PERILS OF MAGICAL INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
CHAPTER 2:
HEAVEN'S FEEL, BAD TOUCH
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose in ever-increasing frustration and annoyance. If he understood Luna and Medea correctly, he had just been dragged into a magical tournament not unlike the Tri-Wizard Tournament, only far more secretive, far more acrimonious, and far more lethal. Seven people, known as Masters, would summon seven famous figures from throughout myth and history, Heroic Spirits, to become their Servants, to do battles by proxy. As Masters provided their Servants with the energy to stay in existence, an unspoken rule was that killing the Master to defeat the Servant was allowed, even encouraged. All for the prize of the Holy Grail, an artifact that was supposed to grant the desires of the last Servant and Master left standing.
There were seven 'classes', one for each of the Servants. Sabers, the masters of swordplay, experts in close-range battle. Lancers, masters of using spears and polearms, fighting with alacrity from just out of arm's reach. Archers, masters of ranged weaponry, capable of annihilating enemies from afar. Riders, known for their vehicles or mounts, the fastest of the classes. Berserkers, insanely strong, and just plain insane, overwhelming enemies with sheer strength and tenacity. Assassins, known to use stealth and deception to target Masters especially.
And Casters, experts in magic, and capable of reshaping the landscape, so to speak, to gain a boost to their magic, as well as create magical items.
Now his wife was the Master of one of them. Which meant she was in danger. Well, they both were.
So, same shit, different day.
God, he wondered why he was Sorted into Gryffindor. Life and death situations tended to pall after the first couple of them. He sometimes wondered why he didn't try to work it out with Ginny instead of Luna.
Well, Luna had a good heart, first and foremost. Ginny did too, admittedly, and she was pretty. But Luna was also devastatingly intelligent (in a very lateral way), could make him laugh when he needed it, had a smoking hot body, and the sex was pretty wild. She was perpetually interesting too.
He just wished it didn't veer into the 'may you live in interesting times' curse territory. He'd had enough of interesting times during his time at Hogwarts.
After a moment, Harry said, "Leaving all that aside, given that you've conscripted us into a very lethal magical tournament that makes the Tri-Wizard Tournament look like a kid's soccer game by comparison…"
"I dunno, some of those games can get pretty vicious, even when kids are involved," Luna said.
"Before I was so rudely interrupted, I was about to point out that, if they target Masters, what's to stop them from targeting me to gain leverage over you?"
They were climbing the steps leading to a temple, Medea and Luna having explained things to Harry as they walked up there. Medea had decided she wanted to make the temple, sitting as it did on a number of leylines, her base of operations.
"That's a fair point," Medea said. "The best solution is for you to summon a Servant of your own. The source of your magic seems to be different to the Magi who usually fight in these wars, but to be frank, it's not incompatible. To tell the truth, I feel invigorated. I could probably use my Noble Phantasm more times than I normally could."
"Umm, I don't want to summon someone to fight and die on my behalf," Harry said.
"Harry, when Servants die, they return to the Throne of Heroes. That's where the Heroic Spirits reside when they're not fighting. Think of it as Valhalla meets HP Lovecraft," Luna said.
"…That's far from reassuring," Harry said.
The Ryuudou Temple, as the temple on the hill proved to be called, turned out to be surprisingly accommodating. Medea claimed that she had been mugged, only to be helped by Harry and Luna, and she needed somewhere to stay for the time being. As it turned out, the monks were distantly aware of magic, and one of them had heard of Harry Potter, so they went out of their way to be accommodating to the trio. A man called Souichirou Kuzuki, a rather stoic-looking character, also helped smooth things over, as he lived at the temple too, despite being no monk. Harry decided he was going to give the temple a huge donation for their troubles.
In the austere room assigned for them, they set up a summoning circle. Then, apparently out of nowhere, Luna provided a series of items, which Harry looked askance at. "We use those to summon a Servant," Harry said flatly.
"Yes," Luna said with a smile, though he didn't fail to notice her shooting a look at Medea, who seemed about to say something.
"…At least it isn't a rubber chicken and a whip, like last time," Harry muttered.
"Last time?" Medea asked, raising an azure eyebrow.
"I was trying unconventional methods to summon loa," Luna said carelessly. She handed Harry the items, including a printed page. Harry wondered briefly why she had a printout, before deciding, it was Luna. Whenever she heard the word 'impossible', she reached for the nearest dictionary(1).
After placing the items, holding a knife and a feather in his hands, Harry sighed, and then began. "I give you Coin I made from a stone. I give you a Song I stole from the dirt. I give you a Knife from under the hills, and a Stick that I stuck through a dead man's eye. I give you a Claw I ripped from a rat. I give you a Name, and the Name is lost." Harry pricked his wrist with the knife carefully, wincing, having flashbacks to the time when Pettigrew revived Voldemort with bone dust from Tom Riddle Senior, Pettigrew's own hand, and Harry's blood. "I give you the Blood from out of my vein, and a Feather I pulled from an angel's wing."
As Luna and, after a moment, Medea began chanting "Come," over and over again, Harry continued. He wasn't sure if he could stop. The ritual, wherever the hell Luna got it from, was taking over, the magic having the momentum all of its own. "I call you with names, oh my lord, oh my lord. I summon with poison and summon with pain. I open the way and open the gates. Come. I summon you in the name of the Old Lords. Namtar. Allatu. Morax. Naberius. Klesh. Vepar. Maymon. Ashema-Deva calls you. Maborym calls you. Horvendile calls you. From the dark they call you…into the dark they call you."
The circle in front of them flared with light, but Harry continued, even as he felt his hand, the one which had been etched into by the Blood Quill of Umbridge so long ago, flare with pain. "Coin and Song, Knife and Stick, Claw and Name, Blood and Feather. Here in the darkness, here in the darkness, here in the darkness, here in the darkness, here in the darkness…we summon you together. COME!"
One last flare of light, and, to Harry's complete and utter shock, someone was standing in the middle of the circle. Not something, not the writhing mass of tentacles and insanity he had been half-expecting in the back of his mind (he had the feeling that, if Cthulhu existed, Luna would summon him to interview him for The Quibbler). But it was a woman. And a very beautiful and buxom one at that.
She was dressed in a daringly-short black dress, with what seemed to be long gloves and stockings. She had long, violet hair, framing a beautiful, if somewhat stoic, face. Her forehead was marred by a strange occult symbol, while her eyes were covered by a sort of rigid blindfold, like a domino mask without eyeholes.
"Servant Rider has answered your…unconventional summons," the woman said, her soft voice having a faint, lyrical hiss to it, like a snake. "I ask of you, are you my master?"
"I guess I am," Harry said ruefully, looking down at his hand, at the Command Seals branded onto it. He didn't even realise what he had spoken in until Rider and Caster looked at him sharply.
"You speak the serpent tongue?" Rider asked, surprised.
"I'm a Parselmouth, if that's what you mean," Harry said. He initially thought that had gone away with Voldemort's Horcrux, but it turned out to remain. Luna had gotten him to have interviews with various snakes, some of which she published in The Quibbler.
"You never told me your husband was a Parselmouth," Medea remarked.
"It's a bit of a sensitive subject for him," Luna said.
Rider looked over at Medea and Luna, before turning to him with what was probably a confused look in her eyes, if they were visible. "Master?" she asked in English.
"Okay, a few ground rules," Harry said. "Firstly, no fighting each other unless we explicitly say so. Secondly, I'd prefer it if you call me by my name, and not Master. I am Harry Potter. This is my wife, Luna Lovegood."
Luna smiled winningly. "That's my Servant Caster, better known as Medea of Colchis, and…ooh. Harry, guess who you've got?"
"Umm…a blind Parselmouth?"
"Affinity with snakes, and I think that blindfold is for our protection. Ooh, Harry, you got Medusa! Am I right?" she asked Rider with a grin.
After a moment, Rider admitted, "Yes. I am Medusa."
Harry tilted his head, and frowned. "Huh. No snakes for hair…but that's a good thing. Wow, you weren't what I expected when I think of Medusa."
"I see," Medusa said in a rather neutral tone.
"That was a compliment. You're very beautiful."
A faint smile touched Medusa's features. Medea gave Harry a look, before he added, hastily, "I seem to be attracting a lot of beautiful women lately."
"Who knows, you may get a harem!" Luna said with a grin.
Noticing Medusa's confused look (an impressive feat, considering how much the blindfold obscured her eyes and part of her face), Harry said, "She's like that."
"Is she a Maenad, or perhaps an acolyte of Eris(2)?" Medusa asked.
"She tried that whole Dionysian frenzy thing as a fad shortly after we started dating. She decided to give it up because of the hangovers," Harry said.
"She seems like the perfect acolyte for Dionysus, or Eris. Or Zagreus, for that matter," Medea muttered.
After some persuasion from Harry, both Servants managed to change their appearance to something that, if they needed to walk around, they wouldn't draw comment. Much, anyway. Medea wore a surprisingly conservative dress that gave her an oddly maternal air, while Medusa wore trousers, a jumper, and her blindfold (named the Breaker Gorgon) was changed into a pair of glasses.
Seeing her eyes for the first time was a revelation. Instead of the ophidian orbs he expected, they were actually magenta, the pupils like a small rectangle. And surprisingly beautiful to boot.
As they sat down in their room, Harry frowned. "You know, one thing's bothering me. You said the Grail War takes place every sixty years, right? And yet, it's only been about ten since the last one. Now, by any arithmetic, that means the Grail War's happening about fifty years too early. So, what gives?"
Luna looked at Medusa and Medea, before she said, her face now solemn, "Uncle Zelretch told me something. Apparently the Grail is corrupted."
This seemed to provoke more shocked reactions from the two Servants than it did from Harry. Then again, a magical wish-granting artifact? That sounded too good to be true. "Explain yourself, now," Medea said.
"Well, he didn't tell me much," Luna said. "But what he did tell me painted a disturbing picture." And considering how serious she looked now, it had to be disturbing. "The previous Grail War was one of the most bloody, and the three surviving Masters were lucky to survive, by all accounts. I'm part-Homunculus, my mother being a defective Homunculus created by the von Einzberns. My aunt, for want of a better term, was married to Kiritsugu Emiya, better known as the Magus Killer. He was an infamous mercenary, a hitman if you will, working for the Magi authorities to clean up after rogue Magi. He fell in love with a von Einzbern Homunculus, my aunt, Irisviel, who was created to be the Lesser Grail."
"What's that?" Harry asked.
"The Lesser Grail is the vessel in which the spirits of the slain Servants are stored, temporarily," Medea said. "After a certain point, the von Einzberns turned the Lesser Grail into Homunculi, so that they could be mobile, defend themselves from any attempts to steal them and subvert the Grail War system."
"But…they're living thinking creatures," Harry said quietly.
Medea snorted in disdain. "Many Magi view everything as potential resources, means to an end. My first master, Altrum Galliasta, was like that. He kidnapped a multitude of people, mostly children, to use in obscene experiments that provided a pittance of results. A waste of life and resources. I killed him when I had the chance, freed his test subjects, and then destroyed his workshop."
Luna nodded. "The three families who founded the Grail Wars, and who are the most frequent participants, are amongst the most ruthless of Magi lines. The von Einzberns of Germany, the Makiris formerly of Russia, and the Tohsakas of Japan. Emiya eventually won the Grail with his Servant, Saber, who, according to Uncle Zelretch, was King Arthur. The two didn't get on well: he was a ruthless, pragmatic killer, and she was very much a chivalrous knight."
"Wait, she? King Arthur was a woman?" Harry demanded.
"Yep," Luna said with a small smile. "But Emiya, for some reason, destroyed the Grail. He forced Saber to do so, using his remaining Command Seals. Some thought it was out of revenge, as Irisviel had become the Grail, but Emiya knew about that. Others thought he was suborned by an unknown third party to spite the von Einzberns. Emiya was notoriously mercenary, after all. But Uncle Zelretch thinks that there may have been something actually wrong with the Grail itself, and Emiya wanted it destroyed to prevent some sort of disaster. Even so, the consequences were disastrous, to say the least. A massive fire broke out, killing hundreds. Emiya died five years ago of an unknown illness, despite trying and failing to retrieve his daughter by Irisviel. He has an adopted son called Shirou, whom he rescued from the fire caused by the Grail being destroyed. Both, Uncle Zelretch claimed, would get involved."
"…And now, we're involved," Harry muttered.
"Well, look at it this way Harry. I get to do an exposé, you get to do your saving people thing, think of it as a working holiday."
Medusa shot Harry a sympathetic look. Even Medea looked sympathetic. Harry sighed quietly to himself. No rest for the wicked, and even less for the virtuous…
CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS:
A cyber-cookie goes to anyone who knows where I got the faux-ritual chant from used to summon Rider.
In case you're wondering about Sakura, I've decided on her Servant: Assassin. Which one, of course, is another matter.
1. Luna (and her dark side) says this in my crossover with Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Puella Magi Luna Magica. It sums her up pretty well.
2. A Maenad was one of the followers of Dionysus, or Bacchus. Their most infamous role in Greek myth was tearing Orpheus into pieces. Eris is the goddess of discord.