Obsidian Venue:
It had been several days since Druella had officially became head of the Black Family. She kept Bellatrix busy by giving her various tasks. After she had relocated all the werewolves, lamia, and snow elves to the pool house, Druella had tasked Bellatrix with training them into an effective fighting force.
Druella didn't stop Hydrus or Bellatrix from spending time together and nor did she want to, as long as the both of them knew that she was in charge. With Druella in charge, she resumed Hydrus's education. Only she didn't have the same paranoid jealousy her daughter did, and made sure Hydrus had access to some of the best tutors in the country.
Despite all of the new changes, Hydrus had become a bit more withdrawn and introspective. Both Bellatrix and Druella figured it was a side effect of the boy's psychic training. Learning occlumency did tend to make someone a bit more self-aware. But Hydrus's attitude had nothing to do with occlumency training.
It was because of a conversation he had had with Francis, the snake he took from Gaunt Garden.
Earlier:
Hydrus stood amidst the broken piles of training dummies with a scowl on his face. He was frustrated. His progress in learning dark magic had come to a complete standstill. Bellatrix assured him that it was due to his youth and that he would get better as he got older, but Hydrus didn't think so.
Dark magic was all about giving into powerful negative emotions to deliver harm or death on someone else. No matter how much he concentrated, he couldn't conjure the hatred or rage necessary for more advanced dark magic.
"Tsk, tsk, I didn't know my master was such a weakling." A voice hissed out. Hydrus turned to face his familiar, anger flashing in his eyes.
"Watch your mouth, Francis. I don't need this right now." Hydrus hissed back.
"Yes, you do. Why does IDA still exist? The group of people who murdered your father, kidnapped you, and is a constant threat to the safety of your family, and they're still alive. Yet here you are throwing a temper tantrum because you couldn't get a spell to work, instead of slaughtering your enemies. For someone who claims to love their family, you most certainly have failed your father." Francis replied, before he slithered away, too disgusted to be in Hydrus's presence.
Hydrus was left alone with his thoughts as he digested his familiar's words. He let out a sigh, still as frustrated as ever. Regardless if Francis was right or wrong, it didn't change the situation. He still couldn't manage to gather the hate necessary to continue down the path of the dark arts.
Were the dark arts the only path to power?
Hydrus shook his head. Magic was so versatile that there had to be another way. Dark magic required powerful negative emotions, and if he couldn't fight with his heart, then he would try with his mind.
"Reparo." He waved his wand and fixed the dummies. They surrounded him yet again, their wands at the ready. Hydrus focused on his occlumency, more than he had ever done before.
He blocked out everything. Closing his heart to all feelings, focusing on nothing but the duel. His eyes widened, his pupils became slitted, and blood dripped from his nose from his overuse of psychic magic.
The dummies fired their spells, all of which would cause moderate harm, and if they all hit him it could be really dangerous.
Before Hydrus could test his psychic abilities, the spells were all blocked by a barrier that appeared around him. His mother had appeared, and she looked cross.
Present:
After his stunt with the training dummies Hydrus had lost the privilege of practicing on his own and was required to be with an adult. Today he was with Amelia, who had moved in full time. When it came to learning or practicing, Amelia pushed him harder than anyone else.
Today was all about defense. Hydrus was learning how to quickly switch between different shields, and when to dodge.
"Protego Speculum!" His mirror shield reflected the bolts of magic Amelia sent his way, but not her impact curse which shattered the mirror and slammed into him. Hydrus was thrown onto his back and was left gasping as he had the wind knocked out of him.
He quickly turned to mist to avoid the follow up attack. Amelia had no qualms about attacking a downed opponent after all. Hydrus wasn't fast enough to reform his body and his misty form was scattered by a gust of wind.
It took a while for Hydrus to reform, and when he did he was left in incredible pain. Having his form separated like that, then having to forcibly will himself back together really hurt.
Seeing that he was finished, Amelia banished his clothes and positioned herself atop him. Without waiting for his permission Amelia began to earnestly ride him, not caring that he was still in pain or that she was doing more to hurt him than pleasure him.
Hydrus struggled, trying to get the woman off of him, but it was no use. Amelia was simply much stronger than he was. He could only lay there and grit his teeth, using occlumency to suppress the pain and humiliation.
Once Amelia finished making herself feel good, she stood and patted Hydrus on the cheek. "See you tomorrow, My Lord." She skipped away, leaving Hydrus on the floor, still in pain.
"That was just embarrassing. Not only did you lose, easily by the way, but you also let her rape you? Pathetic." Francis hissed, taunting his partner.
"Depulso Maxima." With a flick of his wand, Hydrus sent a massive wave of force in the direction of Francis's voice, banishing him. He sat up, lost in his thoughts.
He had lost, and easily at that. Was it possible that he was regressing?
"Damn it!" Hydrus exclaimed, punching the hard marble floor in frustration. Why? Why wasn't he getting better? He took a deep breath, getting angry was unproductive.
Hydrus was still convinced that occlumency was the key. He was on the edge of something amazing, he could feel it. Slowly getting to his feet, he raised his wand once more.
"Umbra Duplex." His shadow bubbled and frothed before it split away from him to create an exact replica of Hydrus.
Hydrus and Shadow-Hydrus raised their wands at each other. Hydrus, the original, closed his eyes and focused on his occlumency, pushing it as far as he could. He suppressed his feelings and pain and all other thoughts.
To Hydrus, at that moment, the rest of the world didn't exist. The only thing that was real, that was tangible, was the fight.
"Psychic Art: Clear Mind!" Hydrus intoned, initiating the start of the fight. The boy and his copy dueled and the difference between the two was immediately apparent.
The shadow was like a wild animal, snarling out spells as fast as it could, all while circling Hydrus, looking for an opportunity to get in close to land a killing blow. Hydrus flowed like water as effortlessly parried all the incoming attacks, pivoting to keep an eye on his doppelgänger.
Eventually, the shadow got so frustrated by its lack of progress that it decided to go for broke.
"Confringo Spiralis!" Three sizzling jets of orange light sped towards Hydrus, coming from three different angles. One came down center, one from the right, and one from the left.
Thanks to his Clear Mind, Hydrus knew that he had no hope of dodging, and due to the speed, he also knew that he didn't have enough time to cast a proper shield. Confringo Spiralis was one of his best offensive spells.
Hydrus did the only thing he could do. Reinforce his body with Moon Magic and hope to tank the explosion.
BOOM!
The three Confringo spells slammed into his body and set off a fiery explosion that caused the whole room to shake. Shadow-Hydrus tried peering through the flames to get a look at his opponent when it happened.
Suddenly the shadow was the one in the fire and Hydrus was on the outside looking in. His robe had been reduced to cinders and he had some bad burns on his torso and arms.
His Moon magic strategy had halfway worked. It had reinforced his body to the point where he could take three simultaneous explosions, but since it had been his own magic, he wasn't able to absorb it. Still, a simple switching spell to swap him and the clone was enough to finish the job.
Suddenly the door burst open and in came Bellatrix, Druella, and Amelia.
"Aqua Eructo!" Druella cast, sending a dense sphere of water towards the flames. Hydrus, still in Clear Mind, couldn't recognize them, and perceived the water sphere as an attack against him.
"Aeroga!" He cast, sending a gale force wind that dispersed the ball of water and staggered the three women, who weren't expecting Hydrus to cast at them.
"Umbra Polybus Locomota!" Thick shadowy tendrils sprouted around Hydrus, moving, and swaying as if they had a mind of their own.
"Hydrus stop! It's me, mummy!" Bellatrix cried out, fending off a tendril that was trying to pierce her neck.
"Ebublio!" Amelia cast, trying to contain the boy. "Farore!" He countered, wrapping himself up in wind that shredded the bubble barrier.
"What the fuck?" Amelia said, stunned. It was the first time she had seen the containment spell fail.
"Tonitrius Continua." A steady stream of lighting flowed from Druella's wand. Hydrus recalled his shadow tendrils, using them to keep himself safe.
"Impactus Maxima!" Druella ducked the high-powered bludgeoning curse with a surprised look on her face. That had been really close. If she had been half a second slower, that curse would've caved her face in.
The three women were at a loss. They didn't know how to restrain the out-of-control boy without seriously hurting him. As Amelia raised her wand, ready to do what Bellatrix and Druella couldn't, the problem solved itself. The shadow tendrils that made up Hydrus's autonomous defense faded, and the boy collapsed like a sack of bricks.
Amelia suppressed the flames while Bellatrix and Druella rushed towards the down boy. While Druella did her best to heal the burns, Bellatrix ran diagnostics.
"What the hell? I'm getting readings that he had a seizure!" Bellatrix exclaimed, tears in her eyes as she started to lose it.
"Hold it together! Put some clothes on him and get to the hospital!" Amelia said harshly, snapping Bellatrix out of her shock. The vampire conjured a blanket that covered the boy's modesty and disapparated.
Rome:
"Why are we here again?" Antonin asked. Sirius sighed in annoyance. "We're here to convince Contessa Zabini to join our coalition and secede from the ICW to start a world war. And do some light reconnaissance on the underworld IDA base here." He explained yet again.
"We should split up. I'll talk to Contessa, bust out the heavy artillery, see if you can use Zephyr to get a rough schematic of that base." Antonin suggested. Sirius nodded and the two split.
Sirius wandered the streets of Rome, subtly looking for a way underground. Once he found an opening, he could send Zephyr to scout. "Have you found anything?" He asked the spirit.
"Yeah, and it's nothing good. I spread out over the entire city and I overheard something that may be problematic. IDA is studying something called nuclear fission. They're trying to create something big." Zephyr said with worry in his voice.
Sirius sighed. "Fucking hell! It never stops huh? Alright, new plan, we're destroying that base. None of that research can be allowed to continue. The underground base is massive so I'm going to need your help. We need to merge again."
"Cool! I love going all-natural disaster mode! Let's wait for Antonin's report first." Sirius nodded and found a nice shady spot to sit down and wait.
With the Italian Minister:
"Lucius sure does have a lot of nerve. I expected him to come personally, not send a lackey. The answer remains the same, until I meet the Young Master personally, Italy will not risk war with the ICW." Said Contessa.
Antonin held back a sigh. He had gone into the meeting wearing an Eye of God in hopes of swaying her into making the decision to make the new coalition official. Contessa and her cabinet had been exposed to an Eye, but she had remained adamant about meeting the Young Master.
"If that's your answer, so be it, but when IDA is knocking down your front door, you'll only have yourself to blame." Antonin warned. Contessa shooed him out, ignoring his warning. He felt a mall gust of wind at the back of his neck, letting him know that Sirius was waiting for him.
He followed the guiding wind back to Sirius who looked grim. "Judging by the look on your face I guess we both have bad news." Antonin greeted.
"Yeah. I'm guessing you couldn't get Contessa's help. But that was always going to be a bit of a long shot without showing her the base. Speaking of, I'm going to use the Spirit Dive again. This whole base needs to go." Sirius replied.
"Why? There could be something useful in there that we could bring back so that way this whole operation wasn't a complete waste of time." Antonin said, puzzled. Sirius shook his head, however.
"I'll explain later, preferably under multi-layered privacy wards, but the destruction of these bases is now our top priority until the ICW convention." Sirius reaffirmed.
"Fine. Do as you must, perhaps a giant tornado in the heart of the city will change her mind." Antonin said spitefully. The other man nodded before he dematerialized into gusts of wind.
Deep Within the Department of Mysteries:
Hydrus awoke rather suddenly. As he opened his eyes he was confused by the sight before him. He was watching himself duel with his shadow. The scene was everywhere he looked, and it replayed over and over again.
It was like within this space, nothing else existed. Hydrus felt an odd sense of peace, however. There was nothing else here except the fight. Within this strange space everything felt so clear and still. There was only one singular purpose within this space. So, Hydrus watched over and over again, going through the same motions, losing himself within the clarity.
In the outside world Bellatrix and the others waited with impatience as the Unspeakables ran tests. Whatever Hydrus had done to himself was beyond Saint Mungo's ability to heal.
"Our tests came back; we have some results we'd like to share with you." Said Augustus Rookwood, the Voice of the Unspeakables. He handed everyone a Manila folder containing various x-ray photos.
"If you take a close look at the photos I gave you, you'll find a picture of his soul, and more importantly his Synchronicity Waves, those being the mind, body, and magic frequencies the soul radiates that makes up a person's magical signature." Rookwood explained.
"We can see that his mind wave suddenly spiked really high which threw off his regular wave output. His magic wave spiked to compensate and it's here that we can observe something really interesting. You see, Synchronicity Waves go off in set frequencies, therefore they don't ever touch but the Young Master's did. His mind waves and magic waves touch for the briefest of moments and created a new form of energy. Something my boys are calling the Space Force." Rookwood continued with his explanation.
"This is where things get sort of wonky. We ran a brain scan and found what should be impossible. Using the energy of the Space Force, the Young Master somehow managed to infinitely fold space to create a strange sort of pocket dimension where only a single isolated event occurred. We think he was able to draw upon the rules of that dimension, which allowed him to cast magic without intent, something that shouldn't be possible by the way, and that messed up his body waves."
"All in all, his soul went haywire and is currently unstable. Nothing we've tried has worked and if he remains in this state much longer the Young Master may become prone to Random Magical Effect Overload. No one's ever survived RMEO." Rookwood finished.
Bellatrix bit her lip hard enough to draw blood as she tried to fight off the wave of panic and anxiety that threatened to destroy her. RMEO was nothing to fuck with. A random magical effect happening at a random moment was a wizard's worst nightmare. To her knowledge the longest someone had ever lived after being diagnosed with RMEO was six hours before their heart just vanished itself, killing the patient immediately.
"What about his soulmate? Would being in close proximity help stabilize the Synchronicity Waves?" Bellatrix asked, her leg bouncing. Rookwood blinked in surprise.
"Yes, that could work, his soul would resonate with theirs and stabilize, but the chances of finding someone that matches his soul signature before it's too late is impossible." Rookwood said.
Bellatrix stood abruptly, snapping her fingers and ordering Amelia to follow her.
Obsidian Venue:
Bellatrix and Amelia found Orchid in the servant's quarters, fully transformed and terrorizing the other servants. Amelia whistled, catching the werewolf's attention before she had to dodge out of the way from a destructive moon blast.
"That won't work. The bitch only listens to Hydrus!" Bellatrix said as she repeatedly tried to restrain the monster. She succeeded by utilizing her vampiric grasp to hold Orchid in place before pinning her to the wall with conjured shackles. Bellatrix blasted her with bolts of moon magic, sapping the beast's strength and causing Orchid to lose her transformation.
The depowered Orchid growled and bared her fangs, clearly unhappy to see Bellatrix or Amelia. "Use your legilimency to fix her psyche. The last thing I want is for my Hydrus to sync his mind wave with hers while she's like this." Bellatrix ordered.
"That may take some time, werewolves naturally resist psychic magic." Amelia tried explaining. Bellatrix backhanded her slave to the floor in frustration.
"We don't have time! Fix her and do it quickly!" She screeched, stomping on Amelia as she did so. Amelia got off the floor and stared deep into Orchid's eyes, rebuilding the broken woman's mental state.
Bellatrix paced in irritation and anxiety. She was doing her best to keep it together, but Nebula was starting to awaken. Thanks to Druella, she had lost her psychic link with Hydrus, and now due to his Synchronicity Waves being thrown off, Bellatrix couldn't even sense him anymore. The lack of connections was making her unstable.
She summoned one of the women Orchid had been scaring and punched the servant in the face. Bellatrix continued her assault, beating the woman to death as her skull cracked and her brains oozed out of ears. Bellatrix repeated the process again and again, trying to satiate her bloodlust as she waited for Amelia to finish.
Bellatrix snarled as she ran out of things to kill. Amelia still wasn't done reconstructing Orchid's mind and now she had no outlet for her to vent. Her pupils became slitted and her hands became more claw-like as Nebula started to emerge.
Just as Bellatrix started to lose herself, Amelia withdrew from Orchid's mind. "Mistress, it's finished!" She exclaimed. Before either of them could react, however, Orchid blasted the both of them with moon magic that she shot from her mouth, draining them of a substantial amount of magic.
Orchid flexed and the shackles that were pinning her to the wall broke. She raised her fist, imbuing it with Sun magic as she advanced on Amelia. She was stopped as Bellatrix used her grasp to hold Orchid in place once more.
"There's no time for this! Hydrus could die at any moment and you're the only one who could save him." Bellatrix growled out, trying to hold back Orchid's immense strength as well as trying to keep herself under control.
Orchid glared at her with hate in her eyes. "If you want my help then you have to swear an Unbreakable Vow. Swear that you'll never attempt to mess with my mind ever again or I'll kill myself and you'll lose Hydrus forever."
"Fine, whatever! Amelia, act as our binder." Bellatrix said, not thinking clearly. Amelia sighed as the two clasped forearms. "Bellatrix Black, do you swear to never use magic to influence the mind of Orchid Parkinson?"
"I swear."
"Orchid Parkinson, do you swear to protect and serve your master even at the cost of your life and to never raise a hand to the Black Family."
"I swear."
"Now that that's out the way, we need to get going." Amelia reminded. She conjured some robes for Orchid and magicked them onto her.
Department of Mysteries:
The three women arrived back at the Department of Mysteries in a hurry, but it looked like it was already too late.
"His body wave is spiking! At this rate his molecular structure will be compromised!" An Unspeakable shouted over the commotion. Various magical instruments spun, beeped, and glowed as the Unspeakables tried to keep the boy stable.
Orchid strode forward with purpose, molding a massive amount of her magic as she did so. "Move over!" She commanded the Unspeakable that was trying to stop her from getting closer.
She placed a single kiss on the boy's forehead and the instruments that had been going crazy and making so much noise came to a still.
"His waves are stabilizing! How remarkable." Rookwood said. "I want to keep him here overnight, just for observation purposes. Miss Parkinson, for the sake of his stability and until further notice, you cannot be further than twenty meters away." He instructed. Orchid nodded with a smirk on her face.
"You don't have to worry about that, Augustus. What I want to know is how did he manage to manipulate his Synchronicity Waves? That's supposed to be forbidden magical theory." She pondered.
While Rookwood told Orchid what happened, Bellatrix and Druella were at Hydrus's side having their own private discussion.
"Do you remember the last time he transformed? When Sirius came back. He mentioned the Space Force then, didn't he? Do you think he was trying to tap into that energy subconsciously?" Druella speculated.
"I don't know, and I don't care. What I do know is that he gave that failure a task and even a part of his magic in Zephyr and Sirius has yet to produce any results. And don't talk to me so casually, I still hate you." Bellatrix said, snappish. Today had been a very long day and her nerves were still on the fritz from Nebula almost emerging.
She ignored Druella as the other woman continued to talk in favor of stroking her son's face. Bellatrix was lost in thought as she wondered what to do next. It was time she and Hydrus learned to manipulate ambient magic. Thankfully they already had a teacher in Bruma. Well, Hydrus had a teacher. Bruma ignored any orders given to her unless it came straight from Hydrus's mouth, and she was strong enough that trying to force her into submission would be more effort than it was worth.
Bellatrix would wait until her son had a better understanding of how to use ambient magic before she asked him to teach her. While she was waiting, Bellatrix would do what Sirius couldn't. She would find Dumbledore's wand and she knew the best place to start looking.
By tracking down Aberforth.
That would mean she would be separated from her son for a while, and Bellatrix didn't know how long she could go without Nebula forcing her way to the forefront. Perhaps if she took Zephyr from Sirius, she could bypass her dependency on Hydrus's presence.
Bellatrix continued to touch her son as her plans started to come together.