Full chapter title: There is More on Heaven and Earth Than Is Dreamt of In Your Philosophy...and A Lot More Paperwork
Not a whole lot to say this time, so I'll try and keep this note short. Glad you liked the last chapter! Yes, more of the supernatural!verse to come.
In this chapter particularly I'm going to be using a lot of angels, so be prepared for new names to crop up. I'm just using a random name generator to come up with the names, since most of the angels we've seen previously in the show are dead.
Also, just so you know, all angel's pronouns are based off of their vessels at the time! Unless I decide that the angel in question is more androgynous than one gender or the other.
Sorry if this takes a while to get posted - I'm on a streak with my nanowrimo project, and so I'm putting a lot of time into that since, unlike this, there's a deadline.
Enjoy, anyway!
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter
"Okay, hold up for one fucking second."
Gabriel held up one hand, resisting the urge to hit something - or someone, preferably Sam - with the other hand. "You guys can still get back upstairs? And no one bothered to tell me that Metatron built a back door? Losers."
He might have used a stronger word, but Gabriel wasn't feeling it at that moment - saving Castiel had used up more energy than he'd expected, and it was like before fourth year all over again.
"Gabriel, I already told you-" Sam began, exasperated.
"You told me a lot of things, but the back door was not one of them!" It wasn't like he was an archangel or anything. Or their best fucking shot at resolving this whole mess. But no. Let's not tell Gabriel about the way back into Heaven.
"I have already offered to take you to the place." Hannah stated, confusion evident in her tone at why Gabriel was so upset when they could be going there right now.
"Let's go, then." Gabriel replied, abruptly standing up and making Sam look back up sharply. "Did you bring the car?"
He heard Hannah sigh at the idea of driving again. "Yes."
"Great. Lead on, Hannah."
Gabriel approached the playground with something like outright incredulity.
Of all the places they could have possibly picked to put the entrance to Heaven, this was what his siblings decided on?
He wondered about them sometimes, honestly.
Gabriel nodded at the angel on the bench, gesturing for them to sit down when they made to stand up. "It's fine, Gamaliel."
"Gabriel?" Their voice was astonished. "I thought-"
"Yeah, a lot of people did." Gabriel stepped carefully onto the design etched in the sandbox, giving it a glance of interest before looking back at Gamaliel. "Beam me up, Scotty."
Hannah and Gamaliel stared at him blankly.
"Come on - really?" Gabriel sighed. "Never mind. How does this work?"
Hannah shrugged. "Brace yourself," she warned, stepping up beside Gabriel. "It can be a bit uncomfortable."
"Shouldn't be that bad." Gabriel shrugged.
Gamaliel hesitated, and then activated the spell, smoky whiteness piling up around Hannah and Gabriel and carrying then Heavenwards.
Gabriel actually staggered as the ritual finished its work and deposited him and Hannah in Heaven with a final puff of fog.
"I take it back. That was horrible." Gabriel had a difficult time believing Metatron designed something like this, since the younger angel was so used to comfort, even in his time on Earth - or at least, what he classified as comfort. Gabriel used a desk to briefly steady himself and then looked around at all the angels staring back in surprise - a number of them had jumped to their feet. He raised his hand, gesturing downwards. "At ease, or whatever."
"Gabriel." The angel standing nearest to them was one Gabriel didn't recognize, and she greeted them in astonishment. "And...Hannah?" The question was clear in their tone.
"Verchiel." Hannah nodded in greeting.
"What are..." Verchiel's eyes slid to Gabriel again.
"I'm just here to take a look around." Gabriel stood up, noting that he knew virtually no one in this particular area of Heaven. "See if I can't find the focus of Metatron's spell."
That made everyone in the room either sag with relief or perk up with interest. "We have been examining it, but no one's been able to identify how it worked," piped up another angel, one sitting in front of a small mountain of papers covered in Enochian.
Gabriel nodded. "Great. I might borrow that later - I want to go check something first."
"Of course." A third angel stood up hurriedly. "If you need-"
"I'll be fine on my own, thanks." Gabriel walked out of the room before any other angel could offer their assistance.
Heaven was far emptier than he remembered, but then again there were just as few voices in the back of Gabriel's mind nowadays. He saw no one while walking through the halls, but even the familiar manifestation of Heaven wasn't enough to distract Gabriel from the absence of so many of his siblings - if anything, the difference was highlighted against the stark, familiar background.
Sighing, Gabriel let himself stop. It had been a little easier in the room they'd been dropped in - it was one of the more modern parts of Heaven, something Gabriel hadn't seen before, but here it was all grand architecture, the likes of which humanity would probably never get even remotely close to creating.
It was a pressing reminder of how many years it had been since he'd set foot in Heaven, much less this hall. Six millenia was a long time even for an archangel, even if it was vastly outweighed by the time he'd spent here before anything had gone wrong.
Heaven still was his home, even after all this time. Gabriel had always given that title to his first home - Asgard could not have compared if the gods who lived there had been there and improved it over again for twice as long as the universe had been around.
And Gabriel, seeing it like this, felt like he'd failed a test he didn't know he was taking.
Shaking his head, Gabriel discarded those thoughts. He couldn't be distracted right now - first Metatron's spell, then nostalgia.
Walking towards the gates - even Heaven had a wall, and the gates were virtually the only way in - Gabriel frowned. Normally he'd be able to see almost everything through the gates, even from here, but all he saw was a continuation of the wall, full of shifting colors as it usually was, as if the gates had simply vanished.
As Gabriel got closer, he realized the problem.
The gates weren't missing, they were closed.
"So that's what his spell did." He muttered to himself.
It made sense - Metatron wouldn't have been nearly powerful enough to close Heaven off with a spell but using a spell to close the gates - well, Gabriel could have done it in his sleep.
Opening them, however, would be a whole different story.
The gates had been opened only once before - and that was only because before that, there had been no need for gates because Heaven was all that existed at that point. When the universe was created, the gates appeared and were opened so that the angels could act as protectors for all that their Father had created. Not that they did the best job, but that had been the point of it all.
Their Father had been the one to open it originally, and Gabriel doubted he'd be able to do so on his own. Especially with his Grace like this - it would be impossible.
If he had another archangel's help, maybe...but Gabriel would save that for a last resort.
"Great," Gabriel sighed. He put out a hand to run it over the gates, searching for the seam that would tell him where one door ended and the other began, and quickly yanked it back with a hiss. Something on the gate had burned him, singing not only his vessel but him, and Gabriel nursed his red palm and watched the gate with newly wary eyes.
Sigils flashed where his hand had touched the smooth surface of the gate, bright white against the wall, a circle of visibility rippling out from where his hand had been and fading as quickly as it came. Gabriel's quick eyes caught a sigil here and there, but the brief glimpses of Enochian didn't make him feel any better.
In fact, it made his mood fall a little further.
Metatron hadn't just closed the gates, he'd done his best to make sure no one would be able to open them again.
Talk about taking a grudge too far.
Hannah looked up as Gabriel walked back into the room, making all the angels paying rapt attention to her look over as well. "Did you find anything?" She asked.
Gabriel nodded, borrowing the nearest empty seat and collapsing into it. "It's the gates. They're closed."
Several angels exchanged incredulous glances, while Verchiel frowned. "How did we not notice?" She muttered to herself.
"It looks like Metatron did his best to make sure no one would." Gabriel rested his head on his fist, keeping the burned hand resting in his lap with the palm facedown - his siblings had low morale already, and if they thought an archangel couldn't beat the spell... "I get the feeling that if you weren't specifically looking for the gates, it wouldn't have occurred to anyone to check them."
"That makes sense." Hannah nodded, and then hesitated before asking another question. "Will you be able to open them?"
Gabriel hesitated, feeling the eyes of every angel on him. "...I don't know."
He could practically feel their collective morale plummet, and Verchiel's shoulders slumped. "Then it's impossible."
"I didn't say that." Gabriel leaned over and snagged one of the papers with Enochian scribblings. "You said you were working on a way to reverse it?"
The angel who had been using the papers jumped at being addressed. "Yes, um - we haven't gotten very far, though." They muttered.
Gabriel handed the paper back after giving it a glance over, eyebrows raising at the creative angle they had taken. "What's your name?"
"Hadriel."
"Hadriel," Gabriel repeated. "You were...in Anna - Anael's garrison, right?" He had to hastily correct himself - of course no one here would have known Anna's name after she Fell.
"Yes," Hadriel answered, glancing sideways for the briefest moment at Verchiel as though wondering where this was going.
"Excellent." Gabriel slapped the table. "There's something written on the gates - I need you an anyone else remotely decent with sigils to take a look at it and see what you make of it."
Hadriel looked about as stunned as their true form was capable of. "But - me?"
"Yes." Gabriel pointed at the stacks of paper. "Or is that not yours?"
"No - it is, but-" Hadriel swallowed and nodded. "I will do my best - thank you." They said fervently.
"No need." Gabriel was using dismissive hand gestures a lot today. "If you can get something out of the sigils on the gate, then it'll be more knowledge than I've gained from it. What else have you been doing?"
Hannah cleared her throat. "Mostly restorative work - what with the clashes while we were exiled to Earth, some things have been...tense."
Gabriel nodded in understanding - what Metatron had given him, however unwanted, combined with what he'd learned by eavesdropping on angel radio didn't paint a pretty picture in terms of angels cooperating with each other. "There's no time for that now."
"With so few of us, it is hardly tolerable," Verchiel muttered, and Gabriel had the feeling he wasn't meant to have overheard.
"Set someone to make sure they know that, then." Gabriel was a little discomfited by the way he fell so easily into telling his siblings what to do. "If everyone's arguing with each other then we'll never get anything done."
"Of course," Verchiel said promptly. "And what else will you do?" She added carefully, the question phrased like she was afraid that she was prying into 'archangel business'.
Gabriel mentally moaned over the fact that the chair he was sitting in didn't have wheels, because he needed to do something other than just sit there, but getting up and walking around would be too awkward. Damn his siblings' sense of style. "I'll probably go back and talk to the Winchesters," Was what he said aloud. "They do have a partial translation of the angel tablet - there might be something I missed."
"Back down there?" Hadriel asked in surprise.
"Where else would the Winchesters be?" Gabriel asked rhetorically, raising an eyebrow. "They may have been upstairs and downstairs at least twice by now, but Earth is where they spend the majority of their time."
"Of course." Hadriel looked down quickly.
"And what about Heaven?" Hannah had far fewer qualms about 'prying' into Gabriel's thoughts. "Bartholomew and Malachi may be gone, but their followers are still in discord."
Gabriel let his hand rest over his mouth, a flimsy cover for his frown, since true forms worked so differently and expressed themselves so oddly by human terms - to say nothing of angel radio - that his siblings could probably guess his feelings on the topic. "Verchiel," He said, the named angel focusing her attention on him in surprise. "I need someone to take care of that as well - at this point, infighting will just make things worse."
"That is easier said than done - but doable," Verchiel amended her words hastily. "Someone from Uriel's garrison?"
Gabriel considered it. "Yeah, that would be best - if you can find whoever Uriel's second was, even better." Uriel might have been commonly known as the funniest, but he had also been the best negotiator.
"Possibly," Verchiel said reluctantly, and the reason was clear - it was doubtful, if they had not come forward by now, that Uriel's second [whoever they may be] hadn't survived the Fall or the events leading up to it.
"Whoever's best at this sort of thing," Gabriel said decisively. "Whether it's Uriel's second or not, your choice."
"What about Metatron?" Hadriel asked curiously.
"What about him?" Gabriel replied. "He's in the dungeons, right?"
"Yes, near Gadreel's old cell." Hannah's reply made Gabriel's eyebrows raise - that meant they had locked up Metatron tight and deep, and who knew how many eons he might spend down there.
"Couldn't we question him?" Hadriel continued, when the gap in the conversation became apparent. "If he wrote the spell, he knows how to unwrite it."
"If you haven't gotten anything out of him, I won't." Gabriel said flatly. "Metatron is stubborn when he wants to be, and the only methods to get that knowledge only Naomi would have used."
His siblings exchanged glances, aware of the implication behind his words. "You are an archangel," Verchiel began.
"Which means Metatron hates me even worse than he does any of you for locking him up," Gabriel finished for his sister. "Sorry, but he'll give us no help, and at this point it would be ridiculous to even think of trusting anything he'd say."
"You underestimate us," Hannah informed Gabriel. "Metatron would not be able to trick his way out of his cell so easily."
"I'm not saying he would," Gabriel retorted. "I'm saying only he knows what Dad told him, and there could be any number of spells in his head. It's safer to leave him locked up."
"Then that is what we will do." Verchiel agreed, but her expression contradicted her nod of agreement.
"Good." Gabriel stood up sharply, sending the younger angel quickly stepping backwards to give him space. "How do I get back to Earth with that ritual?"
Michael was easy to find - ne practically glowed like a beacon, when Gabriel took the time to look.
"I didn't think you'd come looking for me." Michael was patiently curious, that much was the same. "What's the problem?"
"What makes you think there's a problem?" Gabriel retorted.
Michael gave Gabriel a flat look. "You wouldn't have come to me for anything else."
"True enough." Gabriel stayed standing, despite wishing the Winchester's Earth wasn't quite so far away - his wings were under enough stress as it was and he could use somewhere to sit, but he'd take whatever advantage he could get over Michael - even if it was just a height advantage. "I didn't think you'd still be here." Grimmauld Place was as dirty as ever, and despite the magic the inhabitants possessed they seemed no closer to making it habitable.
"Where else would I go?" Michael turned to face Gabriel, nir chair scraping across the floor. "Find my own house somewhere?" Nir voice took on a sarcastic tint.
"I was just mentioning it." Gabriel might have rolled his eyes, but making small conversation was awkward when he didn't even want to be there.. "I figured you should hear what I found out about Metatron's spell."
Michael's interest was immediately captured, and ne leaned forward. "What?"
"I managed to take a look upstairs." Gabriel, seeing his sibling's expression, continued quickly before he could be interrupted. "His spell didn't put a barrier around Heaven, just closed the gates."
Michael nodded in understanding, glancing around the room as if it would help nir think. "It's not going to be easy to open those again."
"No," Gabriel agreed reluctantly. "It would take two archangels, at least."
Michael laughed, sounding breathless and sardonic at the same time. "So your motive is revealed," He said sarcastically.
"There's no need to be rude." Gabriel almost didn't say the next words. "It's your home, too."
That made Michael pause, whatever he was about to say swallowed in favor of quiet.
"Well?" Gabriel asked when the silence began to drag on and Michael still didn't say anything, crossing his arms. "What are you going to do?"
"Of course I'll help." Michael said immediately.
"Great." Gabriel said flatly, dropping his arms. "So now we actually have a shot."
"When are we going to take it? Now?" Michael questioned.
Gabriel shook his head. "No, there's something on the gates - I couldn't touch it. Metatron did his best to try and trip up anyone who was trying to undo this spell."
"That's...not good." Michael shook his head. "You couldn't even touch them?"
"Nope." Gabriel shrugged, keeping his bad hand turned away from Michael and absentmindedly rubbing it.
Michael's mouth tightened and ne stood, moving over to the bed as well. Gabriel shifted away slightly, but more or less stayed where he was, watching his sibling with slight wariness.
"Give me your hand," Michael said, holding out his own.
Gabriel didn't pretend to not know what Michael was talking about. "It's fine."
Michael snorted and pulled Gabriel's wrist towards nemself anyway, and Gabriel [after a brief mental debate] let him. "How do you manage to keep burning yourself?"
"Accident?" Gabriel suggested, wincing as Michael pressed nir fingers into his palm. "Fuck, if you're just trying to hurt-"
Michael shot him a glare and moved nir hand again sharply - this time, the burned skin retreated along with it until not only his vessel but Gabriel was untouched.
Gabrie flexed the hand, snatching it back from Michael's grip. He didn't thank nem.
Michael didn't draw attention to it, though Gabriel didn't doubt that ne had noticed. "When do you plan to try and reopen the gates?"
"As soon as it's actually possible." Gabriel stood up, tucking his hands into his pockets. "Hadriel is working on the wardings, and I already told them to recruit anyone else possible to help. Verchiel's looking for someone who can help organize things."
"What about someone from Uriel's garrison?" Michael suggested.
"I said that already, actually. But it's more take-who-we-can-get than pick-and-chose." Gabriel reminded his sibling, less politely than was probably necessary.
"Right," Michael said heavily, shaking nir head. "I forgot."
"Welp," Gabriel rocked himself forward and hopped to his feet as he tilted off the end of the bed. "That's all I came here for, so if you don't mind, I spend enough time away from home as it is."
"Sure," Michael said quietly. Ne stayed seated, fiddling with the covers of the bed. "See you at Hogwarts, Gabriel."
Gabriel paused at the tone in his sibling's voice, but sharply muffled the urge to say the same. "Whatever."
The phone call took Gabriel by surprise.
"Harry?"
"Hermione!" Gabriel grinned, twisting around in his seat with the phone held to his ear. "I didn't think I'd get a call from you!"
"I just got back from France."
"What is this, the second year you've been there?"
"We always go abroad over the summer." Hermione's voice sharpened. "Speaking of abroad, I got a letter from Ron telling me something they'd overheard from the Order."
Gabriel paused, an expectant silence ringing from the other end of the phone. "Okay?" He said eventually. "What do you want me to say?"
"Are you joking?" Hermione demanded. "Am I the only one of us who isn't secretly an angel?" Her tone became suddenly worried. "I'm not an angel, am I?"
"What - no. Believe me, we'd know by now if you were an angel too." Gabriel smiled, even though Hermione couldn't see it. "How was France?"
"Don't change the subject. How's Michael? I sent them a letter but they haven't replied yet."
"They might be busy."
"Are you working on the problem you said was happening?" Hermione's voice dropped. "In Heaven?"
"Sort of. Come on, Hermione, I want to talk about something other than that for once."
"I haven't brought it up before."
"You haven't. That doesn't mean no one else has."
"Fine." There was a huff over the phone. "France was nice. I don't get what so many people have against it. I finished all my work - what about you?"
"Done, Hermione, you underestimate me."
"I don't think I do. You're as bad as Ron sometimes."
"Yeah, well, Ron isn't an all-powerful being."
"Don't brag."
"I'm not bragging, Hermione. It's called confidence."
"On you, it's called overconfidence." Hermione laughed. "How are your, um, kids?"
"Oh, they're great." Gabriel glanced up at where Adam was being soundly beaten three-to-one on the lawn outside the window. "Having a ton of fun, really. Makes me kind of wish I could just skip the next couple years at Hogwarts."
"Don't you dare!"
Gabriel laughed. "Relax, Hermione, I'm still coming. Where would I be without all the time I spend around you?"
Hermione was silent for a moment, but Gabriel just waited patiently for her to talk again. "You're good with Michael, though, right?"
"Sort of."
"What does 'sort of' mean?"
Gabriel exhaled slowly. "It means I found out one of my closest friends is actually my older sibling and I'm dealing with it."
"They're older than you?"
"Come on, Hermione, that's really what you're going to focus on?"
"Sorry." Hermione's voice was tinged with amusement. "Well, I'll see if Michael writes back. Good luck with whatever you're doing with angel stuff."
Gabriel smiled wryly. "I think I'll need it."
"See you in a few weeks."
A few weeks, as it turned out, happened to be the same amount of time that it took for Hadriel to contact Gabriel again.
Gabriel. The younger angel's voice whispered into Gabriel's mind. I and my helpers have managed to dissemble a portion of the spell which guards the gate - it's harmless now, but still closed.
Really? Gabriel sat up, looking at nothing in particular as he listened to Hadriel.
Indeed. What should we do next?
Keep going, Was Gabriel's immediate reply. Do whatever you can to continue. I'll be up asap.
He could sense Hadriel's confusion, but his sibling didn't ask the question no doubt itching at their mind. Very well.
Gabriel let himself grin as Hadriel withdrew from angel radio, but that grin faded as he realized that while they were that much closer to opening Heaven, he'd have to work with Michael now.
He could deal with it for that long, Gabriel told himself.
He'd have to, unless he wanted to trap his siblings permanently in this state.
Dun dun dun...
Oh, Gabriel. You really don't like being around Michael.
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