New World Blues

by lisbeth00

Frustrated with work, furious at the Ministry, and fearful of commitment, Quinn Delilah Potter is listless and self-destructive. Thankfully, finding herself in another world is exactly the kind of fresh start she never wanted or asked for. The ocean is vast and full of mystery, and sailing alongside a bunch of maniacs as mad as her seems as good a way as any to see it all.

Chapter One | Think Before You Speak

Pen twirling between her fingers, Quinn sighed as she looked over the sheets of paperwork strewn out in front of her. With pursed lips, she bounced a fist off her desk, letting it drum out a steady, monotonous rhythm that fell just short of the ticking of her clock. The dull thud of flesh against wood droned on and on, and with every thump – each one growing more fervent, falling just short of bruising the sides of her hand – she felt her mind drifting further and further away. Every day the paperwork piled further, every day the slog of bureaucracy chipped at her soul and made her question for what must have been the thousandth time whether or not it was too late to make a change in careers.

It wasn't, of course. She was only twenty-two. Quinn could walk out the door right this second, throw down her proverbial badge, tell Robards to very kindly go fuck himself and curl up on the sofa at home with some chicken and chips. She wouldn't, but she could, and the thought on its own left her feeling just a little less tense. It unfortunately wasn't enough to quell the resentment that had been building within her for years. Resentment for the Ministry. Resentment for her friends. Resentment for the goddamn titles and pseudo-responsibilities that her superiors were painfully insistent on foisting upon her.

Quinn's voice was just loud enough for her to see when those who could make a change ignored her. To watch as their gaze flicked in her direction, that look – that fucking look – of pitying derision as they realized it was her who had spoken, yet again, with some daydreamer scheme to once and for all rout out the blood purity poison that ebbed from every pore of the Ministry. Kingsley was the worst offender, his voice immediately twisting into condescension, as if he were speaking to a child, as he listed out every reason he saw for kowtowing to the old purist guard. How he would explain in excruciating detail why exactly he had to find middle ground with the same people who had watched gleefully as muggleborn, half-mages, and all manner of undesirable were walked to their death at the hands of Voldemort's Ministry.

The fact alone that Lucius Malfoy still breathed free air made her blood curdle.

And that brought her back to resentment. Why Ron, why Hermione of all people had stood up for them simply because they'd defected… Quinn had almost set Grimmauld Place ablaze when she'd heard the news.

Things were never really the same for the three of them after that.

The two had announced their engagement just a few months ago in fact, at yet another tense dinner at the Weasley household. Quinn was happy for them, truly, but when she looked at her friends (and could she even call them that, when they hadn't spoken outside the Burrow in over a year?) all she could see was a pair of strangers wearing their skin like that of an ill-fitted suit. The row she and Hermione had the day after the trial was crushing, seven years of friendship up in flames in the span of a single hour. There would be no forgiveness from Quinn, not after the subsequent years in which Lucius did his best to stymie every effort towards rebuilding, and through it proved every single word Quinn had spoken that evening true.

Hermione and Ron believed in the Malfoy's retribution. That by defecting they had proved crucial to Voldemort's defeat. And while there was a sliver of truth to that idea, namely that Bellatrix had been driven mad(der) by her sister's disappearance, and half of the Death Eaters around her had gotten chunks shaved off them by her wayward curses, that was not the Malfoy family's intention.

All they had wanted to do was save their own skin, and even though Quinn could and had forgiven Draco to a degree – his penance obvious, and his every motion to right his own wrongs honest at its core – the same could not be said of his father. Narcissa was… aloof, and had scarcely been seen by the public since the trial. Rumour was she was seeking a divorce, the height of impropriety from an otherwise proper pure blood, and Quinn had no doubt in her mind that Narcissa, like the rest of her family, had grown tired of Lucius' charade.

Lucius. Lucius hadn't changed.

He and his friends, the few cronies that were distant enough from the war to only be labeled as sympathizers, and only provably adjacent to the Death Eaters and not directly involved… all of them had dedicated their freedom to undoing the post-war laws that had been written with blood and tears. Technicalities, technicalities, technicalities. It was only a bevy of legalese and circular wordplay that stood between them and a stint behind bars.

Now, they funded Lucius' political ambitions as the growing opposition to Kingsley's offensively milquetoast run as Minister. Oh, the first few years were excellent, it was the main reason why Quinn actually joined the Auror Corps. After that? Kingsley had been reduced from a soldier to a simpering politician, and Quinn hated him for it. She hated the man she once looked up to as a stalwart supporter of all she saw as right and just. She hated him for spitting in the face of the Order, the lot of whom had either grumbled ineffectually or continued to throw their total support behind him.

For some reason, when Quinn looked at Kingsley all she could see was Lavender's scarred face staring back. Turned werewolf during the battle at Hogwarts, she'd disappeared perhaps a year, maybe two afterwards.

When the anti-werewolf laws weren't struck down but instead compromised on for no other reason than Kingsley's hunger for a second term, Quinn knew she would never see her friend again. Last she heard Lavender had left for America. Or Canada? She wasn't one hundred percent certain which of the two, but Lavender had told her she was going somewhere with enough forest and untamed land for her to hide away until she felt confident enough to brave the world once more.

She never said she'd come back to Britain.

I hope she's happy, wherever she is, Quinn thought, scowling at the paperwork she had just remembered existed. Sighing, she got up from her desk and slunk over to the little break room connected to the Auror offices. Her wand twirled as she filled and set the kettle, foot tapping impatiently, a nervous energy filling her as if she could conjure up a cup of tea from sheer will alone.

"Potter."

"Robards," she intoned, choking back a huff of frustration.

He was a tall man. An imposing man, one made of tightly-wound muscle and no small amount of scars that littered their surface. The war had changed him, once a pencil pusher now turned fighter, and though Quinn respected his keen eye and quick wand, he stood behind Kingsley with single minded determination. That, she could not abide.

"Reports giving you trouble?" he drawled, jerking his head towards her desk.

"You know me. Always been more fond of field work than what comes after."

"Much as I agree, it's a part of the job."

Quinn did scoff at that, raising a brow at her superior. "Robards? Hating paperwork?"

"Just because I'm good at it doesn't mean I enjoy it." A thin smile crept over his face, the expression made fierce by the puckered gouge that ran from chin to cheek, carving through his lips along the way. It fell away just as quickly as it appeared, his brow settling into a frown. "Potter…"

"What?"

"Why are you still here?"

Her lips pulled against her teeth and she whirled on the man, glaring up at him. Quinn had never been tall, but Ginny had always said that made her all the more fierce. Something about putting too much person in such a small frame. "Robards, I'm warning you-"

"Easy, easy." He put both his hands up in mock surrender. "I'm not trying to be an ass. I'm just trying to say, well, you hate it here. The only time you ever relax is when you're out hunting some poor bastard who got too cocky to keep laying low."

Stunned, Quinn tried to wrangle up a reply, and her silence only caused Robards to click his tongue and glance away, giving her a moment to think. The consideration of the gesture made her blood boil, but she pushed it down, realizing that Robards was being truly, genuinely honest in his efforts to help, as clumsy as those efforts were.

"I don't… I honestly don't know." Biting her lip, Quinn then sighed, leaning against the counter. She watched as a slow trickle of steam poured from the kettle's spout, a quick flick of her wand turning down the heat. "Thought things would change, I guess. Thought I'd be able to do more if I stayed."

"Potter, you've done plenty enough already. For Merlin's sake, you were fighting a war the moment you were thrown into the world. S'only none of us knew." Patting his pocket, Robards realized where he was, chuckling embarrassedly. "Bad habits," he joked, bringing two fingers up to his mouth as if he were holding a cigarette. "Can't have an honest conversation without one."

"Bad habit everyone who works here's got, apparently."

"I blame myself for that."

Quinn nodded, more to herself than anything. Glancing back towards Robards, she chewed the inside of her cheek before speaking. "Think I should quit?"

"What. The smokes or the job?" He grinned. "I think y'should do whatever doesn't end in you dying at forty because of a heart attack."

Frowning, she tilted her head. "What's bringing this on?"

"You're a good Auror. Bloody good, especially for your age, but no one's too surprised by that all things considered. But you're not happy, you're fuckin' miserable here and even the Hit Wizards have noticed, bunch of goddamned glorified mercs."

"The hell am I supposed to do then?"

"I dunno'. Travel or something. You're barely out of school for fuck's sake. Could've gone and done a Mastery or seen the world and instead you're here, breaking your goddamn back for shit pay and a shit boss."

"Shit boss?"

"Never wanted to be Head Auror, but seeing as everyone I used to work with is either dead or retired there wasn't much choice now, was there?" Robards sighed, eyes locked to the ceiling. "You're feelin' trapped, but you're not quite there yet. Trust me, if anyone can recognize that look it's me. Besides, you've got too much personality to be just another face in an office."

For the first time since joining the corps, Quinn looked at Robards with respect. "Gimme' a few days," she said, shooting a quick, wincing glance behind her at her desk. "I'm gonna' go and… sleep on things."

"Take whatever time you need."

"Cheers."

Summoning her jacket, Quinn marched out of the office with both a skip in her step and a cloud over her head. A few of her coworkers shot curious glances her way before returning to their work, and she just barely managed to dodge Ron on the way out, too locked in conversation with his partner – Tannis – to notice her as they returned from an investigation. Thank god, she mused, in absolutely no mood to dance around the awkward, stilted conversation that always arose when she ran into Ron at work.

The halls were always packed in the DMLE, and she ducked in and out of the crowd on her way to the floo, instantly breathing easier once she'd muscled past the throng of milling bodies into the open, albeit subterranean courtyard. Her lips worked into a sneer at the sight of the fountain, the gaudy monstrosity a perfect example of everything she saw wrong with the Ministry. Quinn was half tempted to spit on the damned thing as she strode by but did her best to reign in her, admittedly, somewhat irrational anger.

She knew that her frustration had been building over the course of years, but wound tight as she was, Quinn was liable to burst at any given moment, and she had no interest in causing a scene. The Prophet would have a field day going through every sordid little detail it could get its hands on, not caring one way or another whether the truth was stretched near to the point of breaking.

Tearing her gaze away, Quinn made a bee-line for the floo, a pinch of powder already scattered across the open flames. "Grimmauld Place," she stated, stumbling through the neon flash of green and coming out the other side relatively unruffled. It had taken years to get accustomed to the floo, but Quinn had never quite gotten the hang of the whole 'walk in one place, end up another' bit of the whole ordeal. Dusting herself off, she immediately flopped onto the sofa in front of the fireplace and snatched up a book on runes that she'd found especially useful for work.

Work, work, work. That seemed to be all it came down to for her. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy the job itself. It felt good bringing in a snatcher who'd been on the run since '98, but then half the job would involve her having to do a thorough check when the obliviation squad inevitably fumbled a cleanup and good lord, she'd never get used to that kind of work. Finding some poor bastard who'd fled the scene confronted with the idea that magic was very real, and if it was and no one knew it was real, what did that mean for those who found out? Whichever unfortunate soul received a visit from her thought she'd come to kill them, kidnap them, or worse, and Quinn prayed that she'd never grow accustomed to that look of sheer, unadulterated terror in their eyes when she walked into their flat with her wand raised.

She'd worked with plenty who'd gotten used to it. A few who thought it funny, downright hilarious that in those last moments before obliviation the person on the other side of the door believed with every fibre of their being that they were about to die.

But runes… runes were useful. Runes were unbiased. Runes were vital for when she came across someone who truly did not want to be found, and had actually taken the necessary precautions to put a very unpredictable, violent barrier between them and herself. Quinn had become a veritable cursebreaker over the last half-decade, taking to the dismantling and creation of wards like a fish to water.

If it saved her skin at least once (and it had, on many an occasion) it was worth it.

"Love, is that you?"

Blinking, Quinn looked up from her book to spot Ginny as she came down the stairs. "Yeah, just got in. Got off early today."

Ginny, of course, grinned and made her way over, plopping down on the sofa next to Quinn and planting a kiss on her cheek. "Work go alright?"

"It was okay?" Quinn let out a small noise of confusion, a strange mix of a sigh and groan. "Robards told me I should quit."

That immediately set Ginny off, who planted her fists into the sofa and leaned forward, completely and utterly indignant. "What the hell?"

"It's not like that! It's more… well, I've been thinking the same thing for a while." Dog-earing the page, Quinn set her book aside and turned to face Ginny. "I fuckin' hate my job, Gin. I know we've talked about it but… god, there's nothing I can do at the Ministry to make a lick of change and it kills me."

"I know. I know." Ginny put a hand on her knee, the curve of her lips and squint of her eyes contemplative. "It's a big decision."

"I just can't keep doing this forever, you know? Another three, four years of it and I'm going to lose my mind."

"Did you say that to him?"

"I didn't need to. He said it to me." And hell, wasn't that a shock? "Honestly, I've never had a conversation with Robards actually last that long. The guy read me like a book, which – yeah – as annoying as he is, he's a fantastic auror, but I never thought I was that obvious about it." Quinn scratched the back of her head, an awkward tic that she'd never really shaken. "I think it was his way of trying to be nice. He actually seemed concerned. Said, and I quote, 'I don't wanna' see you have a heart attack at thirty.'"

"That's… nice of him?" Ginny looked as if she was still deciding whether she wanted to punch the man or not.

"It is, in his own, weird way. Much as I disagree with him, he seems to have his head on straight when it comes to all of us at the office. But he got me thinking… I've never been outside Britain except for work. I've never traveled, I've never even considered continuing school after Hogwarts…"

"So, you're thinking of traveling? Completing a mastery? I think they're both great ideas."

"You do?"

"Absolutely, love." Ginny smiled and leaned in, her hands on Quinn's shoulders. She kissed her, a slow, gentle press of the lips before Quinn heard a sharp intake of breath and felt those hands snake around her back. Warm breath stung her neck, and Quinn clenched her teeth, pulling back ever so slightly.

"Ginny…"

A quiet hiss, and Ginny pulled away. "Yeah, yeah."

"I'm sorry, I just-"

"No. Whatever, I get it." She got off the sofa, arms crossed and shoulders tense. "Just… for Merlin's sake Quinn, we haven't had sex in months. Is there something else you want to tell me?"

"What?"

"Is there someone else, Quinn?"

"What? No! Of course there isn't!"

"Then what the hell is going on? Because I don't know where we stand." Ginny gestured between the both of them, her jaw rigid. "You come home from work and you're tired. I get it. I know you hate your job. But then you don't want to go out on the weekends. You don't want to spend time with anyone. You cancel plans all the time. It doesn't even feel like we live together because for some reason, even though you hate your damn job, you come home after dinner almost every night!"

"I don't know what to say! I just- I don't know, Gin-"

"And not to mention Ron and Hermione! It's been four years, Quinn. Four bloody years. Are you going to get over this spat some day or is this going to go on forever?"

"They stood up for Malfoy! How the hell can I forgive that?"

"God. It's just you and your ego. They stood up for Malfoy. They both wanted to rebuild, and yeah, I disagree with them, but you're being a complete arse about it! Hell, Quinn, they're your friends. Ron is my brother, and Hermione is going to be my bloody sister soon too. Already is in my books."

"I have to deal with him every goddamn day. Do you have any idea what Lucius is up to with the Wizengamot?"

"No, and I don't care."

"You don't care. Hermione doesn't care. Ron doesn't care. No one cares. It feels like I'm going mad, having to watch every day as that man drags us back to before the war. Before the first war, and no one gives a shit!"

"They'll never let him-"

"They're letting him right now! As we speak, Lucius is with his little friends scheming up some new way to fuck us all over!"

"God damnit Quinn!" Ginny clenched a fist, pressing it to her mouth. "You know what, while we're at it, what about us? Fuck Lucius, I want to talk about us."

"What. What?"

"Ron and Hermione are getting married and we're just here, going about our day to day like we haven't been together for five, no, six bloody years. Six years, Quinn, and every time I bring it up you find a way to change the topic. You dance around it. Do you even want to get married? Do you even love me anymore?"

"Oh for god's sake Ginny, not this again."

"Not this again my arse! We're talking about this, and you're not getting out of it."

"We're not talking about-"

"Yes we are!"

Quinn stood, pacing, before whirling on Ginny. "You think I don't love you?"

"Seems like it!" She put up a finger, counting off them as she spoke. "We haven't shagged in months. We haven't made love in even longer. We don't go on dates. We don't meet with friends. We don't do anything except sit here, reading or listening to the radio or just fucking off and doing nothing and every time — every time I bring up the topic you find a way to weasel out of it!"

"I don't want to get married!" Quinn shouted, the room suddenly falling silent.

She bit her lip, tears prickling at her eyes. "I don't know what the fuck I want, who I am, or- or damn well anything. I'm just… I'm not even living. I'm just existing. It feels like all I am is the idea of a person. All my life I've just done what other people expected of me. You're a witch, Quinn. Go to this fancy school, Quinn. Play quidditch, Quinn. Don't speak up, take these classes, listen to your family, don't talk back. Oh, and you have to fight the man who killed your parents and half the fucking country, Quinn! Don't forget that!

"Kill him and then what? At the end of the day, nothing changed. We're left off the exact same as before he took power because of fuckers like Malfoy! Because people are too happy to sit back and watch as he keeps getting away with it, and Kingsley is there to simper and plead because it gets him the old crowd's votes!"

Quinn was panting at this point, so riled up that her face had turned stark red. Her hands opened and closed, unable to decide whether she wanted to clench them into fists tight enough to cut furrows across her palms or spread her fingers wide, straining them out of their sockets. "Fuck. Fuck." She swiped a hand across her brow, gritting her teeth. "God damnit."

"Quinn. Quinn? Quinn!" Ginny's shouts went unanswered as Quinn grabbed her jacket, marching out the door into the crisp spring air and slamming it shut behind her.

"Fuck," she hissed, pawing at her jacket pocket. She cursed again as she heard footsteps coming from behind the door, turning on the spot and disappearing with a crack. Quinn reappeared just outside Picadilly Circus. The sound of honking cabs, chatting tourists, and the constant mill of what felt like half of London puttering about the square met her ears, and Quinn sighed in relief as she drew a mangled pack of cigarettes from her jacket. "Fucking Robards. Fucking Gin."

A quick glance left and right, and with a snap of her fingers the smoke was lit and she was walking out of the alley. Quinn inhaled sharply, looking this way and that before deciding to just wander. She moved through the crowds like a ghost, a trail of smoke lingering in her wake. To her side, Quinn spotted a rat scrambling along the footpath, clinging to the buildings as it did. On a whim, she followed it, her keen eye easily keeping up with the streak of gray that dashed left and right, scurrying along with a frantic energy.

Puffing on her cigarette, a slow smile crept across her lips. The crowd seemed to part before her with every step, and those that didn't were dodged with ease. With no destination in mind the tension ebbed away, her mind grew clear, and ever so slightly her shoulders began to slacken. Walks had always made thinking come easier for her. Quinn could have been spotted pacing along the outskirts of the black lake in her fourth year, wrangling together some semblance of sanity while she prepared for an upcoming task, or simply tried to come to terms with yet another year spent fighting for her life.

Shining lights and old masonry soon gave way to the occasional smattering of brickwork and sweeping industrial facades. Still, she followed the rat, stubbing out her cigarette on the side of a building and vanishing it with a flick of the wrist. The creature didn't seem to mind her all that much, or perhaps it was so used to humans that it wouldn't have cared either way, but on and on it ran until finally taking a sharp right and disappearing down an alley, off in search of food or who knows what else. She sighed, watching the shadows swallow up the little thing, and turned around to find herself standing before the Ministry entrance. A simple red phone booth stood tucked into the corner, just beneath the shadowed awning of the building it was nestled against. A few people walked lazily down the footpath, another taking longer strides behind them, eventually overtaking the small group as he rushed off to do something presumably important.

Back to work, it seems.

Quinn marched across the street and entered the booth, tapping her wand against the dial. She huffed when nothing happened, slamming the phone against the receiver a few times and barking "Oh, get me out of here you piece of scrap," at the damned thing, "Just get me somewhere I can think," she added in a low whisper. As the words left her lips something beneath her feet clicked, thumped, and then she was slowly drawn into the earth. Right when she expected it to stop, the platform instead kept on moving. Confused, Quinn looked up and down, as if that could tell her anything about where she was being taken. All that met her eyes were the deep black bricks that made up the entire Ministry.

Down it went, and just as a panic began to arise in her the lift stopped, and Quinn nearly stumbled at the bottom. Confused and more than a little curious, she opened the doors and poked her head out to see a corridor she'd hoped a long time ago to forget.

The Department of Mysteries.

"Bloody Unspeakables," she uttered, wondering when in the hell they'd tampered with the entrance. It could have been yesterday, or it could have been decades ago for all she knew. Whatever it was, she was heading upstairs right this second to write them up. Jabbing one of the buttons on the lift, she paused when nothing happened. "Oh for-"

Quinn jabbed it again and again, eventually hammering the damned thing as quickly as she could. Still, nothing.

"Piss off. Seriously? Seriously?" she asked, to an audience of no one. Hopefully no one, she remedied. Quinn wouldn't put it past the bastards to have an eye on the corridor, whoever was tasked to it having a laugh at her expense.

She stepped out of the lift, taking in a deep breath before turning around to see-

"No."

The lift had gone and disappeared.

Where there should have been a folding brass gate or even that damned phone booth there was instead sheer black. Closing her eyes and counting to ten, Quinn opened them up with zero hope in her heart for the situation to have changed.

It did not.

Fuck it, I'll give them a piece of my mind instead, she thought, turning around and marching, furious, towards the only door in sight. Grabbing and twisting the handle with more force than necessary, Quinn threw the door wide as she shouted, "Croaker! What's going on with the bloody lift?" only to find herself not in the spinning room, as she'd long ago dubbed it, but instead one that filled her with both dread and a strange sense of anticipation.

An amphitheatre, wide and vast and empty bar the great stone arch that rested within its centre. The room was cold, unnaturally so, and she shivered both from the creeping of ice along her spine and the shiver of memory that had overtaken her. Quinn stared at the Veil, locked in stark remembrance of the sight of Sirius, wide eyed yet serene as he fell backwards, never to be seen again. Without her notice, her feet took her forward, stumbling like a newborn fawn towards the structure that had lingered in her nightmares for nigh on a decade.

Some part of Quinn expected it to look different, as though she'd see it in a new light or have come to understand its inner workings after so many years. Instead, it was as indomitable and sinister as ever, its chipped face marred with age and none else. She'd always wondered if it had been put here by someone or if the Ministry had instead sprung up around it, mages from all over the isles drawn in by whatever strange magics powered the artefact. Slowly, her hand crept up and pressed against the arch, another shiver running down her spine at the strange hum she felt beneath her fingertips.

It was aberrant, the Veil. Something timeless and well beyond the understanding of man. Its very existence in this chamber was a mark of their hubris, the need to conquer something unconquerable. The want to know what cannot be known.

Quinn closed her eyes and listened, wondering if she'd hear the whispers that once lingered in her ears. Instead she heard the almost silent flutter of the Veil as it was pushed by an impossible wind. That, and the dull, distant roar of the ocean. In a trance, she frowned, leaning towards the noise, as close as she dared. The sound of crashing waves grew louder, the bark of gunfire leaping overtop and punctuated by what sounded like the clang of steel.

It was… bizarre.

Suddenly, without warning, that impossible wind became a very real, very tangible thing as it swept her up from behind and sent her wide eyed, falling through the Veil. Quinn didn't say a word, didn't let out a single peep of terror as she was thrown headlong into the abyss. In fact, the slightest part of her felt relief as she shut her eyes and fell, down, down into nothingness. Wind whipped at her ears and just as suddenly as she had fallen, the burn of sunlight bled in through her eyelids.

She opened her eyes, looking out at the world with a frightened gasp.

Ocean, as far as she could see, a crystalline blue that curved over the horizon and felt far more vast and unerring than any ocean she had ever seen before. The sound of gunfire was still loud in her ears and Quinn looked down, only to see a fleet of ships. Honest, proper, made of wood ships.

"Sails?" she blurted, watching with fascination as great cracks echoed across the sea, followed by plumes of smoke that drifted off the sides of the ships. Cannons?

Her wand spun an intricate circle as she slowed her fall, drifting downward towards the largest ship she could see, one that – as she grew closer – she realized was much, much larger than anything she'd ever heard of or seen before. It was practically a fortress, its figurehead that of a snarling sabretooth tiger, its head raised to the sun.

Every cannon seemed to be aimed towards what looked like a speck, rolling over the sea waves. A tiny, miniscule thing that skirted around the barrage with almost lazy movements. Just as Quinn tried to squint and get a better look at it she felt a burst of magic explode outward, originating from the speck. At the same time, an almost invisible wave rocketed towards one of the nearby ships, the only sign it was there being the displacement of air and the slight shimmer of magic that followed it.

Her jaw fell open as the ship was cut in two, adrenaline coursing through her veins with a sudden jolt at the sight of it. Whoever, whatever did that was more powerful than anything she had ever come across, and the idea of anyone having that much power made her blood run cold.

Working quickly, Quinn cast a disillusionment charm on herself and aimed for the crow's nest of the largest ship. As she closed in she looked at the flag hanging from the mast and almost did a double-take at the jolly roger grinning across its surface.

"Pirates?"

She shook her head. Now wasn't the time to think, it was the time to act. And act she did, kicking a man (pirate?) screaming off the crow's nest as she swept in from above, immediately latching onto the mast. Quinn swung herself around it, downward, and pushed through an open hole in the bottom of the nest, taking hold of the rope ladder strung up beneath it and clambering down with her wand between her teeth.

Her heart was pounding in her ears, leaping at the sudden boom of another wave of cannonfire, men screaming below her. "He's coming for us! He's coming for us captain!"

"He's one man! Shoot him down or I'll have you keelhauled!"

A chorus of "Aye aye's!" rang out below her at the same moment she felt another pulse of magic. Quinn held her breath, turning to see a wave headed straight for her. Immediately, she let go of the ladder and dropped into a free fall, just barely holding back a scream as the wave carved through the side of the ship, through the mast she had just been hanging on, and off into the distance only to cut into the next ship as well.

Wand still between her teeth, Quinn threw a hand out in desperation as the deck swiftly approached, her free-fall interrupted by a burst of purely instinctual magic. Not stopping to catch her breath, she rolled onto her feet and looked left and right, choking back a shout of relief when she spotted a raft hanging off the side of the ship. Quinn sprinted for it without hesitation, shouldering through the panicked pirates in her way and leaping for the raft. Her wand back in hand, two cutting charms quickly relieved the raft from its post and sent her falling dozens of feet towards the sea.

It was just in time, as that strange magic pulsed for a third time and the fortress in front of her splintered, wood spraying from the massive gouge blown out of the stern, which moved to fill the gap and leaned forward. A hideous shriek rang out in the air before being swiftly cut off, the mizzenmast toppling over and sending pirates into the ocean around her.

One splashed into the water a foot away, and Quinn watched, numb, as the man scrambled onto the raft. She went to push him off when again, that magic echoed outward, and she felt more than saw a great wave follow in its wake. It nearly capsized the ship she'd just escaped from as it bucked, barely making it over the swell which continued to grow. A small noise leapt from Quinn's throat as the wave picked up her stolen raft and sent it speeding across the ocean, the great ship shrinking away. She held on for dear life, watching as the ship was reduced to a blot on the horizon until finally, blessedly, the wave petered out to nothing.

"What the hell, what the hell, what the hell," she muttered, lacing her fingers through her hair. "What the fuck!?"

"Who? What?" The man she was sharing a raft with spun around, looking in her direction and blinking dumbly at the sight of nothing. "More monsters?"

The disillusionment charm chose that moment to fail, and Quinn was stuck staring at the bruised and bleeding man before her. Like an idiot, the first words to come out of her mouth were, "Hi. I'm Quinn. Quinn Delilah Potter," followed by her sticking her hand out expecting the man to shake it.

He stared, dumbfounded, before gingerly taking her hand and giving it a wiggle. "I'm Gin."

---

I've had this little brain worm sitting in the back of my head for years. I'm not abandoning Méduse, but I feel like trying my hand at something other than horror, angst, and gratuitous bloodshed for the first time. Fun fact, I've been a die-hard fan of One Piece for much longer than I have Harry Potter. Pirates are cool, what can I say?