"'Arry, would it be possible to see your room again?" Fleur asked in french, sliding into the seat next to him.
"I could, if you tell me exactly why you want to." Harry replied, calmly continuing his breakfast.
"You do know that it pertains to me being a Veela? So by telling you I'd be exposing a weakness you could use in the tournament?"
"Yes. But my room also contains secrets about me, so this way we'd be even."
"Well then, with that logic who am I to refuse? As you might know, Veela are the children of the god Apollo, making us fire-based beings. This makes us go through our magic quicker than the average witch, however we also absorb magic faster than average. As such, our magical levels are functionally equivalent to average, since for the most part our magic is stable.
"This does mean, if we are placed in an environment that limits our magical intake, we run out of magic significantly quicker. This makes areas such as the bottom of a lake… tricky. Of course, the opposite is also true, if exposed to a high concentration of magic, we can absorb and hold magic far quicker than we can burn it."
"Hence the second task being so hard for you." Harry murmured, finishing her sentence as he began thinking rapidly. "What do you mean by 'children of Apollo'? Do you all share him as a common ancestor, or do you mean it spiritually, like you are all the followers of him?"
"More spiritual than you are thinking, I believe, but not entirely. Other than the Cult of Apollo, no Veela actually worships the old gods nowadays. But we did some time, before the formation of the Enchanted Roman Republic, back when the gods walked amongst us.
"He gave his most faithful followers his affinity for fire and passion, along with a unique way of enchanting. Over time our power has been diluted of course, but our elders have not forgotten.
"When Gabrielle was born, I got to see our Pythia evoke the ancient magick, channelling power beyond my imagination. Being inside your room feels like I could reach that power, it feels like I could challenge the Pythia and win."
"This Pythia, it sounds like they're in charge? Is this because of how powerful they are or age?" Harry checked
"Yes, she is in charge, because she is the eldest and thus strongest. That is the key difference between Veela and Wizard, we veela never stop absorbing magic, even on our deathbed. As such, there is no living veela who could hope to match her strength."
"No living Veela, until you stepped into my room, right? Because my room sucks in atmospheric magic and contains it within itself, whilst preventing any from leaking out. Then if you add in the fact this school is built on three leylines… well it would be hard to find somewhere with a higher concentration."
"That… would explain it." Fleur confirmed, stunned. "I don't suppose you'd tell me how you made it?"
"I'm afraid not, it's top secret. But, I guess it wouldn't hurt if you got to visit on occasion. We can go now if you aren't busy."
"Dear Harry,
I am deeply sorry your friend got hurt, you can at least take pride in the fact you did save her. Saint Mungos are very good at what they do, I'm sure she'll be up and about in no time!
And hating it? You know what, that is fine, Harry. You are allowed to be mad about this! You have been forced into a truly awful situation, I'd be shocked if you didn't hate it.
However, from the sounds of things, your anger in Dumbledore may be misplaced. Obviously I am not there, but the Dumbledore I knew wouldn't risk someone's life like that. Back during the war, he would also want us to disable the Death Eaters, never kill.
He fought bitterly when Crouch pushed to allow the Aurors lethal force. To me, that doesn't sound like a man who would willingly sacrifice one of his students. Especially when said student is the best friend of who is effectively his adoptive grandson.
It sounds like he either made a mistake when protecting the hostages, or he never thought they'd be in danger. Neither option is particularly good, but still a hell of a lot better than deliberate harm.
For now, I'd suggest taking your time, let yourself calm down before going to Dumbledore and talking about it. If you like his answers, then try to see if you can forgive him.
As for you trying to help Luna? That's much harder. Let her know you want to help her, that alone would go a long way. But regrettably there will always be some situations where you just can't help your friends.
But, I can help you, which is why I'm coming back to England. Don't worry, I'm going to be careful, I refuse to be caught before I can help you. As you know, I went to the Caribbean on Dumbledore's request to clear my mind, to recover from the dementors.
I feel like I have recovered, at least as much as can be helped. Now, the best thing for me is to help you. Hopefully, the next time we talk, it'll be face to face again.
I will see you soon, I love you,
Sirius.'
For what felt like the hundredth time, Harry drew the familiar Philosopher's symbol, which was swiftly encased within an upside down triangle. The triangle then got its tip bisected by a line, creating the symbol for earth. On top of the base symbol Harry then drew a new circle with a horizontal line, creating the salt symbol.
To the left of the philosopher's stone he added an upright male symbol with a dot in the circle, followed by the symbol for bismuth, which looked like an 8 with an opening at the top to the right of the stone. Finally, at the bottom under the earth's bisected line he drew the symbol for mercury, a female symbol with a crescent moon on top.
Holding his breath, he then let his magic rush into the sigil, pressing his left arm against the philosopher's stone symbol as he did so. The unfinished sigil bent around his arm like water, leaving behind the feeling like a sticky film.
From his arm outwards the sigil began to manifest into reality, right up until the earth symbol shattered outwards and the entire thing blew apart.
"Impressive, I didn't expect you to have progressed so far." Nicholas congratulated, from where he had been standing silently by the door. Harry had known he had entered of course, his unleashed magic having sensed the man long before he had even entered the corridor.
"What was wrong with the design I gave you?" The man asked, as he made his way over to his desk and unloaded his luggage.
"Well, it's good with general attacks, but I wanted something more specialised for defending against physical attacks. So I moved salt from the left to the top, to put more emphasis on its physical nature, while replacing the platinum with Uranus, swapping the moon's mental protection for mar's strength."
"Whilst leaving gold for its physical perfection? A worthy change, but I would suggest moving the feminine mercury from the bottom to the right, swapping it with bismuth. This will balance out the gendered element, something we hadn't touched on yet.
"You see, with your sword the masculine iron was using on the top, whilst in my shield the feminine mercury was in the bottom, in both cases the sides were unaffected by the gendering. However, by adding an element of the masculine mars, you gave the left a part of the feminine and a whole of the masculine.
"In order to fix that, you will need to move the feminine to be its equal on the right, giving you one whole on each side. This may cause some disparity in how each side protects, but it will work." Nicholas advised.
Nodding, Harry followed his master's advice, creating the sigil anew. This time, when he pressed his arm into the magic, a shin film of transparent green magic wrapped over the sigil.
Grinning, Harry considered the image of a mediaeval triangular shield that he now had stuck to his arm, which would easily protect most of his body by itself. Without the phosphorus that made up his sword, the shield didn't shine all that much, outside of the general glow of exposed magic.
Instead, for as long as he kept it still, the shield seemed to slowly take on an earthly texture, losing its transparency. Just looking at it gave the impression that it could withstand a significant force, which was important when the magic was as symbolistic as sigils.
Finally getting to look at it in a physical way, Harry decided that as soon as the tournament was over he'd be attempting to add the sigil onto his mithril shield. His fight against the werewolf Moony had proven to him that his shield was woefully underprepared for physical attacks, especially if said attack was being thrown against a tree.
From his desk, Nicholas banished a large ball of metal towards him, which rolled off the shield weightlessly. Behind the shield, Harry didn't even feel any magical cost, despite the fact he had felt the shield's power fluctuate with the attack. What confused him greatly was that the shield seemed to have regained its power from somewhere.
"Nicholas, can I ask, where does the power for the shield come from? Because, while I used my magic to form it, I know it didn't have enough power to stop that ball."
"Ah, I wondered when you'd ask! An excellent question, one I think you may already know the answer to. First, tell me what you remember about magical costs, particularly between the different magicks."
"Okay, well Verbarn comes primarily from within, so if you lack the power for a spell, it is impossible for you to actually cast it. This is the exact opposite of the divine, where almost all of the power comes from a greater power source, which was originally the earth itself or the concept of the gods.
"You didn't say what Loquela magick runs on, but possibly it draws power from your target? Finally the arcane draws its power from external, mortal sources, such as the ingredients of a potion."
"Correct! However, I believe it may be time to retouch your knowledge of Loquela magick. So, despite what I might've led you to believe, you use Loquela magic to bridge the gap between two families. For example, a ward. That draws power from the world around it, making it divine in nature.
"If you used pure divine magick to create a ward, any standard spell would sail straight through it. So, wardmakers unknowingly use Loquela magick to translate their Verbarn magick onto a divine property. The exact logic is tricky to explain, but the truth is you can use it to make different families interact."
"But, that contradicts everything you've said about the families!" Harry protested, "What's the point of making a divine shield that can only block divine spells, if I could've just made a Verbarn shield that uses Loquela to stop divine spells."
"What is stopping you is a misunderstanding of how it works, perhaps in part due to my explanation. When I say you can make them interact, I only mean that a power source can interact with a linked magick of a different family…
"Okay, so the ward, it collects power from divine magick. Then using Loquela it translates the divine magick into Verbarn magick, from which the wardmaker can power its Verbarn defence. As it stands, that ward can now only interact with Verbarn magick, even if its power is being made via divine magick.
"You could make a Verbarn shield block a divine spell, but you'd need to block that spell entirely with your own personal magic. Likewise, a divine shield could block a Verbarn spell, but the cost of raising a divine shield would far outweigh the actual attack."
"But once a divine shield is raised, surely it would be more than capable of stopping any Verbarn magick… And you could then swap it back to divine and just use one shield." Harry protested.
"Oh, it would definitely be enough to stop a Verbarn attack, but remember the power of a divine shield must travel through you from its source. So even with a low powered Verbarn spell, the entire weight of the shield has to pass through you. Imagine using ten shield charms to stop a single disarming jinx.
"Besides which, you can only invoke Loquela magick when initiating a spell, not whenever you like. As such, a divine shield raised to be Verbarn, will only ever be Verbarn." Nicholas patiently explained, "At the end of the day, on an individual basis sticking to just matching one family against itself is always easiest.
"Now, back onto your shield. We know that sigils are a member of the Arcane family, meaning the shield will be initiated by your magic then fuelled by a secondary perishable source. Where do you think this comes from?"
Stumped, Harry considered what he knew about energy. "Well, it obviously isn't coming from me. Some of its power might come from the environment, but I don't think there's enough. That also sounds too much like divine magick, but who knows now. The only other option must be drawing power from whatever magic was left in your banisher, but that type of magic doesn't stick around as a power source."
"Almost. You are thinking too literally in terms of magic. Remember, there is energy everywhere, if you know where to look. I will also say there is a reason Perenelle chose our Philosopher's Stone as the base sigil. Unless told otherwise, every sigil will convert the heat and light in an area into magic.
"When it comes to just maintaining a sigil, ambient energy is more than enough to fuel the sigil. When you consider just how efficient the sigils are, especially when you take in how little magic is actually wasted, a single Lumos can be enough to keep a sigil active."
"Does that mean if you tried to cast a sigil in a cold and dark room, the sigil would be weaker?"
"No, because just because it looks dark doesn't mean a lack of energy. Even when the air is below freezing, there is still a significant amount of heat available. The same is true for light, even when your eyes say it's dark, to magic there is a plentiful supply of energy."
"That… feels weird… Wait, I know this one! When I was making my own mithril shield, I drained the momentum of an attack to slow it down, which I then used to power the shield… It must be the same here right? The energy it takes to stop the ball comes from the energy propelling the ball."
"Exactly! That is why alchemists are such dangerous adversaries. To us, almost any attack contains some form of energy that we can harness, energy which we can then use for ourselves. I once saw a man take the energy of a ballista bolt and used it to propel his fireball.
"Although, I must say I'm surprised. You're normally very good at utilising different energy sources, I shouldn't have needed to recap it."
"Yeah, well I've got a lot on my mind right now." Harry replied half-heartedly, not particularly wanting to get into a fight with his tutor.
"Yes, I heard. That is part of the reason I'm here. If you're up for it, I'd like to talk about what happened with the second task."
"Which bit, when I accidentally killed a merman, when I deliberately killed a lot more, or perhaps when Luna almost died?"
"All of it. I want to know how you feel about it, to make sure you are okay with it. Plus we need to talk about the fact you can now stop others from dying."
"I'd prefer not to talk about the task if that's okay" Harry asked softly, not wanting Nicholas to think bad of him.
"That's fine, I'm not going to force you too. Just find somebody to talk to about it, I can be that person if you want, but it can be anyone. However, we do need to talk about you returning Luna to life."
"What's there to talk about? She was dying, so I saved her. You aren't going to tell me off for that, are you?" Harry challenged.
"For this? No, I fully support your actions, but just because you can now prevent people from dying, doesn't mean you should always do it. Me and Perenelle were forced to learn this the hard way, so my hope is that you may learn it earlier than us."
"Why would I not want to save people? If I have the power, surely I should keep everyone around me alive!"
"My understanding is your form of revival depends on the body being healed, yes? So keeping someone alive whilst their body is incapable of being healed sounds like the main point. But it's important you know that just because you can halt death, doesn't mean you are responsible for preventing death.
"There will come a time when you will simply be unable to save someone, but you cannot blame yourself for it. If you do, you will live a very long life full of regret. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should just let people die, but you should use your own logic for it."
"That's… not very helpful." Harry said blankly, "How about, I keep those I care about alive, such as Luna, but let people die if they want to?"
"If that is how you want to do it, go for it. At worst, you merely prevent somebody's death. But at some point you will have to be harsh. If the masses find out you are the secret to immortality, they will harass you and blame you, all in the hope you will save them too.
"But society as a whole cannot be immortal, as sad as it is. Without death, the young will never get their chance to improve the world, too bogged down by the unremarkable masses."
"Yes Nicholas, I understand."
"Good, now I do have a gift for you." The man responded, reaching into his matchbox sized luggage and withdrawing a familiar gauntlet. Familiar except for the numerous beige stones that now bestrewed the mithril.
"What happened to it?" Harry asked, aghast, taking the Gauntlet gingerly and running his hands over the surface.
"I had to try and lessen the load your soul gem was placing on my Philosopher's Stone. You do know that if my Stone had lost the fight, most of Hogwarts would now be under snow, given how much power the gem could've drawn through your gauntlet?"
"Dumbledore mentioned as much. At the time, I figured it was a risk, but I expected to be able to mitigate the fight myself, pushing it towards the Stone's victory. I didn't expect to faint immediately."
"Yes, well I had to make these Alchemy stones that are taking some of the load. However, I would advise against using the Gauntlet at all for the time being, while there is now some tolerance, the risk is still there. However, the good news is me and Perenelle have figured out a way to fix it.
"Perenelle is already working on the solution, but when your mithraite crystal finishes, I'd like to take it to France with me. You see, the Philosopher's Stone is unique in that it is a focus, catalyst and alchemy stone in one, which gifted it near sentience.
"I will try and turn your mithraite crystal into something similar, in effect making it a focus and alchemy stone. My hope is its own nature will provide the power needed for a catalyst, heavily reducing the complexity we went through to make the original Stone."
"My mithraite crystal, will it act like the Philosopher's Stone? I assume you plan for it to control the Soul Gem, but will it also be capable of alchemy and the like?" Harry asked, excitedly.
"Doubtful, at least not to the extent of the Stone. Obviously any alchemy stone can do some level of alchemy, but my Stone needed a powerful sacrifice to fuel the modified ritual. Regardless, your mithraite will likely be occupied with controlling the entire Gauntlet, just like the Stone at present.
"Not that it will matter, seeing as my Stone will be fully operational again. But it will be exciting to see how your crystal will react post ritual… Now, obviously you got the shield to work, were you able to get any more of my sigils to work? I tried to explain them as well as I could, but letters are a pure replacement for a good lecture."
To Harry's great relief, Luna returned to school after only a week away. She was still alarmingly quiet after her death, but she had assured Harry she had no ill-will towards him. Of course, she made it clear she had no ill-will to anyone, even the mermen, so Harry wasn't completely convinced.
Every so often, he would also catch her staring aimlessly into the distance, only for her to snap back and act as if nothing had happened. Most worryingly, her magic was considerably weaker, a fact he could see when he Looked.
The majority of her magic floated around her, like a cloud. It only connected to her body in a few points, points through which she accessed her magic. The only relief was that as time progressed, she produced new magic which stayed within her.
All Harry could hope for was that both time and proximity to her friends would help her. In the meantime, she had taken to helping him work on the spell he was developing. She didn't mention the Second task, something Harry was happy to mimic.
But then she would look at him and smile at him, and he thought everything might turn out okay.
His eyes had barely closed that night before he felt his mind being pulled via Tom's connection. It had been the same every night since the Second task, except this time he let himself get pulled along.
"Finally, I don't summon you for no reason, you know." Tom complained, sitting casually in his chair. What surprised Harry was the fact he was dressed in a very Muggle button up shirt with rolled up sleeves, complete with jeans.
"You mean to say you don't just like my company?" Harry replied sarcastically, letting his body coalesce into his own chair, carefully arranging his body to appear sitting down.
"Your company is passable, but I have been trying to bring you here for several days now. Why did you not answer?"
"Because I didn't feel like talking, be glad I'm here now. Do not forget, I don't have to be here at all, but when you aren't trying to be evil you can be pretty fun."
"Fine, I'm sorry for trying to command you." Tom begrudgingly said, "So, how does it feel to have killed someone?"
"You did hear the part where I said you are better when you aren't acting evil, right? Do you just have some pathological need to piss people off?"
"I heard, but I didn't ask to be 'evil'. I know some people find it hard to take a life, so I decided to be nice and check on you." He replied coolly, something almost like hurt flashing across his eyes.
"Right, well word it better next time… Well if you really want to know, it didn't really feel like anything. At the time they were trying to kill me, so I did what I needed to survive. The first merman was an accident of course, I would've preferred not to have killed him. But I don't know if that's because he died, or because of what happened because of his death."
Unlike with Nicholas, Harry didn't care what Tom thought of him, making it much easier to admit the truth. Besides which, Tom had nobody else to tell about Harry's confession, seeing as the man couldn't exactly go to Dumbledore about it.
Nodding, Tom said "I can understand that. Whilst it may surprise you, I have no deep need to kill, I don't sit around plotting my next murder. In the past, I only killed when I needed to, either to remove an obstacle or make a point, sometimes both. But if not for those reasons, then it's unlikely I would've killed anyone."
"What about your father, you killed him right? Because that sounds emotionally driven." Harry countered.
"Perhaps, but I also used the man's death to fuel my first horcrux… Or, me I suppose. I won't lie, my emotional connection made him an extremely appealing sacrifice, but not without reason. It removed his ability to ever control me, ensured my immortality and got my uncle out of the way, preventing him from countering my claim as the heir of Slytherin."
"That's… an interesting philosophy. Is that why you are so… you all the time? Flipping between charming and friendly to just the worst?"
"No, but you try remaining consistent when you have to work somewhere like the Daily Prophet. Everyone there is so social, and worse they expect me to be social back. The other week I got invited to bowling, and I couldn't even say no without being suspicious.
"Like, just a month ago I had to call in sick because a ritual had taken more from me than I expected. Then my co-worker Lucy showed up at my room with a handmade cake…"
"Was it a good cake?"
"It was the first cake somebody has ever made for me… so yeah, it was very good. It wouldn't be so bad if she hadn't sat down with me. Apparently her brother was made redundant and now her family are worried about money. Doesn't help that the Ministry has raised the land tax again.
"I can barely afford my own rent, I have no idea how her family will survive. Especially since the Prophet refuses to increase anyone's pay. Not that anywhere else is any better. I'm somehow earning more than an equivalent Ministry job…"
"So, you spent time with another human being, without scaring them off? And listened to what they said, impressive."
"Don't patronise me, it doesn't become you. Yes, I can pretend to be normal, I did it for seven years at Hogwarts. Besides… people like Lucy don't exactly make it hard to spend time with them. It's actually quite nice to have people be worried for you." Tom finished softly, lost in thought.
"It is, you'll have to hold onto her, Tom. Do that, and you might end up as a decent person."
So in the last chapter I said this chapter would be the duelling tournament… Well guess who suddenly remembered I had more characters I could write about and got so distracted in my newfound inspiration that I completely forgot about the duel…
Things I think need explaining:
- Loquela magick: There's a chance some of you won't actually know what this is, depending on what I did with the original description. Originally this existed alongside the other classes, but whilst I was able to wrestle a distinction between 3 of them, "It translates stuff" was really not a helpful description from my past self.
So I had retconned it to just not exist, which I have now come to consider a mistake. So I un-deleted it and retconned it to be more of a translation between the families, but not a full family itself.
- Tom Riddle's look: Sort of based on his original actor's look in Google images, plus I think it helps highlight his growth. He's had to change to fit in, and he's found part of that change appealing.