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Chapter 4: Pain and Fear
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There is another knock at the gates. This time I was faster getting there, but still I opened them to the sound of footsteps moving away. I was too slow. Another package was sat just outside the pen, making me sigh and pick it up, watching it turn into light.
"I still can't believe that Slytherin made that entire chamber just for his basilisk," I was ranting to Harry during dinner. The boy was visibly amused, watching me go on about the 'Chamber of Secrets' (or rather, 'The not-so-secret playground Slytherin made for his pet', as I thought it should be called) in between mouthfuls of food. "Seriously, we spent hours looking through all those tunnels, and the man didn't have the curtesy to leave behind so much as a book!"
Though, that did remind me of that old game that was based in Hogwarts in the late 1800's. Wasn't there some other hidden room for Slytherin's line in that somewhere? Should I go looking for it? … will I need to borrow Harry's tongue again?
"Should you really be talking about this here?" Hermione forcefully whispered, interrupting my silent giggling. She glanced around at the many students not so secretly listening in on my rant.
I just shrugged. "Why not? It's not like anything interesting happened. After the attacks last year and the discovery of the chamber's location, it makes sense that some people would go down and investigate it properly. Harry found the place last year, so he showed me and Dumbledore the entrance as we went and looked at Slytherin's famed monster." Hermione seemed a little mollified at that, and I heard mutters and whispers from the other students.
They were so much easier to hear when borrowing the cat ears of my tabby slime. My newest power, Equip Traits, let me pick some aspect of my unsummoned creatures and use it myself. That included body parts, physical resistances, biological systems like photosynthesis, or even magic. My first test was checking to see if I could borrow Echo's probability based precognition, which worked, but I couldn't summon him again until tomorrow. I probably wouldn't be using his traits much.
No one had said anything about my cat ears, to my amusement.
I bit into a chicken leg, happily enjoying the food the house elves made, before turning back to Harry. "Honestly though, Harry, your adventures since you got here are kind of an open secret. Hogwarts' rumour mill works fast, and while some details may have gotten twisted, there's enough common points that I've been able to assemble something of a timeline."
Harry groaned, Ron and Hermione looking sympathetic, though Ron also looked curious.
"What kind of rumours?" he asked. When his friends shot him a look, he shrugged. "What? I don't get told anything because I'm friends with you two."
I huffed out a laugh, remembering some rumours Penelope told me when she came to ask about some of the creatures in the most recent class. "Well, most of them are from the whole 'Heir of Slytherin' business from last year." Harry's expression darkened a bit when he heard that. "Apparently, you were the very evil parselmouth that was siccing a monster on everyone, including a cat for some reason. Then Hermione got petrified, and suddenly the reason you were at all the attack locations is because you were hunting down the ones who would dare pose a risk to your precious girlfriend, what with all that talk about purging muggleborns and whatnot."
Harry and Hermione turned beet red and blatantly looked away from each other when I said that, with a number of people laughing at their expressions. Even Ron was in a teasing mood, elbowing Harry in the side with an amused grin on his face.
"That's not what happened, and you know it!" Harry countered as the gates of the Menagerie shuddered strongly, trying to glare at me. The look was ruined by his red face, making me laugh instead.
"I know, I know," I eventually said. "Parselmouths can speak to and understand snakes as easily as if they were speaking English. Slytherin's monster was a kind of snake. It was speaking to itself, thinking no one could hear it, so you ended up following it when you realised what it was doing, not realising it was speaking snake, not human."
The words were paraphrased from what he'd told me and Dumbledore beneath the school, and it had several people making noises of understanding around us. Hermione seemed to have heard them as well, if her wide eyes and subtle glances around were anything to go by. When she looked closely at me, I caught her eye and winked.
Honestly, there were some parts of the books I always felt should have been spread around, so everyone knows. Parseltongue is a rare magical ability, one which garnered a bad rep because of its famous known users. Slytherin had his whole 'kill muggleborns' thing, which had survived all the way down to Voldemort's terror campaign back in the eighties. Explaining to people how certain aspects of magic worked, like the difficulty a parselmouth had in differentiating snake language and human language, can help people be less concerned when the ability pops up again.
In my experience, it's harder to fear something when you understand it.
[-]
"The patronus charm?" Remus repeated thoughtfully. "That's post-NEWT work, Jade, and I'm not sure how well it would fit in a structured class environment."
About halfway through October, I'd gotten a few questions about various creatures that Remus had been teaching about in class. Mainly it was some student or another coming up to me and asking about some of the more dangerous creatures that Remus mentioned offhandedly in class. It took until a second year muggleborn student asked if yetis were real that I went to investigate what the man was actually teaching.
"Maybe it won't, but given the dementors running around the place, I figured you could do a class on them and instruct them on the charm, letting them practice on their own time after that," I shrugged. "I've asked Poppy about it, and there are quite a few students that get affected by them worse than the rest."
Remus hummed in acknowledgment, sipping at his tea. "Yes, there have been quite a few. Not too unsurprising, I suppose. Anyone third year and up would have been born before the war ended, and dementors don't care how old a bad memory is." He thought about it a bit longer before nodding. "Alright then. That can be my next class for students in their OWL year and above." His lips quirked upwards. "Heh, and I suppose if anyone manages to perform the charm during their exams, it'll really impress the examiners."
I remembered that canon Harry did exactly that, so I just nodded. Then my expression became uncertain as I remembered an idle wonder I had back in my last life. Remus noticed, of course, and asked if I was okay.
[-]
The drawer shook strongly in front of me, making my heart slowly pick up the pace as my nerves started growing.
I think that me knowing that the boggart will turn into my worst fear is worse than actually facing my worst fear… given that I have no idea what that fear is. I've never been self-analytical enough to figure that out, even in my last life. I'd known that I'd found some things creepy and I'd screamed when faced with jump scares, but I'd never been able to definitively say 'this thing scares me'.
Made worse by the emotional dissociation that came with reincarnation. What was there left to be afraid of, I had to wonder. Anything that might have scared me was gone, lost in the afterlife, and I'd not had anything to fear since arriving in this world. My slugs were with me, the Wraith was waiting in my head, ready to guard me, and Echo was always watching. I was never alone, and I was never afraid.
Even now, as an invisible hand reached up to hold my own, I felt myself calm down.
"Do it," I said, knowing that behind me, Remus stood, waving his wand towards the drawer. The locking charm he had on it was undone, and the drawer slammed open.
A sudden cracking sound made me flinch, the boggart taking advantage of my blinking to set itself up. From one instant to the next, the area around the drawer was replaced with rubble and dust clouds, the sounds of screaming filling the room as the dust in front of me settled, revealing that which made my blood feel like ice.
"Tori…" She lay there, blood dripping down her face. She was alive; I knew that as surely as I knew what fear this boggart was poking at. Alive, yes, but… broken. I recognised that look in her eye, so similar yet somehow worse than when her mother and brother died. Unlike then, when I had been there to pull her out of it, this time, in the wake of my own death and injured by the collapsed building, she was simply done.
Even beyond that, the boggart showed me enough that I knew that she was damaged physically as well. Damage to her back, her spine, that would cause paralysis to some degree. An arm crushed under a cement block, lost. Enough damage done to require the portable life support devices that had been developed a few years back.
She looked at me, her mouth repeating two words in an oh so familiar way that made my heart stop, because I knew that if this was real, I wouldn't say no. I could never bring myself to.
"Don't let me be forced to live like that," I remembered her saying. It was during one of her episodes of damn near suicidal depression that sometimes popped up after she lost her family. She had a habit of doomscrolling, which actually made her feel better at times, and had come across the story of a man who was completely paralysed. "If something like that happens-"
"Riddikulus."
The word had barely left my mouth when Remus had stepped forwards, the wreck of the collapsed building vanishing and being replaced with a solitary moon, which was silently banished back into the drawer.
The gates of the Menagerie slammed open with more force than I'd ever experienced before, but I did not see what could have caused such a reaction. Especially not when a small red and white ball rolled into the pen and burst open.
I stayed where I was, just staring at where Tori's body had vanished from. I was very aware of the tears running down my face and the tight grip I had on Echo's paw in my hand. For a moment, I wanted to break something, or scream, or… or… just something! I wanted to run back to the boggart and fulfil Astoria's request. I wanted to turn around and never enter that room again, out of fear that I would try.
I didn't see Echo waving Remus closer, nor notice when he placed his arms around me in an attempt to comfort me. I only felt my legs give in, the Cloak of Levitation and Remus supporting me as I sank to the floor and sobbed.
[-]
Remus gave me chocolate, and I laughed.
We'd gone back to his office after about twenty minutes of me trying to settle myself after breaking down, and he made me tea, placing a chocolate bar on the plate he served it on, and I had laughed so hard that I started crying again. Remus was patient, letting me get it out of my system as he marked some homework. For all that I knew how his and Tonks' relationship would have its bumps because of him and his defeatism towards his affliction, I could see, if from a very lesbian perspective, how Tonks might have gotten interested in him.
The tea calmed me quite a bit, like any good English person, and I was pleased to feel that the chocolate helped clear my head. I could imagine how it helped the effects of dementor exposure, and I wondered if having so many near the castle was affecting everyone in a minor, yet persistent, way.
When I felt well enough for social interaction, I took a deep breath. "Have you ever had a partner?" I wondered.
Remus looked up from his paperwork and put his quill and inkpot to the side. "No," he sighed. "I don't think I've ever actually tried to hold a relationship before. With my, er… furry little problem, I've always been too scared. Wolfsbane, after all, is a very recent invention." Yeah, only about a decade old, if I remember correctly. I'd researched a bit more about lycanthropy after Dumbledore and Remus revealed the latter's condition, as well as the safety measures implemented, during a staff meeting. "Why?"
"Oh, it's just…" I trailed off, trying to build up the words in my head. "How far do you think you could go for someone you loved?" I saw the man flinch minutely, feeling some weird hole in my stomach at the realisation that he saw the words Astoria mouthed. I pushed it away as best I could.
"I… don't know." He shook his head, taking a breath. "I don't think I ever could-" He stopped himself. "No. Not that far."
I nodded. It made sense to me, in my head. People would care for those that they loved. They would be there for them, 'in sickness and in health', as it were. I remembered saying those words, all those years ago. Why then, did I know- no, why did I feel that I would move to the next line without question in the situation the boggart showed me?
"Til death do us part," I murmured, closing my eyes and leaning my head against the back of the chair, pulling up my knees for me to hug close. A huff of air escaped me as I took another bite of chocolate. "I'm a fucking hypocrite."
I would have done it. I would have killed her, either directly or indirectly had that happened. And yet, when I died, I refused to let go of her.
"Aaaahhh!" I half screamed, half groaned into my legs before letting go and standing up. "This is hurting too much." I downed the rest of my tea, chomped down on the chocolate until it was gone, and put on my best grin I could manage. "Thanks for the boggart, despite everything. Thanks for the tea and chocolate, and good luck teaching a bunch of teens how to think happy thoughts."
"What are you going to do?" Remus wondered as I made my way out of his office.
"KBO, of course." I glanced back, seeing a slight bit of confusion on his face. "Keep Buggering On."
Opening the door and stepping out, I nearly knocked over a trio of students that seemed like they were about to knock. Everyone jumped away from each other, giving quiet apologies to each other as we got out of each other's way.
I recognised two of them. A Ravenclaw and a Slytherin girl who chose Care for an elective. Lisa Turpin was the girl in blue, and a second glance recognised Daphne Greengrass as the blonde girl in green. Well, one of the two girls in green, as a shorter, black haired girl in Slytherin robes was with them whose face looked… remarkably like… her older sister.
Well, that's just not fair.
[-]
The Menagerie gates opened again revealing a little grey-ish creature shaped vaguely like a rabbit with small, feathered wings on its head. The creature sank into me as soon as it reached me, its summoning conditions being a little strange when compared to the rest of the things that had joined me.
I smiled as I gave headpats to the Ralts on my lap, watching her smile as I thought about the kite that had just set itself in me. I felt that I could call on it, even now, and I would be faster than I should be, able to perform a second action where most people would only manage one.
I fell backwards onto the grass, startling my Ralts and making her pout in my direction once she was able to look up at me. I laughed softly as she gave up on pouting and snuggled against my chest.
"Do you want to brainstorm some names later?" I asked her, getting her to tilt her head 'up' at me. "For most creatures in the Menagerie, I likely won't bother, but partners are something else."
Echo had been my first summon, and still one that I kept around nearly all the time. He was lounging in the sun even now. Scorch and Finn were slugs, often seen as nothing but ammo or something to trade by slug slingers, but I had no reason to treat them like that. They were bound to me, unable to be lost, stolen, or traded even if I wanted to. And now a Pokémon, a new partner for the group.
"Ralts!" I smiled as my Ralts nodded into my chest, hugging me as much as her short arms allowed.
My gaze moved up to the ceiling, the sun warm and comforting, even as it was regulated to not hurt any eyes. The Room of Requirement was nifty like that, changing itself to suit the client with little respect to how physics actually worked. That was magic in a nutshell, I suppose.
… The image of Astoria returned as I followed that train of thought. I shook it away, even as my Ralts' hug tightened. I skipped over to the other Astoria that I recently remembered existed and definitely didn't somewhat awkwardly run away from earlier.
Astoria Greengrass, a currently first year younger sister of Daphne Greengrass, who was in Harry's year. I don't remember a lot about her, given that her only real mention was in the Cursed Child (and boy, has that thing not aged well over the decades), but she was married to Malfoy and, and this is the important bit for me, was dead. It was some kind of curse on the Greengrass family, if I remember right, and she'd died before the plot of the Cursed Child really gets started.
I didn't like it. I didn't like remembering it. I didn't like having to deal with a dead child walking that shared my wife's name so soon after facing my boggart, and I needed something else to focus on!
I jumped to my feet, startling my Ralts again as I tossed her in the air and caught her like a child. She laughed a lot, despite feeling my not very happy emotions, as I kicked everything negative aside and gave myself a new goal.
KBO. Churchill used that as a way to rally people around him, to say that things can get better than they were in the depths of the second world war. It was a reminder to move forwards and look for hope. I think I could broaden 'hope' into 'anything and everything good' if I wanted to. It would be better for me, and for…
"How do you like Cora?" I asked my Ralts as I pulled her close. She made a little confused noise that was absolutely adorable. "For a name. I think its Greek. Means 'filled heart', I think. It's a nice sounding name either-"
And now I was on the floor again, trying to make sure the happy Ralts, now named Cora, doesn't land on my face.
[-]
Do you have any idea how irritating it is to track down two students who are very good at avoiding teachers, assisted by a magical device which lets them know where all teachers are? It's hard. And, while I'm not sure why I thought in the back of my head that this was a thing, there exist other redheads in Hogwarts than the Weasleys.
I couldn't find them before dinner, where I made a point of standing outside the Great Hall to keep watch for them as they entered, before pulling the twins aside for a moment before they started eating.
"I need to borrow the map over dinner," I said bluntly, visibly catching them by surprise. To be completely fair to them, Fred and George quickly hid their tells and put on confused expressions.
"Map?" one of them said.
"What do you mean, map?" the other continued, making me groan.
"Nope," I said. "I'm not doing this. You are now One," I decided, pointing at one of the twins before pointing at the other. "And you are Two. Now, I know you pinched the map from Filch ages ago. I need it."
The two showed their surprise again, with only Two trying to hide the expression in the face of my knowledge. They glanced at each other before One turned back to me.
"We don't have it on us," he admitted. Two nodded, now also giving up the clueless charade.
"Yeah, we haven't been making any plans for a while now."
"And, er… we were kind of thinking about giving it up," One finished, making me remember that they planned on helping Harry get to Hogsmeade at the end of the month.
"I shouldn't need it for long," I told them, while the gates shook in my mind. "Just to find someone. If I'm not done by the time you're finished eating, I'll come up to your common room and return it."
"I mean…" The twins looked at each other again and shrugged. Two looked back and shrugged again. "So long as you're not going to tell anyone about it…" he trailed off, making me grin at the set up.
"I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good," I recited, and the twins grinned back.
[-]
One ran up to his dorm room and retrieved the Marauder's Map, a magical document that I think is so much cooler in person. I watched several names around the castle, such as Snape and Trelawney who were still in their respective classrooms.
I had to tell the twins about me not actually being able to use magic so that they'd open the thing for me, but they seemed to treat it like a curiosity. I swore to be extra careful to not be caught with it since I couldn't turn it off, but that wasn't much of a problem.
In an unused classroom on the ground floor, Cora, Echo, Scorch, Finn, and I all surrounded a fully laid out map of Hogwarts castle. The ink was very dense around the Great Hall, what with it being the time where dinner is served, so we couldn't search that part of the map properly. Finn was keeping an eye on the doors to the hall, watching for Pettigrew. Scorch was nearby, searching the lower floors and Echo was working his way through the maze that is this castle's dungeons.
Meanwhile, Cora and I were looking through the upper floors, starting with the Gryffindor common room and working our way outwards. The room was empty, so I traced each corridor one by one until I came to my first moving dot. The banner underneath read 'Hermione Granger', making me frown a bit since I could have sworn I saw her in person earlier. I noticed some other people trailing behind, all seeming to be coming from an ancient runes class that ran long. Then Hermione's name vanished, making me sigh.
"Still think it's a stupid idea," I muttered, making Cora look confused. "Time travel given to a student without soft regulation just so that she can work more hours in a day. Time turners have a hard limit worked into their magic that only allows five hours of time travel at a time, but it's still ridiculously easy to overwork yourself using one like that."
Cora made a noise of understanding before we went back to searching the map. I moved up a floor and she moved down, looking for any hint of Pettigrew's name.
It was about five minutes later that Scorch started jumping and making noise, getting everyone's attention. Finn hopped over and checked what she was gesturing towards before getting excited as well, verifying what she'd found.
"Brilliant, Scorch," I complimented, joining them in watching a dot slowly move around the second floor, bearing the identifier of 'Peter Pettigrew'. I started folding away parts of the map, leaving only Pettigrew and a large area around him. "Now we just need to grab the bastard. Load up."
My slugs hopped into their capsules on the bandolier that I just summoned around me, and Cora returned herself to her poké ball for convenience's sake, which I clipped onto . Echo jumped on the back of my Cloak of Levitation as it draped itself over me, holding tight as I had it pick me up almost immediately and head out of the room.
The halls were pretty empty, so I was able to make a beeline for the Grand Staircase, floating around two moving storeys of stairs as I made my way upwards. A quick glance at the map showed which side of the floor I needed to search, and I was off again. In a place as big as Hogwarts, even a single floor can be quite a large area.
I brought to mind the mental image of the Wraith, resting in the Menagerie. The monsters of Evolve all had good enough senses of smell that they could identify trace scents and pinpoint all living things within seventy meters of themselves, an attractive trait when tracking a rat, and one that I Equipped to use myself.
My face itched as my internal sensory organs shifted, my perception expanding to include things that I'd never considered before. The scents of rusty metal armour, dusty windowsills, fresh air blowing through an open window, and burning torches filled my nose. I suddenly knew where everything around me was, because I could trace their smells back to the source.
And there was a singular rat, some fifty meters away from me, just around the next corner. My cloak carried me their faster as I drew my slug blaster and loaded Scorch's capsule into it. As soon as I turned the corner, my eyes followed my nose and locked onto my small prey.
I watched it squeak at my sudden appearance, turn around and try to run due to that same surprise, but I did not let it. I shot Scorch down the corridor, watching her immediately breath out a torrent of fire as soon as she hit velocimorph form. Slowing herself down with her wings, she blocked off the entire corridor with a fire wall, making Pettigrew freak out and try turning back around.
There was a pop and a shimmering sound from my side as I released Cora from her ball, issuing her commands. "Double Team, then Disarming Voice!"
As a newly summoned partner without any training, Cora has strength equal to what the games might call 'level 5'. It wasn't perfectly analogous to real life, but it did give an idea about her current capabilities in terms of moves. Cora knew Disarming Voice, Growl, and Double Team, and possessed the Synchronize ability, and she'd only get stronger as we trained.
The Menagerie gates opened, a giant, flying creature entering the area. It's glowing red eyes and white bone mask looked down on me as it circled above. Another smaller creature followed it, a normal creature, at that.
One Cora split into five, all of whom opened their mouths. ""RAAAALTS!"" Even with it not being aimed at me, I had to steel myself so I didn't flinch and cover my ears. The five voices all overlapped and echoes off the flat stone surfaces.
Pettigrew, with his rat ears (which might be better than a human's hearing. I'm not actually sure) could do nothing except squeal and thrash on the floor as Cora kept up the Disarming Voice. The writhing rat gave up on being a rat and expanded, becoming human in the span of a second, using his new arms to clutch at his ears and cover them.
… You know, it's rather easy to forget that all Pokémon are superpowered creatures with capabilities often far beyond humans. You see Pikachu get hit by a move and walk it off, but looking at Pettigrew shout in pain from Cora's relatively weak attack, I now remember that my newest partner is going to grow up to be a psychic goddess.
I placed my hand on Cora's head, stopping her attack. When she held onto my hand, I lifted her up and deposited her on my shoulder, shifting my cloak to make sure she didn't fall as I approached Pettigrew.
The man was on all fours, recovering from nearly blowing his eardrums and breathing heavily. I made no noise as I floated towards him, so he didn't know I was there until I kicked his side, knocking him onto his back before standing on his chest and pointing my blaster in his face.
"Hi," I smiled, showing perhaps a few too many teeth. The man flinched as Finn gave him the same treatment, glaring and growling at him through the barrel of my blaster. "I don't recommend transforming again. I'm not sure I could find you a second time, so I might have to invite a friend."
My blaster flicked upwards and his gaze followed, and I got the perverse pleasure of watching his already pale face turn bone white. Even under my foot, Pettigrew subconsciously tried to shuffle away from my Wraith, standing above him with scythe arms exposed and mouth open as she readied herself to pounce on her isolated prey.
I'm quite glad that I gave up her sense of smell when I summoned her, since I could smell Pettigrew wet himself even without it. I didn't want to know how bad it would be with enhanced senses.
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Rolls:
Equip Traits - Power - 200
Pokeball - Pokémon - 200
As Jade had no Pokémon, she got one for free worth less than 200
Ralts - Pokémon - 0 - Name: Cora
Kite - Golden Sun - 200
Fruit Bat (Chiroptera) - Mundane Animals - 0
Nevermore - RWBY - 300
Remaining points: 200