Hydrus took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped down his forehead. The desert sun beat down on him and the other Triwizard Champions like it had something to prove, and thus far it had made its point spectacularly. If it weren't for the mossy sponge root he'd eaten earlier he might've even passed out from dehydration.
On his shoulder was a small sprite that would allow the crowd to watch everything he did. He wasn't sure how they worked or who made them, but he was at least glad that he would be able to show off what he was capable of. It glowed with what was either a very faint blue light, or a very bright one that was being drowned out by the sun.
"Hello, hello, hello, everyone!" Bagman's voice echoed from the artificial creature. "Are you ready for the third trial?!" The cheer that came was quiet and muffled, probably because it came through the same charm that shared Bagman's voice with them. "Then let's get started!"
"He is as bad as Copperfork," Krum grumbled. "Worthless fuck."
Hydrus vaguely remembered the old, now contemporary, quidditch commentator. "Tell me about it."
"First up, with a ten minute advantage, will be the Hogwarts' Prodigy, Hydrus Black!" There was a loud cheer. "Three! Two…! One! Begin!"
The other two champions stared at him as he refused to move, perhaps wondering or hoping he was delaying to give a fair start, but instead he drew his wand and began casting cooling charms on himself. He hadn't used the Black family magic to his advantage much, but the way the spells didn't even begin to scratch the surface of his reserves was a relief. The power was closely aligned with the coldness of death, and it lent itself well to the working. Before too long it was like he was standing in an air conditioned room rather than the Sahara desert.
"Right, off I go." With one last flick of his wand he solidified a long trail of stone from the sand. "See you two when I see you."
He knew he was wasting time by not rushing towards the castle, but it wouldn't matter. Although he wasn't sure how the floors would fit all the challenges he read about, he was certain it would be a long ride, probably taking him most of the day to complete. When he distantly heard another blast of fireworks, he knew Fleur would be hot on his tail and so vanished away the path he'd created behind him.
Before too much longer, and before another bout of fireworks had gone off, he reached the castle-like tomb. Or more specifically, he'd reached a moat around the incongruous building. The tomb itself stood at least a dozen stories taller than him, and he winced just thinking about touching one of its black bricks; the things must've been hotter than coals with how they'd absorb the sun's heat. If it weren't for the fact that the tournament organisers had made it very clear this was a tomb, it definitely would've seemed more like a fortress or a prison than a gravesite.
As he stepped up toward the moat's edge, the water began to shift. From its depths a gargantuan shark-like head sprouted, then much more terrifyingly came an upper body like that of a crocodile's. The being must've been twice the size of Francis and it breached the surface like a whale before its two reptilian arms slammed into the ground, launching waves of sand in their wake and forcing Hydrus to cover his eyes. When he was sure it was safe to look, he pulled his hand back and admired the eel-like body that the taniwha's torso bled into.
Taniwha were one of those rare sorts of species that lived on the boundary between mortals and gods. They were local deities to the native people of New Zealand, and the fact that one of them had decided to come along for this 'game' was the most surprising thing Hydrus found in the file Bellatrix had retrieved for him. His forces had never shacked up in the island nation, but the goat-worshipping Quinn had told many a disastrous tale about them.
"You shall not pass." The taniwha's voice sounded like the almost-grinding song of waves crashing against the hulls of ships. "This is my promise."
"I'll make you a better deal," Hydrus offered, using advice from the mad wizard he'd once written off as worthless. "If you allow me to pass…" He conjured up a bridge, careful not to allow any of the planks and supports to dip into the water. "I shall owe you one favour. At any time you wish, you may summon me to grant a favour. I have great sway with humans, am a powerful wizard, and will do whatever you wish one time."
He made sure to emphasise the singular nature of his offer. Not only would it properly cement the agreement's details, but it would incidentally show how much he believed that one favour to be worth. The taniwha growled back at him for a moment, mulling it over, then nodded.
"Very well." It began to sink back into the waters. "I shall call upon you."
With the singular most threatening obstacle in the trial out of the way, Hydrus breathed a sigh of relief. He'd been prepared to barter and auction off his time to the being, but it seemed he'd done a fine enough job at making just one favour worth enough for the divine beast to allow him to pass. He crossed the bridge, and prepared for the second obstacle of the third trial.
Just getting into the damn place.
There were no doors, no secret passageways, nothing that would allow you to get inside the tomb's boundaries. The walls were all but indestructible, something that Hydrus had doubted until he read that not only had Bill Weasley tried to do so, but he'd been 'fired' from the job because he refused to give up. Hydrus knew the man's talents and wanton love for demolition, so hearing he'd failed to even put a scratch on their surface was as much of a guarantee as he could trust.
With a breath to prepare himself, he began to transfigure the sand around him into a series of stairs all along the side of the wall. He moved beside and in time with the rapidly ascending steps. It was better to stay close to the initial material source for his working even as he had to raise it higher and higher. When he reached the corner of the tomb he'd only gotten to around half way up, so he turned and kept going, grateful that the loose sand was easy to move into place unlike the more solid earth he usually practised Dumbledore's style of transfiguration with.
The old man's methods required an understanding of the subject he'd yet to begin to grasp. Most transfigurations used a relatively simple, oftentimes subconscious, process. You recognised an object, you truly understood the object, and then you turned it on its proverbial head. Everyone knows what a matchstick is; you might not know what tree its wood came from or the chemical components involved in its incendiary tip, but you got it. And since you got it, you knew where you were starting from, and you just needed to figure out where you were going.
The process from there was as simple as moving your wand, speaking the words, and visualising a needle. The wandwork and verbalization were what drew the path from point A to point B, and visualisation helped the spell recognize where it was going. What Dumbledore did, and what Hydrus had yet to even fathom, was seemingly transfiguring the entire earth itself into what he needed. Since he wasn't at that level his process involved lifting the sand and shaping it roughly into the right position, then transfiguring just that into solid stone.
Once he was certain his staircase would hold, he made his way back to the start and began to climb.
The trek was a bit tiring, but the cooling charms helped keep it from being too miserable. After getting to the top he dropped down onto the ceiling behind the battlements of the castle-like tomb and looked around for a trap-door entrance. Seeing nothing, he sighed and cast another spell to disillusion the area. Slowly, a few bricks faded away into wooden slats. He flung it open with a flick of his wand and dropped down with a nearly too-late cushioning charm.
When he landed, his heart began to drop. He'd wondered how on earth they had managed to fit everything in the dossier inside of what seemed to be a relatively small castle. His first guess had been that it went deeper into the earth than should've been possible with the sandy base. As he cast his gaze around the room, and realised the space had to have been exactly as wide as it looked on the outside, the singular door in the centre of each wall told him what he should've expected to begin with.
The tomb was bigger on the inside than the outside.
"Change of plans," he mumbled. "Let's at least check what we got though."
As soon as they'd told the champions that their performances would be broadcast to spectators, Hydrus had decided to provide a running commentary towards what he was doing. What better way to get the crowd, and the various important and impressionable people who made it up, to remember his talents than to spell it out for them?
He pushed open the door directly across from where he'd been facing, then rejected it when he saw a seemingly innocuous, empty hall that had to go on for at least a mile. There were countless doors on both sides, and even a few on the floor and ceiling.
"Nope," he said. "Too obvious."
Next he went to the door to the right, and found it pitch dark. Not just dark, completely blacked out. Hydrus pushed his hand through, and that too fell away from sight. "Nope."
Behind him was a hall that looked as bland as the one opposite of it, but at least there was the distinct smell of hay and animals that warned him of what was to come that way, so he marked it as a maybe and moved towards the last.
Just as he was about to open the last door, Fleur dropped down from the ceiling.
The quarter-veela straightened up and brushed herself off before raising an eyebrow at him. "What are you still doing here? I saw you get to the top a while ago."
'Damn eagle-eyes,' he thought. "I'm an idiot who didn't expect this place to be bigger on the inside than the outside. You wanna team up?"
She blinked at him. "Excuse me?"
"I was planning to blow through the floors in a single day," Hydrus said. "There wasn't much ground to cover. Now that I'm realising this is going to take a while, I'll need someone, or better yet someones, to look over me while I sleep."
"Wait," Fleur said. "You think we're going to be here for days?"
The dossier had suggested it, and had a specific section of creatures and traps dedicated to striking when they slept. Hydrus had scoffed at the notion since nowhere in the blasted thing did it say that the castle was expanded beyond its external walls. Magic preserve him, he really was an idiot. Just the other day his own Dumbledore had warned him to better plan for things, and here he was fucking it up all over again.
"I'm certain of it," he said. "If you don't want to, that's fine; just don't expect a congenial Hydrus to greet you when you finally escape this place after him."
His new third-trial plans had him spending the next four days in the tomb, three if Fleur and Krum joined hands with him.
He'd gone longer without sleep, but his soldiers hadn't much cared for it or him when he had.
"What about when w—"
She was cut off by the arrival of Krum, who swooped through the hole in the ceiling on his broom like a rocket. He pulled up at the last second, and Hydrus swallowed the small flare of jealousy at how easily the teen could control a broom compared to his own crippled self. It did bring a begrudging pride to see that his competitor had come up with a similar solution to this trial that Hydrus had for the first in his past timeline.
The quidditch star, still hovering on his Firebolt, looked down at them with a cocked brow. "Ambush?"
"Yep," Hydrus lied with a cheeky grin. "Lucky for you it's just a verbal one. You wanna team up for this trial? We can sort out the winner when we get to the end."
"No." Krum landed. "I will win on my own."
Without allowing the Black scion to make another offer, he stormed towards the empty hall that had been the first one Hydrus checked. With a sigh at the younger man's cavalier attitude, he turned back to Fleur. "I hope you're not stupid enough to reject my offer. Or at least smart enough to not go down that hall."
He wasn't sure what it was about that side, but something about how 'innocent' it was set his teeth on edge.
"Very well," she said. Hydrus grinned. "On one condition."
He frowned. "What would that be?"
"Caecus." Fleur had twirled and spiralled her wand at the sprite hovering over her shoulder, and it dimmed. "I want to talk to you about the Rassemblement Massif."
Hydrus mimicked her wand movement. "Caecus. What about it?"
When they'd been given the magical 'cameras', they'd also been given a spell for privacy in case they needed to go to the restroom or some such thing. Hydrus was annoyed at how much smoother it worked compared to the ramshackle and hobbled-together spell he'd created to blind and deafen portraits, but he couldn't let that stop him from using it.
"What really happened between you and the goblins?" Fleur demanded. "Why did they attack you?"
"Do we have time for this?" Hydrus asked. "We're literally in the middle of—"
"If you want my help." Fleur folded her arms in front of her. "Then you need to tell me. Besides, if you're really that afraid of that hall, then we don't have to worry about Krum."
"I'm not scared…" he mumbled and lied. "It was because I worship Magic. The goblins who support Death, including British Gringotts' president, attacked me. I, Bella, and my familiar killed them all." That reminded him of something. "I really need to get around to collecting reparations for that, I've allowed them to stew long enough."
The quarter-veela stiffened, but nodded. "And zis 'Bella', she is your aunt, non? The Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor 'ere at 'ogwarts?"
Hydrus blinked at how thick her accent had gotten. "Yes to the latter, sort-of to the former. She's my father's cousin, not sister. She's also my fiancee in all but title."
"I see."
It was strange how well he could read the 'woman'. Her eyes were pointed away from him; not just staring somewhere else, but very purposely looking at something that wasn't him. The middle two fingers on her left hand dug into her palm. Her cheeks pulled in ever-so-slightly as she bit down on them.
She was upset.
She somehow, despite his constant 'insults', liked him.
"You remind me too much of my ex." He turned away from Fleur with what he hoped wasn't too exaggerated of a sigh. "She was the veela I told you about; she had the allure, she was strong. We were… We were in a bad place, to say the least."
Fuck, where was he supposed to go from here? Dumbledore had taught him to use people's emotions against them. He'd said that any emotion can be turned to another of nearly equal value so long as you did it right, but Hydrus still hadn't mastered it. In this case he should try to turn her anger and jealousy to pity since they were both negative. He nodded to himself.
"We were scared. Starving. Hunted. Forced together through circumstances rather than choice." He smiled, thinking back to who this jealous teen could've grown up to be. "I look at you and see her. Sometimes I do it without even thinking about it, and other times I do it and can't stop thinking about it.
"It's not fair to you, and I'm sorry if I've said or done anything misleading because of it." He bowed his head, still facing away from her. "Your family's wines truly are my favourite. I really do want to be your friend. But that's all."
He kept an image firmly in his mind of Bellatrix. This version of Fleur didn't tempt him romantically, and nothing more than her literal allure affected him otherwise, but the resemblances to the woman he used to love were undeniable and had caused him to act out more than he should've. Even when his memories were gone, it was instinctual. He probably had flirted with her. Hell, it was also probably what caused him to put on such a show with Ginny at the Yule Ball.
"I don't know what you're talking about." He glanced over at Fleur, and found her glaring at him without any of the malice that had been there before. "A friend is all I ever thought of you as."
Hydrus grinned. "Good. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"
"Non." Ah, perhaps she wasn't quite done being angry. "Let's go."
They both undid the privacy spells, but just as Hydrus was about to open the last remaining door, Krum came flying through the one he'd gone down. The time traveller spun on his heel, and was stunned to see the quidditch player crash to the ground. To the larger teen's credit, he popped right back up with his wand drawn.
"Expecto," Krum started, panting. "Patronum!"
The wisps of bright light didn't converge into a corporeal patronus, but they did fly towards the door to block it. Unfortunately for the disturbed Krum, what would've been enough to ward off a single dementor did almost nothing to stop a true curse of the evil beings.
The dementors burst through his shield and immediately froze. Like wolves chasing a wounded deer who suddenly stumbled upon a roasted pig, they turned to Hydrus.
"Fuck." He drew his wand and was at least glad he'd already been thinking about Bellatrix to keep from getting too wishy-washy around Fleur. "Expecto Patronum."
The spectral jornrir burst from his wand and immediately crunched its jaw around the nearest dementor's 'throat'. The others began to flee, but his patronus had a tight grip on its prey and slammed it to the ground. Hydrus's mouth fell open as he watched the extinct canine whip its head side to side until the monster's own head was torn from its shoulders and the whole thing began to melt away into shadows and a black ooze that boiled away into mist.
He closed his mouth before the other two turned to see, and broadcast, his own shock. With a stoic face and cold tone, he said, "I hate those things."
His patronus strutted back to him, its long snake-like tail swimming through the air behind it. Hydrus pressed the palm of his hand against his creation's forehead and gave it an approving nod.
"Incredible." Fleur squatted down beside the patronus, it's head now above hers. "I've never seen one so—, Ow!"
She jerked her hand away from where it had tried to poke the spectral being, and Hydrus caught her wrist before she could stick her finger in her mouth. The quarter-veela made to snap at him, but her eyes widened and what little colour there was in her pale complexion faded away as she realised the tip of her finger had rotted down to the bone. The time traveller maintained a cooler expression than the girl, but inside his heart felt like it was about to explode at the sight. After a few more seconds, he breathed a sigh of relief when the rot didn't spread.
"I can fix this slow and painlessly, or quick and very painfully," he said. He still hadn't managed to learn a proper numbing spell. "Which would you prefer?"
He had no idea why this had happened, he'd just seen the rot and panicked. It looked too much like his or Dumbledore's hands had. There was no time to show such concern however, he had to put in on a strong and unconcerned front.
It took the teen a few seconds to answer. "Make it quick."
"Right. Krum, come here and hold her arms still." The quidditch star, still recovering from the dementor-induced terror, stared back at him blankly. "Now."
"Ah, yeah, sure." He came over and, after an awkward moment to figure out how to grab her, eventually settled on just pressing down on either side of her arms. "This?"
"That'll do." Hydrus looked Fleur in the eyes. "You're gonna wanna close your eyes."
"I'm sure I'll be fine—"
Her next words caught in her throat as Hydrus lobbed off the tip of her finger with a cutting spell.
Her eyelids slammed shut.
"Digitus Emendo." He'd had to cut through the tiny bone rather than through the joint so he could grow it back rather than conjure up a new one from scratch. "Caro Sana." The muscles and tendons stretched like roots back into place. "Pingue Espansio." A small amount of fat from the rest of her hand and some of her wrist spread out to the fleshy digit. "Flumen Proten."
The last spell had been to stretch the blood vessels as far as they were supposed to go, an old working according to Pomfrey who'd taught him almost everything he and his forces knew about healing magic. He could've gone with something more modern, but he was trying to show off. To further achieve that, he regrew the skin without using a spell at all.
To almost ruin the whole effect, he realised that he hadn't the faintest idea of how to regrow someone else's fingernail. When it came to healing his own body, he did it more out of instinct based on his other workings than anything else. It originally involved a lot of trial and error, and there was no room for that here.
"Sorry about the nail," he said, still putting on an unconcerned facade. "Hopefully it won't bother you too much until we're out of here and you can get someone to fix it."
He shot a look at Krum and the teen released the girl, a slight tinge to his cheeks as he realised her allure had distracted him. Hydrus himself stared down at the missing bit of… Whatever nails were made of, and Crouch Sr.'s words finally began to truly settle on his shoulders. It was his fault that these kids were in so much danger now. Danger that they had no need to be in like his past soldiers.
"I'll be fine," Fleur said as she straightened up. "You had me worried that it would actually hurt."
Hydrus grinned as her pride broke his gloom. She was playing tough, hadn't even made a peep throughout the process, but there was a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Now that really reminded him of the Fleur of old.
"Why did it burn her?" Krum asked. "I've never heard of such a thing."
Hydrus's memories went back to the same thing happening with Apophis. Back then he'd assumed it was something to do with the fact that his magic was hurting him, but this time he'd suppressed the other parts of it so that shouldn't have been an issue. And the issue couldn't have been with Apophis since Fleur also…
Wait, maybe the issue was with Apophis.
"Can't be giving away secrets that easily," Hydrus answered as he stood. "Especially not to someone who refused to team up with us."
The two of them met each other's eyes. Despite Hydrus's growth spurt, he still had to crane his neck to do so, and for a brief moment he wondered if this was what it felt like when other seekers had to stand across from the Bulgarian at the beginning of quidditch matches. To the 'older' boy's credit, he didn't break his cool at all like most did when 'Hydrus Sirius Black' stared them down.
Back in Hydrus's original timeline, Krum had fallen off the map at the end of the fourth year following Voldemort's rampage. He cut off all ties with his friends and teammates; none of them who found their way to the rebellion had heard from him. Although Hydrus had no way of knowing for sure, once he had come back in time and looked into the man's family situation, he realised he'd probably gone into hiding to keep his mother safe. The time traveller had no idea if they died in Leorex's explosive genocide with Bulgaria bordering Greece, during the ensuing muggle bombardments, were casualties to the Catholics army of inferi, or perhaps had even lived up until the moment when Magic had Fate turn back time.
"I'll work with you," Krum finally said. "But only until my debt is clear."
"Works for me." Hydrus was once more about to turn to the door he'd left unopened, but something caught his eye. "What the…"
His patronus had wandered over to the pitch black hall Hydrus had initially rejected. Much like how the spectral beasts could repel dementors, the darkness was being pushed back by its presence. A few ideas ran around in his mind as he tried to reevaluate the situation, but Krum spoke up first.
"This will be safest path." The Bulgarian's voice brooked no argument. "They set up first floor with the one thing we knew would be here, dementors, and set it up so that this path would be 'obvious' choice for them." He shook his head. "Instead they put in other hall, and this one is just dark."
Hydrus blinked. He'd completely forgotten that the only obstacle they were supposed to know of were the soul-sucking monsters he'd asked about when they were first shown the tomb. Fleur nodded at Krum's words.
"For now, Hydrus's patronus will lead the way," she said. "When it fades, I'll cast mine."
'That ain't happening any time soon,' Hydrus thought before blinking again. "You can cast a corporeal patronus?"
"Of course." She scoffed at him. "I've been practising ever since we found out about it."
"Right…" he muttered. "Well, let's get going then. If anything comes up, I'll strike first, and we'll alternate between the two of you following through, with Fleur going first."
He half expected the other two to argue with him giving orders, but they just nodded and the trio set out. As they went it seemed like Krum's theory was spot on. Not a single thing happened until they reached the end of the hall and Fleur nearly tripped on another trap door that they all jumped through.
"Thank Magic," Hydrus muttered as they appeared in a room similar to the first one but with the doors all shut. "Was worried it would be a trick that dropped us back off on the first floor."
"We should mark ground and walls before we leave," Krum agreed. "You two have something to draw with?"
When Hydrus saw Fleur shake her head, he drew his knife. "Oldest ink in the boo—"
Krum grabbed his wrist. "I'll take care of it."
With that the Bulgarian pulled his broom out of his clearly-expanded pocket and before Hydrus could stop him from ruining the beautiful piece, he'd burned it. Not wanting to ruin the teen's moment to show off, he waited silently until it had been charcoalised, adding a little bit of his own magic to accelerate the process as it went. When it was done, Krum broke it off into three pieces and handed each of the other two a section.
"Good," Hydrus agreed as he drew out an X on the floor. "In case we need to split up and mark things individually."
Krum had wandered over to one of the walls and marked it with another X. "Or if one of us falls."
Once everything was marked, Hydrus nodded at his companions. "Right. Let's keep going."
Albus watched from his own personal display as he continued to 'pet' the orb he was pumping magic into. He along with the other two school heads were responsible for maintaining the barrier that had been erected around the tomb to keep anything from breaking free. They did so by slowly pumping their magic into specially crafted devices that would generate a three-layered, three-sided translucent wall. Each of them were positioned on the outside of one of the three corners of the pyramid-shaped shield in their own miniature 'rooms'.
"How's he doing?" The headmaster turned to see Sirius Black had joined him, and offered a small grin. "Woulda been here sooner but I somehow managed to walk in on the other two before I found ya."
"He's fine." He turned back to the magical showing. "Though his patronus is a bit worrisome."
"Of course he knows how to cast a patronus…" Sirius grumbled. "What about it? Wait, why'd he need it?"
Albus sighed. "I told you, this third trial has had some restrictions lifted from it thanks to Hydrus's previous performances. They aren't pulling their punches anymore, as it were."
A relief of cold power rolled through the tiny room and Albus basked in the chilly air. "I'm guessing you don't mean lethifolds."
"Your son managed to kill a dementor." That caught the Black Sheep's attention. "When one of the other contestants poked his patronus afterwards, it rotted away the tip of her finger. I'll find out more about it when the trial is over."
"How… What…" The man shook his head like a dog getting drops of water off its jowls. "Why on earth does none of that shock you?"
"He is my apprentice." Albus gave a larger than normal pulse of magic to the orb, he'd missed a few with this distracting conversation. "He is the son of the Black Sheep. He is the most dangerous wizard I know." He shrugged. "I'm not particularly concerned about a few dementors."
His lackadaisical demeanour did its job and Sirius immediately relaxed. The man pretended to mull it over for a while before nodding. "You're right. My boy'll be fine."
"Quite right." He conjured up a chair for the company he was desperately grateful for. "Come, let us enjoy."
Hydrus immediately destroyed most of what had been waiting for them on the fourth floor when they stepped into it. His earlier experience with the cooling spells had inspired him to lean further into the Black majority of his power, and he'd cast something that froze and shattered the air around them. It seemed like there had been an entomologist's nightmarish delight waiting for them this time, with just a few labrador-sized bugs near the top of the room escaping his attack.
Fleur cleared out almost all the rest with a vicious ripping curse that spread like a cloud from the spot in the ceiling where she'd pointed her wand at. The one survivor popped in a gory explosion when Hydrus's magic flowed into it just before it could clamp its mandibles around her throat.
He sent a pulse of magic through the room to make sure it was safe, then nodded. "Clear. Take a few."
Krum dropped like a rock, but in a controlled manner that suggested he just wanted to make the best use of the time he could. Fleur showed off actual grace with the way she slowly folded down to the ground and tucked her legs beneath her. Hydrus drew his stick of charcoal, and began to mark the floor and walls. When he was done, he moved back over to stand beside the other two.
"Fleur," he said. "You're wasting too much magic. You're using the same amount of power for spells that lend themselves to your strengths as you do for ones that don't. Wind it back a notch on the ones that come easier to you."
Before she could respond, he continued with Krum.
"Viktor, you're the opposite. You're being too conservative. I understand wanting to win in the end, but right now we need to focus on surviving, not winning some silly competition.
"This goes for both of you: Quit thinking so far ahead. I promise you both that we will survive, and we will reach the end. When we get there, we will make sure things are as fair as possible to determine the winner. Put your trust in me, each other, and yourselves."
They both stared up at him before eventually nodding. Krum slapped the ground beside him, but Hydrus shook his head.
"One of us needs to be standing in case of an ambush, and it'll be me." Fleur's eye twitched and he saw her about to join him so he continued. "I have more reserves than the two of you combined, and in exchange for taking less restorative breaks and giving more magic to the initial assaults, I will get a longer 'sleeping' shift. Four hours for Fleur, four hours for Krum, eight hours for me."
"I'll take the first watch," Fleur demanded. "I'm fine."
"Agreed," Krum rumbled. "I am early bird."
"Yeah, yeah." Hydrus could sense some strange rivalry forming before the two, and just wanted them to keep it under wraps until the trial was over. "Fleur, any observations of what we've seen thus far?"
"Non," she said. "Is nothing more than I would expect from the final task."
"Krum?"
The Bulgarian waited a moment before responding. "So far the obstacles are only creatures. Crouch say that there are proper traps and other such things as well. Perhaps sections are themed? Also, individual floors seem to follow patterns, just little ones."
Hydrus nodded. The teen was smarter than his appearance belied, and it was a relief to have someone like that along for the ride. The second floor had been a lot of reminders from Hogwarts' Care For Magical Creatures class, the third was nothing but burly and brutish beasts, so what was the fourth floor going to hold for them?
"Could be insects," he muttered, loud enough for his companions and the sprite on his shoulder to hear. "Could be flying creatures. Could be 'pinching' based beings. Who knows."
"We'll be fine," Fleur said. "It's annoying having to flip back and forth between who's on edge so frequently. I'll do the follow up on this floor, Krum will do it next floor."
Hydrus took a long, slow, loud breath through his nose and slowly blew it out. In his past life he'd let Fleur do whatever she wanted, but it was because she was talented enough to warrant such treatment. Here and now she hadn't faced the consequences of her actions enough, hadn't learned to rely on others enough, and it would just cause problems later on. As he continued to mull the 'suggestion' over, he eventually nodded.
"Fine." It was better to just agree and move on than to try and win against teenage egos, even if his own definitely would've won out eventually. "We'll try it for two floors, and if either of you start to slow down we're going back to the original strategy."
But after resting for a while longer and continuing on, it seemed less and less likely that it would be a problem.
Fleur's magic was nowhere near as refined and graceful as it had grown to become, but she hadn't grown into such a dangerous witch for no reason. Back in the old timeline her wand would move like a fencer's rapier and could cut or stab opponent's before they even knew what was happening. Now it was more like a child somehow managing to swing a broad sword. She didn't use her allure at all besides the uncontrolled advantage it gave by subtly distracting and directing creatures towards her. There wasn't even a practicality to her spell choice; she didn't lean into the veela aspects of her magic at all despite Hydrus's words of wisdom. Still though, it was an impressive base.
When they moved on to the next floor, Krum was the exact opposite.
The level was filled with ambush predators, beings and monsters that would lay traps or hide in the shadows to attack when their guards were down. Unfortunately for them, Krum was almost as quick on the draw as Hydrus himself. His reflexes turned the strategy from 'clean up whatever the initial attack leaves behind', to a miniature competition between him and Hydrus to see who could strike down the creatures first. Hydrus won more often than not, but the legendary seeker more than pulled his weight with some of the more subtle creatures.
Once they were finished and dropped down another level, he had to jerk Fleur back by the collar to stop her from getting impaled by a spike that grew from the wall beside her. He pulsed his magic throughout the room and a few rune arrays went off in miniature explosions, just like the portrait version of his master had told him they would when offering other strategies for Gringotts.
"We're stopping here," Hydrus said. "That's the first trap we've come across so far, but it won't be the last. I need you two in the best shape possible from here on out."
Fleur's nostrils flared. "I'm fine."
"No." Krum stared her down. "We stay."
"Two to one, we're resting." Hydrus sat down. "Fleur get comfy, I'm going to put you to sleep. Krum, come here so I can teach you the spell."
"I'm not tired," Fleur snapped. "It's only, what, three in the afternoon? I can't just—"
"Somnis." Hydrus launched the sleeping spell at her and Krum caught the girl before she hit the floor, then gently sat her down on the ground. "I really wish people would just listen to me."
The Bulgarian grunted and removed his cloak before tucking it under the girl's head like a pillow. "Useful spell."
"Glad you like it, I'm going to teach it to you so that you can put yourself to sleep when it's time," Hydrus said. "It's a near-dreamless, but easily-woken from, sleep, so try to keep it down so we don't wake her."
Arcturus Black sat in pain, but his excitement for the coming showing was enough to dull it. That and the whiskey in his coffee. He'd had a few meetings after his heir and the foreigners called it a day yesterday, but went straight to bed following those so that he could be awake for the early continuation. Thus far his great-grandson had been everything he'd ever dreamed of.
Everything he'd ever dreamed Sirius could've been.
The boy was a dominant leader, brokering no quarter when it came to the two tag-a-long's attempts to undermine him. He was powerful enough to blow most of the enemies they came across away in singular blows, leaving mere scraps behind for the others. Even now as the Black patriarch watched the boy dismantle another rune array like it was child's play, his pride sent madness-fueled laughter spilling from his lips like wine from a shaken glass.
He, his sons, the cow, and Bellatrix were in the Black family booth with their own private viewing display. His granddaughter probably hadn't slept at all through the night, she certainly hadn't joined him for the meetings he'd invited her to, but that was fine. His sons were both stoic in the face of his laughter, and the cow that one of them had married's eye was twitching.
"Isn't it incredible?" he asked Bella. "Look at him work. Look at him lead."
"Mhmm." Arcturus finally noticed the way her lips were pursed and brows were furrowed. "I wish the blonde bitch would die already."
"Hmph." His nose wrinkled at her immaturity, even if he did agree with the wish. "Why are you acting jealous? The girl isn't even human; Hydrus would never lie with such—"
Bellatrix's magic lashed out like a whip at nothing in particular and Arcturus growled back at her outburst. "I don't want to talk about it."
"This whole thing is a farce," Orion grumbled. "It isn't like the bastard—, fuck!"
Arcturus had cracked his cane against his son's shin. Immediately the wretched worm fell to the ground, whining and cradling the limb. "Be silent, child. And quit your whimpering."
"You broke it!" the weakling hissed. "You broke my damned leg!"
"Hmph."
He hadn't meant to do that. All he'd wanted was to put the little shit back in line, but if his son hadn't had the sense to protect himself from more than that? Then he deserved it. Arcturus slammed the end of his cane against the ground.
"Walburga, take him somewhere I don't have to hear his mewling." He turned back to the screen as his madness continued to bubble up. "Honestly, none of you are worthy of my throne."
Giannis stared up at the massive screen in awe. He had no idea how it worked. There was no way runes could be drawn into the sand, right? And there was no way that they couldn't do it without some runes. The various glyphs and letters and markings that Hydrus revealed as he made his way through the tomb only served to further reinforce and astound the young wizard as he watched his best friend go.
He was standing on the edge of elevated stands that had been filled up by people yesterday. It was still dark out so for now they were empty, but he was sure the crowd would return to keep watching Hydrus. Had he still been in Britain or even Greece the night air might've been cold, but wherever they were in Africa it was perfectly warm. He grinned as Hydrus managed to convince one of the runes to quit working with the others and the whole scheme fell apart.
"There you are!" he glanced over to see Mister Weasley had finally woken up and joined him. "We've been looking everywhere for you, Giannis!"
"Sorry," he said half-heartedly before turning back to the display in front of the crowd. "I wanted to watch."
Hydrus shoved Krum and Delacour out of the way just in time for him to be the only one peppered with darts. Mister Weasley gasped, but Giannis knew better than to worry. The one-handed teen just began to pull the darts out with an annoyed expression on his face, and scolded the girl for trying to walk ahead of him. It was a bit difficult to hear what he said, but the bracelet he'd made to understand English made it easier.
"I don't know if this is something you should be watching," Mister Weasley said. "People could be seriously hurt."
"I've seen people hurt before," Giannis replied, still not looking away. "There was a bad guy who tried putting my face in a fire, so Hydrus blew him up." He grinned as the teen showed off another set of runes that the Greek child had never seen before, this time they were in a strange pattern. "Look! The runes are trying to pull away from each other to get away from the one in the middle so they've made a triangle!"
"Pretty nifty, huh?" Bill Weasley had joined them. "Guess you found him. I'll look after him, Dad. You go get some more sleep."
The older redhead looked like he wanted to argue, but he just yawned and nodded. "I'll let your mum know he's alright."
Once he was gone, Bill laughed and ruffled Giannis's hair. "You remind me a lot of my little brother, Charlie. He was always running off and doing whatever he wanted."
"That's what Hydrus told me to do," Giannis said, only half-listening as he watched Hydrus 'give up' and just destroy a scheme by over-feeding the runes with his magic. A small part of him felt bad for the sigils. "He said I should just do whatever I want, but to be ready to accept the consequences."
"I see," Bill said. "And what would you have done if I didn't come along, and the consequence of sneaking out was that you didn't get to watch anymore?"
The Greek boy stiffened. "I don't know."
"I bet you just thought it would be fine," Bill continued. "But if you'd just woken me up first and asked, you wouldn't have had any consequences at all."
"What if you said no?" Giannis asked, finally looking away from the action. "Then it would've been harder to get out."
Bill grinned. "Worst case scenario, you have to wait a few hours to come watch. Worst case scenario for what you did? You don't get to watch at all as punishment. Be glad it wasn't my mum who found you, she'd have dragged you back home by the ear."
"Oh." He hadn't thought about that. "I guess you're right."
"I know I'm right." Bill grinned and finally looked up at the display with him. "Now, let's see how Hydrus gets through the traps we set up for him."
Hydrus took one glance at the next rune scheme, which had been layered behind a false veneer over the wall, and immediately destroyed it. Their progress had almost ground to a halt that 'morning' when he tried figuring out the solution to each trap they came across, so he'd switched to detonating any rune scheme he didn't immediately understand. It was leading to him burning through his magic faster than was needed, but that was fine.
The amount of magical creatures in the tomb had dropped dramatically, probably to keep them from wandering into a trap, and so Fleur and Krum were practically topped-off on the power front. It wasn't easy trusting the two of them to watch his back, but they'd done a fine enough job of proving themselves capable thus far.
When they reached the end of the seventh floor and stepped into the eighth, he pulsed his magic then sat down. "I'm thinking about taking a nap. Would the two of you mind standing guard?"
"Can't you keep going?" Krum asked. "We can't be too much further from the end."
Hydrus blinked. Thus far the teen hadn't pushed back on anything he'd said. As he looked him over, noticed the way his jaw was clenched, his fists tightened, he realised what the problem was.
"You two must be hungry," he said. The way both his 'rivals' denied it immediately told him he was right. "Here, I think I've got some snacks Fred and George gave me."
He began to root around in his pocket for the product samples the twins had given him. Eventually he produced a few different packages of candy.
"Here. These are 'prank' foods, but they're still edible." He put them down on the ground in front of him. "The biscuits will foam up into dough in your mouth, so should work especially well for filling you up. The pebble candies are just regular sweets except they're impossible to break until they've touched your saliva, so watch your teeth."
He also had some gummies, but he'd save those until he had a moment alone to sneak them to Fleur. They'd have no effect on her, but a rather embarrassing one on Krum or himself. As he lied back down, the Bulgarian grunted at him.
"What about you?"
Hydrus snorted. "I've gone weeks without eating before. Believe me when I say this is nothing."
Honestly the small pang of hunger he'd been suppressing since this morning was almost nostalgic. The difference between his past life and now was that he actually had fat reserves to rely on this time. There wasn't much meat on his bones, but he was certainly in a lot better shape than during the truly hard times of the war. If he had to guess he could probably go a full two weeks without eating now. Three days was an easy feat.
"This isn't bad," Fleur said between slow, complicated bites of her 'Endless Biscuit Surprise'. "When you said it would be a joke food I expected worse."
"I invested in their business for a reason," Hydrus said before bemusedly realising the opportunity he had. "They were made by my friends, George and Fred Weasley, owners and operators of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes." A grin grew on his face. "They also helped to found, build, and design Hogwarts' Study Club, and the Study Hall we work in."
The defences around his plaque would have to be doubled, if not tripled, to keep the cretins away from his handiwork, but it was worth it for the advertisement. The embarrassing tidbit at the end was just out of mischievous spite, however. Hopefully the kids' parents were watching when he'd said that.
"Alright, I'm going to sleep, you two stand watch and wake me in an hour." He paused. "And don't even think about scouting ahead. We haven't worked this hard to keep each other alive just for one of you to go off on your own and get killed."
—-
Once Hydrus put himself to sleep, Viktor quickly turned off their sprites. As soon as the blue glow died down he sank down to the floor and groaned. The Delacour girl snorted but did much the same. The girl began to rub at her shoulder where a shug monkey had bitten her. Viktor did the same for his knee. A cruel trap in the opening room of the sixth floor had shot an invisible bone breaking curse at them, and although he'd managed to shield most of himself in time, his knee hadn't been so lucky.
Hydrus had healed them both when the incidents happened, but there was still a lingering phantom pain to it. It was like his brain couldn't understand that the damage had already been healed. That moment of panic and fear when he thought he'd lost the one thing that had freed him and his mother from poverty was also now permanently etched into his mind.
"It doesn't even make sense," Delacour muttered, and Viktor looked to see she was staring at Hydrus. "It's like none of this even bothers him."
He grunted in agreement. "I think he has sight."
"Sight?"
"Divination." It was a struggle sometimes to remember how to translate some of the words in his mind to English. "I think he has sights of the future."
Fleur laughed, and Viktor shivered and wished she could figure out how to hold back her allure. "It definitely feels that way sometimes."
"I'm serious," he muttered. "He knew it would be the three of us. He knew about second trial. Nothing ever seems to surprise him."
"That… It wouldn't be possible." The quarter-veela shook her head. "You wouldn't understand."
"Why not?" Viktor demanded.
"Because…" She scoffed and looked away. "You're human. You don't understand."
"Try me."
She glared at him. "Hydrus worships Magic, not Fate. You don't need to worship Fate to have 'the sight', but you certainly can't worship some other goddess."
'Worship?' Viktor blinked in confusion, and the girl flipped her hair over her shoulder. "I don't—"
"I know you don't, just like I said you wouldn't." She looked away as she popped one of the candy rocks in her mouth. "Just believe me, he can't use divination."
"News to me." Both of the seventeen-year olds jumped as Hydrus spoke. "Could you two keep it down? I'm trying to sleep." He yawned. "Somnis."
Once he was certain that Hydrus was back to napping, Viktor cast a silencing spell over himself and Delacour. "There. Now, what do you mean worship? Does this have to do with goblin cult war?"
He'd read about Hydrus's press conference, how the vicious creatures had thought he had a side in the war, and since it was being called a 'cult' war it wasn't hard to put two-and-two together.
"Oui." The other teen still had a pinched face and sounded like she didn't want to talk about it. "He worships Magic, and so does one of the two cults. The other side worships Death."
Death, fate, magic… He'd never even heard of such things being treated like gods. Why on earth did Hydrus do so? He'd not heard of wizards and witches worshipping gods since the Hellenistic era. Maybe Hermione would know more, that seemed like the sort of thing she'd be interested in.
"I'm just going to open the doors and look," Delacour said as she stood. "I won't step out."
"I don't think that's a good idea," Viktor argued. "Hydrus said—"
"I'm not going ahead!" she snapped at him. "I just want to look."
He rolled his eyes but didn't stop her, though he did stand up himself. Last thing he needed was to be caught with the snitch behind his head. The first door the quarter-veela opened looked as harmless as the others in this 'trap' section had been, as did the second. As soon as she opened the third, however, it slammed opened and threw her tumbling towards Viktor's feet.
A sphinx squeezed into the room, breaking apart sections of the wall, and his heart began to race. Without thinking about it, he kicked Hydrus awake and then ducked beneath the sphinx as it dove at him. Before it could finish turning around for another strike, Hydrus had launched some sort of Black spell at the beast which it deflected with one of its wings. Viktor drew his wand, but Hydrus raised his hand.
"Enough!" His voice echoed with power and the only thing that didn't react with fear was the sphinx, who cocked its head at him. "What is the meaning of this impropriety?" The scion had a noble, dignified tone to his voice. "Is this how a child of Bastet acts?"
"Hmmm…" The sphinx began to circle around them. "To name a dead god… You're either wise or foolish. Which is it, young human?"
"I've been described as both." Hydrus's eyes followed the sphinx as it went. "If you ascribe wisdom to a well-aimed insult, referring to an Egyptian figure when you're from Greece, then I suppose that's fair."
The sphinx laughed, a screechy sound that made Viktor's ears hurt. "I like you, child. Shall we play a game?"
"Tell me your riddle." Hydrus licked his lips. "I'm ready."
"Riddle?" Again the beast laughed. "Oh, I don't think so. I've been cramped down here for far too long for such a trivial game like that.
Hydrus winced. That was exactly what he'd been afraid of. Although Greece had become ground zero in the future, the magical creatures who lived there went elsewhere. He and his forces had only come across a sphinx once, and that had been a rough enough time for him to not want to deal with one ever again.
That sphinx had been driven mad by the loss of its nest and cubs, and hadn't even been capable of speech. Although he'd eventually managed to put it down, several of his soldiers had been temporarily crippled and if it weren't for Ron having been there to plan their defence on the fly, it would've become a massacre.
"Fine," Hydrus said. "But since you're going beyond your usual scope, why don't we change the stakes a bit?"
"Hmmm…" The sphinx stepped up close to him, her human-like face unnerving him as it turned too far to the side. "What did you have in mind?"
He glanced back to see Krum helping Fleur to her feet. "If you win, obviously, you get to eat us." Both of the other two nearly fell back down at his declaration. "If we win, however, you have to demolish the floors beneath us all the way to the bottom."
It had been obvious which door the sphinx had come through, and seeing the damage done to it meant that the being had the ability to destroy the tomb. It made sense, sphinxes were similar to taniwha in so much as they were between the border of gods and mortals thanks to the Egyptian symbolism they had. As this one mulled over his offer, he began to wish he had Ron here once again.
"Very well…" The sphinx said. "But rather than eating you, I shall allow you to live and serve me if you lose."
"Deal." He almost breathed a sigh of relief. 'Now that the stakes involve her living, she can't make the game something that could end in death.'
"Hydrus!" Fleur practically screamed at him. "What on earth are you doing?"
"It's fine." He flicked his hand and turned their sprites back on. "Shall we allow the audience to watch, Lady Sphinx?"
"Hmmm?" She leaned in close to sniff the strange thing. "What's that?"
"They were provided to us to showcase to a massive audience just what's going on inside of the tomb," he said. "We turned them off so I could sleep in peace, but now that the action has kicked off again, it'd be rude to leave them in the dark." He grinned. "Besides, what sort of game would this be if people couldn't see our brilliance?"
The best way to handle sphinxes, those that weren't insane like the one he'd dealt with in the past, was to stroke their egos. He'd planned on just solving the riddle and moving on when he read that a sphinx would still be involved in the trial, and after having gotten through the creature-filled floors he'd thought he had managed to avoid it entirely, but it seemed they trusted her enough to not fall into a trap.
"Now then," he said. "What's the game? What are we gambling our lives on?"
"Hmph." She seemed a bit put out because she was being pushed around, but it wasn't like she had room to back off. "It's a simple game. Pick which one of your friends I should kill."
Hydrus blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Pick which one I should kill." The sphinx bared her fangs at him. "Or don't, and become my servant."
'Damn it,' he thought. 'Of course it'd be like this.'
If it came down to it, he could send Fleur and Krum down the hall she'd come from and hold her off, killing her eventually. He could also just become her servant and assassinate her somewhere in less stressful circumstances. The option to just pick one of the two innocent teens to kill was an option, but one he'd never choose.
"You have thirty seconds," the sphinx said. "Choose."
"And those are the only rules?" he demanded. "Pick which of my friends you can kill? I'm not responsible for helping you kill them, or stopping them from trying to stop you, or anything else?"
"Those are all the rules," she cooed at him. "You're running out of ti—"
"I choose Hircus, Sage of the Goats."
She blinked. "Pardon?"
"The friend I choose for you to kill is Hircus." He grinned. "Nowhere in your rules was it stated that I had to choose one of the two people behind me. I've chosen one of my closest friends, someone who knows more about me than almost anyone else, for you to kill." He shrugged. "There, I've succeeded at your game. Take us to the bottom."
He'd also made sure he didn't have to help the sphinx kill anyone, so there was no way she'd ever find, let alone succeed in so much as scratching, the paranoid wizard's hide. Quinn might've gone on to become a psychotic wreck of a wizard in the future, and was still a bit kooky now, but all his paranoia had him in a league of his own when it came to defences. He would be fine.
Probably be a bit miffed at the younger wizard, though.
"You dare?" the sphinx hissed at him. "That's not—"
"I followed your rules." Hydrus sneered at her. "Take us to the bottom."
"Oh that's what you want, huh?" The sphinx's rage was almost palpable as she spat her words at him. "Fine! Let's go!"
She leapt to the ceiling, turning over for just a moment so she could kick off it and slam her front paws into the floor. It collapsed and sent all three of the champions tumbling down. The sphinx kept diving down, breaking through floors and setting off a cascade of explosive, runic detonations as they went. Just as they were about to crash through the last floor, Hydrus thought he saw a glimpse of the Goblet of Fire as they kept falling.
The last floor was almost as dark as the hall on the first floor, and when they hit the ground it knocked the air out of him. He shot back up to his feet and saw the sphinx flying back up to the floor she'd come from, and he immediately looked around. Something was wrong, none of this felt—
Fleur screamed. Hydrus swung his wand. "Lumos!"
She was fine, but her hands were covering her mouth and the terror was so evident in her eyes that it immediately snapped his attention away from her. Krum began to curse or pray in Bulgarian, and Hydrus immediately knew why.
Surrounding them further than his blindingly bright spell could show were thousands… Perhaps tens, no, hundreds of thousands of inferi. There was no proper architecture in this subterranean layer, just a cave like environment that seemed to have been slowly carved out over centuries. The undead monsters were so far beyond anything that could've possibly served as a part of the trial that he knew instinctively that they'd gone too far.
"Oh shit," he half-whispered as the creatures began to come to life. 'I think I know where the Catholics got their army from now.'
BBaRtS
Bum, bum, bummmm; that's 40. Remember Umbridge bragging about beating out an 'Italian' man for the rights to own the tomb? Lolol
So! There's the NEW longest chapter I've ever written, we've gotten a closer look at Krum, explored a bit of Hydrus's 'relationship' with new Fleur, gotten quick peaks at what Dumbledore, Sirius, Giannis, and Arcturus are up to, and gotten a bunch of action done. This section has definitely gotten me to realise I need to work on my action writing, where descriptions are more important than dialogue, but I'll save practicing that for my other fic. We'll find out how Hydrus gets out of this mess next chapter. TECHNICALLY the third trial isn't over, but its off the rails now.
I talked way too much last AN, so let's just get straight to reviews!
"First you say this random boy takes Sirius' wand and is twirling it in his hands, and not even 4 paragraphs later you say he's actually missing his left arm." - I typoed ONE letter in that word, turning hand to hands 😭 This guy's review was so mad lmao
"I'm a bit curious why Bella wasn't forced to marry a pureblood" - This is something I could've gone into more detail on. My headcannon is that Voldemort influenced her to accept her original marriage, but without his guiding hand, she was far more rebellious and put the Black family above everything else and so didn't see anything/anyone as being worthy of her. She respects power above all, for the longest time her grandfather/family was the most powerful thing she knew, and so just flatly denied/avoided all prospects.
"I also hope to see some more people who Harry thought were "good" but not so good, like Cedric, like Regulas" - I will say that Cedric is like, 1000% on the theoretical 'light' side. He's just not, as Hydrus put it, the innocent and sacrificial lamb he'd seen him as. I can think of one character who might be darker than readers might expect, but we'll get to that eventually, and it's definitely not who anyone first thought of reading that.
"... if I'm being totally honest. I'm not the biggest fan of Hydrus, or his relationship with Bella." - This is something I'd love to truly master as a writer. I adore protagonists who are morally perfect, but only in extremely small doses. I couldn't handle it if every story had it. I get hyper annoyed with protagonists who are little shits and never face the consequences of their actions because the writer wants to appeal to teenage rebellion. I want to figure out how to try make a protagonist who is very flawed and dislikable, but people also want them to succeed overall, and enjoy seeing them face consequences because they know it'll help them grow into a better person. We'll see if I ever get there, definitely haven't earned it with this story, but I've made progress skill wise.
"Portrait magic is very seldom explained. I like this explanation." - I enjoyed getting to delve into it, even if just briefly for now.
"And I agree with your amelia depiction, she's one of the few characters that aren't on the verge of batshit insane (along with tonks)" - It's fun getting to turn Tonks from the stereotypical 'manic pixie dream girl' into just a regular lass who's still unique, but in comparison to the nutjobs she shares genes with... And Amelia is another character we'll see a bit of focus on moving forward, as an important person in society and as Sirius's fiancee.
ShadowPillow, you wrote the longest review this story has ever gotten by a large margin, so danke for that. I feel like I would eat away at the entirety of the character limit on AO3's notes section if I responded to every piece, so I saved it for last to still be able to respond to other things.
"I'll say from your A/N's you have a pretty good sense of where your story's at and the decentralized nature (or at least decentralized conflict) of it." - Definitely. If y'all could read my original novel I'd written, you'd wonder if it was even by the same author because of how far I've come since then due in large part to this fic. It's much more centralized and thematic, but with WAY more problems thanks to inexperience.
"Little sad that Bella ended up being the legitimate love interest for him." - I feel like this disappointment might change in time just because I feel like I have a better grasp of her character now and where to go from here with her thanks to last week's revelations.
"I have no idea where this story will end currently." - I'll say this much; I hate sad endings. I read to escape reality, and don't want sadness in what I run to.
Again, because of character limits, have to leave your review responses at just that.
And that's all! How will Hydrus and the others escape? What will the consequences of that escape be? What's Regulus up to? All that and more next week! Thank you all so much for the reviews/comments, see you all next week, love you all, lessthanthree!