A Study in Magic
by Books of Change
Warning/Notes: This is a BBC Sherlock and Harry Potter crossover AU. The HP timeline and BBC Sherlock's timeline has been shifted forwards and backwards to match up. One major BBC Sherlock character's gender has changed for the sake of the plot. The story was planned and written before season 2 (but incorporating elements of thereof as much as possible). This chapter features thoughts of death, and a serious deviation from DH (thus the entire HP-verse). Readers beware!
Chapter Fifty Two: Rude Quickening
Harry travelled to London after wrapping up the Triwizard Tournament champion selection ceremony broadcast. It was nightfall when he arrived via Floo-powder and all was silent and dark inside 221B. He dropped his messenger bag on the floor next to the hearth, threw his jacket over the red armchair, noiselessly made his way down the tiny hall next to the kitchen and quietly drew open the door at the end.
Benedict was napping in his co-sleeper, and John was sleeping only a foot away from him as usual. Harry studied them at the threshold as he listened to his baby brother's quiet snoring. Weariness seemed to wallop him all of a sudden. Harry padded inside and slid next to John. Soon his eyelids began to droop…
He was riding on the back of an eagle owl, soaring through the star-dotted night sky toward an old, ivy-covered house set deep inside a forest. Lower and lower they flew, the wind blowing in Harry's face, until they reached a dark window in the upper story of the house and entered. Now they were flying along a gloomy passageway, to a room at the very end… through the door they went, into a dark room that had curtains drawn over the windows…
Harry had left the owl's back … he was watching, now, as it fluttered across the room, into a chair with its back to him…There were two dark shapes on the floor beside the chair … both of them were stirring…
One was a huge snake … the other was a man … a short, balding man, a man with watery eyes and a pointed nose … he was wheezing and sobbing on the hearth rug…
"You are in luck, Wormtail," said a cold, high-pitched voice from the depths of the chair in which the owl had landed. "You are very fortunate indeed. Not all is lost. Otherwise your last blunder would've cost you."
"My Lord!" gasped the man on the floor. "My Lord, I am so glad… and so sorry…"
"Nagini," said the cold voice, "you are out of luck. I will not be feeding Wormtail to you, after all… but never mind, never mind… there is still Harry Potter…"
The snake hissed. Harry could see its tongue fluttering.
"Now, Wormtail," said the cold voice, "perhaps one more little reminder why I will not tolerate another blunder from you…"
"My Lord… no… I beg you…"
The tip of a wand emerged from around the back of the chair. It was pointing at Wormtail.
"Crucio!" said the cold voice.
Wormtail screamed, screamed as though every nerve in his body were on fire, the screaming filled Harry's ears as the scar on his forehead seared with pain; he was yelling too… Voldemort would hear him, would know he was there…
"Harry! Harry!"
Harry opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor of John and Sherlock's bedroom with his hands over his face. His scar was still burning so badly that his eyes were watering. The pain had been real. Sherlock was holding a bawling and flailing Benedict, and John was kneeling next to him, looking terrified.
"What happened?" John said, dark-blue eyes looming over Harry. "What was it?"
"…Another nightmare," Harry whispered. He sat up. He could feel himself shaking. He couldn't stop himself from looking around, into the shadows behind him; Voldemort's voice had sounded so close…
"You were clutching your scar," said John. "You were rolling on the floor, clutching your scar! This isn't just another run-of-the-mill nightmare!"
Harry looked up at John, thinking about what he had seen in the dream … it had been more vivid than the one that had awoken him on his birthday … He ran over the details in his mind, trying to make sure he could remember them … He had heard Voldemort accusing Wormtail of making a blunder… but the owl had brought good news, the blunder wasn't unsalvageable … so Wormtail was not going to be fed to the snake … he, Harry, was going to be fed to it instead…
Sherlock, who had been studying Harry silently this entire time, shifted his hold on Benedict to one arm, pulled out his phone and started texting.
"We need to talk to an expert," he said.
"Dumbledore?" asked John, taking Benedict from him.
"No," said Sherlock, texting two-handed now, "Grandmaster Shin."
"Call Jacqueline, Sirius and Remus, too, then," said John as she comforted Benedict.
The four of them moved to the living room and waited. Sirius and Remus joined them shortly afterwards, Sirius dressed in nothing but a white undershirt and grey pyjama trousers. No one spoke or moved except Benedict, who kept whimpering and squirming in John's arms, as though he sensed the tense atmosphere and was showing it the only way he knew.
About ten minutes after Sherlock fired off the messages, a rip appeared in the middle of thin air between the armchairs. The rip then opened and Grandmaster Shin stepped out of it, dressed in tasteful tweeds and a pressed shirt. He was followed by Miss Jackie and Dr. Ju, the latter wearing lime-green, hairy slug patterned scrubs that was so small it strained to cover his muscled chest, and orange accented basketball shoes.
"I got your message," said Mr. Shin grumpily, as though he'd just woken up. "Tell me about this dream."
Harry was about to explain, but Miss Jackie cleared her throat.
"Can we view your memory of it?" she asked.
Harry nodded. This was definitely a case where pictures would describe things better than a thousand words.
Harry took out his memory-harvesting paper charm from his messenger bag, planted it on his face and started to recall the dream. He felt something like steam made semi-insubstantial or wind made fluid flow out of his eyes, nose and ears. When he stopped feeling the odd sensation, he handed over the paper charm to Miss Jackie. She took the sheet of paper full of runes and pressed it upon her MMN phone as Harry retook his seat at the sofa.
Immediately the dream of Voldemort started to project out of the phone, starting from the flight upon the owl, in full colour and sound. Sirius clenched his teeth when Wormtail appeared, and Remus turned white and gripped the armrests of his chair tightly. Mr. Shin watched the entire sequence with his hands held behind his back, and his face as expressionless as a carved marble edifice.
When it ended, Dr. Ju knelt down and examined Harry's scar.
"It's my uniform," he explained when Harry eyed his scrubs in askance, which actually had hairy caterpillar patterns that squirmed. "It's small because someone hit it with a shrinking charm by mistake. Allegedly."
Then Dr. Ju frowned.
"There's something in here," he said as he ran his thumb over Harry's scar.
"What?" Sherlock asked sharply.
Dr. Ju shrugged his shoulders. Mr. Shin briefly glanced at Dr. Ju before saying something in a foreign tongue. Dr. Ju replied back, presumably in the same language, as he continued to squint at Harry's scar. There was an upturn at the end of his speech, which suggested he was asking a question. Mr. Shin said something in return, again in the same odd language. While the two men held their incomprehensible exchange, Sherlock looked at John and John shook her head. After clicking his tongue, Sherlock nailed his eyes on Miss Jackie.
"They're talking shop," said Miss Jackie. There was a look of concentration on her face, like she was translating something abstruse. "Something about it doesn't work since it's not a ghost, but an actual soul."
Sherlock let out a frustrated sigh. "Explain."
Mr. Shin's glance flickered downward. A small groove wrinkled on the spot between his long, narrow eyebrows and his mouth formed a grim line.
Dr. Ju looked back at Grandmaster Shin and spoke something at length in the strange foreign tongue.
"Why don't you explain it, doctor?" replied Mr. Shin harshly.
"I don't know the whole story," said Dr. Ju. "And what I'm seeing here doesn't make sense."
"But you know what's going on?" demanded Sirius.
"Partially, but that's why it's so confusing. I can't diagnose without all the facts."
"Could you please explain it to us, sir?" Remus asked to Mr. Shin. "We already know something is terribly wrong. If you don't enlighten us, we'll be forced to speculate, and like the doctor said, it would only cause further confusion or worse, rash actions."
Mr. Shin pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply.
"I wish I didn't have this responsibility. Anyone else would've done a better job," he said, sounding regretful. Then he spread a hand at the holographic recording of Harry's dream. "What have you noticed about this dream?"
"Perspective is third person limited," said Sherlock promptly. "You never see Voldemort, who is there presumably. Voldemort also has a corporeal body, capable of wielding a wand."
"Correct," said Mr. Shin. "Also, Harry experienced real pain at the end of the dream, yes?"
"Yes," said Harry. "But why just my scar? The last time it did, Voldemort was close by. But he isn't here, is he?"
"No," said Mr. Shin quietly. "Doctor, could you explain the scar?"
"Sure," said Dr. Ju before turning to Harry. "Ever wondered why you have a scar at all?"
Harry blinked. It wasn't a thought that ever occurred to him, no.
"Magic people don't scar unless they leave a wound untreated for too long or dark magic is involved," Dr. Ju said. "The spell Voldemort used on you was no doubt one of the darkest curses out there; little wonder it left a mark."
Harry instinctively touched his scar. "Oh…" he muttered.
"Interesting, but not very relevant," said Sherlock irritably. "What are the effects beyond the visible marking? You have clearly implied there is 'something in there'."
Mr. Shin glared at Sherlock with deep annoyance.
"Suppose for one moment that Harry's dream is a vision of real events," he said. "The question then is why he is able to see it. He is not, as far as we know, a seer."
"He has a connection to Voldemort," John answered. "Not in a metaphorical sense, but in a literal, magical sense. Their wands for example: Mr. Ollivander said the phoenix that provided the feather for Harry's wand gave away another feather, and that feather formed the core of LV's wand. Dumbledore also told us LV unintentionally transferred some of his own powers to Harry the night he gave him his scar."
"I see you are well informed; good," said Mr. Shin, nodding. "Now another point: the modus operandi of Voldemort was his casual use of Unforgivable Curses: Imperius, Cruciatus and Avada Kedavra, the Killing Curse. There are no countercurses for these three, though one may be able to resist the Imperius curse. There is no blocking them or lifting them through a third party. Only one known person has ever survived the Killing Curse, and he is sitting here in this room right now."
Harry felt his face redden as Mr. Shin's dark eyes looked into his own. He could feel everyone else looking around at him too. Harry stared at the floor as though fascinated by it, but not really seeing it at all…
So that was how his parents had died… the green light he could recall, that must have been the Killing Curse… Had they simply seen the flash of green light before life was wiped from their bodies?
Harry had been picturing his parents' deaths over and over again for four years now, ever since he'd found out they had been murdered, ever since he'd found out what had happened that night: Wormtail had betrayed his birth parents' whereabouts to Voldemort, who had come to find them at their cottage. How Voldemort had killed Harry's father first. How James Potter had tried to hold him off, while he shouted at his wife to take Harry and run… Voldemort had advanced on Lily Potter, told her to move aside so that he could kill Harry… how she had begged him to kill her instead, refused to stop shielding her son… and so Voldemort had murdered her too, before turning his wand on Harry…
Harry knew these details because he had heard his parents' voices when he had fought the dementors last year— for that was the terrible power of the dementors: to force their victims to relive the worst memories of their lives, and drown, powerless, in their own despair…
Mr. Shin was speaking again, from a great distance, it seemed to Harry. With a massive effort, he pulled himself back to the present and listened to what Mr. Shin was saying:
"If there is no countercurse and no way of blocking it, how did Harry survive? Even if we assume it deflected off of him somehow, there is a more troubling question still: how did Voldemort survive? It is highly doubtful he was expecting something of the sort would happen. Therefore he would have no defences against his own Killing Curse. How then did he manage to survive as a living spectre, capable of regaining a body? And how did the Killing Curse in effect create a connection between him and Harry?"
Light dawned on Dr. Ju's eyes.
"He must have left a bit of himself in Harry the day he tried to kill him," said Dr. Ju. "One of the penalties— consequences— of wilful, wanton murder is the shredding of your own soul. Voldemort murdered hundreds with the Killing Curse. His soul would've been mutilated beyond recognition. When the Killing Curse rebounded upon him, his soul blasted into pieces, the fragments scattered everywhere and one attached itself to the only living thing in the vicinity: Harry."
Mr. Shin nodded tersely while Sirius and Remus gasped and paled respectively.
"It's not an unknown phenomenon," Dr. Ju explained. "There are several documented cases in Japan of wizards who committed multiple murders leaving behind soul fragments when they failed to murder their last victim and got themselves killed instead. But for these cases, the soul fragment didn't linger long and eventually left in the manner of all dead. The maximum window of lingering was forty-nine days. But somehow, Voldemort's soul fragment is staying far beyond that."
"So your initial confusion lay in the fact there is no clear way Harry could have gained a soul fragment when no mass-murderers were killed in his vicinity for the last forty-nine days," said Sherlock.
Dr. Ju nodded.
There was a short pause.
"…This can mean only one thing," said Miss Jackie slowly, a look of horror rising up on her pallid face. "You-Know-Who intended to leave behind a soul fragment. That is why his soul fragment lingered beyond forty-nine days. The soul fragment is in effect anchoring You-Know-Who to this world. Therefore You-Know-Who will continue to live so long as the soul fragment continues to exist. The only way to get rid of him, then, is to kill the soul fragment. But the only way to kill a soul—"
"—is destroying the vessel," said Mr. Shin tonelessly.
The silence that met this announcement was complete.
-oo00oo-
For a long time Harry just sat there, staring at his feet. He was stunned. He felt numb. He was surely dreaming. He had not heard correctly.
At some point he noticed there was an argument going on in the living room. Harry couldn't make out the words. There was a buzzing noise in his ears and a grey mist swirled in front of his eyes. When he blinked it all back, he felt Miss Jackie's skinny arms around him, and Sirius gripping his shoulder hard. He also heard Sherlock shouting over Benedict's wailing and Mr. Shin—perpetually expressionless and saturnine Mr. Shin—was shouting right back, his face twisted in anger.
"What were you planning to do?" Sherlock snarled. "You said it yourself: when you discover a soul wand, you destroy them! Was that your agenda?!"
"I'm a father myself!" Mr. Shin thundered. "Do you think I would kill Jacqueline even if she were a soul wand?"
"How long were you planning to hide this, then? You had all the necessary data since Harry was second year! Were you going to tell us at all?!"
"I only had enough information to make guesses … nothing solid until tonight!"
"Oh, that's lovely, that's just fine!" snapped Sherlock sarcastically. "And I suppose you wanted to wait until the 'opportune time and person' appeared … how very cautious!"
"I wonder how you operate in this world at all, if this is the way you treat those who are trying to help you," said Mr. Shin in quiet fury. "Need I remind it was you who asked me to come here? Perhaps I should withdraw all support. You have no business interfering with our world, after all."
"Please, you can't even if you wanted to—"
"Do you want to see me try?" said Mr. Shin, his eyes burning like twin black holes. "I'm not a kind man, Mr. Holmes. I do not have a reputation for mercilessness for nothing."
Dr. Ju, who was flicking his eyes between the fighting pair, opened his mouth: "Uh—"
"Shut up!" snarled Sherlock before he could say anything.
"Silence!" snapped Mr. Shin almost at the same time.
Dr. Ju blinked and looked down.
"Stop it!" said Miss Jackie sharply. "Appa, this is no way to act to people, especially now! And Sherlock, what are you doing to your family?!"
Mr. Shin and Sherlock stopped at once. Benedict continued to cry pitifully and piercingly. John clutched him close to her chest, patting his back, but the gesture looked mechanical, not soothing. Every line and wrinkle on John's face was etched with shock and disbelief.
At length Benedict tired himself of crying, and started hiccoughing. No one spoke even after he quieted down.
A long silence followed.
"There's … really no other way?" John whispered.
"That I know of," said Mr. Shin, closing his eyes and turning his face away.
John shook her head in denial. "No…"
"Dumbledore and I have been searching high and low for alternatives since we've guessed at the truth," said Mr. Shin monotonously. "Dumbledore postulated that we could exploit the inherent instability of a soul fragment. It is not natural for a soul to exist in pieces, after all. Also, the only reason why a wizard's soul can linger as a fragment is magic. If that magic can be removed, perhaps the soul fragment will not be able to stay."
"John has the ability to drain magic," said Sherlock at once. "Why— no, we're already using that option."
"Correct," said Mr. Shin. "I believe Dumbledore asked if you had any long-kept personal items before Harry left for Hogwarts, Dr. Watson."
"…My dog-tags," breathed John. "Harry, you're wearing it, right?"
Harry nodded. He'd never taken it off since Dumbledore told him not to, the day before he boarded the Hogwarts Express. He had forgotten about it completely, actually, only vaguely noting it when he took showers.
"So Dumbledore has known this since Harry was first year?" asked Sherlock sharply.
"Possibly, but I doubt it," said Mr. Shin. "I know Dumbledore started guessing at the soul fragment's existence when Voldemort's old diary was discovered. The tags had a secondary, unexpected effect of stopping the soul fragment's parasitic growth, but it didn't remove its magic entirely. Now, as Voldemort grows more powerful, the soul fragment strengthened correspondingly and is now overwhelming the tag's draining effects. Wasn't this dream more vivid than the one you had in the summer?"
"How did you know that?" said Harry wonderingly.
"You were thinking about it very loudly," said Mr. Shin. Then he sighed. "We found only one other option for magic removal, but it is unfeasible. There is an ancient spell of sorts in my old country called bu-dong-myung-an-shim-gyul. It reputedly can eliminate all magic exposed to its sphere of influence. I've looked for the two men who had the ability to do it, but they are both dead."
"Why can't you do it?" asked Sherlock.
"Just because people call me 'Grandmaster' doesn't mean I'm capable of learning all magic," snapped Mr. Shin. "Magic people here are devoted to what my country calls Bu-ga and Ma-ga: spells and enchantments. The only reason why I am able to handle western magic at all is because I am technically paksu mudang, thus was seeped in Bu-ga, Ma-ga and Mu-ga. I can't touch anything Dao-ga (道), which bu-dong-myung-an-shim-gyul falls into, because my magic is no longer compatible with it."
"He won't be able to do it now even if he can handle Dao-ga," Miss Jackie muttered. "Advanced Dao-ga spells only works for people who never knew anyone in the family way."
Harry couldn't help but gape open-mouthed at the notion.
"Yes, there's that too," Mr. Shin grumbled. "Han Bin and Doe Hae, the two men I mentioned before, were the last true practitioners of Dao-ga in my country. They rarely took in pupils, and very few were willing to go submit to the required training. I heard a rumour one boy managed to learn all their skills, but I doubt anyone would've survived even a month of Han Bin's noxious presence and Doe Hae's temper. If there are practitioners in other countries, I don't know them."
"Thus snap went your final lead," said Sherlock.
There was stark silence.
"I—" said Dr. Ju, raising his hand.
"WHAT?" Mr. Shin and Sherlock snapped.
"… Just wanted to let you know," said Dr. Ju, wincing, "that I could do it."
Mr. Shin blinked at him in astonishment. "How?" he demanded.
"I'm the idiot who survived six years of Han Bin and Doe Hae," Dr. Ju explained. "And I still wear virgin pants."
All the younger people gaped at him. Mr. Shin, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes to slits.
"Prove it," he hissed.
Dr. Ju sighed tiredly. Then he put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a leather case, carefully removed the scalpel tucked inside, and held it in his hand.
Something dark and cold gathered around the blade, enveloping it. It was as though the very air surrounding the scalpel had turned into steel, sharpening it further.
"…Kumki [劍氣 (검기)]," said Mr. Shin in wonderment. "I haven't seen it since Master Lee passed away."
Dr. Ju, who was sweating profusely, gave Mr. Shin a pleading look. "Are you done, sir? I can't hold this up much longer. I'm not as fit as I used to be."
Mr. Shin said nothing and kept studying the blade. Harry side-eyed Dr. Ju's muscled torso in meantime, feeling a hint of disgust. He saw corresponding emotions on Sirius.
Everyone gasped when Mr. Shin suddenly conjured a thick, iron rod and threw it at Dr. Ju. Dr. Ju sliced the rod in half with his scalpel, and the two divided pieces clattered to the ground. Sherlock dove at them and showed everyone the cut side. It was miraculously clean—no nicks or unevenness.
"I'm surprised one as young as you can do it," Mr. Shin remarked as Dr. Ju withdrew the Kumki and tucked his scalpel back into its case. "Kumki is supposed to take sixty years of magic cultivation. Did you receive your ne-gong (內功) from someone else?"
"Ah, no. Back when I was a resentful and rebellious teenager, I wanted to prove Han Bin wrong in any way possible so I chose to debunk the magic cultivation myth," Dr. Ju started scratching his neck. "I don't often get feelings of accomplishment, but when I proved cardiovascular endurance is the real driving force behind magic cultivation, and the reason why it took so long for ancient wizards to build their magic reserves to a useable point is the highly deficient nature of a typical Dao-ga wizard's diet, well …" he grinned evilly, "…It felt good."
Mr. Shin smirked. "I would've liked to have seen his face when you did."
"I was too late," said Dr. Ju ruefully. "I had to build up my stamina to the point I could finish two Ironmans back to back before I could properly demonstrate. He was already dead by then."
"What's an Ironman?" asked Sirius, while John slumped back in apparent exhaustion and Miss Jackie wilted against Harry as though all her strength went out of her.
"A triathlon competition where you swim 2.4-miles, bicycle 112-miles and run 26.2-miles in that order and without a break," said Dr. Ju.
Sirius sputtered in disbelief. "People actually do that? Why? What for?"
"Who knows?" said John as she flung a hand in a tossing-backwards gesture.
"Whatever the case may be, this is an unexpected piece of good news," said Mr. Shin. "That you can produce Kumki and sustain it means you already have the magic reserves necessary to perform bu-dong-myung-an-shim-gyul. I presume you know the theory behind it at least."
"I remember all of the instructions," Dr. Ju confirmed. Then a smile that didn't reach his eyes started to spread across his face. "I can't forget them even though I want to. Just when I think I've finally put them out of my head, Han Bin shows up in my dreams and pounds it back into my skull…"
"The only thing that worries me, then, is that you will be on your own," said Mr. Shin, blithely ignoring the latter mutterings. "Dao-ga is one of the most volatile magic practices. If you lose control of the magic you've cultivated, at this magnitude, death is all but certain."
"I'm ready to die," said Dr. Ju firmly. "Harry, though, I don't think he is. Are you?"
Harry froze as Dr. Ju locked his sharp tawny eyes on Harry's.
"Are you ready to die?" Dr. Ju asked again quietly.
Harry couldn't speak. Was he ready to die? How could he be? How could anyone be? And why was Dr. Ju asking this question all of a sudden?
"You have to be ready to die," said Dr. Ju seriously. "Every single person living on this earth is destined to a grave. It's only a matter of when and how. So you need to be prepared. Even if the spell works and LV stops being a threat, your end will be the same."
"Oi, why are you…" Sirius started.
"I'm saying this because the spell may not work the way you want," said Dr. Ju relentlessly. "You want bu-dong-myung-an-shim-gyul to work like some sort of solar flare that destroys all electronics, only magic. But the spell's true purpose is banishing all illusion. Magic removal is only a side-effect because the spell assumes the world—matter and magic— is an illusion, and once the illusion is removed, everything returns to mu—nothingness. Now I don't know about you, but I think the premise is entirely wrong."
"Why?" asked Mr. Shin.
"Because matter is real!" said Dr. Ju passionately. "Even the most ardent Taoist instinctively knows it's real since he looks both ways before crossing the street — it's either the bus or him, not both of them, which should be the case if matter is nothing but an illusion. Transfiguration as a field cannot exist if matter isn't really real. Don't you see the very foundation of the spell is bunk? Are you still willing to stake your life on it, knowing this?"
No one replied for a long time.
"But the spell has been performed successfully before," said Mr. Shin slowly. "As recently as the nineteen-nineties, I know this for certain. There must be a kernel of truth to the spell if this is so."
"A kernel, of course there is a kernel," said Dr. Ju hollowly. "But what is that kernel? Here, let me tell you the instructions for performing bu-dong-myung-an-shim-gyul. I'll buy you a car if you can make sense of it: there is no you or me or anything else but the motionless nothingness of the heart."
"…What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Sirius exclaimed.
"Anything; nothing; it's all up to your own interpretation," Dr. Ju rolled his eyes. "In my opinion, anyone who could do it before was able to do it in spite of the instructions. Or maybe it was pure accident. Who knows; I know I had to forget everything Han Bin and Doe Hae told me and figure out how to get the desired outcome based on what I know about fundamental magic theory."
"I'm shocked that you're still alive," Mr. Shin muttered.
"I'm too terminally dumb to die," said Dr. Ju.
"Now you sound like Greg," sighed Mr. Shin. "Jacqueline, I can see from the look on your face that you have an idea."
"Well, the notion of a magic equivalent of a coronal mass ejection intrigued me—" said Miss Jackie.
"Of course it did," said Mr. Shin, waving a hand and interrupting. "If you have to reconstruct the spell from ground up, doctor, I might as well supervise. The magic cap shouldn't be a problem if you really abstained from women, and that's always a problem with wizards attempting Dao-ga these days—"
"Magic cap?" John asked.
Miss Jackie turned red as she stuttered an explanation: "Uh, well, you see, the amount of magic one can cultivate stops growing the moment a wizard knows—"
"Call it for what it is, Jacqueline," said Mr. Shin brusquely. "The moment a wizard has sex his magic reserves stops growing. Hence the magic cap. It's the reason why wizards of old often remained celibate. No one knows this anymore. They've stopped teaching it in the sixties and seventies…"
"I thought it was a myth," Sirius protested.
"The only reason why people think it is a myth is because this magic cap only applies to men. Women experience better growth after they become mothers, and then experience a sharp decline after menopause."
"Oh," said Remus, blinking. "Is that why you, um…"
"No," said Dr. Ju. "I vowed to only have sex with my wife when I became Christian at age eleven."
"You don't have a wife."
"Nope."
"What kind of rare, exotic temporal species are you?" asked Mr. Shin in mild exasperation.
"God knows. But I can tell you he was stubborn to the point of stupid on this," said John. "We had the most blazing rows over it back in the day."
"Why must you say that in front of your husband and children?" groaned Dr. Ju, covering his face.
"Because establishing your ability to accomplish this spell is of the utmost importance right now," drawled Sherlock. "Surely you know that."
"Yes, but like I said before, even if I have all the prerequisites, the spell may not work the way you want it to," said Dr. Ju tiredly. "Even if you just assume the spell's worldview, the internal logic of the spell is full of contradictions; if the spell dispels all illusion, which includes matter, it would mean the body of the spell-caster would vanish in its wake, too, and that violates the caster existence principle."
"A fully-formed spell, with very few exceptions, will only persist as long as the wizard or witch who cast the spell lives," Remus muttered.
"And a human soul that doesn't have a body is dead," said Dr. Ju flatly. "I'm sorry, but that's how it is."
Sherlock, remarkably, had nothing to say about that. Dr. Ju, who didn't know how remarkable this was, let out a very long-drawn sigh.
"It's late," he said. "Hailey, you and your kids need sleep. Try not to worry too much. I promise I'll do my best to make this spell work."
"You were always so serious about your promises," said John wryly. "Please don't kill yourself trying."
"I can't promise you that," said Dr. Ju grimly. Then he flicked his glance at Miss Jackie.
Their eyes locked for a long second.
"You're doing the right thing," Miss Jackie said quietly after the tense moment. "Let me help you."
Dr. Ju cast his glance downward and said nothing.
Mr. Shin pursed his lips. "Jacqueline…"
"I'm going to help, Appa," said Miss Jackie severely, looking her father square in the face.
Mr. Shin's shoulders sagged. "…Fine."
Their guests prepared to leave after this. Dr. Ju did a vertical slicing motion with his right forefinger, which created a very narrow elliptical hole that stretched from ceiling to floor. He gently pried the rip in space open, cast one look behind his back and then stepped into the rip. The rip vanished the moment he walked through.
"A true master of portals," said Mr. Shin, sounding impressed. "I'm starting to think we have a fighting chance."
Then he grasped at the air and roughly tore open a hole shaped like an oval. Miss Jackie followed him through the hole after bidding everyone good night. As soon as they left, Sherlock shot out of the living room and shut the door behind him.
There was a lingering silence.
"Well," said Remus bracingly. "It wasn't the best news to get in the middle of the night, but it looks like things are under control."
"I am so glad Grandmaster Shin is on our side," said Sirius fervently, "Scary as hell, but damn reliable."
"And more willing to communicate, unlike some people," said John.
Harry said nothing. He knew John, Sirius and Remus were saying these things because the worst case scenario was too terrifying to contemplate.
"You two can go down," said John, nodding at Sirius and Remus. "Benedict is delirious and I have no idea how long it's going to take him to fall asleep."
"Okay," said Remus. He clapped Harry's back. "Don't worry, Harry. Have a good sleep."
"Yeah, good night," said Sirius, squeezing his shoulder.
They trooped out.
Once John and Harry could no longer hear the sound of their footsteps, John inched towards Harry, and Harry buried his face into the mended shoulder.
"Worst-case scenario makes you wish you're an optimist, doesn't it?" said John after a while.
Harry nodded into the shoulder. He, like John, had experienced too many hardships to blindly assume things would work out. Hard work and good intentions didn't guarantee success; the world was fuzzy and broken like that. However, facing the worst-case scenario was more than his brain could handle. In fact, he couldn't go beyond the fatal announcement:
You-Know-Who will continue to live so long as the soul fragment continues to exist. The only way to get rid of him, then, is to kill the soul fragment. But the only way to kill a soul is destroying the vessel.
Would he, Harry, be able to die willingly if his life was the only obstacle between Lord Voldemort's return and his complete vanquish? If Voldemort returned again despite everyone's efforts and there was no other choice, would he be willing to die?
Truthfully, he'd rather die than let Voldemort return to full power, and thus threaten the lives of John, Benedict, Sherlock and everyone else. He'd rather die courageously, and the idea of eking out a pathetic, cowardly existence like Pettigrew made him want to hurl. In this sense, yes, he was more than willing.
But…
He wanted to see Benedict grow up. He wanted to finish his Hogwarts education and travel the world. He wanted to discover a cure for lycanthropy, so the werewolf curse would be a thing of the past. He wanted to start his own family and inflict the horrors of grandchildren on Sherlock. He wanted to do so many things … but what use were dreams for someone who was going to die?
Harry pressed his face harder against John's shoulder. Death was old news. He knew he was going to die one day. It was a truth as close to his skin as the clothes he wore when he was younger, right after the Surrey Zoo bombing. It had made him eager— desperate— to experience the good things in life before it all ended. But somewhere along the way he had forgotten this truth, and merely assumed he would have another tomorrow, another day after, to live. How did he forget? Now he was used to the idea of indefinite tomorrows, and the thought his tomorrows were numbered was almost too much for him to bear.
I don't want to die.
John lifted her arm and wrapped it around Harry.
"Did I ever tell you what I was like right after Afghanistan?"
Harry shook his head.
"My sleeping syndrome was at its worst then," said John. "I'd spend days sleeping, not knowing when it started or when it would end. By the time I met Mike, I was convinced one day I was going to fall asleep and never wake up."
Harry gripped at John's sleeve; it was a secret worry of his, too.
"That changed me," John whispered. "If I met Sherlock before, I would've been just like Donovan. But by the time I did meet him, I didn't care about much. Why should I care about so-and-so if tomorrow I'm going to die? The dead don't care about the living. I basically lived like I was already dead. And that was one of the best things that ever happened to me."
Harry looked up in astonishment. John's eyes were crinkled into a smile.
"I wouldn't have thought about the important questions in life if I wasn't a deadman walking. I soon realised death is only scary if it is the full stop to life, and loss is only unbearable if there is no hope for restoration. And if there is a beyond and that beyond is good, you have no reason to fear death."
Harry stared.
"Finding I could answer yes on both points made all the difference in the world," John concluded.
-oo00oo-
Final Notes: I intended to take that month break, but the contents of this chapter hit me like lightning this past Sunday. I think it was the culmination of the past three weeks, during which I've heard the news of/witnessed the death of five people, the first someone I saw growing up since the person was a ten-year-old, and last a seven month old baby, who was murdered. The wails of anguish of the first person's mother still rings in my ears. It reminded me death and life is too serious a matter to treat with mere sentiment and wishful thinking.
I think I unearthed all the random useless knowledge I gleaned from wasting my youth watching Martial Art movies and reading up old warrior legends. The movies these days don't show it, but all the older material I read always emphasized the hero 'never known a woman', or 'above passion/craving'. Some of them outright stated sex weakens them. I didn't think much about it at all until now…