Harry Potter, the Grand Ruler Chapter 3
Hello everybody! Tis is I, Iskander Mandoraekon! Back with the third chapter for Harry Potter, the Grand Ruler!
I know! It's a miracle! Iskander has posted another chapter shortly after the last one! Le gasp~! Is the world ending?!
No. No it is not. As I stated previously, I have a lot of spare time on my hands now that I am out of the job and am looking for a new job. Which means I can either sit around like a lazily, fat lump of flesh draining my life away or I could be productive and get my ass out of the writing rut I've been in for a couple years now.
Here are the after events of the last chapter.
I do not own Harry Potter, Fate/Grand Order or High School DxD. Those belong solely to the geniuses J.K. Rowling, Ichiei Ishibumi and Kinoko Nasu.
-Surry, England; Number 4 Privet Drive; 1986-
Albus Dumbledore's lips pressed tightly together, nearly hiding his mouth altogether behind his mustache and beard as he stared down at the shattered door to the cupboard beneath the stairs of Number 4 Privet Drive.
Behind him in the den of the festering rathole he stood in, the three members of the Dursley family were huddled together in fear while being stared dourly at by Severus. His potions professor's presence a stalwart defense against any would-be retaliatory actions from Petunia and the still-recovering Vernon Dursley for this invasion of their home.
Albus had come immediately after finding his devices inert, desperate to find the Boy-Who-Lived safe and sound, with Severus following shortly after getting the headmaster's patronus.
What he had found was the mass of fat and grease known as Vernon Dursley unconscious as the base of the stairs, a small rune carved into the man's neck blubber. Isa. The Norse rune for clarity if he remembered his Ancient Runes studies well enough. And much to Albus's horror and regret, he'd also found out just where Harry had been sleeping in the Dursley home.
In the cupboard.
Beneath the stairs.
He had hoped, been very optimistic, that Petunia would be able to put aside her disdain and loathing for her magical sister to see the innocent child that Harry was. But it seemed he had been a fool to ignore Minerva's warnings about what type of muggles this family was.
He stared at the interior of the cupboard to find something that filled him with terrible sadness and regret. It was a makeshift bedroom, or as close as a small child could make of one inside the cramped space. In what could only be blood on the wall were the words "Freak's Room".
The shelves and wall had spots of dried blood on them, either with fingerprints or from coughing.
There weren't any toys inside, save for ones that had clearly been salvaged after being broken. It was barely acceptable in terms of size for a small infant, let alone a child who was six years old.
Arabella hadn't seen anything happen at the time of Harry's disappearance from the Dursley home, having gone to bed earlier in the night after feeding her beloved kneezle horde.
"Where is she now?" Dumbledore turned part of his attention to where Severus was interrogating Vernon Dursley, frowning minutely when he heard the word 'She' rather than 'He'. So, it was a woman that had taken Harry… though, he was more hard-pressed to say rescued.
"I don't know!" Vernon growled at the black-clad wizard, before his bravado vanished when Severus's wand twitched at the sight of his aggression. "I barely even remember the Freak! I came downstairs to deal with what I thought was a burglar and then nothing beyond her red eyes and that blasted spear!"
The fat muggle's hand went back up to his neck where the bloody rune was carved into his flesh.
Dumbledore had examined it before he'd first revived the man. It hadn't been done with a wand, but with a sharp object, likely the spear Vernon had mentioned. While the wound had magic within it, it had been magic drawn from the natural energy of the world and not any living being's inner magic, making it impossible for Albus to be able to track whoever had carved it.
The assailant was clearly a witch. One with quite a substantial knowledge in runecraft, as the set of runes Isa belonged to were taught only in the N.E.W.T. Mastery-level Ancient Runes class.
She was also clearly well-versed in using a spear, as she had cut the rune into Dursley's flesh before the fat man could blink and had done so with a polearm and without cutting deep enough to slit the muggle's throat.
The intruder who had taken Harry sounded like a Battle Mage.
Albus pursed his lips in a frown as he glanced back down to the cupboard, using his wand to levitate some pieces of wood from the interior that had Harry's blood on them. He could quite possibly track the boy with this.
It had been a very long time since he'd even seen, let alone heard about a Battle Mage. Different from Hit-Wizards and Aurors, Battle Mages were wizards and witches that delved into the Old Ways to intermix their magical knowledge with the art of warfare.
A proper Battle Mage could turn the tide of a battlefield by themselves in the old days. Against muggles and wizards alike. If they'd had a Battle Mage as an ally in the previous war, Dumbledore doubted the Death Eaters would have been able to gain as much ground as they had.
In fact, over the course of his long life, Dumbledore had only ever met one. An old man that had been breeching his second century of life before meeting his end during the war against Grindelwald when he'd singlehandedly taken down several Nundu tamed by Albus's old friend.
He could count on one hand the number of Battle Mages he'd heard about in the last century and still have fingers to spare.
This newcomer? From the description given to them by Vernon, she was a woman with a youthful appearance, had deep red hair and crimson eyes. She wielded a crimson spear. She also spoke with a Scottish accent.
She didn't match the description of anyone Dumbledore had heard of. Especially not amongst the dwindling ranks of the Battle Mages.
Knowing how slowly wizards and witches aged, her youthful appearance could very well belay her true age and so he couldn't trust a search in the Ministry Archives for the age group she appeared to be in.
Then there was the fact that she had bypassed the Blood Ward Dumbledore had set up to protect Harry and his kin without detection or punishment for the harm she'd inflicted upon the boy's muggle uncle.
A Battle Mage. A woman. Powerful enough to bypass defenses placed by Dumbledore personally without apparent injury or strain. One gifted with Ancient Runes and the spear.
Surely, he would have heard of such a woman living in the British Isles.
Dumbledore sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose before waving away Arabella's apologies when the squib entered the house and caught sight of the headmaster.
Even if Arabella had been able to see something happening, Dumbledore very much doubted that the old squib could have done much if anything against a Battle Mage.
The question now was whether the members of the Order would answer his call after being inactive for so long, and if they could find Harry and his abductor, and undo the damage the headmaster had caused with his naive belief that the child's kin would treat Harry like a family should be treated.
Albus gestured towards Severus and began walking out the front door with the dour professor soon following after him upon using his wand to extract the memory of the event from Vernon's head and store it in a vial. Minerva was never going to let him hear the end of this when she found out. Dutiful and loyal his deputy may be, but when wronged, she showed the true vindictiveness of a Scotsman.
-Tír na nÓg; Celtic Otherworld; 1986-
Red eyes opened from their mediation as the Mist faded away from the surrounding area to reveal Manannán mac Lir's domain. Focusing on the shore just ahead, they found the familiar home of the Celtic Sea God. The home itself was made from a mixture of wood from ships and the bones of a great sea monster whose name that even she had long since forgotten and shaped into a defensive, yet humble building.
Her approach had clearly been detected long before she'd exited the Mist surrounding this isle in Tír na nÓg's sea. Standing at the head of the path connecting the fort to the dock was Manannán himself.
The foster father of the Great God Lugh, and as a result, the grandfather of her long-dead student, Cú Chulainn.
"Scáthach." A deep rumbling, yet soothing voice sounded forth from the deity as oceanic green eyes met her crimson gaze. "It has been quite a long time since I've seen you step foot outside Dún Scáith."
"Lord Manannán." The witch of the Land of Shadows bowed respectfully to the Lord of Tír na nÓg. "I come seeking your wisdom on a matter that I have found myself drawn into. I present to you my newest ward, Harry Potter."
"A new ward?" The sea god appeared surprised as his green gaze dropped to inspect the frail child held slumbering within Scáthach's grasp. "I had thought you had forsworn the act of teaching."
"In truth, I am still very much disinclined to training another soul." Scáthach frowned as the memory of Ferdiad and Setanta came to her mind. "Harry is a wizardborn that was capable of summoning me from Dun Scáith under his own power."
"Truly?!" Manannán asked in surprise as his gaze flickered from Scáthach's face back down to the child. "I see, and what exactly is it you wish from me in this matter?"
Scáthach walked forward and held the child out for inspection. "The first of which I desire is to know what exactly makes this child so special as to be able to possess the power to not just connect with me from afar, but to connect with the Throne of Heroes to summon forth one of the Heroic Dead. The second thing I desire is a reading of his nature and future."
"Very well…" The God stated after a moment before turning his back on the warrior queen and striding back up to his abode. "Bring him inside and I will divine his fate. For your longtime contributions to the safeguarding of the mortal realm and for teaching Lugh's boy, I will not ask a price for this."
Once inside Manannán's dwelling, Scáthach laid Harry on the table before the sea god. Candles situated around the room lit with a twitch of the God's finger and a tap against the ancient wood of the table saw runes of olde lighting in a circle around the slumbering child.
"As you have already divined-" Manannán stated as he cradled the boy's head gently in his large palm, the sea god's eyes taking on an otherworldly glow as he peered beyond the fabric of the present world. "-He is a wizard. His blood holds the scent of the three brothers once blessed by Arawn with his Hallowed tools. A descendant, though I know not of which line." Almost as if in a trance, the God's left hand trailed down to Harry's left wrist and after a moment, before the watchful eyes of Scáthach, a bracer appeared in an ethereal light.
The bracer was forged from a greenish metal and decorated with ten gems adorning its surface, each of varying colors, but all oval in shape. As Scáthach gazed upon the artifact, she could see one of the gems was lit up with a light red glow and the ancient witch could feel the tether between her and the boy stretching from that gem.
"A Sacred Gear?" Manannán asked nobody as his brow furrowed slightly in surprise when he failed to recognize the artifact attached to the child's wrist. "Yet not one wrought by Yahweh's hand." The God touched the lit gem, and an ethereal cord of spun gold appeared hazily, leading from the gem to the center of Scáthach's chest between her breasts. "This artifact is the source of your connection to the child." Manannán pushed his mind deeper into the divining to seek the artifact's purpose. "It is a Sacred Gear like I believed, yet one created only mere centuries ago compared to the ancient devices granted to Humanity by the God of the Jews. Its purpose is to seek out a compatible Heroic Spirit from the Throne of Heroes that best matches its bearer's temperament. The touch of its creator is familiar, yet I cannot place their identity. It has passed between too many mortal hands since its conception, all linked by familial blood."
Glowing sea green eyes locked with Scáthach's gaze as a thoughtful frown etched itself onto the Celt's face. "It tethered itself to you instead of breaching the veil between worlds to the Heroes Throne because of the current weakness in the child born from his malnourishment and frailty, and his yet to be explored magical power. You who have yet to die yet hold the great pedigree of being more than worthy of a seat in the Throne outside the world's bounds. If you had been properly alive rather than trapped between the Mortal and Immortal worlds as you are, the tether would have likely ignored you."
"And what of his fate?" Scáthach asked as she watched the process unfold. Learning about this new Sacred Gear which had allowed her summoner the power to connect with her magic core and potentially summon Heroes of Olde from the Throne was very interesting and something she would explore further once done here, but what she truly wanted to know was the potential future of her new ward.
Was she doomed to watch him die young like the Hound had? Or perhaps she would finally be able to die at another's hands? To finally abandon the mortal coil. Would he be worthy of being taught by her and most importantly, would she be passing the Gáe Bolg into mortal hands again?
"He is bound by Fate." Manannán started after a moment of silence, his palms pressed against the side of Harry's head. "The realm of prophecy has its grasp on him-" He touched the lightning-shaped scar on the boy's forehead with a calloused finger, tracing its length. "–and he will need to return to the lands of his forefathers to face one that refuses the embrace of the afterlife. The chains binding him to this Other's Fate are tangled and even I cannot foresee how the prophecy will play out. If he survives his Fated Day, he will choose life as either a normal mortal or life as an extraordinary figure. Which one, not even I can see."
Manannán locked gazes with Scáthach. "There is a Foulness lying in wait beneath the surface of his scar, preventing it from truly healing. I would remove such a vile abomination, but at his young age it would do far more harm than good. It is what connects the child to the Other, likely Marked by this Other as their fated equal. I'd believe only Arawn, or another God of Death could remove it without causing undue harm, yet Arawn is as flighty as ever and I know not where he roams."
The glow in the God's eyes died down and he pulled his hands from the child's head. The dim introduced to the chamber from intruding on Fate's realm receded, once again filling the room with the light of the candles.
Manannán looked to Scáthach as he lifted Harry into his arms and handed him back to his new guardian. "Take care of this child, Scáthach. His role will be pivotal not just for the Fate of Briton's magical society, but for the mortal world as a whole."
Scáthach nodded respectfully to the deity before looking down at the slumbering child. She let a slight smile grace her lips before she smoothed her features once again. As against the act of being a teacher again as she was, it felt good to have a purpose once more rather than just idling the centuries away like she had. She would have to see where this connection took her, for good or bad.
-Dornie, Scotland; Western Ross-shire Highlands; 1986-
From the early morning mist, a gateway formed from the aether and ejected a beautiful, red-eyed woman into the ancient homeland of the Picts whereupon she stood upon the peak of a small hill overlooking a quaint town nestled on the edge of a Loch, smoke rising from the occasional chimney.
This town was the fishing village of Dornie in the Scottish Highlands, nestled on the meeting junction between Loch Duich, Loch Alsh and Loch Long. This would be where she raised the child that was her new 'Master'.
In mere moments thanks to the speed granted to her by her status as a 'Servant', Scáthach was in the streets of the rural town of Dornie and walking into the town's sole Inn. Booking a room, she settled herself and her new ward in for however long it would take for her to either procure a home or make one.
She would have taken the boy to Dun Scáith, but it wouldn't have been safe or healthy to raise a mortal child so close to the Land of Shadows. Only the most promising of her students had been able to remain so close to the Gates for long periods of time, and that was mostly due to Cú Chulainn's divine heritage. Only her blood kin had been able to remain for decades.
Her attention returned to the child as Harry blearily clawed his way to wakefulness, everything seemed strange to the waif that was sure he'd fallen asleep in the cupboard. His surroundings were no longer as tight and suffocating. In fact, it seemed brighter and more comfortable. The last thing he remembered was briefly waking up to the sight of a red-eyed lady saying that she would protect him and then he'd fall back into slumber.
Even stranger was that his body didn't hurt at all despite the beating Uncle Vernon had given him prior to being thrown into the cupboard. The feeling was foreign, to not be bruised and feel pain in some form or manner.
Then he opened his green eyes to take in the sight of a homely and quaint room that gave off a feeling of comfort and safety that was far removed from the cupboard he'd spent the last five years in.
The bed was big and far more comfortable than the tiny makeshift nest of old blankets he'd made in the cupboard. It felt like he was lying on a cloud and that he'd sink through to the ground at the slightest movement.
It was at that moment as he looked to the side where he heard and felt the warm crackle of a fire, that he laid eyes upon the crimson-eyed and haired woman that had torn the door of the cupboard off its hinges.
"I see that you are awake now." The woman said as she turned her head slightly away from the book she was flipping through in front of the fireplace. Her voice had a deep timber that Harry recognized as the accent of the Scottish, whom Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had often decried as uneducated savages from the North.
"W-Where am I?" The child asked hesitantly, overwhelmed by the change in his surroundings and the fear that plagued him that this was all a dream, and that he was still in the cupboard beneath the stairs. "W-Who are y-you?"
"I have been known by many names over my lifetime." The woman answered as she set her book aside with a light sigh before standing and approaching the side of the bed. "But my name is Scáthach. The Queen of Dun Scáith and the guardian of the Gate of Skye, daughter of the Warrior King Árd-Greimne of Lethra, and she who trained the Hound of Ulster into the mighty warrior he was. You who have summoned me from Dun Scáith, may call me either Scáthach or by the designation your summoning gave me, Lancer."
At the woman's words, Harry's mind came to a screeching halt.
Scáthach?
Dun Scáith?
Gate of Skye?
Summoned?
Lancer?
He summoned this woman?! Like with magic?!
Did magic exist?!
"It has been a long time since I've seen such an expression." Scáthach's voice was filled with amusement as she sat on the bedside and leaned her back against the bedpost. "Not since little Setanta came to me after learning he'd sired a welp upon my sister."
The accented voice interrupted Harry's frantic thoughts, drawing him back to reality.
"D-Do I-I have to go b-back?" Harry asked timidly, his hands clutching the warm comforter of the bed in anticipation. Nothing good had ever happened to Harry without a price attached to it.
"Upon the bond between us and my honor as a warrior, you shall never return to that abysmal home unless it is under your own will and desire."
"Y-You said I summoned you?" Harry asked after a long moment of silence as he digested the woman's words. He was free. Finally free from his relatives. "Is that like magic? D-Do I have magic?"
Scáthach smiled at the child, her hand coming up to gently ruffle his bird's nest of hair, pausing only momentarily when he flinched reflexively. "You do. You're what is known as a wizard. I take it you desire to learn magic?"
Harry nodded eagerly.
In Dornie, Scotland, a woman and her foster son were registered as Scáthach Scáith and Harry Scáith, were registered at the local registry office.
If the disappearance of their nephew and the break-in of their home had been reported to the authorities by the Dursleys and hadn't been covered up by the wizards directed by Albus Dumbledore, red flags would have been raised about the similarities between the missing Harry Potter and Harry Scáith.
Instead, a copy of the birth certificate is posted to a new address in the small town without any issue arising. The town council, and the small-town doctor have their memories altered by Scáthach to make it appear as if the two had lived there for the past couple years.
If Dumbledore had been more in synch with the muggle world as he would like the rest of the British magical world to believe, he might have been able to be warned about a woman matching the description of the Battle Mage the Dursleys had encountered appearing in the Scottish Highlands with a boy matching the appearance of the missing Boy-Who-Lived.
Alas, despite his worldly claims, Albus Dumbledore was not.
A visit by the ancient Queen of Dun Scáith to the goblins of Gringotts saw further turmoil to Dumbledore's plans to retrieve the wayward Potter heir, as her adoption of Harry James Potter went through without a hitch. A proud warrior race, the goblins know better than to get on the bad side of such a legendary and powerful warrior, especially the one that singlehandedly held shut the Gates of Skye for nearly two thousand years, and easily choose to help Scáthach legally adopt her new ward in the Magical World. The only panic to ensue is ensuring that the Potter accounts were complete, accounted for, and most importantly, completely above board.
A notice of the Boy-Who-Lived's change in guardian would arrive at the Gringotts Liaison Department in the Ministry of Magic, but due to the poor management of that Department, it would go unnoticed and buried beneath other paperwork that wouldn't be completed for a long time.
By the time Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix, which had gathered for the first time in half-a-decade since Voldemort's defeat, had given up their search for the missing Golden Child, even if they had learned the location of Harry Potter and his rescuer, it would have been too late to do anything legally in the muggle world and the magical world.
Not that they ever would learn of Harry's true fate.
Not until the evening of September the First in nineteen-ninety-nine came and the newest flock of hopeful witches and wizards stepped off the Hogwarts Express to be sorted.
-Hamburg, Germany; Nighttime; 1986-
It was a misty night in the streets of Hamburg, Germany. Quiet and void of all sounds as the shadows of night covered the city like a blanket.
Everybody was in their homes, sleeping or turning in for the night. The only ones out and about being the city's guardians, the Stadtpolizei, as they drove their cars along in search of any wrongdoing.
Suddenly, the peaceful silence was shattered by a scream of fear and pain as a man dressed in fine, expensive clothes tried to run away from the docks on the river. His right hand and forearm had been reduced to a bloody mess as if he'd put it in a meat grinder.
This was Matteo Lichtwark, the second son and youngest child of Johan Lichtwark, the head of the small crime family controlling the criminal underworld of Hamburg.
What was Matteo doing at the docks at this time of night, you ask?
Engaging in a criminal act perhaps?
Maybe he was taking part in one of his family's drug smuggling operations?
Alas, that was not what was happening. There was no shipment of illegal drugs being smuggled into the city by the docks tonight. There hadn't been since Johan ordered all activities to go dark in light of the most recent investigation launched by the Hamburg Stadtpolizei after one of the family's underlings got caught giving cocaine to school kids.
No. Matteo had been on a secret rendezvous with the latest love of his life, Tara Klinger, a cellist touring Europe with her orchestra that happened to be staying in Hamburg for the course of their time in Germany.
Now, how did a simple romantic meet-up between Matteo and Tara end up like this, you ask? With Matteo screaming loud enough to wake the slumbering dead and running for his life with a mangled hand?
That would be the living shadow that had interrupted the two lovers that had been engaged in a clandestine, steamy act of lovemaking in the outdoors.
The shadow with horrifying green eyes that had sliced and diced his hand when he'd been turning to see what that odd sound had been and had disemboweled Tara with a blur of movement.
He had only been able to escape because the shadow was more focused on Tara, though Matteo was positive in his fear-pain-addled mind that he'd only made it this far because the shadow was toying with him.
This terror of Hamburg that had been plaguing the city's shadows for the last three years and leaving corpses in its wake missing their hearts. Its primary victims often being women old enough to be mothers, and as a result being nicknamed as the "Second Coming of Jack the Ripper" by the press and news outlets.
As of tonight, their kill count was tallied at eighty-six women and seventeen men.
In the typical arrogance of being raised with a silver spoon in his mouth and believing that he was untouchable brought on by his father's influence, power and money, Matteo had never feared to go out at night, never grew afraid despite his father's warnings and the warnings of the men serving the Lichtwark family.
He'd believed for twenty years now since he was old enough to know what his father did for a living that nobody would dare mess with the Lichtwark family.
Those that did often ended up dead or crippled.
He was afraid now.
He. Was. Terrified. Now!
Even as he grew further and further away from the site of the grisly murder of his lover, Matteo could still hear the wet, puke-inducing sounds of the murderer's knives carving into Tara's body. The sounds only faded away when he escaped the docks and took shelter in a dark alleyway some distance from the site of the murder.
Was he safe?
He didn't know.
It was as the pain caught up to him and Matteo was considering taking the risk of running for the nearest hospital that a ghostly, childish voice sounded out from behind him, a pout audible in its tone. "Oh, are you done running? We were having fun…"
Matteo screamed in horror as the blood-stained silver of the killer's knives flashed in his sight before his vision faded to darkness, his blood splattering all over the alleyway and the killer's face as his chest and stomach were carved open in a flurry of inhumanly fast and precise slashes.
Wiping the blood from its face, a pair of yellow-green cat-like eyes opened as the tiny figure looked up from their latest victim, their knives stored away at their waist beneath a ragged, black makeshift cloak that covered most of their petite body. The murderer smiled gleefully as they cut out Matteo Lichtwark's heart and hefted it up in front of their face.
"Thank you for the meal, we're going to need it." Glowing eyes flickered over to the docks they'd chased the criminal from. "Our little brother is finally awake. We need to return home, to find him. We can't wait to see him again!"
And that is a wrap. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, feel free to regail me with your thoughts in the comments section. I've already pretty much got a list of the Servants Harry will be summoning later on, but I am open to suggestions.
Also as I am currently torn between lengthening out his childhood before Hogwarts and just jumping to his first year at Hogwarts for the next chapter, I leave it up to you guys to tell me what you'd like more in the comments.
Which. Means. Ya. Bloody. Damn. Well. Better. Review.
Savy?
Good.
This is Iskander Mandoraekon signing off.