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“-. Nicolas Flamel, Devon, England .-“
He had finished setting up Harry’s room, child-proofing his laboratories and had even checked the safety charms on the quidditch pitch that Black had put together that morning. It seemed the man’s passion for the sport did not make him lax on precautions. Good.
Nicolas had also dug and bespelled a new cold storage for the basilisk corpse. He’d already harvested the time-sensitive parts that didn’t take well to stasis charms, but the corpse was otherwise intact. Nicolas was unaware of any basilisks that grew so large in the past. Discovering new enchantment or potion uses for the corpse, maybe making clothing or armor from the skin, either would make for a good capstone when Harry was older. Even just coming up with a procedure to cleanse or transmute the dark magic without ruining the leather would earn him accolades. The shed skin was also in storage and was fairly tough even now, despite steadily losing the magic in it, so Nicolas was willing to be optimistic.
That finished the modifications to what he already owned. Now to see about anything new. What would Harry need, want and not think to ask for even though he really should?
“Replace all his school supplies,” he murmured, making a note to buy new ones of everything. Except some of the books. And potions equipment, Nicolas made cauldrons and phials as good as the best on the market. They also owned several farms and menageries, and Perenelle maintained her own greenhouse, so they very rarely needed to purchase ingredients. Food either. “Perenelle will take him shopping for clothes, so that’s covered.”
“I knew what it meant, you know, his poor attire,” said Albus from across the veranda table. “His underdeveloped frame too. I decided it was a price worth paying because every iniquity he suffered at his relatives’ hands meant he would love our world all the more.”
Nicolas hummed but did not reply because one did not interrupt soul-searching. One did, however, include as many hints as one could when they happened to be producing all the background noise. “Set up Harry’s own workshop? No, teach him how to build one himself. Will double as ongoing lesson in practically applied magic and prepare him for renovating the Pottery with his own hands. Stock up on toys. Practice wands, board games for strategy, cards for counting and hand-eye coordination, lego for telekinesis and creativity.” Or when Harry wanted to be left alone. “Take a trip to America for new magic-proofed electronics.”
“I’d never have countenanced such a thing,” Albus lamented. “At this point I don’t even know if I’d have opposed a technology-disrupting ward on Hogwarts, if that was the reason.”
That was merely Albus’ self-deprecation talking, but one did not coddle grown men when they were feeling rightfully guilty over being willing to aid in murder. “It would never be proposed, it would affect the wizarding wireless as well.”
“It always goes back to self-interest,” Albus said glumly.
Self-interest was natural. Effective altruism lied in that self-interest being sufficiently enlightened. Nothing that couldn’t be taught. Television would probably work against that, with the dross being passed off as culture, but Nicolas would probably get one regardless. Their current set was quite small and sub-par these days. Muggle game consoles might become a time sink, but only if Nicolas failed to make real life interesting enough. He was confident he could put more wonder in Harry’s life than any muggle’s best fantasy, and they’d work together to use any exceptions as inspiration. “… Leave schedule open for a trip to Lake Ontario.” As far as pseudonyms went, ‘Ed Greenwood’ was quite on the nose. Especially when the public persona could charitably be described as self-indulgent. Nicolas had sent a request to meet through muggle post, but had yet to receive a reply. With anyone else he would drop by to spy unnoticed or just knock on the door, but the confoundingly ridiculous outcomes of his divination attempts made him wary. “Revisit investments on the muggle side. Will teach Harry how to make his money work for him. Also, where to go and what and who to enchant to make sure all paperwork is in order. Faking one’s death and spoofing inheritance can be left for later.”
“I almost wish I was imperiusing myself back then as well,” Albus groused. “At least that would explain some of my complete disregard of… everything.”
Clearly, imperiusing himself to stay calm at all times during his temporary amnesia had left an impression on Albus Dumbledore. This, though, was not the sort of thing you let fester. “That’s quite the claim. Now find ten reasons why it’s the biggest load of nonsense you said all day.”
Albus’s face fell even further, somehow, causing Sirius Black to shift even more awkwardly than he had since they sat down for lunch.
Not for the first time, Nicolas Flamel pondered British idiosyncracies. “You British people are a lot like ants, I‘ve found.” It wasn’t even a jest. “You are loyal to your queen, love crumbling pastries, take things that don’t belong to you back to your colony, and have an innate instinct to line up single-file and do everything in a queue.” Both literally and figuratively. “But you also brought common law with you everywhere you went, which was the most humane in the world at the time, destroyed your malicious extranational mistakes like the East India Trading Company, and were willing to use the money and help from the rebels that kicked your teeth in to abolish slavery for the whole world. You have only just had your teeth kicked in.” Perhaps not the best analogy for Albus having a second existential crisis over not being sure if his amnesiac self had been right to have his own existential crisis in the first place. “But it will pass. I’m looking forward to seeing what abolitionist fervor looks like on you.”
Albus said nothing to that.
Sirius Black, though, bore awkward tension poorly indeed. “Is that why you repudiated the French people?”
“I did not repudiate anyone.” Though he would have been justified to. “I did, however, agree for personal reasons to give up my French citizenship in exchange for the British one.”
Not many conflicts were so grand in scope as to spawn a Voldemort or Grindelwald, but the French Revolution easily qualified. The French Ministry of Magical Affairs weren’t feckless incompetents. They joined the Twelve Swords to the Raiment of Charlemagne to cast an Interdiction on the whole country, making all known methods of magical transportation impossible. Coupled with blanket Floo shutdowns, it worked to curtail foreign magical intervention and even crippled the mobility of that conflict’s would-be Dark Lord long enough to corner and slay him. But that meant no one else could fly, floo, portkey or apparate for the duration of the Reign of Terror. And so Nicolas and his wife, who were abroad setting up a home away from home for just such an outcome, were stuck in Britain while all their children and grandchildren were butchered with gun and cannon to the noble refrain of “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.”
“I was ready to sacrifice you too, Nicolas,” Albus confessed. The self-loathing was completely bare now. “The moment I went to you with my offer to safeguard the Stone, I'd already decided to destroy it if necessary.”
“I would have been fine, it’s my wife you’d have been sacrificing.” He could create another stone, but probably not fast enough for her. And it wasn’t exactly something you could have multiples of. They took a very literal sort of personal investment. “I would have cut you out of my life completely.”
Albus grimaced and looked down at his hands.
Nicolas was glad it didn’t become necessary. Compared to what the French did in Vendee, and what they later became, the British were charming in a quaint sort of way. Even in their prejudice they were equal opportunity zealots, comparatively speaking. He hoped he never saw them lose that. He liked his adopted country as it was now, with their stiff upper lip and their love of beans and toast. “What is Harry’s favorite food? Other than treacle tart.”
“I don’t think he has one,” Sirius replied. “… You’re really going all out on this, aren’t you?”
“Naturally.”
Sirius frowned, not willing to put things off for once. “Alright, fine. I’ll just ask. Why are you going so far for him? I get being his teacher. I can even accept you’re old fashioned and understand apprenticeships differently, but this is more than that.”
He was only asking this now? “Harry impressed me and I have since grown fond of him.” Honestly, was that not sufficient? “It’s actually made me and Perenelle consider having children again, though naturally that will wait until the little one gets fed up with being my first priority.” Going by Black’s glare, that was apparently not good enough either. Enlightened self-interest then. “Do you know why seers go mad so often?”
Black unclenched his fist and sat back in his chair. “I never had to wonder about it. I assumed it’s because prophecies come at some nebulous cost to the soul, but you seem to be teaching Harry something else.”
“Divination is heavy on the soul, but not why you think. There is no bliss of illusion when you can see through all of them. There is much dark truth and action that visions reveal, more so the further one walks along the path. It is quite demoralising. It is not a path for the faint of heart. Indeed, even the strongest hearts wear down and break if there isn’t enough good with the ill. And considering Harry’s track record, he’ll be seeing much ill indeed.” Nicolas closed his notebook and hooked his pen back to the binder. “A seer must find what joy he can in the present, and so his life must be filled with love and happiness. As Harry is currently cross with me, he may not accept the former from me, for a time. But I can still provide him with the opportunity to find or make as much of his own happiness as humanly possible.”
There was quiet between them again, but this time it was a bit less heavy.
Eventually, Sirius broke it. “Dumbledore. You’re an arse and I hate you.”
Albus’ face twisted in pain, but he quietly nodded acceptance.
“I don’t want you near Harry. I want you to have nothing to do with him. And yes, Flamel. If you want me to play nice, that is my condition.”
Nicolas met Black’s eyes squarely. Black’s point was valid, and Nicolas was even somewhat impressed. This was a much superior composure compared to when Albus disclosed the prophecy and a certain potions professor’s complicity in events. But Nicolas had already said his piece to Albus and was not one for beating a dead horse. Besides, Albus Dumbledore was better than Sirius thought of him.
“I do, of course, agree,” Albus answered. The shadow on his face deepened. “There are other matters that require my attention in any case. I will stay away.”
“Unless Harry wants otherwise,” Nicolas said mildly. “In which case we’ll have to revisit the issue.”
Sirius’ face twisted, but he nodded sharply in agreement. Surprisingly, he then softened some. “You need help, Dumbledore.” He clearly didn’t mean with politics. “I won’t stand in the way of that. This place is big, and I’ll want some time alone with my Godson every once in a while anyway. As long as you don’t stick your wand where it’s not invited, we won’t have any problems.”
One could hope.
“Right,” Black said, rising from his chair. “Time to go break my godson’s heart by telling him he was never going back to Hogwarts anyway. Just so you know, Alchemist, if he hates me for the rest of time I’m blaming you.”
“He won’t.” Honestly, did Black have no faith in the little one at all? “At some point he will realise that every good parent manipulates their children into not growing up to be savages, convicts or corpses.”
“I’m stealing that,” Black groused. “I swear, being a Godfather shouldn’t be this stressful. At least he’s not a parselmouth anymore.”
Black left soon after, but Albus lingered until he lost track of time, so Nicolas invited him to stay the night. That finally startled the other wizard enough to break him out of his latest, soon to be discarded plan to upend the entire magical society. Albus demurred, though, and left to catch up on his paperwork back at Hogwarts. Unfortunate, but it wasn’t time yet to insist. Things with him were still too raw.
Nicolas Flamel was never without his own designs, however. The matter of ‘Ed’ had stalled, but there were two other leads he was following up on. Since Perenelle was off enjoying her leisure with her housewife friends, now was as good a time as any to resume on the lead closest to home.
Drinking an invisibility potion and casting a strong notice-me-not charm on himself, Nicolas apparated to the tourist entrance of the Tower of London and then used a few short-distance apparitions to penetrate into the inner grounds. He then spent a while walking around the place, paying special attention to the basement entrances. He’d done this multiple times before, but he wanted to be thorough. Finally, he decided that the access likely wasn’t on the surface, or it had been but later got built over. He broke into the underground levels, making sure to leave no trace of his passage behind.
The basement and tunnels were less extensive than he’d assumed, allowing him to walk all of them at least once by sundown. Well, those strictly within of the hill itself. Unfortunately, he found nothing out of the ordinary, neither by muggle or wizard standards, even though he kept repeating over and over that The Blessed Crow keeps vigil under the White Hill.
Either this was a special kind of Secret that only worked for the recipient, or this wasn’t the right white hill.
Nicolas Flamel returned home, pondering prophecies, burial mounds, spirits and secrets.
The last matter he needed to follow up on involved no magical secrets. What’s more, its potential scope dwarfed that of virtually all other concerns. Even Albus’ newest fixation on the Statute of Secrecy that he could definitely use a break from lest it become obsession in record time.
“Perenelle, my fair wife,” he said at dinner. “How would you like to go on a cruise?” Say one that sails along the coast of New Jersey, for example. There wasn’t time for a full trip by summer, but he didn’t intend to linger so long regardless.
“I would surely loathe it,” sniffed his dear wife. “Have you seen what passes for socialites these days? The airs on those creatures make even your foulest potion fumes seem sweet and amorous.”
“I suppose Albus can be my plus one,” Nicolas mused, not entirely joking. “Or Black. Perhaps both.” Notice-me-not, some gillyweed and a warming charm should give them more than enough time to find what they needed.
“I’m sure you boys will find your ulterior reasons to be eminently compelling, but I’d much rather stay at home with my flowers.”
“Alright. Perhaps next year.”
“Perhaps.”
Once upon a time, husband and wife had attempted to fly over the English Channel to their family’s rescue only to nearly drown several times when every broom and carpet failed them. Since then, Perenelle hated the sea. Hated the very thought it. Couldn’t stand the sight of it. The attic was still stuffed full with all the brooms and flying carpets they tried and failed to fly over.
This was a positively mild reaction by Perenelle’s standards. She was truly making an effort again.
It was good to see his wife putting the last of her sorrow behind her.
“-. Charles Gordon, Bright Falls, Washington USA .-“
> Doctor Flannhamr,
>
> I am writing to let you know I will not be able to join you at CERN. Prior obligations have caught up with me and I will be unavailable for the foreseeable future.
>
> I am grateful for your mentorship during my doctorate and hope we can remain on good terms.
>
> Respectfully, Charles Gordon.
Bright Falls was a sparkling little township easily subsisting off the Cauldron Lake tourism. Charles hated the place, and he’d say so if it wasn’t crass. Perhaps emphatically dislike could be more comfortably confessed, but no one ever asked, thankfully. His patience would have coped, but the constant whine in his ears was already enough to worry about.
“Doctor!” The sheriff called in greeting, always jolly during their ‘unexpected’ run-ins that never failed to occur within five minutes of Charles emerging from the bus station. “Welcome back! Whose career are you here to ruin this time?”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
One day it might be yours, Charles thought as he removed his headphones. “I’d like to think even the Lodge would need more than three months to repeat that performance.” Sheriff Frank Breaker had a bright smile on his face, so open and earnest you could almost believe he wasn’t an agent of the Magical Congress of the United States. Charles usually approved of such competence, but not when it propped up shadow organisations so bad at psychological profiling that they didn’t see through card-carrying psychopaths like the late and unlamented Emil Hartman. “But then I’m still hopeful this place will run out of bad luck one of these days.”
“Always with the cynicism, perk up man! What you’ve got here is the American Dream!”
On reflection, competence certainly didn’t come hand in hand with self-delusion. Perhaps he was overestimating the good Sheriff, it wasn’t like the man had cottoned on to the fact Charles was on to him and his masters. “Dream is a good term.”
Charles bantered with the man until the sheriff couldn’t justify keeping him any longer. He then carried on as normal until the town was behind him. Then he pulled the Microbee 32000 out of his bag and typed MINDSCAN. Ten seconds later, a chime notified him that no new mind alterations had been detected since last scan. As expected, but you could never be too careful with these things, especially with his personal history.
He put his headphones back on and followed the Geiger-like sounds.
Soon enough, Bird Leg Cabin was just one boat ride away. Charles always worried he’d tip over and drown. Much more so than usual because most other lakes didn’t have a reality-warping eldritch horror trapped beneath them. Alas, as always it was a risk he had to take.
There was no one to meet him when he docked on Diver’s Isle, but that was fine. This was, as always, a surprise visit since he made a point not to transmit any signals in or out of this place just in case. Besides, he knew where the spare key was.
Barbara was on the patio. She pretended not to notice him in favour of continuing to look through the scope of her Ruger AR-556 MPR 450 Bushmaster. “Can you even aim that?”
It was a fair question. Since the 450 Bushmaster didn’t come standard with a scope, it was probably throwing off her aim. And since an Anderson job wouldn’t have such issues, she must have jury-rigged one herself.
Barbara put her gun aside and rose to greet him. “Charles, we didn’t expect you today. Tom’s still writing downstairs.”
Oh, she called them by their proper names now? “Going native are we?” He made sure to breathe in before she reached him. Voluptuous women like her took your breath away when they got a hold of you. “Breaker was in poor form.”
“That’s a surprise.” She pulled away and straightened Charles’s tie. “The good sheriff’s had nothing but free time. I dare say he’s even getting bored with nothing happening.”
They enjoyed the moment of levity, but Charles was here for a reason. “How is he?”
“Carrying on. All the energy in his punches is going into the Arcade Machine now. I’ve asked him to take me out for a boat ride when he’s finally finished writing.”
“I advise against that.”
“As you do every time you drop by.” Barbara smiled slightly. “We will carry on until our last strength, then we will bait our enemy to spend his last strength. Either way, Thor will see us on to Vidblainn.”
Charles was determined not to expire before he was well and truly decrepit, but he was a man of the mind. His friends were people of passion and vigor, he wouldn’t begrudge them wanting to have that in the next life. He’d already gone down the path of not valuing anything other than intellect. It was not a happy dead end, and he’d only come back from it because others had seen worth in his halfwit self.
Barbara led the way to the basement, where Thomas Zane was using the Punching Keybag to punch poetry into the Arcade Machine. Charles’ first proprietary invention was still holding on. It was perhaps an unorthodox hardware attachment to a coin-op cabinet, but better than the alternative.
“Hackerman,” Tom greeted gruffly, spin kicking the Keybag so hard that an entire stanza wrote itself in one strike. Arcade Machine whined in discomfort. “You’re early.”
“I can get back to dry land and visit Tor instead.”
“Nah, it’s fine, I was going to take a break anyway.” Tom wiped his forehead with a towel and punched one last time.
The Arcade Machine saved progress and the screen shut down. When it flickered back on, the unsmiling face overlaid the starting screen to The Epic of Kung Fury. Charles’ lips twitched nostalgically.
The 80s in Miami were wild.
Only Tom would come up with the idea to write a reality-warping eldritch abomination into a harmless arcade game. Charles even approved of the theory. It was Tom and Barbara’s chance to complete the plan that he doubted. The misqualified energy emanations from below had grown tremendously since his last visit. How bad was their sleep these days? Their dreams?
But they’d long since talked that topic to death. Charles followed his friends up the stairs instead. “I see you’re almost done.”
“Another few months and Thor’s pecs will finally have some proper competition. Then I’ll load that thing down under with so many horror vibes it won’t even be able to walk in the sun.”
Despite himself, Charles almost wavered. It sounded like the sort of thing where they’d need his help. But he had a life debt to repay, and his curiosity wanted sating as well. “That’s why I came. I don’t think I’ll be around for the encore. Or last hurrah, whatever it turns into.”
Tom turned around, his eyebrows high. “Is this talk gonna need Anderson’s moonshine?”
Charles thought about, it then shrugged. “May as well.”
It took a lot of Anderson moonshine and his memory was on strike when he groaned awake at mid-day two days later. But for once Charles was able to leave his friends with no unresolved feelings, and even sailed the lake without fear. Even the sheriff missed him on the way out.
Charles entered the bus stop restroom, lifted the Microbee 32000 on his shoulder and typed PORTALHOME.
Screeching blue lightning tore open a dark hole in space.
Let’s hope you have something good for me to bite into, kid, Charles thought as he stepped into his living room. “Alice, I’m home!”
Almost thirty years ago, Charlie Gordon had gained everything, lost everything, and then been given everything back again after he walked face-first out of New York into an invisible door. The only price his benefactor demanded for the drink that literally regrew his brain was a date and a set of coordinates. All he had to do was be there at the given time, knock on the gate and ask for employment.
Employment not for himself but a certain brain surgeon.
Two for the price of one, Charles thought for the hundredth time. I’m not throwing him into the unknown by himself. Which his benefactor no doubt expected.
Picking up the phone, he dialled a number from memory. Ring, Ring, Ring-
“Hello?”
“Doctor Strauss.”
“Retired Doctor Strauss. Who is this?”
“This is Charlie. Pray tell, good doctor, how is Algernon’s grave looking these days?”
The good doctor shut the call on him. Of course he did, he was undeservedly disgraced in academic circles and thought it was a prank call.
He didn’t think it was a prank anymore when Charlie knocked on his door that same evening.
> Charlie,
>
> You can’t do this to me. We finally have all the approvals for the collider, all that’s left is to finalise ownership of the land. The paperwork is unconscionable, how will I cope without dropping all of the drudge work in your lap?
>
> And what about later? Whose hard work am I going to pretend to steal with you gone? Who am I going to argue with over coffee brands? Mankind is finally going to see how wrong they are about everything, how will I go on without anyone to gloat to around the water cooler? There are people here who actually think they know what universal heat death looks like, I cannot muster the proper amount of disdain for that on my own.
>
> I demand recompense for this emotional damage you inflicted upon my person, no, I demand to know who and how managed to steal you away.
>
> Do introduce me, won’t you?
>
> ~Dougan.
“-. Osiris, formerly of Egypt, lately shipwrecked off the coast of New Jersey .-“
Awareness returned. With it, thought. Memory. Hate. The canopic jar was open once again. On instinct, he burst out of his prison with mouth bare, teeth and pincers out to spear skin and flesh, but there was no host waiting for him. Instead, he found himself in a glass vessel no bigger than three steps across. He was swimming in water. Water and nutrients not unlike those in his prison, and an energy charge just barely enough to keep him from death. What was this? Had Ra reconsidered? Had he decided an eternity of insensate imprisonment was not sufficient punishment for his defiance? Where was he? Where was Isis?
There were three hosts outside the tank. He did not recognize their faces. He did not know their dress. He did not know their words. One of them wore a kara kesh, but he did not feel like kin. Osiris sensed no naquadah from any of them. Pretenders! They dared to garb themselves in the gods’ raiment? Osiris reared up in rage, fins and teeth bared in a snarling hiss. Their suffering would last years for this offense once he-
The one on the left pointed with his stick and flicked. Osiris’ body lurched on its own, plastering him against the glass. A gravity tug. So they were not complete incompetents. He would keep that one alive the longest, just as soon as the one in the middle got close enough to claim. It was a fool if he thought this paltry strength could keep him pinned, the bodies of gods were not so flimsy. Just one more step.
Osiris lunged up.
He smacked into nothing so hard that he was dazed. What was that? There was nothing on top of the tank, why had he – a forcefield. How long had he been sealed away that even mere hosts had developed cunning? This was-
“Legilimens.”
Osiris was violently thrown into his own mind, deep in the recesses of memory where gods could plan and build and dream of all who came before. There was a foreign will in there with him, stumbling in awe at the scope of a mind he would never be able to fathom in a million year. Osiris hissed in outrage, they dared? It dared! Osiris had endured a year of Ra’s Rod of Agony and still the mind probe almost failed when Osiris was at his lowest. This lowly creature thought a god’s mind would bend before such paltry probes unharried? Osiris almost let the fool to its fate, a god’s mind was a whole indivisible, try to rip at it and the flood of knowledge would break all other minds, did this fool think he was somehow exempt?
But every moment Osiris waited was a moment more for the intruder to bend and tease at the threads of thought and memory in a manner more insidious than even the most advanced memory recall device. How was it doing this? Osiris felt disquiet, then he promptly bellowed with rage at his own lapse and violently reasserted control over all parts of him.
The Decrepit One stumbled back from the tank. Osiris banished all doubts at how difficult it had been to expel him and relished the sight of that weakness.
“The hard way it is then.”
Suddenly Osiris was hoisted up by an invisible force, and this time it had no give. He emerged unwilling from the water and hovered mid-air, hissing and flailing indignantly. He was before the third one. The one mid-way in age between the others. The one with the kara kesh. The kara kesh pointed right at him.
The red beam hit his head and he shrieked.
He’d felt worse agony, but lesser agony was still agony. He could feel not one but three foreign wills set themselves against his own, but he but he refused to bend. He would expel these upstarts no matter how long it took.
Osiris did not know for certain how long he was tortured. He refused to lose consciousness when it was finally over. He did not think of how this was most likely just the start.
“This creature is vile.” The Decrepit One was speaking. “That its kind could rise to become the apex race of the cosmos is an offense to all notions of sense.”
“I have no idea what I’m seeing here either,” the youngest said when the mind scouring beam finally stopped, voice unsteady. “It’s… a lot of degeneracy to wade through, and I can’t find anything useful. I feel filthy and disgusted just from five minutes, but I have this urge to dive back in because in the moment… while I was experiencing it… it felt good.” Osiris still couldn’t understand them, but the creature was surely lamenting its complete inability to see even a glimpse past Osiris’ impregnable defences. “I… think I’ll remove the memories after we’re done here and never do this again, if it’s all the same to you.”
“You know your limits best,” Decrepit One insulted the younger man.
“It seems the void spawn are much older than we reckoned,” said his poor excuse of a torturer, clearly pretending to be unmoved lest the other two pounce on his weakness. Even now, hosts were never capable of more than aping their superiors. “And they pass everything on. Twenty-five thousand years of history, at least. No wonder they never broke the mould, they are each mere copies of the mould itself.”
“It will take lifetimes to make any headway like this,” Decrepit One said, lifting his rod aloft. What were those tools? They looked like mere wood, but they achieved feats not unlike the gods’ accoutrements and their filigree would have passed muster in the highest conclaves of heaven. “And that assumes we even stumble on the tenth of a percentage of actionable knowledge scattered amidst all that… degeneracy.”
Torturer raised his stick, and Osiris rose with it until he hovered just out of reach of the host’s face. He lunged and flailed uselessly anyway. “How convenient that the little one’s off-the-cuff advice has provided us with the perfect alternative. As with everything else, it has proven prescient in more ways than one.”
“Yes,” Decrepit One nodded, raising his stick while his superior completely failed to realize it was being mocked. Such gall would never last in the Court of the Gods. “The day he runs out of ideas will be a sad one indeed.”
“For you two, maybe.” Youngest muttered with a disrespect that would have seen him flogged in Osiris’ court. “I for one would have been glad if he – and thus me – had nothing to do with any of this.”
“You can back away. There will be no misgivings.”
“… No. This has to be done, and I want my pound of flesh after what I just went through.”
The three encircled him. They raised their rods. They reached forth until the tips touched the flesh of their God, how dare they-
They pulled.
Osiris’ mind unravelled like a tapestry in reverse.
“-. Sirius Orion Back, Hogwarts, England .-“
Sirius waved the loose memories out of his face and floated the insensate space snake back in its tank. The thing landed with a splotch and just… floated there. There was no angry swimming, no hissing, no rearing up with head crest spread like a mad cobra. Sirius tapped on the glass with his wand a few times. The snake twitched at the sound. Not entirely brain dead then. On a whim he flicked his wand at one of the threads hovering closest and sent it to the creature. The snake shuddered and performed a weird watery crooning sound that immediately stopped when Sirius pulled the memory back out. The snake went meek and quiet again.
“It should still retain its unconscious bodily functions,” Dumbledore guessed, walking up next to him. “And its natural instincts. Perhaps it will even develop a new consciousness in time. Completely free of its forebears’ legacy.”
Sirius didn’t say anything. He instead went to the table, took a phial, put his wand at his temple and slowly pulled out everything he’s just ripped from the snake’s mind. It was almost too painful, Sirius could have sworn the memory spanned a time frame longer than his lifetime, but it was also dense and so tightly bound that his own mind almost eagerly let it go.
When he was done, Sirius was glad to see Dumbledore and Flamel doing the same nearby.
They turned to look at the loose shimmering threads that filled the Room of Memory to almost literal bursting. “Amazing,” Dumbledore said, though his tone was grim. “The room’s diameter is a few dozen times bigger than the first time.”
The Room of Requirement had created an instance of itself to integrate Dumbledore’s additions, and it hadn’t had trouble containing the wizard’s full record in the so-called Room of Memory. Void spawn were apparently a lot more to handle though, and not just because their memory was eidetic. They didn’t just have their own memories spanning thousands of years, but also all the memories of their forebears, leading to the equivalent of some twenty thousand years. Many times over.
If not for the genius of the Founders and the sheer power running through the ground below the castle, this wouldn’t have been possible.
Sirius looked at the brain-dead snake again. It looked small and ugly and squalid, and it was all those things. Which made it all the more galling that it was so dangerous. It had managed to withstand three different legilimency attacks at once for quite some time, under torture, when two of those attacks came from two of the most accomplished mind magician alive. It hadn’t even noticed the Confundus charms. If this was that a void spawn could do without a host and addled from eleven thousand years of stasis, Sirius could begin to see how they could dominate the world for so long, never mind technology so advanced it looked divine. Good riddance to the she-snake being already dead from exposure when they found her.
There were theories that wizards had their own country before something happened to make them scatter across the world during the Bronze Age Collapse. The assumption was that the country was Atlantis, and the cause of their dispersal was the island’s sinking and destruction. Osiris and its dead mate had been stuck in jars thousands of years before then, but for all that the oldest mummy was over nine thousand years old, there were no wizard mummies or cursed tombs dating earlier than 2,995 BC. Magicians were largely absent from muggle history prior to Mycenean Greece as well. “The International Statute of Secrecy isn’t the first time we hid, is it?”
“No indeed,” Flamel confirmed, though he seemed preoccupied. Preoccupied and pleased. Happy, even. “Little Harry is truly blessed.” What did that have to do with anything? “I have not seen so many good unintended consequences in one place in all my six hundred years.”
Sirius looked at the man incredulously. How was any of this good? Hopefully Dumbledore was still sane, and Sirius couldn’t believe he’d just thought that when-
“We are going to need help.” Speak of the devil and he shall reply with a bewildering amount of sense for someone who’d spent his whole life keeping everything to his chest, never mind what it did to everyone else.
Sirius might have certain unresolved feelings.
“Very well educated help,” Flamel agreed. “Intelligent help.”
Dumbledore hesitated, turning away from the threaded strands. “I do not think it can be found in the magical world.”
“For the moment,” Flamel agreed as if it was no bother. “And in sufficient amounts, most likely never. Though it does strike me, entirely coincidentally of course, that the Supreme Mugwump can give special dispensations for muggles to know things whenever he wants.”
He could?
They stood in silence, the memories of the inheritor of all the void’s evil just a few feet away.
“This will be the work of decades,” Dumbledore murmured. The shimmering curtain backlit a grim and resolute, frail human being. “I will not live that long.”
“Come now, Albus,” Flamel looked back, eyes bright with certainty. “We all know who will lead the future.”
They moved the void spawn to the Chamber of Secrets and set it up with an automated food dispenser before finally parting.
Sirius was fully resolved to go bug Harry into lowering another one of the hundred walls he’d raised after Sirius’ despicable betrayal. Alas, this was not to be because Harry was not alone. In fact, the entire the Golden Trio (plus one) were most definitely not alone. And it wasn’t just because the end of the year was just two more weeks away and Harry very understandably wanted to spend what time he had left with his housemates. They and half of everyone else who had a free period were clustered in groups around the Hogwarts main Gate being inconspicuously conspicuous.
Taking advantage of his grownup privileges, Sirius Black walked past the children and the forbidding presence of Madam Hooch that was nowhere near as forbidding as McGonagall and so no barrier to him. He only stopped when he was in front of the gates next to Hagrid. “What’s going on here?”
“Unexpected guests,” Hagrid ‘whispered.’ “They look like muggles.”
Yes they did.
That was about when McGonagall came down with Dumbledore and Flamel right behind.
“Hello there,” Dumbledore greeted with twinkling eyes. “Who do I have the pleasure of greeting.”
The younger of the two men scowled at the wizard and turned to his balding companion. “Don’t look him in the eye, he reads minds.”
Sirius wasn’t the only one taken aback.
“Great,” the older man groused, pulling his topcoat tighter around him. “Bloody perfect, why am I here again?”
The cursing was quintessential brit upper class twit, but the accent wasn't. They were yanks.
“Leopold?” Flamel breathed. He’d stopped in his tracks with something that looked remarkably like astonishment. The younger yank heard and looked at them. “Leopold Nilsson? Is that you?”
“My real name is Charles Gordon.” That told Sirius nothing, but it seemed to mean a lot to the Alchemist. “Good day to you, Mr. Hearth. It is nice to finally meet you properly.” And as if that was enough to settle the matter of a six hundred year-old immortal being completely blindsided, the yank turned to Dumbledore and held out a sheet of paper.
Dumbledore walked to the ward line and reached through. When the paper didn’t make his arm fall off or anything else similarly sinister, he took and looked it over. “What are these?”
“Our terms of employment.”
Say what?
“I was told the position would involve ophiology and pyramid structures. That is the full extent of my instruction.”
Pyramids. Ophiology. Snakes.
Despite himself, Sirius couldn’t help but seek Harry out in the crowd because really, godson mine, how the hell did you pull this off?
“… Let’s take this to my office.”