meet my favorite brother and his family, and I'll finally be able to show the worlds you're MINE!" My declaration echoed in the silence about, and as I turned to leave I sensed the presence of another like me.
"I think it's high time I saw you in my office, Vithar," the world-weary voice of Albus Dumbledore filtered through my newborn defiance, and I froze at the difference in his aura. Turning slowly, I met the wizened eyes of the Headmaster and immediately bowed in reverence.
"Father," I murmured. "I hadn't known you had survived."
"I hadn't Vithar," the figure that was half-Dumbledore and half… something ancient… replied with amusement. "I merely passed on a portion of my memory and person to a worthy figure of this generation, knowing that you would come to reunite the family." My head snapped up and I grinned at the pride in his voice, because Odin had never once spoken to me in such a manner.
"Thank you, Headmaster," I spoke. "To your office, then? I sense you have a lot to explain to me…" My quasi-father raised an eyebrow and gestured for me to follow alongside him. Re-applying the mask of nonchalance and boyishness to my appearance, I sheathed the Sword and stepping out of the wards the old man had put up around the stone, I strode off with him, wondering how I was going to get through the rest of the school year without killing anyone. I mean, seriously, I snorted in my mind. Classes haven't even started yet!
A/N: It's a bit short, but I needed to get it out before Spring Break. Should have the next installment up soon, but don't get your hopes up. This one will introduce Odin, Loki (kinda), and I'll probs get back to Umbridge and some more of the tertiary characters. This story just got a bit out of control first :P