So...I've got another WBWL fic here in the offing, though you'll be pleased to know it'll have less bashing than the norm. Some relatively mild Dumbledore bashing, and that's it. Like my Tokyo Ghoul crossover Janus, it involves Neville being the WBWL, and Harry being paired with an antagonist from the crossover franchise. However, this is where things get tricky.

I'm not wholly sure whether I'll do this as a full story, or else do a variation of it as one of my annual Halloween one-shots. I already have a couple of My Hero Academia ones in mind. However, if the full story version of this falls through, then I intend to do an extended one-shot of this for Halloween.

I'm not going to spoil the crossover yet, but I'm sure many of you will pick it up swiftly enough.

PAINT IT BLACK

PROLOGUE:

REVIVAL

She had no idea of how long she was trapped in the darkness, only that it was a long time. She could see nothing, though admittedly, that was partly because her eyes were withered away. She could hear nothing, her body caught between life and death. She could smell nothing, her nose filled perpetually with the quicksilver they had immersed her in.

But they were little compared to the monotony of what she could taste and feel. The tang of the quicksilver, the poison they used to suppress her powers, was forever with her. So too was the feeling of the liquid on and in her body, cold, almost like a living thing, raping her form for all eternity. The poison was infamously notorious to enchant, but those thrice-cursed priests, may Ammit devour them whole, had managed it.

It was enough to drive anyone insane.

Then again, perhaps she already was. Driven insane by her would-be lover disappearing. Her damned father claimed he had eloped with another woman, and if she had thought about it, she would have seen through the lie instantly. But her father's words were calculated to hurt her, to blind her as he made plans to strip her of her rightful inheritance. He just needed to be sure that the child that slattern of a stepmother bore was a son before he did so.

He'd only trained her because of her mother, she realised in hindsight. A stronger woman than he had been, born of stock from Libya(1). She had helped him gain and keep the throne, and had insisted that he train his daughter as an heir. But he had been stung by whispers that he had let a woman do the ruling for him, a Pharaoh who was less of a man than his wife. As if one needed a cock to rule.

He was afraid of her, too, afraid of her friendship with the foreign boy they had found in the desert, the Land of Set. A boy she had struck up a friendship with. The Priest of Set, using his sorcery, had helped the boy learn their language instead of the strange tongue he spoke, before taking him in as an acolyte. The boy was a swift learner, especially in the arcane arts. A foreigner he was, with his pale skin, but he took to their ways swiftly. They remained close, and she found herself enthralled with him, and the deity they worshipped. Dark and destructive he may have been, but Set was not wholly evil, not with the way he helped Ra fight Apophis, the Lord of Chaos, the Serpent of the Nile.

When he disappeared, and her father claimed he had eloped with another, she had been distraught. And her anger and fury only compounded when that slattern gave birth to her half-brother, and her father told her he would be the heir. In spite of all the hard work she had put into becoming the perfect heir. The lessons, in statecraft, in combat, in religion, in history…all for nothing. She would likely be married off to some noble whom the Pharaoh wanted to favour.

She then stole the scroll from her beloved's belongings, and summoned Set himself…who told her the truth. That her beloved was trapped beyond even Set's reach, but together, they could save him. But first, she branded herself with his mark, and killed her father, his slattern…and her half-brother. In hindsight, she regretted that move, necessary though it was to rid herself of a rival claimant. She could have set herself up as a regent, puppeteering him, before disposing of him if he proved intractable, but she was filled with wrath against her father and that slattern, and she took it out on someone whom she shouldn't have. Her beloved wouldn't have wanted that.

Of course, her father had contingencies, men who had been watching her, and the priests of those sects opposed to Set, led by the Priest of Horus, took action, before she could turn her loyal bodyguard into Set's vessel. Quicksilver-tipped darts disabled her, and she was restrained and incarcerated, told she would be taken to Mesopotamia, and buried there, far away from her homeland. And with her, would be buried any chance of Set's ascendancy. She would remain in darkness for eternity.

And yet, to her surprise, eternity ended…

The first notion she had that something was changing was her sarcophagus moving. While she had felt tremors recently, they were faint, distant. This, however, was actual movement, her prison being elevated from the pond of quicksilver that kept her imprisoned. It drained from her sarcophagus, and from her body. If she was capable of movement, she would have coughed out the quicksilver like one who had survived drowning. But she didn't. She just felt it trickle from her nose, her mouth, and other orifices.

The sarcophagus then moved, and then, halted. And then, she felt a presence on the sarcophagus lid. It was an unfamiliar one, but she only learned to sense such things since Set granted her a sliver of his power. But then, she heard a voice, speaking their tongue. Faintly, and muffled by the lid…but so damnably familiar that an ember of hope was kindled in her desiccated heart.

"Wait for a little longer, my Princess. I have returned."

Was it her own insanity, causing her to hallucinate such things? Certainly, she had hallucinated many a time in the darkness. His voice had been one of many she had experienced. His name, almost forgotten by the long internment, came to her ruined lips, though no sound emerged. Then, she fell into darkness once more…

She was woken by the sound of shouting. Her eyes opened, and much to her surprise, she found herself able to see once more, lights filling the dark chamber. It was a tongue she was unfamiliar with, but the words were harsh, or at least their intent was. And then, she heard her beloved speak, in the foreign tongue he had taught her as their own secret language, "I'm not a soldier, I'm an archaeologist."

"Does that even matter?" demanded someone else. "You're an invader!"

"And you're scum. I mean, seriously, the Yanks blundering into Iraq like a bull in a china shop was stupid, and yet…people like you take advantage of the mess, and make everyone miserable. And for what, because they don't follow the same religion as you do?"

"You have something of a mouth on you. But what's to stop us from taking you hostage?"

She felt a surge of anger within her at this. These barbarians intended to take her beloved priest hostage? She forced herself to move, muscles that hadn't properly shifted for a long time working. It was agonising, but her body worked. She stood up in her sarcophagus, and glared at them. Rough-looking men in strange clothes, but she knew their type. Near-brigands, but with a sickly fire of fanaticism in their eyes, wielding what had to be weapons, made of metal, which they were aiming at a figure that had to be her beloved, but which they aimed at her. The looks of horror on their faces told her all she needed to know about her appearance, which presumably lacked her previous beauty.

Forcing herself to speak in the tongue of his land rather than her own, she rasped, "I will stop you."

Instinct screamed at her to move. So she did. The weapons spat fire with a deafening roar that clapped at her ears. But her cursed body moved swifter than their ability to aim. Painful, yes, but the alternative was worse.

However, her beloved chose that moment to summon his staff, and he waved it, barking out a word in their tongue. A Disarming Hex, designed to tear weapons from hands. And the fools sprawled on the ground, their weapons at her beloved's feet.

He then began firing another spell, one designed to knock the targets out. He managed to do more of them, until one dived out of sight. Of him, but not of her. As he prepared a knife to throw at him, she was on him, pouncing like a lioness on its prey. Instinct gave her the knowledge she needed to feed on him. His paltry lifeforce was tainted, and yet, it flowed through her body in a wave of warmth and pleasure that seemed almost orgasmic. She could feel it healing and repairing her body.

Her beloved was looking on, and seemed relieved, of all things. "…Okay, so, the potions I gave you aren't wholly necessary, you can just feed on the living. Good to know," he said. "Still, the potions made your body functional, got rid of most of the mercury and healed the worst of the damage. But this could be useful, as long as you fed only on bad guys."

She let her meal drop to the floor with a thud, its corpse desiccated. In their tongue, she spoke. "…You came back for me, beloved."

"I did. But it's been a long time."

"…How long?"

"Five thousand years. The reign of the Pharaohs ended millennia ago. They were usurped by invaders from across the sea, calling themselves the Greeks. And their dynasty ended with another empire, the Romans, two millennia ago. Egypt is ruled not by kings, but by men elected by their peers…theoretically."

Five thousand years? The enormity of such a number staggered her. Many, many generations separated her time from this one. She walked over to one of the fools, and picked up one of their weapons. "And what is this?"

"A gun, a kind of weapon like a bow and arrow, but which uses an explosion to propel metal."

She nodded, examining it. "Magic?"

"No, it was created by artisans. There is much to talk about…but I think we need to talk about something right now."

She turned to meet his gaze. Anger and disappointment were present in those emerald orbs. They stung. As a princess, she would have dismissed such judgement. But as a friend, she knew better. "What have I done to hurt you, beloved?"

"…Your half-brother," he said. "I learned of what happened. Your father, I could understand, along with that stepmother of yours. She was an ambitious cow, and he was a misogynistic, paranoid old fool. I cannot blame you for patricide or matricide. But your half-brother…he was but a babe. A threat to your position, but…you killed him, without finding another way."

"…I know," she said, turning away, unable to meet his gaze. "I was…angry. Filled with wrath and hatred. In hindsight, I should have kept him alive, made him my puppet as his regent…but all I could see was my father, what he desired that I lacked. I made it quick. I know not whether that eases your mind."

"It doesn't. But what's done is done. Had my love for you been any lesser, I would not have come to help you. I would have left you in this prison." Then, she felt his hand on her shoulder, his warmth against her cold. "But I came here anyway. I communed with our god, and he told me where you were imprisoned. You are in a part of Mesopotamia now known as Iraq. It is a war-torn land, now. These men, I believe, are religious fanatics, taking advantage of the chaos to remove those they believe are apostates."

She sneered, baring her teeth. "Then I will consume them."

"Go ahead…"

His words had hurt her, but she understood why, even as she consumed the lifeforce of these fools. Despite being an acolyte of Set, soon to replace the priest, he was a gentle, moral soul. Seemingly too gentle for the harsh lands of their home, but he had an inner core of iron. And one line he had was not killing children.

Still, his words were heartening. It meant he still loved her, that they could work through this. She did regret killing her half-brother.

After she finished feeding, she looked to him. "How do I look?"

He shot her a sad smile, before conjuring a reflective surface. She looked at herself, and gasped. She resembled herself, in reflections she saw in the water, but her skin was a deathly pallor, more pale than his skin had been when he first stumbled out of the desert, and branded with the symbols of Set's litany. Her eyes were amber, with a pair of irises for each eye. Parts of her skin were still less than perfect, and she was still dressed in the ragged remains of the burial cloth they had wrapped her in before entombing her.

"…If it's any consolation, you looked far worse when I got you out of the sarcophagus," her beloved said. "Mummification does wonders for weight loss, but not so good for, well, anything else. Still, at least they didn't take your organs out and put them into jars."

He was being facetious, she knew, albeit using the truth. But it was little consolation. "…How are you alive in this time and age, my beloved?"

"A stasis spell. Not meant to preserve a human, more food, but my magic kept me alive until I was found. Your father didn't think I'd be found in time to survive." He spat out the word father like a curse. She sympathised. "I was found by…tomb robbers of this age, though these are not the jackals who shame Anubis by their insolence. Many are seekers of knowledge. Remember how I spoke to you of Tutankhamun?"

She nodded. He had spoken of their time as if it were the past. He claimed to come from a time where vast buildings of stone and glass were, where men soared through the air within metal birds. It had been thought delusion, and yet, here he was. Tutankhamun was a king she had never heard of.

"Tutankhamun was...I think over one and a half millennia since our time. I looked it up after I was released," he said. "He was found by those who sought both glory and knowledge. So too was I. Quite a bit has happened since then. It was only by Set's grace that I found you. For now, though, he has a purpose for me, for us both. We will discuss this further once we get back to my lodgings. My contact in this time is waiting."

She nodded once more. "Then we had best make haste. But…Herihor(2)…my Harry…thank you for freeing me."

"You're welcome, Ahmanet."

PROLOGUE ANNOTATIONS:

Uhh, what? Harry has freed Ahmanet…and they know each other? What kind of insane wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey bullshit allowed that to happen?

1. Ahmanet doesn't mean the Libya we know today, but rather, much of North Africa. I put this in as a nod to Sofia Boutella being Algerian.

2. Herihor was one of the closer names to 'Harry' in Egyptian I could find. Fittingly, he was a priest, albeit one who later became a pharaoh.