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lomonaaerenTitle: Stormbringer’s Choice
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Mentions of canon pairings, otherwise gen
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: Violence, minor character death, gore, AU (Harry was Sorted into Slytherin at the end of his second year), lords and vassals, torture, Dark magic, angst, present tense
Summary: As Harry grows in power as a lord and enters his sixth year at Hogwarts, many beings are stirred to take notice of him. Some of those beings, like goblins and werewolves, may offer Harry fruitful alliances. Others want to take Harry’s power. And one in particular wants to test him, with power unimaginable on offer if he passes the test—and horrors beyond death if he fails.
Author’s Notes: This is the fourth story in my Choices series, sequel to Other People’s Choices, Wolf’s Choice, and Leopard’s Choice. Read those before this, or this one won’t make sense. Like the others, this should have sixty chapters.
Chapter One—God’s Eye View
Harry dreams.
He’s walking through a mist of shifting silver veils and white curls of something like steam. He thinks at first it’s a dream-altered memory of his visit to the Speakers’ country, which was something like this.
But then he comes around a corner, and stumbles to a halt. In front of him is a white room set up like the courtroom he was briefly in last year when the Minister attempted to put him on trial. It’s much bigger, though, and the floor looks like it’s made of marble with the steam coiling over it.
And on a throne whose lowest step is higher than Harry’s head, a being is seated.
Harry can’t define it more than that. It seems to be concealed by the steam, and he catches a glimpse of golden eyes, of silver wings, of blue scales, and of black horns. He immediately takes a step backwards.
“Are you so afraid of me?” the being asks, in a voice that chimes like a bell throughout the white court.
Harry just shakes his head. The last being he could speak to in his dreams, the shadow-leopard, was the most powerful enemy he’s faced, except maybe for Voldemort before he was disembodied. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea to start talking to this one.
“I have come to make an offer.”
That sounds even more like the shadow-leopard, although so far this one hasn’t made as many threats. Harry starts an even more desperate effort to make himself wake up.
“I suppose I should give you some sign to show that I mean no harm. Very well.”
The being shoots something out of the mist that looks for a moment like a silvery tail, but it withdraws into the white steam again before Harry can get a good glimpse of it. From the limb or whatever it was, something flows into the air. Harry squints, and then gasps aloud as he sees that it’s the crest of Hogwarts.
He glances at the being again, and decides that he has to speak. “Are you—the spirit of Hogwarts?”
“Of course not, powerful boy.” The bell-like voice is low now, and amused. “But I am the one who inspired the Founders to create the school. They had power, but it was unformed and directionless. They would only have ended up spending it on petty squabbles and fights if I hadn’t intervened. This way, it was spent on something that has benefited all your kind in the British Isles by its existence.”
“I won’t be the same, if that’s what you’re thinking. I know that I have to defeat Voldemort.”
“You have to defeat parts of him.”
“So I only have to destroy the Horcruxes, is that what you’re saying?”
The being pauses for a moment, as though it didn’t expect Harry to put it that bluntly. Harry watches, and waits. He doesn’t trust the being. It could easily be something other than a spirit that inspired the Founders. How would he know? But he is interested in seeing what it says, and especially if it says something about how it managed to show up in his dreams.
(The Horcrux link? The fact that he’s a Parselmouth, which was a link to the leopard? The sheer power of its magic? There are so many answers, too many).
“Technically,” the being says at last, “if you destroyed the Horcruxes and he was mortal, anyone could kill him then. It wouldn’t have to be you that casts the Killing Curse, or whatever spell would finally destroy him.”
Harry smiles a little. He can think of a lot of people who would enjoy destroying Voldemort’s mortal form, Severus included. “I suppose. But you haven’t told me what you really mean, and that makes me distrust you.”
“You have grander battles to think of than the one that will destroy Voldemort. If you only concentrate on that, yes, you will waste your power.”
“What grander battles could there be?”
“Making your magical society a decent one to live in.”
Harry pauses. It’s true that he would like to live to do that, even if he assumed, without thinking about it much, that the battle with Voldemort could kill him.
“I’d like to do that.”
“Not enough to make it your first choice?”
“Everyone keeps telling me that my first choice has to be the battle with Voldemort.”
“They are fools.” The being ripples back and forth for a moment inside the steam, which is maybe a form of shrugging, and its bell-like voice grows deeper and shivers for a moment along Harry’s skin. “There are much more worthwhile things you could do with your power. But it would be difficult for even a lord to affect your Ministry and the entrenched prejudices of magical humans, unless you accept my dream.”
Harry shakes his head a little, slowly. The white court shudders around him as though that’s the wrong choice.
“You will not even speak with me about it?”
“I know that there’s no offering like this without some kind of catch,” Harry says quietly. “Last time, it would have been possession and my friend’s mind breaking if I’d failed in my attempt to cure him. This time, I don’t know what it is. But I know better than to blindly accept.”
“I suppose that I cannot blame you for your caution. When you go back to Hogwarts, access the Chamber of Secrets, and you will find it.”
Harry starts to ask why that is, and why the being can’t just talk about it now, but the dreams dissipates so suddenly that it feels like someone’s shoved him out of it. Harry lies on his bed, gasping a little, and fighting back the temptation to go wake Severus and ask if he’s ever heard of a being who inspired the Founders.
No. He’s going to think about this, ask some of his followers to research, and, yes, tell Severus and Sirius, since they hated being left out so much time. But it can wait until the morning.
Harry closes his eyes, and snorts a little as he feels his own thrumming heart.
Even if I don’t get any more sleep, myself.
*
“Have you ever heard of some sort of power that inspired the Founders to create Hogwarts?’
Severus lowers the Potions article he’s been struggling through for the last few hours, since the authors thought they had to invent a whole new system of reference to ingredients to be taken seriously, and stares at Harry. Harry slouches against the doorway of the library and stares back.
“No,” Severus says at last, wondering if this is Harry’s way of involving him in whatever mad adventure he plans to have next.
“There was something in my dreams last night claiming that it was the power that inspired the Founders to create Hogwarts, and that it wanted to make sure I didn’t waste my power or something.”
Severus is on his feet and crossing the distance between them before Harry can move. As he stares into Harry’s eyes, he encounters a cloudy layer of Occlumency, but one that he can still easily pierce. He says, “The Horcrux that was causing you to have such trouble with Occlumency may be quieter now with Voldemort disembodied. You should be able to master it.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“It’s what I’m telling you.”
Harry opens his mouth as if to tell Severus that he doesn’t want to. Severus keeps up the intensity of his stare. Harry finally lets his head fall back and his mouth open as he stares at the ceiling. “Fine,” he whines.
“And no, I haven’t heard of a being like the one you describe. But as we have seen with the shadow-leopard, there are too many things that could be out there. Which means it is all the more important to guard your mind.”
Harry rolls his eyes, but Severus has to conceal a smile. As infuriating as Harry is at the moment, he’s not a lord, or the boy who planned and executed an incredibly dangerous ritual and reversed an irreversible curse without letting anyone else help him. He’s simply a teenager.
Severus’s son.
“Yes, fine.”
“I’ll expect you to set some time aside for Occlumency lessons this afternoon.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Severus nods and turns his back so that neither of them has to deal with the expression on his face when he hears that name. From the soft snort Harry gives behind him before he departs, Severus suspects that he knows it anyway.
But a certain level of pretense is necessary between—
Parents and children.
Severus has to shut his eyes and work on composing himself before he can move again. But that is all right, since no one else has to know about it.
*
Theo raises an eyebrow as he watches Hedwig loop down towards him. He saw Harry a few days ago when he came over to Black’s house and continued his Animagus lessons. Theo’s not working on transforming now, but on making sure that he has full control of his form and can, perhaps, in the future, transform only part of his body.
Theo doesn’t think he can win every battle as a leopard, but he does think that if he becomes cornered, having sudden claws or fangs could make a difference.
And he will make every difference that he can for his lord.
The letter from Harry is short. It describes a dream he had, the white surroundings and the way that the being hid in mist and how it identified itself. It ends with, I think there might be books in your library that reference that kind of thing. I know I haven’t found anything in Severus’s library or Sirius’s. Could you search for me?
Theo feels a hard smile tugging at his mouth. He will be pleased to search.
And he adores the reference Harry made to his library. It is indeed his, and his father will never touch the books again.
Theo walks into the library and aims for some of the back shelves—or the shelves that are currently in the back. One advantage of being tied into the wards is being able to predict the shifts that the library makes.
Theo doesn’t know which of his ancestors decided the shelves should shift around in the first place, and sometimes appear motionless and sometimes drift above the floor like clouds in the sky. But he minds it much less now that he’s master here.
He reaches the shelf with the books that dance the line between legend and history, and runs his fingers along the spines, thinking. His thoughts run down through his hand, and a book rattles.
Theo takes it off the shelf, and blinks when he sees the title, scribed in plain black letters on the front.
Beings of the Half-Unreal.
He isn’t familiar with the term, but it’s at least a beginning. He goes to sit down in the less changeable study and take notes on what he finds.
*
There is darkness here, darkness undisturbed since the beginning.
There is fire here, too, a small, hot one, blazing white in all the darkness. And there are many people sitting beside the fire. They hand around steaming mugs of deep liquid stone and say nothing.
Until one of them speaks, because that one who speaks is the one who must.
“The side must be chosen.”
Silence. Shifting. More drinking. The fire blazes higher and brighter, flinging up sparks that make a few of the people move back a bit from its side.
“Just because the choice was made by the phoenix?”
“It is more than that. One knows.”
“One does not know.”
Silence. Shifting. More drinking. This time, the fire is sinking, and the sparks are retreating into it, as if it is a snake that is curling up to get closer to the warmth of another creature.
“One decision has already been made.”
“We are not them.”
A series of small hisses makes its way around the circle. Claws scrape the stone. Here and there is a flash of a tusk in the firelight; here and there, a gleam of scales. There are more here with scales and who walk on two legs than there are in other spheres. There are reasons for that.
“We are we.”
There is no more speech for a long time after that, and it seems that the decision has perhaps not been made, will not be made. But at last one of them stands, one with scales who walks on two legs, and who shines all white and red in the firelight. They spread their hands, and the scales gleam and dance.
“We are known. The returning has been conducted. The decision must be made, lest it is made by others.”
Silence. Firelight. And then the others rise to their feet, most of those who carry scales and legs both, and extend their hands. There are claws, fingernails, hooks, and fins at the ends of those hands.
It does not matter. They are all themselves.
“We speak for the Potter’s side.”
“We speak for the Speakers.”
“We speak for the defeaters of the Great One.”
“We speak for the world continuing.”
“We speak for ourselves.”
Silence. Then the fire springs up and rains itself out in white sparks that dig into the stone floor and light up more of their scales, their faces, their flaring eyes.
They go silently back up the ladders and ramps and stairs and poles, flowing as snakes, walking on their two legs, rolling themselves along, and as they ascend, they change further and further into the forms that humans expect to see them as. The weight of expectation forces their scales into skin, the endings of their many hands into simple fingernails, and their tusks into nothingness.
When they are on the surface, they must appear as the ones that humans know as goblins, because of that human expectation. But now that the decision is made and the war is joined on the side of the Potter, the Speakers, the defeaters of the Great One, the continuers of the world, themselves…
Perhaps someday, they can appear as themselves outside of their deepest underground sanctuaries.
*
Tarquinius chants softly under his breath as he grinds flakes of obsidian for the ritual. Now and then he can feel his Lord shifting in the back of his head, feeding him instructions for the chant, and now and then, there is a glimpse of the other.
But most of the time, there is only the sound of his own voice echoing off the walls of the Muggle house where they have taken refuge. His Lord finds it distasteful; it is harder to conduct magic in purely Muggle surroundings, away from stone walls soaked with the patina of old rituals and spells.
But that also means that far fewer people will be looking for magic here.
Tarquinius finishes grinding up the obsidian and upends the bowl of delicate flakes he holds, emptying it into the silver bowl of water. Well, it was water when it started. He does not know what it is now, he thinks as he watches it shift and settle. Something like a potion, but only something like.
Not all alike.
He begins to stir the potion, as he decides to think of it, on the beat of a silent chant that his Lord counts out in his head. Then he reaches for the bloody finger that he cut from a Muggle man last night and placed under a charm to keep the blood fresh. He scatters the liquid from the dripping digit into the potion, and—
There is a silent, brilliant explosion.
Tarquinius howls, more from the frustration that he can feel echoing through both his Lord’s soul and his own than for other reasons, and stares down at the potion. There is no pain, even though the thick liquid splashed him strongly enough that there should be. Or maybe it’s only that no pain could stand up to the pounding agony of his right arm, the one that bears the ring.
The thought is sliced from his mind as he thinks it.
Someone is interfering, his Lord whispers in the back of his mind. Before you begin another rendition of the potion, you will find the one who is, and end them.
Tarquinius obediently nods. He might simply think it was his poor hands and skill that were failing his Lord, but this is the third such explosion in a week, and he knows that his Lord is right. Someone has tempered somehow, with their surroundings or their ingredients or Tarquinius’s mind.
He draws his wand, and thinks happily of good hunting as he begins to cast the charms that will detect an immediate change in his surroundings. He will be happy to kill someone he can kill.
Again, what lies behind that thought, the ones he cannot kill, is sliced away.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Mentions of canon pairings, otherwise gen
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: Violence, minor character death, gore, AU (Harry was Sorted into Slytherin at the end of his second year), lords and vassals, torture, Dark magic, angst, present tense
Summary: As Harry grows in power as a lord and enters his sixth year at Hogwarts, many beings are stirred to take notice of him. Some of those beings, like goblins and werewolves, may offer Harry fruitful alliances. Others want to take Harry’s power. And one in particular wants to test him, with power unimaginable on offer if he passes the test—and horrors beyond death if he fails.
Author’s Notes: This is the fourth story in my Choices series, sequel to Other People’s Choices, Wolf’s Choice, and Leopard’s Choice. Read those before this, or this one won’t make sense. Like the others, this should have sixty chapters.
Chapter One—God’s Eye View
Harry dreams.
He’s walking through a mist of shifting silver veils and white curls of something like steam. He thinks at first it’s a dream-altered memory of his visit to the Speakers’ country, which was something like this.
But then he comes around a corner, and stumbles to a halt. In front of him is a white room set up like the courtroom he was briefly in last year when the Minister attempted to put him on trial. It’s much bigger, though, and the floor looks like it’s made of marble with the steam coiling over it.
And on a throne whose lowest step is higher than Harry’s head, a being is seated.
Harry can’t define it more than that. It seems to be concealed by the steam, and he catches a glimpse of golden eyes, of silver wings, of blue scales, and of black horns. He immediately takes a step backwards.
“Are you so afraid of me?” the being asks, in a voice that chimes like a bell throughout the white court.
Harry just shakes his head. The last being he could speak to in his dreams, the shadow-leopard, was the most powerful enemy he’s faced, except maybe for Voldemort before he was disembodied. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea to start talking to this one.
“I have come to make an offer.”
That sounds even more like the shadow-leopard, although so far this one hasn’t made as many threats. Harry starts an even more desperate effort to make himself wake up.
“I suppose I should give you some sign to show that I mean no harm. Very well.”
The being shoots something out of the mist that looks for a moment like a silvery tail, but it withdraws into the white steam again before Harry can get a good glimpse of it. From the limb or whatever it was, something flows into the air. Harry squints, and then gasps aloud as he sees that it’s the crest of Hogwarts.
He glances at the being again, and decides that he has to speak. “Are you—the spirit of Hogwarts?”
“Of course not, powerful boy.” The bell-like voice is low now, and amused. “But I am the one who inspired the Founders to create the school. They had power, but it was unformed and directionless. They would only have ended up spending it on petty squabbles and fights if I hadn’t intervened. This way, it was spent on something that has benefited all your kind in the British Isles by its existence.”
“I won’t be the same, if that’s what you’re thinking. I know that I have to defeat Voldemort.”
“You have to defeat parts of him.”
“So I only have to destroy the Horcruxes, is that what you’re saying?”
The being pauses for a moment, as though it didn’t expect Harry to put it that bluntly. Harry watches, and waits. He doesn’t trust the being. It could easily be something other than a spirit that inspired the Founders. How would he know? But he is interested in seeing what it says, and especially if it says something about how it managed to show up in his dreams.
(The Horcrux link? The fact that he’s a Parselmouth, which was a link to the leopard? The sheer power of its magic? There are so many answers, too many).
“Technically,” the being says at last, “if you destroyed the Horcruxes and he was mortal, anyone could kill him then. It wouldn’t have to be you that casts the Killing Curse, or whatever spell would finally destroy him.”
Harry smiles a little. He can think of a lot of people who would enjoy destroying Voldemort’s mortal form, Severus included. “I suppose. But you haven’t told me what you really mean, and that makes me distrust you.”
“You have grander battles to think of than the one that will destroy Voldemort. If you only concentrate on that, yes, you will waste your power.”
“What grander battles could there be?”
“Making your magical society a decent one to live in.”
Harry pauses. It’s true that he would like to live to do that, even if he assumed, without thinking about it much, that the battle with Voldemort could kill him.
“I’d like to do that.”
“Not enough to make it your first choice?”
“Everyone keeps telling me that my first choice has to be the battle with Voldemort.”
“They are fools.” The being ripples back and forth for a moment inside the steam, which is maybe a form of shrugging, and its bell-like voice grows deeper and shivers for a moment along Harry’s skin. “There are much more worthwhile things you could do with your power. But it would be difficult for even a lord to affect your Ministry and the entrenched prejudices of magical humans, unless you accept my dream.”
Harry shakes his head a little, slowly. The white court shudders around him as though that’s the wrong choice.
“You will not even speak with me about it?”
“I know that there’s no offering like this without some kind of catch,” Harry says quietly. “Last time, it would have been possession and my friend’s mind breaking if I’d failed in my attempt to cure him. This time, I don’t know what it is. But I know better than to blindly accept.”
“I suppose that I cannot blame you for your caution. When you go back to Hogwarts, access the Chamber of Secrets, and you will find it.”
Harry starts to ask why that is, and why the being can’t just talk about it now, but the dreams dissipates so suddenly that it feels like someone’s shoved him out of it. Harry lies on his bed, gasping a little, and fighting back the temptation to go wake Severus and ask if he’s ever heard of a being who inspired the Founders.
No. He’s going to think about this, ask some of his followers to research, and, yes, tell Severus and Sirius, since they hated being left out so much time. But it can wait until the morning.
Harry closes his eyes, and snorts a little as he feels his own thrumming heart.
Even if I don’t get any more sleep, myself.
*
“Have you ever heard of some sort of power that inspired the Founders to create Hogwarts?’
Severus lowers the Potions article he’s been struggling through for the last few hours, since the authors thought they had to invent a whole new system of reference to ingredients to be taken seriously, and stares at Harry. Harry slouches against the doorway of the library and stares back.
“No,” Severus says at last, wondering if this is Harry’s way of involving him in whatever mad adventure he plans to have next.
“There was something in my dreams last night claiming that it was the power that inspired the Founders to create Hogwarts, and that it wanted to make sure I didn’t waste my power or something.”
Severus is on his feet and crossing the distance between them before Harry can move. As he stares into Harry’s eyes, he encounters a cloudy layer of Occlumency, but one that he can still easily pierce. He says, “The Horcrux that was causing you to have such trouble with Occlumency may be quieter now with Voldemort disembodied. You should be able to master it.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
“It’s what I’m telling you.”
Harry opens his mouth as if to tell Severus that he doesn’t want to. Severus keeps up the intensity of his stare. Harry finally lets his head fall back and his mouth open as he stares at the ceiling. “Fine,” he whines.
“And no, I haven’t heard of a being like the one you describe. But as we have seen with the shadow-leopard, there are too many things that could be out there. Which means it is all the more important to guard your mind.”
Harry rolls his eyes, but Severus has to conceal a smile. As infuriating as Harry is at the moment, he’s not a lord, or the boy who planned and executed an incredibly dangerous ritual and reversed an irreversible curse without letting anyone else help him. He’s simply a teenager.
Severus’s son.
“Yes, fine.”
“I’ll expect you to set some time aside for Occlumency lessons this afternoon.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Severus nods and turns his back so that neither of them has to deal with the expression on his face when he hears that name. From the soft snort Harry gives behind him before he departs, Severus suspects that he knows it anyway.
But a certain level of pretense is necessary between—
Parents and children.
Severus has to shut his eyes and work on composing himself before he can move again. But that is all right, since no one else has to know about it.
*
Theo raises an eyebrow as he watches Hedwig loop down towards him. He saw Harry a few days ago when he came over to Black’s house and continued his Animagus lessons. Theo’s not working on transforming now, but on making sure that he has full control of his form and can, perhaps, in the future, transform only part of his body.
Theo doesn’t think he can win every battle as a leopard, but he does think that if he becomes cornered, having sudden claws or fangs could make a difference.
And he will make every difference that he can for his lord.
The letter from Harry is short. It describes a dream he had, the white surroundings and the way that the being hid in mist and how it identified itself. It ends with, I think there might be books in your library that reference that kind of thing. I know I haven’t found anything in Severus’s library or Sirius’s. Could you search for me?
Theo feels a hard smile tugging at his mouth. He will be pleased to search.
And he adores the reference Harry made to his library. It is indeed his, and his father will never touch the books again.
Theo walks into the library and aims for some of the back shelves—or the shelves that are currently in the back. One advantage of being tied into the wards is being able to predict the shifts that the library makes.
Theo doesn’t know which of his ancestors decided the shelves should shift around in the first place, and sometimes appear motionless and sometimes drift above the floor like clouds in the sky. But he minds it much less now that he’s master here.
He reaches the shelf with the books that dance the line between legend and history, and runs his fingers along the spines, thinking. His thoughts run down through his hand, and a book rattles.
Theo takes it off the shelf, and blinks when he sees the title, scribed in plain black letters on the front.
Beings of the Half-Unreal.
He isn’t familiar with the term, but it’s at least a beginning. He goes to sit down in the less changeable study and take notes on what he finds.
*
There is darkness here, darkness undisturbed since the beginning.
There is fire here, too, a small, hot one, blazing white in all the darkness. And there are many people sitting beside the fire. They hand around steaming mugs of deep liquid stone and say nothing.
Until one of them speaks, because that one who speaks is the one who must.
“The side must be chosen.”
Silence. Shifting. More drinking. The fire blazes higher and brighter, flinging up sparks that make a few of the people move back a bit from its side.
“Just because the choice was made by the phoenix?”
“It is more than that. One knows.”
“One does not know.”
Silence. Shifting. More drinking. This time, the fire is sinking, and the sparks are retreating into it, as if it is a snake that is curling up to get closer to the warmth of another creature.
“One decision has already been made.”
“We are not them.”
A series of small hisses makes its way around the circle. Claws scrape the stone. Here and there is a flash of a tusk in the firelight; here and there, a gleam of scales. There are more here with scales and who walk on two legs than there are in other spheres. There are reasons for that.
“We are we.”
There is no more speech for a long time after that, and it seems that the decision has perhaps not been made, will not be made. But at last one of them stands, one with scales who walks on two legs, and who shines all white and red in the firelight. They spread their hands, and the scales gleam and dance.
“We are known. The returning has been conducted. The decision must be made, lest it is made by others.”
Silence. Firelight. And then the others rise to their feet, most of those who carry scales and legs both, and extend their hands. There are claws, fingernails, hooks, and fins at the ends of those hands.
It does not matter. They are all themselves.
“We speak for the Potter’s side.”
“We speak for the Speakers.”
“We speak for the defeaters of the Great One.”
“We speak for the world continuing.”
“We speak for ourselves.”
Silence. Then the fire springs up and rains itself out in white sparks that dig into the stone floor and light up more of their scales, their faces, their flaring eyes.
They go silently back up the ladders and ramps and stairs and poles, flowing as snakes, walking on their two legs, rolling themselves along, and as they ascend, they change further and further into the forms that humans expect to see them as. The weight of expectation forces their scales into skin, the endings of their many hands into simple fingernails, and their tusks into nothingness.
When they are on the surface, they must appear as the ones that humans know as goblins, because of that human expectation. But now that the decision is made and the war is joined on the side of the Potter, the Speakers, the defeaters of the Great One, the continuers of the world, themselves…
Perhaps someday, they can appear as themselves outside of their deepest underground sanctuaries.
*
Tarquinius chants softly under his breath as he grinds flakes of obsidian for the ritual. Now and then he can feel his Lord shifting in the back of his head, feeding him instructions for the chant, and now and then, there is a glimpse of the other.
But most of the time, there is only the sound of his own voice echoing off the walls of the Muggle house where they have taken refuge. His Lord finds it distasteful; it is harder to conduct magic in purely Muggle surroundings, away from stone walls soaked with the patina of old rituals and spells.
But that also means that far fewer people will be looking for magic here.
Tarquinius finishes grinding up the obsidian and upends the bowl of delicate flakes he holds, emptying it into the silver bowl of water. Well, it was water when it started. He does not know what it is now, he thinks as he watches it shift and settle. Something like a potion, but only something like.
Not all alike.
He begins to stir the potion, as he decides to think of it, on the beat of a silent chant that his Lord counts out in his head. Then he reaches for the bloody finger that he cut from a Muggle man last night and placed under a charm to keep the blood fresh. He scatters the liquid from the dripping digit into the potion, and—
There is a silent, brilliant explosion.
Tarquinius howls, more from the frustration that he can feel echoing through both his Lord’s soul and his own than for other reasons, and stares down at the potion. There is no pain, even though the thick liquid splashed him strongly enough that there should be. Or maybe it’s only that no pain could stand up to the pounding agony of his right arm, the one that bears the ring.
The thought is sliced from his mind as he thinks it.
Someone is interfering, his Lord whispers in the back of his mind. Before you begin another rendition of the potion, you will find the one who is, and end them.
Tarquinius obediently nods. He might simply think it was his poor hands and skill that were failing his Lord, but this is the third such explosion in a week, and he knows that his Lord is right. Someone has tempered somehow, with their surroundings or their ingredients or Tarquinius’s mind.
He draws his wand, and thinks happily of good hunting as he begins to cast the charms that will detect an immediate change in his surroundings. He will be happy to kill someone he can kill.
Again, what lies behind that thought, the ones he cannot kill, is sliced away.
