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Act IV - Skin In The Game
Chapter 20: The Crucible
The front facing of the building was just gone, as if some unimaginably huge axe had sliced straight through it. One could see the floors and interiors from outside, alongside the multitude of people trapped inside amidst the dust, smoke and rubble. Dead, mutilated bodies hung by the rafters from the sides, hacked off when the massive spell had activated. Broken glass and brick lay everywhere. The air itself had gone acrid, thick with the stench of burnt material that was never meant to feed a fire. And most significant of all, were the tendrils of arcane energy descending down from the massive runic circle floating in the sky, entrapping the building and everyone in it. The shafts of energy had actually melted through the stone and glass and enchantment, hence, the detritus and havoc everywhere.
Harry Potter apparated in the middle of the street, and found the entire place crowded with half a dozen Aurors, EMTs employed by the DMLE, and hit-wizards scouring the entire place. He spotted a duo of ward-breakers attempting to break through the barrier, only to be pushed back by the innate power of the ward entrapping the hospital within it.
Meanwhile the vortex forming atop St. Mungo's kept getting darker and crimson.
"ARREST HIM!" claimed a healer, and instantly Harry found himself on the receiving end of several wands, as the Aurors and a couple of hit-wizards took positions against him, their wand tips glowing a ruby sheen โ a stunning spell no doubt.
"Wait! Wait! What's going on?" Harry asked, raising his wand and sword up in surrender. Sirius had told him that hit-wizards weren't obligated by normal Ministry rules that the Aurors had to follow. They could curse first and ask questions later. It was fortunate, or perhaps, unfortunate, that the hit-wizards only entered when the situation went FUBAR.
"He attacked the hospital!" claimed another person, this one on a wheelchair.
"Arrest him!' claimed a third. "Ask him to get this ward down!"
"All wands down right now!" came Sirius's loud voice from behind. Harry breathed in elation, as the hit-wizards slowly lowered their wands, followed by a couple of Aurors, though some of them still gave him suspicious looks.
"That's the Boy-Who-Lived you're pointing your wand at, son," said Sirius. "He donated a large chunk of gold to add a new ward in St. Mungo's recently. And Gryffindor or not, my godson has better things to do than attack a hospital like this and show up to get arrested!"
"BUT โ" screamed the man on the wheelchair.
"Whoever you saw, it wasn't me," said Harry. "I was โ"
The rest of his words died as the runic circle above them glowed with a sinister light, and released a massive burst of energy downward.
THRUMM!
"The temperature inside the barrier is increasing," claimed a ward-breaker. "If it continues like that, the entire place will be boiling in no time."
"Damn it," claimed Sirius. "No one inside will survive it if the temperatures keep rising. Can you break the ward, gentlemen?"
"We're trying," claimed the ward-breaker. "But every time we neuter it, the ward re-establishes itself. We even attempted to insulate it from the ground, but it cut through our enchantment, and re-asserted itself. I'veโฆ This is just impossible! I've never seen anything like this. It's likeโฆ the ward is empowering itself."
"That's not possible," claimed Kingsley Shacklebolt, walking in from the left. Harry had seen the Auror a few times at Grimmauld Place during the Order meetings. "No ward can empower itself. We just need to find the wardstone. Perhaps it is disillusioned?"
"Something that's pumping out that much magic?" asked the second ward-breaker. "No freaking way!"
"Well someone obviously did something," said Sirius. "Maybe it's put inside the hospital?"
"Ask him!" claimed a woman, pointing fingers at Harry. "He's the one that did it."
Harry rolled his eyes.
"My godson is a fifth-year student, woman," Sirius growled. "This has us Aurors and hit-wizards stumped. Now let us do our job. Stebbins, clear the crowd, right now. And someone please call Albus Dumbledore. Maybe he canโฆ"
"I already sent a Patronus," said Kingsley. "In the meantime, we should keep looking. Merlin knows those people can only hold on for so long if the temperatures keep increasing."
"What if they hacked into the hospital's wardstone itself?" asked an Auror.
"A spell empowering a ritual circle like this would require time to set up. And adding it to the wards of the hospital would cancel out all other enchantments," said Sirius. "I think it's safe to say that the hospital wardstone isn't the source."
The ritual circle glowed a third time, and the heat rose even further.
THRUMM!
"Merlin's beard," claimed a ward-breaker. "It's rising by ten degrees with every single burst. At this rate, those people will just burn to death."
Harry fought the instinct to tell Sirius exactly what had happened earlier, about how the imposter had claimed that this was a present from Voldemort. But it wouldn't help things, and only increase the chaos. There was also no saying how long his protego diabolis would hold up against Neville's twisted powers. He had to act now, even if it meant revealing what he could do.
"Sirius, if I might try somethingโ"
"Harry," Sirius growled. "This is neither the time nor the place for you to โ"
"I can help!" Harry shot back. "Just let me have a look, Sirius. Remember who I am, and what I can do."
"Sirius?" Kingsley offered. "Let him try it. Our ward-breakers are stomped anyway."
Sirius looked conflicted, His role and duties as a hit-wizard captain fighting his urge to protect and keep his godson safe. Finally, he took a deep breath and exhaled. "Fine. Come, have a look. What can you tell me?"
Harry took a look at the massive runic circle above, and his eyes morphed to putrid yellow. Ignoring the shocks and shrieks around, he quickly scanned the entire setup.
"The temperature inside isn't increasing because of the heat," he said at last.
"Codswallop!" claimed an Auror, who Harry recognized as John Dawlish from the trial.
Harry scowled at the man, and a part of him was pleased to see him step back at the sight of his yellow pupil-less eyes. "I meant the temperature isn't rising because of any form of Fire-magic. Fire generated with magic is still fire. Yes, you might call up tremendous heat and energy, but once it gets to you, it still does business with the laws of thermodynamics."
"The temperature is rising with more energy," began a ward-breaker.
"Yes, but you said it yourself," claimed Harry. "Every time the circle activates, the temperature goes up by ten exact degrees. Normal fire-magic doesn't do that." He took a step back and regarded the entire setup. "Thisโฆ this is a wide-area blood-boiling curse in effect."
"Dark magic," spat the Auror, giving him dark looks.
"Good, you recognize it," Harry said sassily. "Ten points to Hufflepuff."
"Ravenclaw," spat Dawlish.
"Right," drawled Harry. "Because that was the relevant point."
"Fire magic or blood boiling curse, what difference does it make?" demanded Dawlish.
"The difference is, Dawlish," spat Sirius. "That the former can be neutered with ice magic. Or the flame-freezing charm. Or any variation of the freezing spell. But the blood-boiling curse cannot. So unless you have anything useful to say, shut the fuck up and let Harry save our collective arses here, because you're just making things worse."
That shut the man up.
He looked up. "This spell draws from the Abstract, like all truly dark magic. Think of it asโฆ. A more precise and controlled variation of the Fiendfyre curse. I suppose we could try to destabilise the runic circle, but there's no saying what it would do to the hospital beneath."
"I don't understand," said Sirius. "Even if it's dark magic, removing the source of the curse should undo it."
"Yes, but you can't see the source, can you?"
"Can you?" asked Kingsley, giving him a sharp look. "See the source, I mean?"
Harry frowned. Technically, he could see any magic in existence, and if he tried, perhaps even deeper than that. Some of the things he had seen in the past with his Death-vision had left him screaming for hours, and while he doubted this one would be similar, he was wary of demonstrating his skills in public like this. There was no saying how many spies Voldemort or Malfoy or perhaps Fudge had among this crowd, ready to use that knowledge against him in the future.
Another thrumm, and the temperatures spiked even further.
"You've to do something," screamed someone. "Quickly!"
It was true. Already screams could be heard inside.
All hesitation vanished from Harry's mind. His wand spinning back into his holster, and the blade discorporating, Harry began casting runes in mid-air, empowered by the magic of Summer. He had finally learnt how to segregate the three different forms of energy he had access to, and use one or more independently. Sirius and the others watched with amazed gazes as Harry began writing entire runic sequences, the letters floating in mid-air, pulsing with raw power. With a thrust of both palms, he merged the runes together in a complex pattern and hurled it against the barrier, making it hiss and froth at the point of contact.
"Don't worry," he said as the auror quickly raised his wand, possibly to cast a shield spell, or perhaps stun out of sheer paranoia. That he considered both options to have equal chances of happening told exactly how much faith he had in the Ministry and its employees. "It's just a diagnostic spell. I'm assessing the structure of this ritual circle."
"Where did you learn to cast runic magic like that?" asked a ward-breaker sceptically. "That sort of thing isn't taught at Hogwarts. Orโฆ anywhere else, that I know of."
Yeah, between his wandless casting, his freakish Death-vision, his ability with runic magic and that massive runic circle in the sky, it would no doubt get people thinking. It was just like the entire mess with parseltongue back in second year.
Even Sirius was giving him strange looks. He doubted his godfather would doubt him over this, but a discussion was definitely on the table.
Before he could ponder further, an array of glowing runes formed in front of them, and with a flick of his hand, the runic letters quickly rearranged themselves in proper positions, forming a smaller version of the ritual circle above. And after separating the spell matrix, the actual structure appeared andโฆ
"That's a pentacle," exclaimed one of the ward-breakers. "Ancient witchcraft. No wonder none of our spells did anything. Modern arithmancy doesn't even apply to it."
He was right. It didn't. Pentacles predated the era of standardised magic. They belonged to the time of the old gods, when Magic was raw and roamed free, and the elements had to be constrained and held by sheer willpower to enact whatever mystery the caster wanted. A design formulated on Hecate's principles that operated at the gateway between the Abstract and the Real, instead of Futhark Matrices on which modern spellcraft was based upon.
How did he know? Because the Miraculum Operarius operated on the same. As did a number of applications of Abstract Magic, like the Diabolis spell he had utilised most recently.
But that begged the question โ why would Voldemort set up something like this? If destroying the hospital was his intention, there were far easier and quicker ways of getting it done. Instead, he had gone ahead in this round-about fashion, giving everyone time to attempt to figure things out little by little while the occupants struggled against the dark curse affecting their blood. It was almost likeโฆ.
"Son of aโฆ" Harry cursed. He should have known. This was a present for him. Did Voldemort know that he was capable of undoing this? Did that meanโฆ. Did that mean he knew that Harry was the new Warden of the Sunken Vault?
He had the sneaking suspicion that something big was about to happen. And this was just the tip of the iceberg.
He regarded the design carefully.
"Okay, first off, that's not a pentacle. A pentacle is a symbol of order. Five points, five sides, each vertex representing each of the five elements, contained within a circumcircle. A representation of the forces of magic bound within one's control. Power balanced with restraint. Thisโฆ isn't. Look here, the points of the star fall outside the ring. It means a combination of order to get something done, and yet, allow a certain degree of anarchy by letting it escape. Like aโฆ"
"Curse," finished Sirius, catching up. "You're saying that the blood-boiling curse inside is just the side-effect? Of whatever true mess is being cooked inside?"
Yeah. 'Cooked' seemed like an apt description. Harry nodded. "I might be wrong, but I think this ritual is using the hospital and the people within it as a sacrifice to enable something."
"Like what?" asked Sirius.
Harry shrugged. "A lot of things. Maybe defend something, or banish something, or restrain a powerful magic or entity, orโฆ open a doorway for something."
"Which, judging by your face, would be bad."
"Iโฆ" Harry shook his head. He didn't even want to know what kind of terror would need a ritual this size in order to squeeze into Reality. "Look, it's similar to the way the Aztecs offered human sacrifices to please the old gods and gain all sorts of myriad powers. Structures like this are a symbol of power, and can be used to summon and or restrain a spiritual entity within it. Wraiths, nightmares, demonsโฆ that kind of thing."
"Demons? Those aren't real," claimed Dawlish.
Yeah, thought Harry morosely. The fool would probably try to deny it even if Harry ran him through one of the tunnels inside the Sunken Vault, and claim that he had confounded him or something.
Dawlish was an idiot. An arrogant idiot. The worst kind.
"I think if something sized to fit this circle had to come through it, there would be more than one building in here that would be on fire by the end of the day."
"Ritual magic. Witchcraft," growled Dawlish, eyeing him. "You sure know a lot of this stuff, Potter."
Again. Tip of the iceberg.
"Really?" Harry drawled. "I thought Hogwarts was a school of witchcraft and wizardry. Perhaps the name was changed when I wasn't looking, Auror?"
Dawlish glared at him.
Harry looked at Sirius. "I can use Death thaumaturgy to open a breach into this ritual circle. Not for long, just enough for one person to go inside. Once I'm there, wait for my signal, and when you see it, get all the heavy hitters out here and blast the runic circle with the strongest Finite Incantatem you can cast. Might even callโฆ"
Before he could finish the sentence, both Albus Dumbledore and Newt Scamander appeared in a flash of flames.
"Think of the devilโฆ." He heard Dawlish mutter.
Harry quickly relayed everything he had learnt about the circle as well as about whatever had happened to Neville, at which Newt's features turned ghastly, and he instantly popped off to Neville's location, borrowing a couple of hit-wizards and an auror.
"It's settled then," said Dumbledore. "Me and Harry will go into the barrier, while the rest of you โ"
"No way," said Harry. " If something goes wrong, then we need someone on this side of the barrier to save the situation. Professor, I'm going in โ"
"With me," said Sirius.
"Siriusโ"
"No, you listen to me, Harry," said his godfather. "I'm not letting you get in there with no clue about what might happen inside. If you must go in, then I'll go in with you."
THRUMM!
"Sirius, we don't have time for this. Peverell Family Magic will keep me safe from whatever abomination is being brought within it. You on the other โ"
"I am the Lord Black!"
"Yes, not the Vessel."
Sirius paused at that. "There are more things in magic than Death and witchcraft, Harry. You're not the only one that has access to Family Magic."
"But what if it isn't enough?"
"Well then, we'll just have to hope that your Death powers are good enough for the both of us, but I'm not letting you go in there by myself, both as a hit-wizard and your godfather. You're a citizen of this country and I'll be damned if anything happens to you for doing my job."
"Black," Kingsley began. "Try to think this throughโฆ"
"I have made my decision, Kingsley," said Sirius. " I'm not letting Harry walk into danger alone. Now, open the breach."
Harry glanced at Dumbledore. Then he realised that the reason he was holding off, was because if he was wrong, it would mean he was throwing himself and his godfather into a world of trouble. Death might save its vessel, but the Abstract magic that would come down could have detrimental effects on his godfather.
THRUMM!
"Anytime now would be good, Harry," said Kingsley.
Scowling, Harry corporated the sword of Gryffindor and impaled it into the barrier. The ward whined and hissed and frothed, but could not hear the sword piercing through it. Reinforcing himself, Harry pulled the blade in an extended arc, creating just enough space for a single man to push through at a time.
"Wait," said Kingsley. "What will be the signal?"
"Trust me," said Harry. "You'll know it when you see it."
"Alright," said Sirius, casting the strongest Impervius charm he could on both of them as Harry held the barrier open. "Let's get through this thing. No reruns, okay?"
"Just don't say you'll be right back," quipped Kingsley. "You'll jinx it."
"Look who you're talking to," said Sirius, grinning, and like a quintessential Gryffindor, stepped in through the opening. Cursing, Harry pulled the sword out, and slipped in, just as the barrier sealed itself shut โ
โ and a force of a hundred anvils smashed into him from above.
Harry found himself on his knees, gasping like a landed fish. He struggled to move, to push himself up, but couldn't so much as lift his arms from the ground. He brought his will to focus, with the idea of using raw magic to deflect some of that force from him and found himself directly contending with the immense power of the runic circle above, exerting a gravity spell so powerful that he felt his bones had just been turned to thick chubs of lead.
And then Padfoot barked.
The sudden action threw Harry out of his thoughts, and he looked up. Sirius, no, Padfoot, was standing right in front of him, wagging his tail and everything. Granted, the sight of a large, fearsome grim slapping his tail from left to right and back gave a wholly different impression than an adorable puppy would, but Harry decided to accept whatever silver lining the fates threw his way.
Padfoot barked again.
Taking his hint, Harry instantly morphed into his owl form, and the intense gravity he had been feeling earlier vanished instantly.
And then Padfoot spoke to him, in perfectly understandable English. "Son of a bitch."
Harry the owl stared at him in dumb respect. He hadn't quite known that Padfoot could talk. He opened his mouth, errโฆ beak, but all that came out was a soft, curious hoot. Twisting his head to the other side, he hooted again.
No difference.
Weird.
Acting on a half-baked idea, Harry morphed back into his human form, only his body was still covered with jet-black, metallic scales, and his eyes, putrid yellow. A transition state that he had often found himself stuck in, during his early days at animagus transformation. The cold rationality and predatory instinct of his owl form remained in control, but apart from that, he could use every other body function, including speech.
"That'sโฆ an interesting form," said Padfoot.
"You can speak," said Harry. "Why can't I hear you normally?"
"Because you don't know how to Listen," said Padfoot.
Part of Harry wanted to assert right then, that he did in fact, know how to Listen, but Padfoot gave him an impatient glance and somehow โ Harry didn't know if it was something about his body language or what, but he became aware that he was telling him to blindly obey his orders or he would come and make him.
The large grim growled softly, as he swiftly studied the entire area. They were in the hospital grounds, and between all the wards, the magically expanded park, the outer compound and most importantly, the destruction all around, it would take them easily ten to fifteen minutes just to get through.
"We need to hurry up," said Padfoot. "Transform into your form, and follow me."
He took off towards the hospital, leaping through the broken rubble and half-demolished zones, and driven by reflex-level instinct, Harry morphed back into his owl-self and followed. Being in his current form, Harry was intensely aware of the twisted, corruptive energies that were saturating the entire place, as well as the massive vortex above. It had taken him quite a lot of time and practice to get used to his owl form, to not get overwhelmed by the absolute clarity of senses, the feeling of ready power in his wings and claws, and the hundreds and thousands of visual and olfactory stimuli begging to be explored at every turn. Even so, there was an overwhelming urge to turn in pursuit of those stimuli, but the leader in the pack was already on another trail, and Harry wasn't sure he could have turned aside even if he had tried to do so.
And the best part? They covered the entire distance in less than a minute. Ironically perhaps, the hospital wards were still active and pulsing, fending off unauthorised apparition or portkey except for those sanctioned by the hospital authorities themselves. And the barrier outside prevented anyone inside from apparating or portkeying outside, assuming they even could.
It was, for all intents and purposes, a perfect crucible.
The moment they were inside the compound, Padfoot morphed back into human form without so much as skipping a step. His godfather looked at him, frowning, his wand out and ready to hurl spells at a moment's notice. Harry quickly followed suit.
"How did you know that transforming to Padfoot would work?"
"Experience," said his godfather. "It was illusion magic, and not a very subtle one at that. Bombards your senses with the facsimile of a super-intense gravity spell. Being an Occlumens is the best way to counter that, that or, being an animagus. The animal mind is quite different from the human one, and illusion spells can't be designed to affect different mind-types at once. Too many variables."
Harry marvelled internally at what he had just learnt and witnessed, a demonstration of why Sirius Black was so feared in wizarding Britain. He had expected that with Death running through his veins, he'd have been the first to detect an illusion. Instead, his godfather had shown him that even without being a Vessel, or a magical form or a connection to some ancient library of mystical knowledge, one could still have a knack for beating the opponent in their own game, no matter how mysterious and esoteric the tricks might be.
"When you've got as much experience with your animagus self as I have, you begin to exist in a perpetual dual state of mind, the human and the grim," said Sirius.
Harry didn't know what to say about that. He had always wondered how his godfather had been able to not just maintain his sanity, but also been able to bounce back into normalcy so quickly despite twelve years of constant dementor exposure inside the highest security wing of Azkaban. To the best of his knowledge, being in the presence of dementors for even a month was enough to drive a normal person insane.
Now he knew.
Some of the old tomes on Animagery inside the Sunken Vault had argued that a perpetual dual state of mind was the most perfect state an Animagus could attain without actively moving past the boundaries of the Real into the realm of the Abstract. And knowing his animagus formโฆ
"Sirius, your form is a grim, isn't it?"
His godfather shook his head again. "My animagus form is a large, black dog that some people mistake to be the grim. Nothing more, nothing less."
Harry wanted to disagree. He, more than anyone else, knew just how effective the symbolic connections between animals, especially ones steeped deep in mythology and folklore, had on one's magic. If not for the symbolism of the owl being a traveller between worlds, he would have never been able to utilise the Miraculum Operarius as effectively as he had to trespass into the Anima that easily.
And 'large, black dog' or not, it fitted perfectly with the myths and lore about the mystical grim. Even magicals argued that the best sightings of the grim revealed it to be a spectral entity, a guardian spirit, or perhaps, a hellhound, known to punish the profane, and carried connotations of death and punishment, with associations with the Underworld.
It was possible that Sirius was right. That his form was nothing else but a large, shaggy, black dog. But he had achieved perfect duality with this creature spirit, tested by twelve years of dementor exposure, and came out retaining his mind and sanity intact. McGonagall had taught him that one of the reasons why being an Animagus was a priority in the path of attaining a Family Magic was because the animagus was a reflection of one's truest, primal self, and one couldn't even think of exploring into the Abstract without knowing themselves completely first.
Something that Sirius Black had, unknowingly perhaps, already achieved.
Harry looked up at the massive runic circle floating above them, shining a menacing crimson down on them. He knew that when he sent the signal, and attempted to shatter the circle, the vortex would unleash tremendous amounts of raw magic directly from the Abstract into Reality.
Just what kind of effect would that have on a person that had achieved everything one needed to explore the Anima and had the animagus form that people associated with the Grim?
He wasn't sure he liked the answer, but he would soon find it out.
"Alright," said his godfather. "Let's go."
Apologies for the delay. Got stuck in a serious bout of Writer's Block.
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