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𝕸𝖔𝖓𝖔𝖈𝖍𝖗𝖔𝖒𝖊
Act IV - Skin In The Game
Chapter 11: Contagion
"Of course it is," said Daphne, stomping her way forward, pretending like the stone floors of Hogwarts were quaking at her annoyed footsteps. "I swear, this stupid school. Why does every hideous crazy thing just have to happen here? And Morgana forbid it has something to do with someone else for a change. Augh!"
They passed through the pillar obliquely, the passageway similar to the one on King's Cross Station, allowing them entrance to the Lair. She raised the tiny opal necklace that Harry had enchanted for her, recording a few Parseltongue commands within it, allowing her access to the library. Only this time, it didn't work, and Daphne scowled up at the doors suspiciously. Unfortunately, the sealed doors were immune to grumpy-witch syndrome and stayed closed.
Harry plucked the snitch that was zooming around him in mid-air and said, "Open."
This time the doors opened with a great hiss.
At Daphne's glare, he shrugged. "It's an ancient chamber. Performance issues are not uncommon, you know."
It was the wrong thing to say. Daphne took it as a signal to vent.
"Oh, did Delacour say that while you were ploughing her fields?"
Harry was caught between coughing out loud at her crassness and being shell shocked that she actually said it. "No, she's always…" He floundered, realising it had no correct answers, and that made Daphne more annoyed. "I mean… No, uh, you know what I mean."
"Forget it," she stomped her foot on the floor. Harry knew that girls suffered from mood swings, but Daphne's were on steroids or something. At least the bloody snitch's timely zooming into the Lair saved him from Daphne's wrath. His only guess was that the Lair was recognizing the soul fragment inside the snitch as a separate entity, and forbidding entry, despite Daphne saying the password. That only proved that Daphne couldn't bring anyone else with her, voluntarily or otherwise.
He approved.
"You're going to France tomorrow, aren't you?"
Yeah, he spoke too early. "I am."
"And you're going to meet the Queen bitch."
Harry snorted at her description for Apolline Delacour. "After meeting Mr. Flamel."
His answer didn't do her expression any favours. "Knowing her, she's probably trying to tie her fille chérie around your neck before our wedding. Already you've gallantly protected her daughter's reputation in front of the whole world. She's probably planning your wedding bells right now."
Ah, so that was it. She was jittery because of what Apolline Delacour had in mind. That and their approaching engagement. Knowing her, she was afraid someone might try something and things might go all 'Harry' in the middle of it all.
And why the hell was he using his own name like it was a bloody adjective?
"I wish," he said with a sigh. "Knowing my luck, it's got something to do with this Cabal business."
Just as asked, Daphne had consulted her father and made private searches about this mysterious organisation, but none of his investigations had led to anything other than shut lips and warnings. Except that many of great power wanted to remain on the organisation's good side, and that Harry Potter's emergence as the Peverell Vessel had caused great stir in the wizarding community worldwide, and the Cabal was likely one among many parties that were greatly interested in his power. Daphne didn't know why that was the case, given there were other Most Ancient and Noble Houses that boasted of Family Magic, some of them being as old as the Peverells themselves.
It made him wonder if there was more behind the interest and support he had garnered at the Rosier-Santos wedding. He really hated it when he missed the subtext.
"What are we looking for?" asked Daphne.
"Anything on the nature of Contagion and its ability to connect and bind objects or people," he said.
Just as Dumbledore had asked him to, he hadn't approached the subject of horcruxes with Daphne, but he could always have her obliquely research on related subjects without knowing the main issue. Daphne was much better at theoretical analysis than he was, perhaps not as much as Fleur, but the veela's position in his life was currently all over the place. Until he was able to get a better idea about this Cabal business or what Apolline Delacour wanted with him, he'd have to keep things from her. As it was, she knew a bloody lot about his research on Death. Granted, they were under standard confidentiality oaths, but he knew perfectly well how easy it was for a skilled person to weave through their loopholes.
"Contagion…" Daphne tilted her head. "If you really wanted to study the interconnectedness of things, you should've mentioned it earlier. Interconnectedness with nature is practically the foundation of the Greengrass craft." She did little to show her displeasure on the oversight. "Anything I should be looking for in particular?"
"Something that ties one's identity and consciousness with objects," said Harry, without trying to sound evasive.
"Tying identity and consciousness to objects…" murmured Daphne. "That would make them almost… no, not almost, that would make them sentient." She looked at him. "Kind of like the Sorting Hat."
Harry opened his mouth to correct her, but Daphne spoke again. "No, the Hat is its own existence, and what you're suggesting is an object that's attached to a… to a mind of its own. Obviously magical, but the mind can't just be replicated like that, and given we're talking about Contagion, there's a link between the original mind, and this object and it's through this link that the object gains consciousness."
Harry opened his mouth again —
"But even that," Daphne interrupted him again. "That isn't exactly tying consciousness to an object. That's more of a… I mean, if we follow the philosophy of Concordia, then it's more like we're dealing with creating a shadow of the original identity and consciousness through Contagion, a reflection of sorts. That gives the object its own identity, and yet the identity is tied with something more concrete, like the real person."
Harry went still. Daphne was skirting way too close to the truth. He had really underestimated her this time. Why did he forget that just like Death, the power of Summer was equally esoteric and had far-reaching effects in shaping the Universe. Daphne might not have guessed that he was talking about tying souls to objects, assuming that was one of the basic steps of horcrux creation. He didn't know how one sundered one's soul, and frankly, just the thought of it made him want to snarl in rage.
"Where should I look?" asked Daphne.
Harry closed his eyes, and felt the Awareness at the back of his mind. His bond with the vault was extremely solid and powerful, but it existed only when he was actually within its perimeter. Now that he was, knowledge flooded into him, through him, a wave of absolute information that should've inundated his senses and disoriented him entirely.
But it didn't.
"Second shelf, third row, number eight. There are two more on the seventh shelf, second row. Thirty-first shelf, first row, okay that one has less to do with consciousness and more to do with…no matter, get that one as well."
That was the beauty of the Awareness, pure universal knowledge. While he stood inside the Lair, he understood it in a way that was breathtakingly simple to experience and understand, but practically impossible to explain properly. He knew where every stone lay, where every single object within the Vault was. Every step he made inside this place was solid, and every motion minimal, efficient and necessary.
He didn't have to focus on an idea, or wrest the knowledge from the Awareness. He just thought about it and knew, the way he knew what his fingers were touching, the way he knew what scent belonged to what foods.
If anything, he had to restrain the flow of information. Why, there was this time when he had started knowing about the entire psychometric history of a random shelf right from its inception. The headache that had followed lasted an entire week.
"Stick to the basic foundations only," he said. "We don't exactly know what we're looking for, so we might need to cross-reference a lot of different schools of thought."
He tried his best not to think of that one book on the ninth shelf, thirteenth row, that contained liberal amounts of description involving the nature of souls and their relationship with the Spring of Creation, or as modern wizards called it, the Anima. He'd come back to it later, preferably when he was alone without Daphne within a hundred feet of him.
As if answering his thoughts, the snitch hovered in front of him, daring him to gaze at it yet again.
This thing held a fragment of Voldemort's soul, and decades worth of knowledge of a man that immersed himself in the darkest of magics that twisted himself into a monstrosity. A lifetime of learning of a man that wanted to escape from death so bad that he sundered himself into multiple pieces.
"Mort…" Harry murmured. The latin word of death and the last part of the Dark Lord's name. "Morty. I'll call you Morty."
The newly named Morty zoomed around him twice, before slipping into his pocket.
Harry rolled his eyes.
Dumbledore had been right. For what it was worth, Harry was wholly exposed to the Abstract side of magic far too much compared to most wizards. Even discounting his position as the Warden of the Sunken Vault, he was the Boy-Who-Lived, the only survivor of the unstoppable killing curse. He was the Peverell Vessel, he and he alone had the power to unleash the embodiment of Death into the world. There was also Ignotus, his ancestor, and his brushing with the Anima, and his unique animagus form and abilities.
The episode with Ignotus had been illuminating on several levels. It had given him a glimpse of what the future was about to become. With the power of Death, fighting nuisances or even low-level Death Eaters wasn't even worth considering. In fact, he was pretty sure he could put up a decent stand against Voldemort's Inner-Circle, at least on a one-on-one basis. But Voldemort wasn't the endgame. No, there were larger games afoot, and his opponents wouldn't be weaklings. They'd have powers and skills just as esoteric and terrifying as his own, skills they had honed for far longer.
In some cases, over literal centuries.
So he needed something to even the odds. Play to his strengths.
Finding exactly what he could do would be a good start. Despite how the rest of the world perceived him, he wasn't Death's Vessel, not completely anyway. The power of Summer was only a temporary boost that amplified certain aspects of his magical side, but that came at the cost of the reduction of the Death-based benefits. He was fast, had good reflexes, and an above-average magical capacity, with a good number of tricks to counter the other's strengths and exploit their weaknesses.
The fight inside the Prison of Possibilities was proof of that.
And that meant finding new ways of fighting. To add to his existing repertoire. To win.
He couldn't rely on Albus Dumbledore, not for this. The Prison of Possibilities could be a potential resource, but he knew very little about it. Luna Lovegood was potentially an ally, her unconscious astral form was a chaotic element at best, one that was also the Warden of the Prison of Possibilities, and the avatar of Fate itself. One who believed, to quote her own words, that he was her destiny and her doom.
The Sunken Vault was a repository of knowledge, perhaps one of the largest in the world, but the Awareness was only of help so long as he was inside it. An absolutely crippling limitation, but one that wasn't beyond his ability to address.
His gaze flickered at the snitch.
Identity and consciousness tied to an object, only done through sundering of the soul.
No, that was unacceptable. He needed an alternative. A way to create his own reflection tied to something within this place — something that would be his equivalent, always present, always connected to the Awareness, always tied to his real self, feeding him with all the knowledge inside the Vault.
From there, it wouldn't be too complicated to tie his reflection into… say, a pendant, that Daphne could wear around her neck. The Greengrass Family Magic of Summer could be channelled via the pendant, directly into Daphne, and her being a true Greengrass would reduce chances of rejection. The vitality of Summer could neuter the malediction of the Black Family Magic.
In the same vein, channelling Death in the right proportions could keep Fleur's hunger at an all time low.
Only, without sundering his soul.
It was possible. He knew it. Rowena Ravenclaw had done it. The Family Magic of Ravenclaw — the power to see futures unborn and untold and twist events to manipulate Destiny itself — was tied to the Diadem. Yes, it required a dunamantist to truly utilise its power, but that didn't make the feat any less magnificent. Perhaps if he could use the Prison of Possibilities, or seek Luna Lovegood's help, maybe he could make some ventures in that direction?
Harry closed his eyes and exhaled. Just when he thought he had gained some answers, a new vista of questions and intrigue would open up.
To be honest, he wasn't sure what he was looking for. All he knew was that he needed a new trick or two, one that was reliable and one he could use without crippling himself. Something with a passive boost without major prerequisites would be preferable. Next would come skills that didn't require a particular esoteric mindset or cause the suppression of his most-used spells.
Just those two filters alone rendered half of his options useless. There were still a few remaining, but they also came with their own stringent limitations. Unless he was willing to completely sacrifice his sanity, transforming into the demon was an absolute no-no, even if it all but would guarantee him victory.
"And to think," he said, opening his eyes and chuckling mirthlessly. "I thought I'd never need a thing if I mastered the Peverell legacy."
Summoning his wand, Harry pointed it at the stone floor beneath and murmured, "Incendio."
A bright, orange ember danced at the edge of his wand tip, aglow with warmth. The cinder was in constant motion, rippling and trying to escape, but it was barely able to get the momentum to escape the wand and rush down to the floor.
Harry tried again.
"Incendio Maxima."
The fireball became bigger, but the jet of searing flame never came.
He exhaled. "Guess things haven't changed that much. Or… have they?"
He opened his now empty left hand, and focussed on the feeling of Fire. Of Warmth, vitality and growth. Of Summer. A blazing heat rushed through his veins, and his hand erupted into flames. He cast no spell, he had waved no wand, and yet the flames came rushing out, unlike before. A casual flexing of his will, and the flames coalesced in the centre of his palm, forming a dense, spinning crimson orb, with fiery tendrils trying to escape its gravity.
This time Harry frowned in concern. Not because it didn't work, but because he did.
He noted the feeling it gave, the energy searing through his body, the temperature and the fact that despite the immolation, his body remained untouched and unburnt, as if under application of a flame-freezing charm. It wasn't Incendio by any means, and yet it was fire. The warmth, the light, the energy — it was all there, yet it wasn't scorching his arm.
He clenched his fist again, and flexing his will again, divided the orbs into five smaller ones, each of them resting on the tip of every finger.
He repeated the same process with his right hand, and noted the effort it took to do the same thing. He willed the flames in his right arm to die and the flames followed his will.
"So, I can't cast a fire spell to save my life, but I can self-transfigure into living flame."
It was simple logic. Casting a flame-spell with magic was difficult, because Fire was energy, activity and motion in one, and such a thing was completely opposite the concept of Death and eternal coldness and inactivity of the Abyss at the end of Time. But much like how he himself was a 'wizard' and not just a human, and magic was an intrinsic part of his constitution, so was Summer.
However temporary or limited it might be.
He clenched his flaming left hand into a fist, and could feel the fiery veins and nerves function normally, as if exuding bright golden flames was something they were naturally supposed to do.
This time, he focussed on the familiar coldness of Death. It surged like a serpent, colder than frost yet more restless than flame, as if waiting coiled and focussed until it was time to strike. Whatever lingering warmth had existed on his right hand vanished instantly, and black hoarfrost coated his skin, forming a genuine sheet of ice, extending across his skin, thickening, with icicles erupting out in spots, forming teeth-like daggers, swelling and erupting with violent force. Harry idly noted that even such a violent reaction made him feel absolutely nothing. No chill, no shivers, his breath didn't even frost. If anything, the flames on his left hand surged just a tad more brightly, as if competing with the arctic tundra manifesting on his other arm.
"HARRY!" Daphne shrieked from a distance, and the next thing he knew, a torrent of water crashed against him, drenching him from head to toe.
"Why did you do that?" He snapped.
"You were on fire," she snapped back.
"I wasn't on…" he trailed off. "Look, I was fine."
"Fine, my arse," she yelled. "You were about to burn."
Harry looked at the golden flames that were still exuding out of his wet arm. "Yeah," he said dryly. "I noticed."
"What — what's going on?" She asked, perplexed. "I thought you couldn't use fire, and now this."
"This is…" he frowned, unsure how to put it. "An experiment."
"Experiment? You're performing elemental transfiguration on yourself, Harry. It's… it's dangerous."
More like impossible, Harry mused. Any third-year could perform the basic elemental spells. Those above fifth-years were required to be able to cast the elemental spells with at least the 'Duo' suffix, if not 'Maxima'. But transforming his own body part into an element? That was an existence similar to an elemental, or perhaps, a magical creature.
Nobody save Tonks would really be able to tell what had happened exactly just by watching it.
Or perhaps… Luna Lovegood. Or her dream-self.
And if channelling just one element wasn't stupendous enough, he was channelling opposing elements at the same time, breaking a dozen rules in the process.
But what he was about to do was….
He didn't know what to call it. Foolhardy? Suicidal? Playing with fire? The pun made him chuckle, and he held out his flaming hand at his soon-to-be bride. Daphne looked at him with apprehension and concern, at his flaming hand, the question clear in her aquiline eyes.
"Do you trust me?" He asked.
She didn't even flinch. Her hand grasped his, and Harry almost cried out as his eyes burned in their sockets like living coals, magic and power rushing through him in torrents unbelievable. It was more strength than he had ever dreamed of, and he felt it exude out of his body into Daphne, felt the warmth wash over him, almost searing his vision as it leapt at her, not a predator at its prey, but a waterfall falling off a precipice. The very air around them seemed part of the fiery power as the world turned white for that instant.
He thought he heard screaming. Maybe it was his own. Maybe it was Daphne. When the white dissipated, Daphne's hand lay clenched in his, unscorched, and yet the energy flux was still in play. Her eyes were wide open, her expression perfectly capturing the euphoria from the power awakened and flowing through her.
"This is… this is unbelievable, Harry. Everything's so.. So vivid. So sharp. So overwhelming. I… I…"
Her wand spun into her hand, and she held it like a swordswoman. With a speed that was fast even to his enhanced senses, she began slashing through the air, casting multiple spells into a matrix that alone would puzzle most NEWT students. And that was barely the first layer. His eyes morphed into putrid yellow, seeing how she was crafting a complex runic circle, in mid-air effortlessly.
"What does it do?" He asked.
Daphne paused midway between creating the fourth layer, and shrugged, as though not seeing the issue. "It's a runic matrix designed by my predecessors. I am not totally sure what it does, but it amplifies."
"Amplifies… what?"
She shrugged. "Not sure. We've this expression, as above, so below. Basically, make something happen on a small scale, then give it the energy to happen on a large scale. I was never able to cast beyond the first layer, so it's just one of those family craft projects put on the shelf for centuries."
A family project that allowed one to amplify a spell or ritual or any magical craft using Family Magic to exponential levels. Something like this could be used to impose a massive magical effect upon the world, like applying a Fidelius on an extremely large area, or perhaps a devastating curse, or a large-scale Imperius.
And this was one of those projects put on the shelf for centuries.
Harry took a deep breath through the nose, and rubbed his temples to alleviate some of his stress. Not for the first time, he wondered how wizards didn't come to rule the world by now. Then he remembered that they chose to fight and kill over whose blood was purer instead of actually developing their race and might to greater heights.
"But Harry," said Daphne, letting go of his hand, and instantly, the runic matrix dispersed. "Just what is this energy? It feels… familiar, somehow."
"It should," said Harry. "It's your birthright, after all."
Daphne's eyes widened. "You mean—"
"What you just experienced was a taste of Summer, the Greengrass Family Magic."
His words sapped her enthusiasm, her smile fading, replaced by something contemplative. "So Dad was right. You are the Greengrass Vessel."
"No."
Her brow furrowed. "But —"
"I'm not the Greengrass Vessel, Daphne," he said with an almost melancholic grin. "I'm just… a strong medium, a lucky keyhole through which the Greengrass Family Magic is trickling into this world."
"But… how?"
"That's what I'm trying to find," said Harry. "And I think I know just where to look."
He frowned at the Miraculum Operarius engraved on the floor. His time at the Workshop had taught him that insignia, much like runes, held meanings tied to them. Systems, protocols, rules… And when one used multiple insignias in tandem in established ritual circles, the result could be anything between utter devastation of the world to achieving a very specific result that wouldn't be possible with standard magics.
'Daphne," he decided. "I am about to do something reckless."
"So nothing new then," she snorted.
He shot her a surprised look. "I thought you tasked yourself with making sure that I don't get stuck in dangerous situations."
"I gave up such foolish endeavours after I realised that I'd never be able to stop you from doing that to yourself," said Daphne dryly. "But just out of curiosity, what madness are you contemplating?"
Harry clicked his tongue. "I'm thinking of using my Animagus form to connect to the Anima, and see if I can connect to this power."
"Harry," said Daphne, crossing her arms. "Your animagus form reflects your Peverell heritage, not… Greengrass."
Harry shook his head. "It would've, had I chosen the thestral. But instead, it's an owl."
"And the Greengrass totem is a bison," Daphne shot back. "It's an owl because you chose freedom and life instead of blindly succumbing to your ancestor's morbid demands."
Harry snorted at her choice of words. "Yeah, at first chance, that's how it looks, doesn't it? I mean, Hedwig's my first friend in the magical world. My freedom from my life as a freak to Hogwarts, to magic. But if you turn the perspective around and view things from a different angle, a deeper, more curious question emerges."
He eyed her. "What about the concepts that owls symbolise?"
"Intelligence, communication, knowledge, and the afterlife," said Daphne, surprising him. "What?" She demanded. "I was curious."
Harry gave her a lopsided grin. "Consider this then. In just fifteen years, I've brushed against more Abstract magic than most people do in their lifetime. Death, veela allure, the killing curse, your malediction empowered by the Black Family Magic, my own animagus form, Summer, Dunamancy and now…" he trailed off. "There are no coincidences where Abstract magic is concerned. Even Fate is but an instrument of the Anima itself. Doubly interesting is that owls have been the messengers from the afterlife and the gods in various religions."
"A connector between the spirit and the mortal world," Daphne quickly caught up. "Just like you keep brushing against the Anima and Family Magics despite being a wizard."
"Yes," said Harry. "I think I can harvest that symbolism and use it to reach into the Anima, and identify that source of power. With just my animagus form, it'd be difficult. But if I use, say, the Miraculum Operarius…"
He crouched down, studying the engraving on the floor.
Miraculum Operarius. That which creates Miracles.
Not a magic, or an enchantment, but wishcrafting. To play God and exert one's will upon Reality.
Quietly, he walked up and sat in front of Ananta-Shesha, exactly in the intersection of all three circles. All seven heads loomed over him from above, studying him, judging him. He sat on the floor, cross-legged, and focussed on the familiar warmth of Summer. The power danced in his eyes, his head, his chest, flying wild and out of control. It swelled within, brilliantly lighting his mind, burning him, and some part of him screamed out in joy as it did. The golden flames grew and grew and then —
—a torrent of chilling cold water drenched him from head to toe.
Scowling, Harry opened his eyes and glared at the perpetrator.
"You were on fire," Daphne yelled.
"Hilarious."
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