A/N: I'm back again, sorry for the wait, and with the answers to questions asked of me. *shuffles papers* They're at the end, because I personally dislike long Author's Notes at the beginnings of chapters and I'm damned if I'll annoy myself with my own writing.
I do have a question of my own, though. When did the goal of reaching Akasha become a thing for magi? Medea didn't seem to care about it, so I'm presuming it was a post-Age of Gods thing, but I don't know.
Disclaimer: MOON-TYPE or Potter Harry own not do I
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Motherhood was a strange thing, mused Semiramis. It seemed to change one's priorities completely, so much so that when she performed a Structural Grasp Mystery - one of the most basic of her Mysteries and one of the earliest that she had ever learned - on Harry, in order to establish his capability for magecraft, the first thing that she thought upon discovering the distortion of his magic core and circuits was not how it might advance her knowledge of the interactions between the powers of the agugiltu and magcraft, but whether or not it would be harmful to the child.
The aberration in his soul was truly strange, unique as far as the ancient sorceress was aware. She had examined the bodies of both living and deceased agugiltu in the past and they had always been something of a curiosity for her, in much the same way as the ways of a man are a curiosity to a woman. Something to watch and observe, but not something you'd particularly want to be. After all, for all that many of their skills were beyond many magi of her time - and further still beyond those of this current age, she suspected - they were just so wasteful. So brutish in their arts.
And here her charge, evidently originally one of them, had, by the most outrageous of fortune, managed to survive the partial unravelling of the magic circuits that made up the core which gave them their power. Ordinarily this resulted either in death or a permanent coma, but somehow the child had managed to come out of the ordeal not only retaining the capability to use the magic of the agugiltu but also the ability to make use of magecraft.
Of course, if he hadn't she would have made use of the amplifying powers of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to give him that ability, when they were prepared at least, but that was beside the point.
It was almost as an afterthought that she discovered the answer to a question that had been bothering her since she had first seen Harry without his clothes, namely that of where his Command Seals were. It turned out that a minor, easily-pierced illusion was covering the triangular symbol on the back of his left hand. Given what she knew of young agugiltu and the Dursley's attitude towards those things they thought of as 'freakish', it was a plausible explanation that, when the seals had appeared, the child had instinctively hid them with his wizardry.
"Did I do something wrong?"
The timid voice of the subject of her thoughts interrupted Semiramis' musings.
"Of course not, atmu, I was simply considering the results that I gathered."
"Was that magic? It felt all funny." and then, much quieter, "Can I learn it?"
Semiramis considered Harry's innocent request. Certainly she intended to teach him the intricacies of magecraft so that he could defend himself when, inevitably, magi with more interest in advancing their knowledge than morals discovered his abnormalities but was it too early to begin such? For the moment, at least, they were anonymous by virtue of her concealing Bounded Fields, but that would not last forever. The construction of her principal Noble Phantasm, a step necessary for security against entities of power such as the other Servants that would eventually be summoned, would undoubtedly draw attention no matter how many barriers and veils she concealed it behind. To be a magus was to walk with Death, as she knew all too well.
In the end it was the sight of her adopted son's open curiosity and untainted wonder at the least of her spells that made up her mind.
"The arts of magecraft are passed down in the lines of blood and family-"
"You won't then?"
Harry looked utterly defeated but even as the Servant watched, a horribly practiced look of unhappy acceptance crept across his visage. He lowered his eyes to the cream-carpeted floor. Knowing that this needed to be nipped in the bud before the child's insecurity became even more deep-seated than it already was, the ancient queen knelt down and cupped his chin in her hands, drawing his eyes up to meet her own.
"What makes you think that? You are my son, in mind now but in blood soon. Any who claim otherwise shall reckon with me, for let it be known that I, Semiramis of Assyria, claims Harry Potter as my son for all time. By my divine blood, let it be so, and known."
The unhappiness did not vanish all at once, but he appeared at least a little more hopeful.
"Let us begin, then, once we have both a glass. It does not do to talk of weighty things with nothing to wet the throat."
A minute and two butler-fetched glasses later, one of wine and one of orange juice, the ancient magus began her first lesson with her son. She took a delicate sip of the crimson liquid and reclined upon her chaise longue.
"The first thing which you must understand is that what I performed on you is not 'magic'. True Magic is the creation of miracles, impossibilities otherwise, while magecraft, my art, is the use of magical energy to alter the world in ways which are replicable by effort and mundane knowledge, given sufficient resources and time."
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Semiramis was apprehensive of her current mission. For all that she was hidden from mortal perception by her Presence Concealment Skill and her destination of 'Diagon Alley' had been confirmed and scouted by her dove familiars, the fact remained that the agugiltu were, as ever, an unknown quantity, something that was always a hindrance to plans of any kind. A deeper investigation of their domain was necessary, as was her personal involvement, as none of the contacts and hypnotised puppets she had made in the mundane world would be able to enter and she currently lacked any means of recruiting agugiltu to serve her. That was the main purpose of this visit, acquiring general information that could be used to plan her next move.
The knowledge of only that which could be gained from observation and deduction - that their magic seemed to be reliant upon specific tools, the basic rudiments of the currency, that for some godsforsaken reason they trusted another species with their money and similar facts - was no stable foundation upon which to plan.
The entrance to her target was a traditional-looking British pub named the Leaky Cauldron. Its construction was stocky and solid, oak beams supporting walls of stone brick. The exterior bore the London patina of grey stains from years of passing cars. The door was an equally heavy slab of dark wood planks joined by black iron bands and stood open, admitting a steady stream of robed individuals to enter and leave.
Following a maroon-garbed man with a balding head, Semiramis found herself disappointed by the interior. Dirt clustered around the feet of the tables and made sorties out onto the terracotta-tiled floor. Here and there a table was taken by men or women nursing dull metal tankards or chipped cups of tea. Conversation was loud and raucous.
Doing her best to ignore the squalor of the place, Semiramis negotiated her way around the tables, her Presence Concealment guarding her from the eyes of the patrons. Diagon Alley was constant pressure against her mystical senses, the weight of hundreds of years of accumulated enchantments and wizardry guiding her towards the back of the pub and the small alleyway which ended in a rough-laide brick wall.
Internally musing on the perpetual arrogance and inelegance of the magic of the agugiltu - wizards as they called themselves nowadays - the raven-haired sorceress channeled a minor amount of prana to fer fingertips and touched the brick marked by the telltale signs of repeated exposure to prana.
The bricks of the wall shook a little and then folded in on themselves, revealing a rough archway leading into a chaotic morass of people of all ages, hatted and bare-headed, robed and suited, old and young, milling around a stone-cobbled road lined on both sides with shops such as Flourish and Blotts, Ollivander's and Quality Quidditch Supplies. At the far end of the alley, a tall building of white marble lorded itself over the rest, gold-inlaid letters half as tall as a man declared it to be
Gringotts
Bank of Wizarding Britain est. 1474
and, more importantly, the location where the mundane currency which she had brought with her could be converted to wizarding money. In addition, the Dumbledore's letter had mentioned that her ward had a vault there, something which merited further investigation.
Dropping her Presence Concealment while the denizens of the alley were distracted by a particularly raucous red-headed family, Semiramis strode towards the marbled building. As she passed though the pair of golden slabs that passed for doors, the ancient queen noticed the delicate lattice of magic settling upon her. It was a relatively weak spell, of the kind that encouraged one to not think about a particular sort of action - stealing, in this case, if her instinctive analysis was correct - and was likely a part of the bank's theft-prevention system. An admirably-crafted solution, especially when the presence of obviously heavily-armed goblin guards further discouraged would-be thieves.
Letting the spell wash off her with the flow of her prana, the regal Servant cut a swathe through the milling customers of the bank as she made for an unoccupied Teller. The short creature looked up at Semiramis through squinted eyes and a pair of pince-nez spectacles.
"How may I aid you this morning?" sneered the goblin, its white, pointed teeth flashing with the clipped words.
"My order of business today is twofold. Firstly, I would like to inquire as to the possibility of opening an account here and, if possible, connecting it to a mundane account."
The goblin's teeth flashed again, this time in a contortion of the face that might have been a feral grin or a baring of the teeth.
"Such a thing is possible, for a fee of course. What is your second order of business?"
"My ward was born to a wizarding family. I would like to know of any holdings or vaults that might be held in trust for him or were inherited from family, as I know that his parents, at least, are deceased."
"And what might be the name of this ward of yours" asked the goblin, eyebrow raised.
"Harry Potter."
The stunted creature's face froze for a moment, before contorting again in a wheezing laugh, bared teeth flashing like pearls.
"And I suppose you're Dumbledore, are you?"
"Excuse me?"
"You think you're the first one to have a go at the Potters' vaults? Well, let's get this over with so I can have you thrown out. Follow me."
The goblin hopped down off his stool, disappearing briefly behind his desk before reappearing again and striding across the patterned floor towards a doorway leading from the room. The resurrected queen followed, stifling her anger at the slight done her with the vindictive pleasure of the knowledge that the diminutive creature would be the made the fool of once her veracity was confirmed.
The doorway led from the hall into a marble-lined corridor which wound past a series of closed doors. Eventually, the goblin rapped on one of the portals - a honey-coloured wooden thing with a brass plaque reading 'Department of Succession' in gothic capitals below a series of glyphs which owed more to claw-scratches than neat pen-marks. The teller called out in a guttural language and opened the door, revealing a desk of red wood with a velvet cover. Another goblin bent over a yellowed parchment, likely taken from the empty scroll-tube next to it, which matched the multitudes of similar tubes which loomed behind him, stacked row upon row, stretching up and out of sight towards the darkened ceiling on groaning shelves.
The teller muttered something to the other goblin, among which 'Harry Potter' could be made out, who returned a knowing look and a long-suffering sigh. The seated creature stowed his parchment in the tube, capped it and turned to Semiramis, pulling a quill pen and a clean sheet towards him.
"Very well then. My name is Keeneye. And yours, for the record?"
"Semiramis"
He noted it down on the parchment.
"What is your relation to the Potter heir?"
"Adopted mother."
"No blood relation then. In that case, a geas contract should suffice." He rummaged in one of the drawers beneath his desk and pulled out another sheet, this one marked on the back by a complex magic circle. A few moments passed, punctuated by the scritch-scratch of the goblin's quill. Finally, he passed the parchment and an inked quill to the ancient sorceress. "Sign your name on the line." he said, a gloating glint in his beady eyes.
She took a moment to read through what the banker had written.
I hereby vow that I am the guardian of Harry Potter, within the law and with the will of both myself and the aforementioned ward.
Should I deceive in this, I agree to the consequences of this geas, including and limited to:
Forfeiture of all holdings, monetary resources and possessions to Gringotts Bank
Indentured servitude to Gringotts Bank for the period of 10 human years (3653 days)
Ita ut sit**
Keeping her eyes on the goblin's, not wanting to miss his expression, she signed her name, albeit not as elegantly as she would have liked, given that she was more used to the angular sticks used to inscribe cuneiform than pens and more used to pens than quills.
She silently exalted in the creature's quickly-schooled look of shock, before she laid the parchment to the side and knitted her hands on the desk in front of him, allowing a fraction of her divine heritage to shine in her eyes.
"Now, may I see the holdings of my ward?"
The goblin hurriedly turned to obey.
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* affectionate term for a young child. The literal meaning is something like 'chick' or 'pup'.
** latin for 'may it be so'.
A/N: To those whom it may concern (*cough*49561zombies*cough*), I have been asked how I'm going to balance Semiramis against the other Servants of the Grail War.
Short answer: I'm not, entirely.
Long answer: Yes, Semiramis has access to an EX-class Anti-World Noble Phantasm. However, she only gains its benefits while she remains on it, and she doesn't have a whole team of Servants which she can back up, like in Fate/Apocrypha. While she's not on the Gardens, she's comparatively weak, little stronger than a human, albeit prodigal, magus. She could blast the city of Fuyuki off the map and thereby wipe out the opposition, but that would bring the Mage's Association and, more importantly, Zelretch and Lorelei down on her head, if not the Counter Guardians. Another big problem with regards to using the Gardens against Servants and their Noble Phantasms is that although Semiramis' magic is empowered by the Gardens, it still lacks the mythic weight - the Authority - that true Noble Phantasms possess, meaning that her magic requires more power to achieve the same result, at least against Servants.
As for Harry's magic, I may have been misleading in how I phrased things before. He can use both wizardry and magecraft, although he is no superman in either, and he can use standard magecraft, as his 'Miracle' alignment/Sorcery Trait is essentially 'neutral' with regards to the elements. He can use any magecraft he likes, not unlike an Average One, although it won't be as easy for him as it might be for a real Average One. For more information on this, I have a pre-prepared explanation if people are interested which I can send via PM.
Lastly, no, Semiramis cannot astralise, as a result of her *ahem* unconventional summoning.
And yes, Harry's Command Seal is the sign of the Hallows.
Before I go, if people could give me some ideas for close-quarters weapons for Harry when he gets older via review or PM, that would be delightful. Not Noble Phantasms, but Mystic Codes definitely.