Welcome one and all to another chapter of The Heir and The Champions, in which we get properly introduced to our Murder Child, and we go over the hedge.
Hide your peanut butter, it's about to get weird.
On with the show.
Side corridors, Hogwarts.
Harry has been trained to do many things in his life, he could keep a house perfectly clean, cook some pretty good meals, he could Hunt and fish, could fight with a spear, a dead shot with a bow, and a damn good flier. But between Aunt Petunia yelling at him and Atalanta training him, he never got told how to handle the situation of a crying little girl who was babbling in French after she had failed to kill him, and he honestly didn't know how to feel about that last part just yet.
The trio all looked at each other in confusion as the tiny girl continued to cry and babble while pointing at Harry before hitting her balled-up fists against her thighs and crying louder.
"Umm," was Harry's reaction to what was happening before looking over at Hermione, "What is she saying?" Harry asks as he rubs his chest right under the spot where the tiny fae girl had tried to stab him.
Hermione looks at Harry, before turning to Ron with an equally confused face, before turning back to the girl, "She's, um, well she's a bit distraught about her failed, ah, H-hunt," Hermione says, making a face that looked between shock, fear, and uncertainty, "That you cheated, with your, ah, with your jacket and us helping," Hermione translate as she looks over Harry with worry.
"Can you, I don't know, calm her down or something?" Harry asks as he shuffles awkwardly, "Tell her that it's, um, okay, that I didn't know the rules or something?" Harry asks, much to Hermione's surprise.
"Harry!" Hermione snaps at him, "She just tried to kill you! If it wasn't for your jacket she would have succeeded!" she yells at Harry.
"But she's just a little girl, Hermione!" Harry snaps back, gesturing at the said girl, "She probably doesn't even know better, besides someone tries to kill me every other week, the only weird thing is it's a little girl this time," he says, as Hermione narrows her eyes at him like he was a puzzle, one she just got a piece too.
"He's got you there, Mione," Ron says with a shake of his head and a small grin, but Hermione ignores him.
"What if it was a little boy, Harry?" Hermione asks, her eyes firmly locked on Harry as he looks at her confused.
"But she's not," Harry says, gesturing at the tiny Fea with his wand.
"But what if she was?" Hermione asks insistently.
The girl begins to wail louder, causing Harry to flinch at the pitch, "Hermione, can we please not play twenty questions right now and focus on the crying girl," Harry all but sighs.
Hermione's lips pressed into a thin line before turning back to the crying girl, kneeling in front of her and speaking to her in rapid French. Hermione's words come out softly talking to the girl who talks back in the same language to Hermione, slowly calming down as she speaks between hiccups and wiping her eyes. Hermione's face becomes grimmer and more disturbed the longer the little girl talks and gesturing to Harry and the knife in Ron's hand as she does.
"What's she saying?" Ron asks, looking a bit worried.
Hermione holds up her hand to the little girl, who stops babbling for a moment, "I was calming her down and asking why she had attacked Harry, apparently she thinks it's a game, one she plays with her mother and sister all the time," Hermione tells them.
Ron frowns a bit before looking between the little girl and Harry, "I'm going to go out on a wand here and say her sister is Fluer?" Ron asks, and the tiny girl's head snaps to him when he says the name, "Of course, it is," Ron mumbles under his breath as Hermione turns back to the little girl and speaks in rapid French once again, causing the little girl to tilt her head and look at Hermione as if she was trying to explain advanced Alchemy to her.
The little girl snaps at Hermione, her face becoming red with anger as Hermione is taken aback with a gobsmacked look on her face, and Harry would have laughed at the look, but the tiny girl immediately jumps to her feet with the angriest look her little face could muster before she vanished in a wif of mist.
The Trio blinks as one before Ron and Harry turned to look at Hermione, "What did you say to make her run?" Ron asks.
"And how did she disappear?" Harry asks because as far as he knew, no one could apparate inside Hogwarts.
"I…don't know," Hermione says slowly, looking lost herself, "But all I said was trying to stab people you didn't know wasn't a game, that it was dangerous, and she yelled at me telling me I didn't know what I was talking about before calling me a Gobdaw, and telling me that my mother was a hamster and my father smelled of elderberries," Hermione says, completely flummoxed.
Ron snorts out a laugh before covering it up with a cough, "Well, what do we do now?" Ron asks, "I mean, we can't just let a little would-be-assassin run around trying to stab people, mainly Harry, because she thinks it's a game," he says looking over at Harry.
"Why are you looking at me?" Harry asks, letting his wand fall to his side, "It's not like I can do anything," Harry says.
"We have to tell McGonagall," Hermione says standing up before straightening her skirt, "She'll tell the Headmaster and hopefully he can sort it out with Madame Maxime," Hermione says.
"But won't she get in- ofh" Harry tries to ask before he is once again hit by a tiny rocket that latches onto his back, he can feel tiny arms wrap around his neck and little legs wrap around his midsection, and he sees Ron and Hermione only having a split second to looked shocked before Harry's vision turns white and he's jerked back by the tiny Fae as he falls and tumbles through blinding gray mist.
Over the Hedge, and through the mist.
Do you know the itchy feeling that you get when you roll in the grass shirtless, or when you fall into a bush and feel the sting of thorns cutting and scratching you? That was the feeling Harry had all over his body as he crashed through the mist and landed face-first on the hard ground. Harry lets out a groan as he opens his eyes, he wasn't in the stone corridors of the ancient castle he called home, but, much to his surprise, he was in a hedge maze. The walls of it stretch forward before splitting off into multiple directions, the floor was well taken care of grass looking freshly cut.
"Where the fuck am I now?" Harry asks as he pushes himself to his feet, he hears a small gasp, and as he looks to his left he sees the little girl who had tried to stab him pointing at him with a hand over her mouth.
"You said a bad word," she whispers in shock before giggling, "You shouldn't say bad words, that's why they're bad," she says with a large grin showing off a mouth full of razor-sharp shark teeth, though that wasn't the only change to the girl, her limbs seem longer and thinner, her fingers ended in sharp talons, everything about her seemed sharper somehow, even her ears that now seemed longer and pointed.
"You can speak English now?" Harry asks her, but all she does is tilt her head and looks at him confused.
"I'm not speaking English, you're speaking French, dummy," She says.
"No, I'm not, I haven't spoken any French in my life," Harry tells her as he stands up and looks around, the walls of the hedge maze seem to stretch forever up into the twisting gray mist that blanketed the top of the maze, the walls were a bush he'd never seen the leaves were like a teardrop and were pink and purple in color with blackthorns growing and intersecting throughout the hedge, "Where the hell are we?" Harry asks as he turns back to the girl who had brought him here.
"Pass the hedge!" the girl says with an unnerving grin, "It's mama's Homeland," she tells him as she climbs to her feet and brushes her skirt off, "I brought you here so we can play without that bossy girl being wrong," she says as she looks up at Harry, but all he heard was "Pass the hedge" and "homeland" before he feels the blood drain for his face.
Harry's head snaps back and forth, looking up and down the maze-like hedge he found himself in before turning back to the little girl, "Okay, um, what's your name?" Harry asks, trying very hard to not let the panic he feels raise in his chest.
"Gabriella!" she says with a far too wide smile.
"Right, Gabriella, listen, I can't be here, I need to go back to Hogwarts, right now," Harry tells Gabriella as the small girl frowns at him.
"No," Gabriella says, stomping her foot, "I want to play!" she demands from Harry.
"Okay, okay, that's fine," Harry says, raising his hands in mock surrender, "But let's play back at Hogwarts, okay?" he says, trying to reason with the small girl.
"No, the bossy girl will be there, and so would Fluer, and she'll try and beat you before I do," Gabriella says crossing her arms, "It's all she talks about, she's been trying to figure out who your mama or papa is so she has a better chance at beating you, but I want to do it first so I can tell mama when she gets home," she declares with a nod, set stubbornly on her course of action.
"Gabriella, please," Harry begs before he looks behind him at the sound of a snapping twig, turning back to the girl he feels her slap his arm.
"Tag! You're it!" Gabriella yells before turning around and taking off into the mist, Harry lunges for her but falls short at the speed she runs off with.
"Gabriella!" Harry yells after her before standing up and giving chase, "Get back here! I need to go home!" he yells, while running off to follow her into the mist.
Gabriella giggles in return and her echoing voice answers him from all around, "If you can catch me, I'll take you home!" she says followed by more giggles.
"Motherfucker," Harry growls out as he starts to run faster into the mist, seeing the powder blue dress of Gabriella as she skips along. But no matter how fast Harry ran, he could barely keep her in sight, growling out in determination he reached for the tap that controlled the flow of the Hunt In him, but…
But,...
But it wasn't there.
Harry's face falls and he nearly stops running, he couldn't feel the Hunt, the tap was gone, and he could feel the beast in him, ever hungry for its next meal. He couldn't feel the soft moonlight within him either, the only thing he could feel was Instant and Swift Death, and even then it felt like it was barely there. Harry redoubled his efforts, He had to catch Gabriella and get the hell out of her quickly, if a Fae found him here without access to the Domains he wouldn't be able to fight at his full power. Harry grips his wand tightly and feels the familiar pulse of his magic, he sighs out in relief, at least he had that.
Harry watches Gabriella's shadow take a sharp left and follows it as fast as he could, he bursts through the mist into a large clearing with a crooked magenta house and a bright yellow tree with tulips for leaves, the grass was a shade darker and far more wild looking, Harry sees Gabriella sitting at the head of a long table filled with teapot and quickly makes his way over to grab her by the shoulders.
"Gotcha!" Harry says, but as soon as he goes to pick her up, she falls to pieces, her hat falls off with what looks like a blond wig to reveal a mannequin, the kind that they used in department stores to show off new clothes or outfits, Harry quickly drops it in surprise, "What the fuck!" he calls out.
"Excuses me, Sir, you are interrupting our tea time!" A squeaky voice that spoke with a lisp says.
Harry looks up to find a patchwork of a man talking to him, he seemed to have several different skin tones stitched together with thick and coarse thread large patches all over his face, he had one blue eye and one pink eye with a mouth far too large for his face, his ears were off center from each other with one being by his lower jaw and he quite literally had two left hands. He was wearing an eye-burning suit that made Dumbledore's sense of fashion look normal with its mismatched hues of colors, shapes, and patterns, and on his head, he wore a towering tower of all different types of hats ending with a large emerald green top hat.
"ahhhh, have you seen a little girl run through here?" Harry asks the patch-worked man.
"oh, you're a half-blood!" the man says with a mad giggle, "How rare to see one of you here! But yes, she just ran through, didn't even stop to join me and poor Not-Alice for her unbirthday!" the man says with a cackle showing off his rainbow color teeth.
Harry looks around the clearing to see an exit just beyond the patchwork man shrouded in the same mist from where he once left just a moment ago, "Right, well, ah, thanks but I've got to go, need to catch up to her," he says with a forced smile and starts to edge around the table.
"You're leaving?" the patchwork man asks, his words echoing with mock devastation, "But you haven't even had any tea yet, come sit and join us," he says with a smile, as Harry finally notices the other occupants at the table, a dead hair stuffed into a suit and nailed to a chair and a mouse with a tiny hat stapled to its head as it flopped around the table legless.
"Ah, no thanks?" Harry says as he backs away from the morbid and twisted sight before him.
"Oh, but I must insist," the patchwork man says before standing up, a butter knife in hand, "Your blood will make the tea all the sweeter!" he yells before leaping at Harry.
Harry swings his wand up quickly before yelling out "Bombarda!" blasting the man, the table, and everything around him away before Harry was sprinting off to the exit and once more in the mist, nearly colliding with the hedge wall as he hears the mad man roar behind him. Harry takes his immediate left and starts to sprint down the path, and soon enough he hears the giggles of Gabriella sounding out from ahead of him, catching a glimpse of her dress as she skips through the hedge, unbothered by it all.
"Gabriella, Gabriella stop!" Harry calls out just before losing sight of her in the twisting halls of the hedge maze. After a few more seconds of running, Harry bursts through the mist to another clearing, this one had nothing in it but hedges that made a perfect circle around him with four different paths to take, Harry spins around looking for any sight of her, "Gabriella, where are you!?" Harry yells in desperation.
Giggles all around him answer him back before he hears her speak again, "You have to find me silly, that's how you play tag!" her voice echoes around him as Harry curses again.
"Well, Well, Well, what do we have here?" a new voice says, "A lost little half-blood in the hedge? My now, what a surprise this is," the regal-sounding voice says.
"Zeus in drag, not again," Harry growls out as he lifts his wand and spins around, "Who's there?! Show yourself!" Harry demands as a small black ball rolls from under one of the hedges and stops just shy of his feet, Harry snaps his wand to it, a curse on his lips before he cries out, hoping backwards as the ball looks up at him with large green eyes and a human-like smile.
"Well, that's just rude," The head-ball-thing says before Harry watches in horrified fascination as the boy of a cat grows from the inside out from the ball, black fur with a white spot on its chest growing in last, before it stretches out and shakes its head, making two large floppy ears sprout from its head, "I have done nothing to you yet little half-blood, and still you point your little stick at us, the gal!" it says with a too human-like smile.
"I'm a bit jumpy at the moment!" Harry snaps at the talking cat.
"Oh, if we were you, we would be too," it says as it starts to walk in a circle around Harry, "Do tell us, little half-blood, why are you not there?" the cat asks.
"Not where?" Harry asks, confused.
"Where is relative, little half-blood, especially here of all places," the cat says airily, "But in this case, I would mean the there where you are not," the cat says making a circuit around Harry just to stop and sits down in front of him with a grin.
"Can you make sense!" Harry snaps at the feline.
"Where would be the fun in that?" the cat says, somehow raising a brow at Harry.
"Okay, fine, whatever! Just, have you seen a little blonde girl in a powdered blue dress run through here? About yay high?" Harry asks, holding out his hand to show the height of Gabriella.
"May-cats we have," the cat says as it flops down and rolls onto its back, "What is worth to you little Half-blood? Hmm," it asks looking up at Harry, the grin never leaving his face.
"I don't have anything to give you," Harry says in frustration, patting down his pockets, he didn't carry gold on him or snacks, and his bookbag was left in the hallway at Hogwarts.
"Hmmm, a saucer of milk would do," the cat says, rolling back onto its belly, "With a drop of blood in it, your blood, of course," it says with a grin, "Oh, and I suppose your name as well, just to be polite,"
"My names-" Harry says, but stops short as he sees a glint in the green eyes of the cat, and recalls the whispers of his schoolmates back when he was eight or nine, and how they said you should never give your name to a fairy, or else they may steal it from you, "Nobody," Harry finally says, "I'm nobody, and I don't have any milk with me," he tells the cat, who's grin becomes sharper.
"Oh, my how sharp of you, Mister Nobody, do tell? Have you blinded any cyclopsis lately?" the cat asks with a knowing look.
"No, now will you-" Harry tries to say, but is cut off by a powerful roar, his head whips around to look down the path he had just come from, whatever made that sound sounded very big and very unfriendly, "What the hell was that?" Harry asks, his voice almost a whisper.
"That," The cat says as it stands back up, catching Harry's attention once more, "Was Nekomata, a younger sibling of ours, and my oh my, does she sound hungry," the cat says, its grin turning bloodthirsty, "Well, what do you say Mister Nobody? It doesn't have to be now, you can do it when you get back to not here, hmm?" the cat offers.
Harry's head snaps back as the roar sounds out again.
"We'll show you where the girl is going, and even lead you there ourselves, all I ask is a saucer of milk with a drop of your blood in it in return," the cat says as it lifts its paw, "What do you say Mister Nobody, do we have a deal?"
Harry looks back at the cat, grinding his teeth, "Fine, fuck it, you have a deal!" He says leaning down to shake the cat's paw, but as quick as a whip it lashes out, clawing Harry's hand, "Oww, fuck, you little-" Harry yells before the cat speaks again, cutting him off.
"The pact is sealed! She went that way," the cat says nodding its head to the left path, "Oh, and you better pull out that divine weapon, boyo, you're gonna need it!" it says as its body begins to unravel itself in long ribbons before disappearing into the mist, "It's about to get bloody!" it says with cheer in its voice before it fully vanishes.
As soon as its gone, Harry takes the left path and follows it, pulling out Serpent-Hunt and extending his spear with the growls and pounding of paws chasing behind him.
The Sun
Depicted on this card is a field of endless green in the shadow of a great castle, a little girl in a blue dress can be seen running through the field with childlike joy and innocence with the sun hanging high over her, but if you were to tilt the card in a certain way…
Chapter done!
When I first started this chapter it was just going to be us meeting Gabby, then Fluer and Harry getting into a fight to show off what Fluer could do, a trip to Dumbledore and Madame Maxime, before heading to Hogsmead to meet with Sirius. But then Harry got pulled into the Hedge and it spiraled out of control from there.
I have no regrets.
Time for Fea shenanigans! So buckle in, because our best boy is in enemy territory, and without access to most of his powers, I'm sure he'll be alright, ...right?
But to explain Gabby a bit, she likes, 8, I think? And 8-year-olds are just tiny functioning Psychopaths. She thinks of stabbing Harry as a fun game, and dragging him into the Hedge is no big deal because, well, she's not in any danger there so why would he be? She's this innocent, warped child thanks to her Fae nature, so don't be too harsh on the little bugger, she just wants to play!
Kingsaxcul, Out.
