AN: There were individuals who requested: Trigger Warning! - Non-graphic death of children
Harry groaned as he came to. Waking up after an ambush was not something he ever enjoyed, he knew this from experience. He had barely opened his eyes before someone slapped his cheek causing his head to slam into the stone behind him. Harry fought to keep himself standing instead of slumping into ropes he was bound in.
"Quiet Scarhead!" hissed a voice that Harry knew from years of conflict in Hogwarts. It was shortly followed by a voice he dreaded hearing even more.
"Malfoy! Contain yourself! He's secured," The voice was cutting in its admonition. "Cast the silencing spell and leave us," That voice, the one Harry had spent years fleeing and trying, in vain, to be free of. Pansy Parkinson. Or rather, Pansy Potter, he silently lamented as he tried to bring his focus back to the land of the living. The dark faction, through its backroom dealings, had forced halfblood heirs, like Harry, into betrothals with unwed pureblood ladies. Harry had found out after returning from a trip with Luna looking for…some creature, in Canada.
"Seven years Harry," Pansy's voice switched from jagged edges to velvet as she purred to him. That switch and her attention now focused on him sent a chill down his back. Pansy's face took up his vision and, for a moment, her eyes softened before her moment of weakness was pushed deep down and she whispered to him excitedly, "Seven is a powerful number in magic and rituals you know? You avoided getting me pregnant for seven years…" Pansy's lips gently caressed his ear and her hand gently, lovingly traced over his chest and up his neck until she squeezed her fingers around it and Harry's involuntary cough was smothered under her lips. Harry struggled to get away from her but the ropes he was bound in held him tight enough that all he was able to do was turn his head which Pansy let him do as she pulled her lips away from him.
Pansy released his neck and gently pushed some of his sweat matted hair out of his eyes as he continued to glare at his shoulder until he was able to push down his feelings of shame. Harry used his moment of freedom from Pansy's attention to look around in a quick canvas of the area.
His blood ran cold when he realized the post he was tied to was at the base of the Veil of Death.
Pansy only allowed him that brief moment before she desired for his attention and she had always been good at getting attention. She pulled her body flush with his, the bindings ignored by her as she hummed in delight at the feel of him against her skin. Feather lightly she placed kisses along his jaw before laying her head on his chest under his chin and sighed contentedly one hand playing with the collar of his shirt. "But I'm pregnant now," she whispered as she took the moment to breathe in his despair at her words. Harry tried to focus and in the moment he heard a shuffling behind him and craned his neck to look over his shoulder.
He wasn't alone apparently. Ron and Hermione, all of the Weasleys, Neville, Luna, Andromeda, Teddy, Minerva, Hagrid, people who supported him, loved him, dozens of them tied up and kneeling around the raised platform of the Veil. Members of the Dark Faction were milling about them sneering down and speaking words Harry couldn't hear.
"Oh darling," Pansy cooed from his chest, "don't you worry about them. We know how you can wiggle out of situations. So, take heart, there won't be any playing with your friends." Pansy's dainty hands gripped at his jaw and pulled his head around to face her. Her nails dug deeply into his flesh as she spoke to him. Without breaking eye contact with him she spoke over his shoulder, "Nott, start sending them through."
And they were sent through. Pansy's words were like the Queen's command that each member of the Dark Faction followed to the letter. A funeral dirge of frog marched men, women, and children paraded past Harry's post. For each and every person grabbed and hauled to their feet their silencing charm was removed so that Harry could be subject to his or her wails of despair or cries for mercy. Some denounced their support of Harry Potter, called for swears of fealty to their captors, others were staunchly silent. As mass executions went it was likely the most honorable that the Dark Faction had allowed in living memory.
Through it all Harry struggled with his bindings trying to do anything. Watching Teddy be dragged off to the Veil all the while calling for Harry, calling for his daddy, to save him; Harry's poise finally snapped and in his desperation to reach and protect his little boy Harry's magic began to uncoil and awaken under his skin. The post he was tied to shook for a moment before Pansy gasped in surprised delight and pulled herself closer to him. Just as suddenly as her motion ended, his magic became inert. It was frothing angrily just as his emotions were as he struggled but his magic far beyond his reach and for the first time since leaving the Dursley's, Harry felt impotent and powerless. He was afraid.
Pansy though, she shuddered in pleasure and provided him the answer to his panic over his magic. As Pansy glared at Luna Lovegood as she was marched past and forced through the Veil of Death, Pansy spoke, "It's the baby, my darling," she tittered with manic glee, finally having the blonde tramp finally out of her way. Pansy clung to Harry's bound frame, the magic churning under his skin and the absolute look of helpless fury on his face making her weak at the knees. "It's another reason we had to wait to do this you see," Pansy moaned as she ran her fingers along Harry's bound arms and traced the throbbing veins in his neck, her eyes dilating as she stared at his surging blood. She continued in a breathy whisper, "I needed to be pregnant to keep you shackled, beloved. Our wedding was binding with old oaths to prevent the father from harming his children." Pansy's breathing was labored and she moaned and desperately kissed his lips continuing to speak between her kisses. Harry was revolted and horrified at the words spilling from her lips to pull away from her attention. "I'm the strongest binding chain around your neck that even you can't break darling. Even the savior of the wizarding world can't break bindings meant to protect their own offspring. Isn't it delicious, beloved? All my planning, all my work, years in the making have brought us here…"
With a grunt a petrification spell washed over his body from behind and Harry went rigid. Pansy's hands deftly worked around the bonds holding him to the post as she made sure to keep her body in contact with him. During her talk the final members had been marched past and forced through the Veil. Two sets of hands grabbed him from behind and dragged him towards the Veil of Death, Pansy keeping her hand on his chest the whole time with a delighted smile on her face. The group turned so Harry's back was to the Veil and his emerald eyes were boring into Pansy's with the deepest loathing. Harry idly wondered if he hated her more than he hated Tom Riddle. With a jerk he was stopped from being thrown into the Veil all because of Pansy's lifted hand to indicate ceasing of actions. The men holding his arms tightened their grip on him but did nothing else as Pansy leaned in once more and heatedly kissed him with a final wet smacking sound, Pansy's dilated and crazed eyes met his.
"I have everything my Darling. I have your name, your influence in the Wizengamot, your money, your heritage for my baby, your fame, and after today I'll have the pleasure of being your widow. But most importantly, I have your baby…" Pansy's giggle was slowly developing into a much more demure version of Bellatrix's cackle. "Don't worry Harry, I'll tell your story. You protected me from your 'friends' who turned on you when your wife was finally able to conceive. I'll make you the greatest hero to the Dark. I love you." She raised her wand in her other hand and placed it in the center of his chest and took one last moment to drink in the view of her husband before she spoke the final two words that she'd ever say to him again, "Finite Incantatem."
As the petrification spell dissolved and he was shoved back into the Veil, Pansy's fingers stretched with his body until the Veil of Death pulled him out of her reach and consumed the life that was Harry James Potter.
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Harry fell backwards and as soon as he felt his body free from whatever Pansy had done to him he twisted to get his feet underneath him. Unfortunately Pansy Potter had planned very well her removal of the powerful wizard that was Harry Potter. Harry stumbled at the edge of the dais that the Veil of Death stood on and Harry fell backwards down the steps onto his back. Harry's body dumped adrenaline through his body and for a moment all Harry could grasp was the thought about how even being thrown into the Veil of Death would result in him popping out the other side instead.
However, the near complete silence finally caught his attention and quickly Harry rolled over onto his stomach and lifted himself to his knees as he leaned back to look up at the red tinged sky above him. He was outside instead of deep underground London in the Department of Mysteries. Instead of stone walls and some kind of amphitheater Harry now sat at the base of an… altar of sorts that had a veil archway raised above the surrounding landscape. It was late evening judging from the red sunlight that was filtering through to him and the air felt heavy and most like a fog was swirling just beyond his sight. The trees, if Harry could even call them by such a name, looked more like bones resting on the ground and ivy crawling across the landscape.
Then Harry's mind snapped back to the events just before his own trip through the Veil. "No…" As he spoke the despair and rage found his suddenly empty heart and bore down into it.
The darkness around him laughed as it fed Harry's fury. As Harry took a breath and the feeling of all of his loss curled around him, he dropped to his hands and knees and roared. His pain lashed out at the world and his magic, finally free from Pansy's manipulations, answered. Underneath his body the ground was compressed from the sheer density of his outpouring of magical energy given form through his pain. Invisible arcs of will reached out and tore into the flesh of the world. Great gouges tore into the stone, breaking the landscape, depressing or raising the earth based on their proximity to the tendrils of magic that Harry was venting into the world. As Harry staggered to his feet, he turned to the Veil of Death, intent to leap through and tear his oppressors apart with his fingers and his teeth. However Harry's dark emotions pulled more energy from the world than he was used to and his Magic had torn the dais and the veil's arch into malformed slabs of stone.
"No… Merlin Why? Why am I here? Why couldn't I just die?!" Cursing his luck and his fate, Harry raged as he grasped at his hair and lifted his head towards the unmerciful heavens and screamed.
Harry's mind was assaulted like a dementor was pulling on it. He could hear Teddy's wails, hear the fear and pleading of his daddy to protect him. Harry saw Bill and Fleur, their daughters all crying and being forced through the Veil as Bill tried to get free to save them. Fleur's stunned body was thrown through after Bill was banished into it.
"No…" Harry gasped in horror as he remembered the little girl with silver hair. "I'm so sorry. Vicky. Oh Merlin, I'm so sorry…" Harry staggered under the sudden despair. He dropped his chin to his chest and gave the first of many soul cleaving sobs. In response, his magic stuttered and then pulsed from him in another wave of distorted energy atomizing everything in his immediate vicinity. A second wave followed which continued until it touched the bone trees they twisted and grew in response to Harry's darkness. The once rib-like protrusions grew thorns and began to seep a crimson sap. The fog seemed drawn in and its oppressive weight seemed to bear down on Harry and force its way into his heart, the dark red sky began weeping tears down on Harry.
"Why is everything I love taken away? What did I do?" Harry asked the red mist as he thought of Hemione's little boy that had been thrown into the Veil and Ron struggled like a dragon to reach his babies. Hemione's wails echoed inside his mind. Her eyes lost their light as Ron was forced through.
But it was those drops of water that snapped Harry from his grief and rage. Suddenly empty Harry slumped from his feet to his knees as his hands flopped bonelessly at his sides as his empty eyes stared up into the sky. Each drop washed down his face felt like a tear from someone thrown through the Veil. Finding himself in a depression in the stone he drunkenly looked around and staggered towards a lip to pull himself out of it as the water began to fill up the bowl Harry had left.
Absently Harry felt around his body. In a daze he noted that his wand and holster were still on his person. He felt the strings of his mokeskin pouch as well. Harry was still in tan trousers, dragonhide boots, and black t-shirt that he was wearing when he had arrived at home. His armor was gone but he could get it back or find someone selling some more before he ran his campaign to kill all of the Dark Faction when he got back to Britain. Gathering onto that thought Harry seemed to become slightly more clear headed and snapped his wand into his hand.
With a deep breath, while internally cursing his life, muttered, "Point me: civilization." His wand spun in his hand and stopped when pointing away from his chest, nearly completely the other direction from the veil archway. Harry turned to look back to where the Veil of Death had stood.
With a sob and a whisper Harry addressed the now shattered archway, "I'm sorry this happened to you." Harry bowed his head and after a twist of the knife in his heart Harry seemed to close over the gaping wound and turned towards the indicated civilization.
As his footsteps faded a stone from the archway flickered with pale green light as it suddenly teetered on the edge of another stone and then fell into the bowl that Harry had left. The rain filled the depression and covered the stone. Hours later the green light brightened and then faded in a brief build up and flash. Afterwards into the stillness of the abandoned execution dais, a tall pale figure in crimson robes stepped from the perfectly still water. A deep survey of the torn and twisted landscape caused a delighted and calculating smile to grace the lips of the figure. The woman glowed with the same green light before she faded into the mists, poison green motes of light pulling away from her figure as she laid her eyes on the shattered archway. The woman's black painted lips curled into smirk as a plan formed at the edges of her sharp mind, the young male walking towards the mountains in the distance at the heart of her machinations.
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Harry was sitting beneath a tree with bulbous orange fruit, seeking shelter from the sun for a few moments.
This bloody place was like the Amazon Rainforest on some hallucinogenic drugs! There were creatures the size of giants looking like a bloated bear that had a bad run in with sulphuric acid! Harry had taken one look at the beast before he grabbed for his invisibility cloak and swung that family boon so quickly over his shoulders you'd think he'd been doing it for years (he had but that wasn't the point). Quickly casting scent concealing and sound dampening charms on himself he resumed walking but gave the beast a wide berth. As much as he'd like to vent his still seething anger onto the beast he didn't want to deal with learning anything about it. Luna would have wanted to study it. Harry sighed to himself and felt the agony of watching her and everyone getting pushed into the Veil lance into his heart again.
Minutes after that first encounter Harry stumbled upon something vaguely resembling an octopus, if an octopus had rows of teeth like a shark, moved on land and pulled anything resembling decaying flesh into its maw. It smelled… Harry shuddered as remembered things from his home that he'd rather have ingested bleach to forget… it smelled really bad. The vile thing had not seemed fooled by his cloak and one of its grasping tentacles pulled at his leg once it found him. Harry reacted instinctively but with much more ferocity than he normally would have. He snapped his wand forward and cut through the tentacle grabbing his leg. As the thing squealed, Harry pulled off the cloak and stuffed it into his mokeskin pouch
"I don't know how you found me under this, but you picked the wrong day to try to eat me…" Harry snarled. His wand snapped up and his need to hurt something echoed into the world as Harry snarled a spell. From the tip of his wand came white cackling electric energy that slammed into the beast. As it writhed, Harry's face twisted into a snarl and he stepped forward raising his free hand to incant piercing hexes. From his palm these hexes pierced the rubbery flesh again and again. Long after the beast had stopped moving and the scent of burning flesh met his nose did Harry finally stop. It hadn't screamed enough to quell the rage in his chest.
"Weak…" Harry spat. He was disgusted, with himself or with the creature, and so he turned from the corpse and trudged on until he found the tree he was currently seated under.
Frustrated Harry decided a further inventory of his pouch was long overdue. He fumbled blindly for a moment in the mokeskin pouch and remembered that he had, at Hermione's urging, added a notepad with a total inventory and a pen to help track what he had. Bottled water, rations of dried and packaged foods, emergency potions, additional changes of clothes…but not his tent! Harry groaned as he remembered leaving the thing with Neville as he asked to borrow it a few weeks before Harry's adventure through the Veil. Shit. That was going to make sleeping safely a lot more difficult. Harry ran his hands through his hair and pulled out a water bottle and absently marked one 'used' on his inventory sheet. Something dark continued to press in on Harry's mind and he was in no state to fathom what it was. Not Voldemort…maybe. Snarling he mentally smacked at the presence and stood to his feet.
Harry recast his directional spell and nodded to himself as he confirmed the direction. He was mostly still heading the correct direction, he had drifted off course a little bit but with the two creatures he had come across he felt it was a good idea to have avoided one of them and only gotten a little off course. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand Harry tossed the now empty bottle back in his bag. He was still near a body of water that seemed to flow like a river and cut through the landscape. The red persistent haze seemed to hang in the air over everything in the area and made the sun almost crimson in color. Harry had assumed due to the colors in the sky it was evening but he was wrong, it had only just become light and now, after hours of trudging along the sun was sitting high overhead and bearing down on the land below it.
"It's like being in 'Honey I Shrunk the Kids' but trying to navigate a bloody rose bush in perpetual twilight," Harry sighed and shook his head as his thoughts drifted. Pulling his focus together Harry tucked his inventory board back into the mokeskin pouch and set off to the edge of the forest that ran for some distance of a hundred of kilometers, maybe less. He froze as he thought that a broom would make this trip easy. All the prep work he did and he forgot to put a bloody broom in his pouch for emergencies. When she found him, Hermione was going to kill him.
Harry's body locked up and the seething anger flash boiled into a helpless rage. Harry slumped back against the tree and slid to sit back on the ground. Some time later Harry was still sitting underneath the bulbous fruits with his head in his hands and tears leaking from his fingers.
Having wasted more time than he had available for the task of a breakdown, Harry climbed once more back to his feet and, cursing his life in the magical community, he walked quickly to the edge of the forest and entered its depths.
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Despite the lack of leaves or other coverage that was floral, Harry was concerned about the lack of light within the forest he was walking through. The constant red tinge was starting to grate on his sensibilities. He was NOT thinking about the fact that he was sure a bunch of the things he'd seen so far were certainly alien. Harry certainly WASN'T thinking that he might not be on Earth anymore. Because if he did that, he might lose his last grip on his calm and break down…or explode…again. Neither sounded particularly pleasant at the moment.
Instead of any of that, Harry was trudging along, listening to the sounds in the forest trying to figure out where on Earth he could be. But, he supposed, he would much rather think about aliens than he'd willingly recollect seeing his whole life marched through the Veil of Death.
Since entering the 'Forest of Clawed Fingers', which Harry had named it in an attempt to lighten his mood, Harry felt much less alone than earlier in the day. Normally Harry would welcome such a feeling, however, since he was devoid of any company, pleasant or otherwise, 'feeling' accompanied was not a good sign. The longer he plodded along towards the mountain, the more tightly wound Harry became.
"Shit," Harry breathed out as he stumbled on the thought that something was watching him. Something was hunting him. Harry Potter was no one's prey but not being able to identify an immediate threat meant that either his hunter was sentient and very intelligent or very well adapted.
As Harry scanned the briar again there was a gentle chitter to his left and Harry instinctively brought up his arm. Lucky war reflexes saved him from grievous injury because in that moment a black arachnid leapt from the ground from the shadow of a trunk. The beast's fangs bit down through Harry's flesh and its mandibles attempted to tear a piece of him away.
Cursing from the pain and being caught by surprise despite everything Hermione had taught him, Harry snapped his wand into his hand and cast a cutting curse through the damn bug that was biting and clawing at him. Unlike the arcomantula that just - BLOODY DIE! - these spiders - FUCKING BURN! - since their blood is apparently acid! A now very pissed off Harry quickly flicked his wand around and incanted a fire whip. Hearing the spider-he-cut-in-half's friends Harry stepped to the side and flicked his wand over and cut a quick three figure eights that caused the whip to lash large circles cutting through at least four more spiders. Seeing movement to his right side Harry snarled and stepping to the left flicked his wand in the opposite direction and the flames bisected the final spider vertically leaving the black spider to flop to the ground in two pieces.
As soon as he was able to canvas the area with his eyes, and the adrenaline spike finished flooding his system, Harry cursed the beard of England's most renowned sorcerer. He stumbled sideways as the pain in his left arm spiked when he jostled the venom and acid, allowing it to find fresh tissues to attack. Desperately fumbling for his pouch, he staggered close to another tree that contained the orange bulbous fruit and heavily fell back against the trunk of the plant. The pain flashed across his mind like a hot knife and his fumbling fingers unconsciously left the pouch to grasp at his injury. That was a mistake as now his right hand was burning with the same acid that had sunk into the flesh on his left arm and Harry swore in annoyance and cursed himself yet again.
In that moment of exasperation he felt a faint call. Harry felt his attention drawn to the nearest fruit near his side. It was… a plant useful to potions for antivenom. Grunting at the very strange recognition Harry put off thinking about the 'where' that knowledge came from and very quickly grabbed the fruit and squeezed the juices over his arm. The heavy nectar and juices washed the acid burn away and the deep burn in his arm lessened noticeably. Nodding almost deliriously with relief, Harry worked his fingers into the fruit and then pressed the juices into the torn skin where the spider had bitten him trying to push the nectar deeper into the injury. Harry dropped the now pulverized fruit in his hand and grasped for a second fruit and tore at the fruit like a starving dog. Delightful flavors caressed his tongue and a sweet, thick juice filled his mouth. Harry greedily chewed and swallowed the fruit and sucked at the meat of it to get more of the relieving nectar.
After a few more bites, Harry's vision began to swim and, although his body no longer hurt and his arm no longer burned, his legs gradually lost their ability to hold him upright. Harry slid down the trunk of the tree and his eyes blinked heavily. Trying to fight through the sensations Harry's head rolled from shoulder to shoulder until the action made him nauseous. Afraid to close his eyes, but unable to muster the strength to keep them open, Harry let them droop as he slumped against the tree and moaned pitifully. The ghosts of all of his friends and family flitted around his senses in the darkness of the forest. Harry could just barely hear them in the shadows. Harry was sure he saw Luna's golden hair in between the trees for a brief moment.
It was this vision that made Harry panic and with a surge of will Harry gained control of his body. A laugh, low but feminine, caught his attention. He was sure he was drugged so now he was really pissed with those damn spiders. Flicking his eyes around, Harry tried to force himself back to his feet as his blurry vision searched for the source of the laughter.
"My, what a curious specimen you are," said a voice, heavy with authority. Harry turned his body to the right and did his best to hide his wand arm behind his body as he faced a feminine figure wreathed in Avada Kedavra green. For a moment he thought it was Voldemort in drag, and that would've been enough to make Harry cut out his eyes, but the white skin was painted with black over the eyes and around the lips making an artistic mockery of a human skull. The woman reached out towards him, her long fingers tipped in nails that resembled claws. Harry flinched back from her reach and, despite his unsteady feet, backed away from her and the tree, keeping his body bladed and his wand arm behind him and out of her view.
His first words were only a slurred hiss from his lips trying to ask who she was. At his words the woman smiled and sat down next to the fruit tree and gestured to the ground where Harry had been slumped minutes ago. "Please, join me. I can see the Brula fruit's nectar has your senses in a vice. I mean you no harm," the woman said and proceeded to do nothing but smile and wait for Harry to decide what to do. Harry himself was shaking trying to keep himself upright with the nectar of the Brula fruit in his system. Finally giving in knowing that he was unlikely to escape since he couldn't run, and knew that apparition in this state was a terrible idea he stepped back to the tree and slid himself to the ground next to the woman and sat leaning against it his face turned to her warily.
Harry cleared his throat and tightened his occlumency before trying to speak again, "Who are you?" he asked slowly as he tried not to slur the words a second time. The woman placed her hands in her lap and smiled disarmingly at Harry before she placed her fingers on her chest just below her throat.
"In life my name was Mother Talzin. I was the leader of a tribe of my sisters and our leaders were the 'Mothers'. Now I am a memory looking after the last of our daughters. Call me Talzin. What do you call yourself male?" Talzin offered her name and asked for his but Harry was stuck on her opening, 'in life'?
"Harry," he said distractedly, "In life? You're dead?" He managed to ask before his body violently spasmed and he forcibly swallowed the moan from the action. Talzin smiled in response and nodded.
"Yes, Harry. Years ago invaders came to the planet and killed the Nightsisters," she said sadly, her voice carrying an undertone that seemed to reverberate in the world around them. "I felt you arrive through the archway and the power that brought you here allowed me to peek out past the spirit world." Harry nodded absently as he heard her.
"Sounds like magic to me," he murmured as he tried to fortify his very loose occlumency so that he could think clearer from the effects of the fruit and could get some information about civilization and… this planet? This time Harry allowed himself to groan and palmed his face with his left hand. "This isn't Earth? You're not a tribe of warrior women in the Amazon or something?" He asked pleadingly, yet already knowing at least part of the answer.
Talzin laughed lightly but with restrained amusement and shook her head, "No Harry. There is nothing called the Amazon here on Dathomir. Wherever you came from the archway brought you here, not to a place on your own planet."
"And here I was hoping," he hissed as his body clenched again and gently let out his breath before being cut off by Talzin.
"Harry, you mentioned magic. Are you a sorcerer?" She asked and due to his inability to focus due to the Brula fruit missed the glint of excitement in her eyes. Harry nodded and waved his hand back in the direction of the archway.
"Was a whole civilization of us back in my…world," Harry tasted the word in its new context and found it was a bitter experience. He continued, "Wizards we called the men and witches were the women. Never called anyone a 'sorcerer' except in governmental roles I think."
Talzin broke the silence growing between them, "Harry," she continued once she had his attention, "the Nightsisters were witches. We drew our power from the magicks of the planet." Talzin let Harry think on that a moment before she ever so gently leaned forward and locked his gaze to her own before she spoke again, "Would you tell me a little about your magicks?" Harry opened his mouth to retort but Talzin held up her hand to stop him before she continued, "I don't mean to offer you nothing in return, I could journey with you as long as the spirit world allows me outside of its grasp and help you understand more about Dathomir. What is exceptionally dangerous, which plants can make elixirs, which make poisons, how to survive out here in the wilds until you reach someone who can help you further."
Harry was unsure. If she was a spirit like she claimed, they generally meant what they said but others were mischievous, like Peeves. But he realized that unless she was able to create a new body like Voldemort did or possess him, Talzin was unable to do anything too terrible to him. It sounded like she was likely persisting off his entrance to the planet rather than existing as a Horcrux or something similar. She had said the Nightsisters were witches but had been wiped out years ago. It seemed relatively harmless, all things considered. Unless he planned to be very lucky, which he seemed to exist as both incredibly lucky and incredibly unlucky, he'd need help figuring out the planet long enough to attempt to repair the arch and the Veil of Death.
Harry nodded to Talzin and her smile grew as she thanked him. Harry nodded again and then felt he should warn her, "I was more of a practical user of magic rather than a scholar. Some of my knowledge will be limited to the theory taught in our school rather than deep understanding. Just so you know that I won't be able to regale you with theory on most of what I know."
"Wonderful!" Telzin exclaimed and she gathered herself quickly before she placed both her hands back in her lap. "Rest here for the time Harry. I'll stay with you and if anything comes I'll wake you. The symptoms of the Brula nectar are diluted in elixirs but you needed the neutralizing and cleansing properties and I tried to nudge your attention to them."
Harry opened his eyes and fixed Talzin with a glare as he tried to study her. The woman only gave Harry a caring smile and a soft gaze in return. He sighed and made himself comfortable against the tree trusting the spirit to continue at her word…for now. "Thank you, then. I'm glad you did… whatever it is you did," Harry politely thanked her.
Talzin nodded and gently hummed a soft tune that a Nightsister would recognize as one of their spell incantations. Harry however allowed the soft sounds to lull his muddled mind finally into the realm of dreams, and blissfully free of the memories from the Department of Mysteries.
Talzin's smile turned victorious and showed her teeth as she closed her eyes and reached across the galaxy to one of her youngest daughters.
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Merrin sat in her bunk seeking the comfort of her mothers and sisters when the talisman on her chest pulsed as Mother Talzin's voice gently whispered to her. "Dathomir…return…magicks…"
Merrin stood and walked to the cockpit of the Stinger Mantis and to the pilot Dritus. "I need you to take me back to Dathomir once Cal returns," Merrin told the small four armed alien.
Dritus's lips thinned, a rather interesting look considering how much lip the creature had, "Not to be rude or nothing, but why?"
Merrin tilted her head as she considered the pilot and owner of the Stinger Mantis. "I forgot my sacrificial dagger at home and need to retrieve it in case it is needed for future rituals," she responded in her matter of fact tone.
Having gotten used to some of her attempts at humor, Dritus just shrugged his four shoulders. He made a note to adjust their course and began the trip to Dathomir once Cal returned. They had nothing else on the agenda and if the little witch wanted to be back on her home and off his ship he'd not miss her… too much.