Chapter Six is up! Thanks for all the support so far. Love you guys! Can't believe this story managed to make it into more than one C2!
Now on with the story~! (Wonder how many of you expected this chapter's content. Oh and don't expect all my chapters to continue being this long.)
Pairings: Potential Hadria (FemHarry) x Tom Riddle, but more platonic than romantic, other pairings undecided.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
(UnBeta-ed due to time constraints stupidly set by myself. I'm sorry if you guys encounter any spelling or grammar mistakes... Will edit it later.)
Chapter Six: Master of Death
"Siste, viator." Stop, traveller. —Latin Tombstone Inscription
When Harriet Potter met Death at the train station called Limbo, she hadn't expected to be given another life. She had expected to take the train and meet her parents, play with Sirius and Fred, and tell Remus and Tonks all about dear Teddy Lupin.
Instead, she was told by a gleefully cackling old hag that despite having snapped the Elder Wand into half, flying over the Pacific Ocean and dumping the pieces into the sea, despite throwing the Resurrection Stone into a boiling geyser, despite having left the Invisibility Cloak to Teddy, she was still the Master of Death. And now that she had finally died, after living to a ripe old age of 200, and having spent the last hundred plus years of her life in peace and serenity, she was to be reborn again. Because Death cannot harm his Master and so, until someone else manages to earn the title from her, she would never truly die.
The old hag was very talkative, and brought her on a tour around the Realms-the Train Station of Limbo, the Districts of Hell, the Havens...
Harriet was introduced to Dementors who loved her too much for her liking (she didn't want to find out what happen when a soul gets Kissed), to Hell-bred Cerberi who made Fluffy look like a puppy (they didn't just have three heads, they had a serpent's tail, horns and spikes, and huge claws, like some unholy offspring of Fluffy and Norberta), to hungry Lethifolds and Thestrals competing for a large bloody chunk of meat of unknown origin, and last but not least, she was introduced to a Phoenix that nearly set her on fire (could souls catch fire?).
Then she was introduced to the Higher Entities, which was when the old hag transformed into a young man with raven's hair similar to hers and laughing violet eyes. Apparently, he was the Trickster of the Eight, younger brother of Change.
Harriet did get to visit her family though. Fate brought her to see them, and they wished her good luck on her 'next great adventure'. Even Severus Snape was there, scowling at her father. She thought he was going to ignore her until she was about to leave, and he called out to her softly, and told her to keep out of trouble if she could. And Harriet left with Fate, chuckling at the Potion Master's words. It was about as affectionate as he could get.
"Bring back a boy this time!" Harriet heard someone yell from behind her. It sounded like Tonks.
"We want grandchildren!" James Potter agreed.
And Fate dragged her back to the train station while laughing, telling her that Time has agreed to help them give her a better life this time around.
Life met her at the station and gave her a train ticket, telling her that she would start recovering her memories from the age of eight, and would have regained most of it by nine. She would remember the smaller details by the time she turns ten.
Then the train came and took her away.
"You shouldn't be attempting this potion by yourself, you know," Scáth the Grim commented as he watched Hadria stir a cauldron filled with swirling peach and rose-colored liquid.
"Well you're here, aren't you?" she replied with a cheeky grin, and added a vial of silver bits into the pearly fluid. The silvery eggshells sizzled and dissolved into the mixture, turning the solution pale lilac. "Besides, I really need to brush up on my Potions or Snape will slaughter me when I finally attend Hogwarts."
"This is beyond a NEWT level potion," the shadowy black dog pointed out. "You're overdoing it. And where did you get Occamy eggshells from?"
"Well, since they typically cost too much for me to purchase without Gerwald knowing, I got Noh to steal some," Hadria said dismissively, and stretched her hand behind her. Her cloak burped out a bottle of rue powder.
"That thing has been in his stomach!"
"So? He has two stomachs after all. The stuff I get him to keep stay in the first stomach, which is more of a food pouch than a stomach. The second stomach is the one that actually digests anything."
"How do you know this?"
"Chaos told me before I returned. They're one of his favorite creatures. You mean Death never taught you this sort of stuff?"
"I have better things to do than learn about the insides of carnivorous pieces of shadow-flesh!"
"But you know the anatomy of a Dementor."
"That's because they sometimes join me when I go Hunting," snapped Scáth indignantly. "I prefer you when you were still an innocent little girl."
"Innocent?" Hadria laughed while stirring the cauldron again after adding a sprinkle of the powdered herb into the mixture.
"Yes. Innocent. Naive. Take your pick. I mean, you befriended a Grim, followed a Dark Lord home—"
"Former Dark Lord. And technically, he kidnapped me." ,
"—You didn't really object. And you caught a Lethifold and made it your pet or servant. Whatever. And not to mention fearing nothing except fear, which led to the seeing and capturing of a Boggart in its true form. No experienced child or adult would have done all of what you did."
"... Basically, you prefered me when I was an idiot and took you word for it whenever you told me anything."
"Well, when you put it that way..."
"Hadria! Geist refuses to eat his food!"
The Grim and the nine-turning-ten-year-old girl turned to the door. Hadria quickly finished the last heating while yelling, "Coming!"
"Were you aware that he's Grindelwald when you gave him the Boggart as a present?" Scáth couldn't help but ask.
"Not really. Life was right, of course—I didn't start remembering anything much until a year ago. At the time, he just seemed familiar, as if I might have seen him in some cartoon or show that Dudley watched before. Do you know how weird it is when you start getting this feeling that the person you look up to and care about isn't a good person? That he isn't the um… antihero you see him as but instead, reminds you of a villain? Oh I knew that he was dangerous. I've known it right from the start, and sometimes I get a glimpse of his... darker side, so to speak. But he's always tried to make up for it, and despite his... shortcomings... he cared for me more than the Dursleys ever did. And I decided not to care, because it seemed like he still cared about me, at the end of everything. I know now that he probably had quite a few moments when he wasn't actually thinking about my welfare, but... Well, it's complicated," Hadria replied while absently patting her jeans pockets. "Damn it! Where's my wand?"
A loud burp that sounded like a singing black hole and a wand clattered to the floor.
"Oh! Noh! You weren't supposed to eat my wand!" Hadria exclaimed as she picked up the wand that Gellert (as she had begun calling him in her head now that she knew his identity) had bought her two years ago. Gregorovitch had been rather shocked when they paid him a visit, because he condemned Gellert for being some bastard child of Grindelwald (evidently, he still hadn't forgiven Gellert for stealing the Elder Wand from him) and would've hexed them out of the store if he hadn't fainted at the sight of the Grim standing behind them.
After they revived him and assured him that he wasn't going to die anytime soon (probably), they managed to more or less coerce him into selling her a wand. He had also been very shocked when her wand chose her, because he saw her as the former Dark Lord's niece, and she had found herself paired with a wand made of elder wood, with the core of a basilisk plume feather, eleven and a half inches.
"Death is upon us all!" the wandmaker had exclaimed and got them out of his shop as fast as he could. At the time, Hadria was still a clueless little girl (mostly), and had no idea what the whole fuss was about, though it did seem rather funny.
"Next time, we're going to visit Ollivander. He's a little more cautious and less experimental with his wands, but at least he didn't treat me like I've come to murder him or something!" Gerwald had ranted as he took Hadria away. (Looking back, Hadria wondered if he hadn't been secretly pleased with Gregorovitch's reaction.)
Later on, when the little girl asked him, rather innocently, who Grindelwald was, Gellert had frozen for a split second, before replying tightly, "A Dark wizard who tried to rule the world."
"Do all bad guys want world domination?" Hadria had then demanded, sounding rather put-off by the clichê And the tension was gone as quickly as it came.
"Felixempra," Hadria muttered as she waved her wand over the simmering cauldron. The cerulean blue liquid within glowed for a moment, then settled. She took the cauldron off the fire and set it on a tray beside the window, where the sun's rays could fall upon it. The potion would be ready in six months.
Hadria found Gerwald in the kitchen, trying to stuff a large fish into the Boggart's mouth, who was currently taking the form of a Kneazle for unknown reasons.
"And this is one of the reasons why I can't help but like him even when I know he's a former Dark Lord," Hadria murmured to Scáth, as she watched the oddly endearing sight of Grindelwald struggling with a stubborn, hissing and yowling magical cat.
"He was like this when he was younger. Back in his previous life," the Grim muttered back. "He had plenty of... amusing moments when he was a tiny first year at Durmstrang."
"You've been stalking him?"
"Not really. But I did see him a couple of times before."
"See who?" Gellert demanded as he dragged the Boggart towards them. "Hadria, the Boggart's going to starve."
"But... You've fed him for more than a year!" Hadria exclaimed, slipping back into 'ordinary' nine-year-old mode.
"Yes. And for the past year, he's been eating whatever I feed him without complaints. What were you doing in your room anyway? The whole place smells of thyme."
"Scáth says herbs are good for courage and keeps away bad dreams..." Hadria said as she realised the reason for Geist's uncooperativeness. (Who knew Boggarts didn't like thyme?) "So I put some under my pillow, and soaked some in the bath, and burnt some over my coffin."
"Wait. Wait a minute. So you've got a bathtub full of thyme and..." Here, Gellert frowned. "A coffin? Why do you have a coffin?!"
"The room came with one," Hadria replied, acting confused and pretending not to understand him. The Grim couldn't help but burst into laughter.
"There's nothing in the coffin, right?" Gellert bit out, massaging his temples, while hoping that the house he just rented a month ago was not haunted or inhabited by a vampire.
"Well, it's empty now... " Hadria trailed off.
"I don't remember seeing a coffin the last time I entered your room." Which was a month ago, when they had just moved in.
"But of course you did! It's huge! With light purple curtains and big fluffy pillows and—"
"We're talking about the same thing, right?"
Hadria pretended to look bemused. "Yeah? The thing that some people sometimes sleep in?"
"That is a four-poster bed! Not a coffin! Scáth! What have you been teaching her?!"
One hour later, Hadria and the Grim were back in her room, her door carefully warded shut, as it had been ever since she regained her more practical memories from her stint as an Auror.
"I can bet you right now, that Fate is shouting 'That's my girl!' and Luck is saying, 'Poor Gellert,' and Chaos is yelling, 'Go Hadria!'" Scáth laughed.
Hadria opened the small coffin that was lying at the end of her bed and with a flick of her wand, sent the whole mess of thyme into the casket. The herb had done its job of masking the smell of potion making and annoying Gellert.
"Where did you get the coffin from anyway?" Scáth asked. Hadria shut the morbid beauty, and sat upon its dark wood cover.
"It was here when we moved in. The vampire kid wasn't too pleased, but Noh managed to scare him away."
"So you weren't lying after all," the Grim noted wryly. "I only hope that you didn't accidentally piss off some ancient clan of vampires..."
Hadria thought about it. "Well, the kid did sound a bit like Dudley, or Malfoy... He yelled, 'My sire will hear of this!' before he left."
The Grim sighed. "When are you planning on letting our resident Dark Lord know that the Master of Death has awoken and is causing trouble in the body of his innocent little Hydra?"
'Little Hydra' was Gellert's nickname for Hadria, which was quite apt, considering her newest Patronus. (After her retirement from her job as an Auror, her Patronus had changed from the stag to a doe, a symbol of her quiet strength and love for another when she took up Healing. It wasn't surprising that her Patronus had changed again after her 'Return'—as Hadria liked to call it, but neither Grim nor Hadria knew why it had changed into a nine-headed serpentine beast of all things.)
"Not any time soon," Hadria replied. "He'll have to reveal himself first. And even then... We'll see."
Hadria was always encouraged by Gellert to read and pursue knowledge. One third of the things she learnt was taught by Scáth, another one third was what she already knew from her previous life, and the last one third was taught by the former Dark Lord himself, who was starting to get the feeling that the girl was a prodigy of sorts. Of course, she was the Chosen One after all, but still, she was very Strange. She was quick to learn in most areas, totally stubborn in other subjects, and picked up the wrong ideas everywhere else.
Hadria had a lot of fun exasperating her 'Dark Guardian', though it was accidental half the time.
Six months after the Thyme and Coffin Incident, the Grinsen family packed up and left the US for Mexico, where they would be staying for a week.
When they arrived in Mexico on the eve of the Day of the Dead. Gellert booked them into an inn, before leaving to explore the town. Hadria opted to stay indoors for the day, as Scáth had told her to expect a visit from him, and she didn't want to cause an unnecessary commotion if the Grim decided to hunt her down in some crowded marketplace full of Wizarding folk who could see him.
Lunch was prepared by herself, something she was quite good at (it was probably because the Dursleys made her learn how to cook as soon as she could reach the stove on a stool). Scáth dropped by for an hour before leaving because Death had a job for him to do.
When Gellert returned, he brought back with him a stack of books, and he dumped most of it into Hadria's arms. Some of the books looked ancient, with worned leather covers and tattered yellow parchment that were thin and stained with brown patches. Half of them were written in curls and squiggles and lines that Hadria could not identify.
"Gerwald, I can't read Nahuatl or Mayan," she told her guardian, and he dumped an old dictionary into her arms, on top of the pile of books that were already there.
"What are these for?" Hadria asked, flipping through one book which had illustrations of suns, worm, skulls and flowers accompanying blocks of text.
"They're books on Necromancy. True Raising of the Dead goes against the laws of Magic, so I'm not going to attempt it, and you shouldn't either, but it won't hurt to read what some moonstruck wizards have to say on the subject," Gellert had replied. "They seem to think that Death is female. Santa Muerte, they call her."
Hadria decided not to tell Gellert that Death had no gender, even if he did prefer the form of a man, the way Fate prefered the form of a woman. She didn't want to bother explaining how she came across this information anyway. Because even Scáth could not have given taught her anything about the Higher Entities unless she became the Master of Death or had died and returned from the dead like Gellert. And Gellert knew it.
So Hadria simply took the books to her room. Noh was lounging on her bed, playing with her crystal flask of Felix Felicis (rolling the flask about with its rippling body). The potion had absorbed the golden hue of six months worth of sunlight, and was swimming in the flask like gilded quicksilver (if such a thing was even possible). Scáth had been quite impressed by her successful brewing of the potion, though the both of them knew that half of her success was due to the fact that she had been Lucky when brewing. It was always a good thing to be blessed by Lady Luck. Literally.
The Day of the Dead was a celebration that actually lasted for three days. Hadria and Gellert spent the first day roaming around the marketplace and cemeteries, buying marigolds, pan de muerto, sugar skulls and candied pumpkins, mostly because Hadria had asked for them and Gellert saw no reason not to buy them, even though they didn't have any dead Mexican relatives to honour and commemorate the death of. (Hadria knew that Gellert actually spoiled her quite a bit, not that she minded.)
Hadria also had a lot of fun making cardboard skeletons, painting them and decorating them with flowers. She became quite aware, after her sixth skeleton, that Gellert was beginning to regret letting a ten-year-old read anything about Death.
He left her to her own devices when he went out to get them some dinner. Hadria made sure to fill his room with skeletons then. She included floating skull-shaped lanterns because she thought they looked beautiful. When she was done, she went into her room, which was joined to his by a door. If Gellert ever noticed the wards on her door, he never mentioned it. But he very well might not have had the opportunity to find out about them, because Hadria was sure she made them untraceable to all who are Living, and he never tried to enter her room without her permission. Not since she told him in a rare fit of childish tantrum that she wanted her privacy.
Fifteen minutes later, the preparations were complete. The bedside table had been shifted to the end of the room and covered in a red cloth. A black and white muggle photograph featuring James and Lily Potter was placed on a box on the table against the wall. The table was decorated with marigold blossoms. An offering of pan de muertos and candied pumpkin was laid in front of the photograph. Then Hadria lit two candles on either side of the photograph.
Surprisingly, there came a light breeze from nowhere that felt safe and comforting, and Scáth appeared beside her soon after, telling her that her parents were amused and listening, since she hadn't actually meant to contact the Realms of the Dead. She spent the next hour chatting with the spirits of her parents, though she could only feel them as they were invisible to her Living eyes. Their replies could not be physically heard, but she could hear their thoughts in her head.
A loud curse was heard sometime later, heralding her dear guardian's return. Hadria said goodbye to her parents and went to the door. He was late, as usual, and Hadria knew it was because he was a pureblood gentleman and was very charismatic to people he barely knew, which meant making small talk with strangers all the time. (Now people who were close to him, on the other hand, got to see his less charming sides. But Hadria thought it was an honour to get to see the flaws of one who looked so carefree most of the time.)
A peek outside revealed Gellert trying to get over the heart attack he had received upon seeing his room filled with skulls and skeletons, all grinning happily at him under flowery bonnets with painted faces. Hadria personally thought that he let his guard down too easily around her.
Hadria had grown on Gellert, as the Grim had so aptly described it. She didn't realise it at first, but he had grown on her too, despite the whole Dark Wizard thing. Because despite whatever Magic had told her about the Dark Arts, it had still been hard for her to get rid of some of her prejudices against his use Dark magic. She managed, in the end, especially after she realised that it was the intentions that really mattered, and was reminded that she had performed two out of the three Unforgivables before... (A phrase came to her mind then, in response to that thought, four words that she used to think was applicable, but later realised the negative implications that came with it.)
In any case, Hadria still recalled the time when Gellert had thrown picked her up by the back of her shirt when she was five-turning-six, like a cat picking up a kitten, and threw her out of the hut they had rented in Mongolia, for accidentally setting the kitchen on fire.
She had then wandered into the nearby Wizarding village, where she knew she would be welcomed by the villagers. The village was small, in the way that everyone knew what everyone else had for breakfast, lunch and dinner last Tuesday. She was known there as the niece of the researcher visiting the area. She played with the horses, had tea with the old lady selling falcons, and went firewood-gathering in the woods with some of the village boys. All of them were older than her. Some of them babied her while others liked to make fun of her. She hadn't really mind either ways. To her, it was the natural behavior of boys after all. (Of course, she didn't know better back then.)
As it happened, she wandered a little too far from the village kids at some point in time, and the boys who didn't like her (because she should be at home playing with dolls, not doing boy-stuff) didn't notify the others until it started to get dark and all of them got worried. And the boys who didn't like her weren't so cruel as to want a little girl to get lost in the woods at night.
Little Hadria had been mostly safe throughout her time in the woods, aside from the obvious fact that she was lost. She was quite miserable when she stumbled upon a strange large humpbacked creature that had horns. The thing had then began chasing her, and would have wounded her very badly with its horns within seconds, for her legs were short and she was tired. But before Hadria met her almost-certain doom, there was an incoherent yell, a flash of green light, the sound of someone—a woman—screaming faraway, and the strange creature fell to the ground and did not get back up.
Hadria remembered running into the arms of her guardian, sobbing with fright, apology and relief. And Gellert had carried her all the way to the village, where the village boys were waiting for them, some of them looking like they had been stung by hexes, awkwardly murmuring reassurances and words of comfort as he did so. Then he carried her back to the hut, and never let her out of his sight for the next three months.
When Hadria was a little older, and thought back on that day, she never questioned his rash decision to throw a small kid out of the house in a fit of anger. She never bothered about why he had taken so long to find her, or why the village boys kept giving her guardian dirty looks every time they saw him. Because all that mattered was that he had come for her in the end. And Hadria later on observed, that he never failed to protect her from harm, no matter how many times he did anything that might potentially endanger her.
"He probably thinks of you as a kitten that pees everywhere, mutilates all his furniture and breaks everything else, but too damn innocent and adorable to really get rid of," Scáth had told her when she told him about this incident during his next visit. She'd been clueless about what he really meant then, and had simply concluded that Gellert's Annoying Voice (whose name was Conscience) was louder and more annoying than most. Of course, she knew better now. Not that her previous assumption was any less false.
"D'you like them?" Hadria questioned in an innocent voice while nibbling on a pan de muerto.
"They are... artistic. But I prefer it when there aren't so many," Gellert replied, giving the skull-lantern floating before him a glare of disdain, probably holding back the full extent of his objection to her weirder behavior, as he had been doing ever since he had nearly upset her the year before when he first got the Boggart. Then he turned and frowned at her. "Who said you could eat that? It's time for dinner."
"You didn't say I couldn't. You only said no chocolate before dinner. And besides, Mum gave me permission," Hadria retorted impishly. Gellert blanched.
"Mum?"
"Yeah, you know, the nice lady who gave birth to me?" Hadria replied absently as she looked at the takeaway he brought back. "Nothing hot, right?"
"Spicy," Scáth automatically corrected, padding out of the room behind her. "'Hot' is too vague."
Gellert sighed when he remembered that it was the anniversary of the Potters' deaths. He ran a hand through his hair, before taking out the food he brought back. "No, fussy brat. Nothing spicy."
After the meal, Hadria was about to return to her room when she suddenly turned around with a cheeky grin, "I forgot to tell you... Dad said to tell you that 'you're doing a less-than-ideal job but thank you'."
Gellert was silent for a moment, gazing at her with an expressionless face before smiling softly and reaching out a long arm to ruffle her raven's nest hair. "Tell him I'm doing nothing for him."
"Selfish Gerwald," Hadria chided while trying to flatten the mess of her hair.
"Sometimes I wonder at your powers of deduction," Gellert laughed.
The next day, Gellert had something else to wonder about.
...
Hadria knew it was bad to meddle with the Laws of Life, Death and Magic. Being the Master of Death did not exempt her from all of them. So she was extra careful whenever she experimented in Alchemy and the Dark Arts. But sometimes, things go wrong. And Hadria was pretty sure it was Chaos's doing.
Hadria was ten, or at least, her body was. Her soul was two hundred and ten years old, though she got a feeling that instead of a year being added each year, a couple of years was being subtracted off with each passing birthday, because she did not feel old, nor wise, nor calm and tranquil as she once did.
Well, to start from the 'beginning', she stopped aging after she turned hundred. So for another hundred years, she had looked somewhat old, with pale wrinkled skin and silver hair. Then she had died, and her soul's appearance took the form of her middle-aged self. And when she recovered her past life's memory, she felt like she was in her thirties. And after her tenth birthday, she felt like she was in her twenties.
Hadria wished she could asked Life and Time about this, but she highly doubted she would get a chance to talk to any familiars belonging to the two of them. Mostly because she couldn't speak the language of Phoenixes.
Back to the point, Hadria felt like a young adult trapped in the body of a ten-year-old... most of the time. Because sometimes, she didn't even have to act like she was only a child. Her body had its own ideas, and her physical brain influenced her mind and decision-making far more often than she liked it to. So when her physical body decided that when faced with something totally Wrong, creepy and out of control, she should panic and run screaming to her guardian, Hadria found herself swept along and caught up in the irrational behavior of a ten-year-old.
It was dusk when this whole thing occured. The sun had just set, and the sky was a rich navy blue. The moon was large and full, bathing the lantern-lit streets in silver. Children were milling about, dressed in costumes and going from door to door, asking for treats—a newer tradition due to the influence of Halloween. Hadria had been one of them, for a while, dressed as a black dog, or wolf pup.
It was fortunate for the Grinsens, that there were no one around when it happened, or mass obliviation would have been required. Gellert was inspecting a chamber tomb in an old Wizarding graveyard when she came tearing through the barrow, all black and furry, a litter of piglets running after her.
"Gerwald! Help! Don't just stand there!"
Gellert stared at the piglets. Pale pink, chubby and generally cute... If not for the fact that they had black eyes that glinted in the semi-dark and disproportionate bodies. It certainly said something when Gellert's first response was, "Aren't they your new pets?"
Evidently, he had gotten used to Hadria finding Dark creatures and keeping them. Hadria was not amused.
"What?"
"The Nogtails. Now why are you hiding behind me?"
"Those aren't Nogtails!" Hadria exclaimed, almost hysterically, her voice edging towards a higher pitch, much to her displeasure.
Gellert stared at the piglets, and realised that they were actually bone white—their pinkish hue were due to the red flames that he had lit the barrow with, their eyes were not narrow, but big and round with no whites. A few of them had lolling tongues that had a blue tint. One of them had a skeletal tail, and another had a missing leg. And the cool musty air in the tomb was getting steadily colder.
"Little Hydra, what... are they?"
"I don't know! There were three of them at first, then they multiplied!"
"How did you come across them and what do you mean by 'multiplied'?"
"Uh... I was experimenting with um... the stuff in the books you gave me. The one that was called Las Animas. They were originally stillborn piglets that Noh helped me to find. Anyway, I uh... left them in my room to join the other kids to get treats and then uh... they found me. I think uh... they might have uh... 'Turned' the other piglets."
Gellert made a sound that Hadria thought might be an excellent show of restraint. She knew that if she had been in his shoes, she would've been swearing like a sailor.
"What was involved in their creation?" Gellert demanded.
Hadria frowned in thought. "Uh... My blood? Four little finger bones from four hanged men, a raven's feather, nine wishbones from nine magpies, copal incense, a mandrake root, some verbena and dried Mexican marigold. And of course, the dead bodies of the piglets. And a spell incantation that goes like, um, daemon tlacatecolotl."
"Don't forget wearing necklaces and bracelets made of shells and dancing around the dead piglets like a headless chicken," chuckled Scáth, appearing from the shadows. Hadria glared at the Grim.
"I do not dance like a headless chicken!" she retorted. Then froze. "You were watching?"
"Yes," said Scáth lazily. "By the way, you just need to envelop them with your Patronus. That should 'exorcise' them. Next time, try using dogs or cats. Or even rabbits. Pig Dementors are just so unbecoming."
Hadria and Gellert stared at the Grim, and it was the former Dark Lord that reacted first.
"Pig Dementors?!" He whirled around to glare at the girl hiding behind him.
"It was an accident! I swear!" Hadria protested.
"You created Dementors by accident?!"
"I didn't actually expect that ritual to work! And besides, I didn't even complete it!"
"You left the ritual before completing it?! Do you know how dangerous that is?! Witches and wizards have died because they decided to abandon a Dark ritual like yours midway! And don't laugh, Scáth! You're a bad influence on her! I can't believe you're encouraging her to create more of those infernal Soul-Eaters! She's only ten! Hadria Jamie Potter Grinsen, you are not going to perform any ritual remotely Dark without my permission until you come of age, ever again! Do you hear me, young lady?! You're lucky Scáth seems fine with it! Otherwise you might as well be meddling in the Forbidden Arts!"
Hadria's wand was confiscated for a month after that.
((And Gellert didn't find out that she could perform wandless magic until the day she enchanted her peers in Egypt.
He had wanted her to try making friends with kids her age, and she had charmed them with her wild spirit and merry laughter, and Gellert saw the influence he had on her for the first time, for her behavior and mannerisms were similar to his when he was around... well, almost anyone except her.
He returned her wand to her after seeing her cast a Levitation Charm on some wooden boards wandlessly and silently, while introducing her new friends to the science-fiction-turned-reality of 'hoverboards'.
But Hadria later realised that she had impressed her new friends a little too well, and they had become adoring fans instead. She Obliviated them afterwards and decided not to interact with them ever again.
And Gellert despaired over her wonderful potential as a leader combined with her unfortunate dislike for fame.))
Side Notes:
(This is only partially canon. The other stuff are all made up by me according to my own interpretation of the Potterverse for the purpose of this fanfiction.)
Amortal - Spirits like the Grim, boggarts, lethifolds and poltergeists that are souls that naturally exist without a living body, and soulless creatures like Dementors that arise from the giving of a fresh corpse Death energy.
Immortal - Living creatures like Phoenixes that are blessed with Life magic and given Time's blessing.
Mortal - Living things that will die some day or another, either naturally or by being killed. Inclusive of the 'Living Dead'.
Postmortal - Souls that have departed the Living but refused Death, also known as ghosts, and spirits that have lost their physical bodies.
Transmortal - The Master of Death
That's all for now~! So how was it? Feel free to leave your questions, comments, review, and constructive criticisms if you have any. You may PM me as well and I'll reply asap to my best abilities. By the way, what do you guys think about the story's summary? I was wondering if it was good enough and whether I should change it.
Due to the fact that I'll be going overseas tomorrow, don't expect another chapter until late next week.
Now, for the guest reviews~
Emily (Guest): I'm glad you found it funny. Wasn't so sure how well I was doing in the humour department ^^" (Unless you were being sarcastic... Then... Whoops.)
Fuliminate (Guest): I am very flattered by your praise XD Thanks a lot for your review. It was one of those that made my day~!