Young Justice: Gotham City
July 27th, 2010
Of course that wasn’t it. Even though I was giddy, exhausted, and the long, barely-sealed cut in my palm was stinging painfully, there was still more work to be done. This was not nearly the only spell that benefited from a full moon after all, and the lingering magic slowly dissipating back into the earth was plenty to work with.
Zatanna, her clean robes in stark contrast to my blood-splattered ones, watched with keen interest from behind me as I carefully moved my wand across the surface of the wardstone. She had been full of questions after I’d finished the ritual, but I had asked her to give me some time to make sure everything worked before I answered anything.
Fortunately, I was pretty sure it had. The formerly smooth top of the cylinder now bore the Black family crest and motto, carved into the stone with such fine detail that even the color looked right if you looked at it from just the right angle. Surrounding that was a complex web of interlocking druidic runes that I could only scarcely understand with my meager grasp of the tongue. They looked sort of like just random lines and curves cut into the stone, but in actuality they represented a powerful bit of ancient blood magic created by one of my distant ancestors––Orion Hydrys Black the Ninth.
In life, he’d been one of the greatest wardsmiths of his age. In death, he’d used his own willing sacrifice to bind his magnum opus to our bloodline. From that day forth, any Black could call upon the secrets of their blood to protect them and theirs. The wards I’d prepared were not nearly as strong as they could have been, but given a few centuries to absorb ambient mana––or a stream of potent sacrifices and donations of energy––they would someday rival the very best wards wizardkind could achieve, shielding this place from all manner of detection magics, physical intrusions, and much more.
Sadly, while the magic I’d cast represented a powerful array of protections, they were not all powerful. There were plenty of other wards that I’d be placing over this place, some of which I wanted to get done as soon as possible. That was why, despite it being well after midnight, I was still standing here smoothly running my wand along the wardstone.
Wherever my wand touched, it left a shallow groove on the pulsing stone that rapidly filled with silvery-purple energy pouring from within the rock. I was going to need to ask her to leave soon, both so she could get some sleep tonight and to avoid showing her the majority of the magic I was going to cast tonight, but there was no harm in her knowing that my house was unplottable.
As my wand moved across the stone, I could feel the magic I was casting sink into the rock and then ripple out across the entire house. In the prelude to the ritual, I had walked every single room, hallway, and staircase of the house, pouring just a trace of my magic into the brick, stone, concrete, wood, and shingles that made up the building. It had taken hours, particularly while I’d been working on the foundation of the building and the bedrock beneath it, but now that work was paid off, with the wardstone instinctively ‘knowing’ the boundary between what was and wasn’t part of my home.
My breathing was harsh and jagged as I pulled my wand away from the stone and finished the spell. “Obscuro tellus!” I declared firmly, my voice showing no trace of the bone-deep weariness waying down my limbs. The drain was immense, to the point that I stumbled and collapsed forward, barely catching myself before my head slammed into the wardstone.
My wand burned beneath my fingers and there was a sharp pain in my chest, but I knew that it was done. For as long as the magic lasted, this place could not appear on any map, nor could directions be used to find it. Only someone who’d been here before, or was led by someone who knew the way, could find it now. It was a very powerful, very useful spell, but holy hells was it exhausting to cast.
Zatanna’s hand landed on my arm. “Hydrys?” she asked worriedly, “are you okay?” I turned and she gasped as she looked at my face. “Oh god, you’re so pale!”
I did my best to smile, but it hurt to move the muscles. “I’m fine,” I breathed, “just…just need to catch my breath…and I can…keep going.”
“Keep going?” she asked, aghast, “You look like you belong in a hospital, not on your feet casting spells!”
“Ull muun…tooooo valyyyyyable,” I slurred, a huge yawn interrupting my words. I tried to pull myself out of her grip, but didn’t have the strength to manage it.
Zatanna let out a frustrated sigh. “Men,” she mumbled uncharitably.
I yawned again and blinked blearily up at Zatanna. When had she gotten so tall? I was neary eye-level with the hem of her undersized robe, giving me an up close and personal view of her creamy white thighs and just a tantalizing hint of more.
I shook myself. Wait no, I could feel the wardstone against my back, the rock warm and soft like an enormous, plush thigh. Much better than the cold ground beneath my butt, separated from bare skin by nothing but some bloody fabric. “I’m fine. I just need to rest my eyes for a few minutes. I still want to caaaaast––” my words were once again interrupted by a yawn wide enough that it made my jaw ache, “a few more wards. Just one or two, maybe threeeeeeeee––”
Zatanna crouched down beside me and I was too out of it to control myself. My eyes slid smoothly away from her face and down to her barely-concealed chest. The robe was too small to close all the way and, though she had it pulled as tightly as she could around her, it still showed off a deep v of tantalizing cleavage extending down almost to her belly-button.
Zatanna had very nice breasts. They were big and perky, and I could just barely see the edge of one pink areola peeking out from under the linen. Though I hadn’t noticed before, the cold air of the basement seemed to have hardened her nipples, and they poked through the thin cloth like mountain peaks hidden beneath a thin layer of white, fabricy snow.
I shook myself again and forcibly dragged my eyes up to Zatanna’s face. Even in a compromised mental capacity I had been raised properly and could control myself.
Thankfully it seemed like Zatanna hadn’t noticed anything, because she was smiling and not slapping me. Her cheeks were slightly red, but that wasn’t anything new. “And how many of those spells need to be performed on a full moon, and can’t wait till August?” she asked.
I considered the question, my mind working slowly through her words in ones and twos. How many. Need. Full moon. Wait. August.
I blinked languidly. “Probably…none of them,” I admitted, “but I donnn wanna wait.”
Zatanna rubbed her face with her hands, then sighed again. Then she gently turned my head to the side and kissed me on the cheek, her hand and lips sending sparks tingling through my tired muscles. “We’re going to go on a date tomorrow. Well, today, I mean. You’re going to dress up and get me from Shadowcrest at noon. And, if everything goes well and you don’t yawn or nod off…Well, you’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?”
I stared blankly after her as she pulled away and stood up, my stinging left hand rising to touch my cheek where Zatanna’s lips had just touched me. Zatanna grinned back and threw her hair over her shoulder, thrusting her chest out in the process and nearly making the knotted belt around her waist come loose. “Can you repeat that back to me, Hydrys?” she asked teasingly.
Tired and transfixed as I was, it took me a moment to respond. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Shadowcrest at noon. Dress up. I can do that.”
“Good. Then I’ll see you soon. Sleep well Hydrys.”
My eyes followed her as she walked away from me, her hips swaying with every step. Then she paused at the ladder, glanced back at me, shrugged, and began to climb. Only the angle of where I was sitting leaned up against the wardstone preserved any semblance of her modesty and she clearly knew it, her body swaying back and forth far more than necessary as she moved up and out of sight.
I took a deep, shuddering breath and let my head fall back against the wardstone. I… Zatanna was probably right. Any mistakes I made while working with the wardstone would be somewhere between difficult and utterly impossible to fix. Most of the spells I wanted to apply would be perfectly fine if I cast them some other night, and the rest could easily wait a month. The building was unplottable and protected well enough that I could sleep easily tonight. Or well, I could have if not for Zatanna’s sudden offer.
I tried to stand up, thought better of it, and closed my eyes. I’d just…rest down here for a few minutes. Just a few minutes. Then I could go upstairs, scourgify myself a few times, and find somewhere…to…sleep…
I woke up some time later with a horrible crick in my neck, my legs sticky with dried blood, and very, very cold feet. I jerked awake and frantically looked around, momentarily not recognizing where I was. I snatched my wand up off the floor where it had rolled and promptly slammed the side of my head into the wardstone that had served as my pillow and backrest throughout the night.
The next few moments were a blur, but everything quickly came back to me. The ritual, my positively shameful conduct, Zatanna’s questions, the feeling of Zatanna’s lips against my bare skin…
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The date! Oh Merlin, what time was it? It took me three attempts to cast the Tempus spell, a piece of magic I’d used daily for six years, each attempt growing increasingly sloppy and frantic. There was a deep ache in my gut and a slow pounding in my skull as I stared at the numbers floating above my wand through half-closed eyes.
One minute past eleven, I eventually deciphered, and some of the panic I was feeling faded. Okay, I hadn’t missed it. Then I looked down at myself. At my blood-soaked linen robe. At the measly sealed cut on my hand. I could scarcely imagine how I must have looked––it was a miracle that Zatanna hadn’t been turned to stone when our eyes met.
I scrambled to my feet and hastily tore off my badly stained robe, leaving it discarded on the floor behind me as I rushed out of the room. I was half-way up the ladder when I realized that this was a waste of time and let go of the rungs I was holding onto. My body twisted in mid air and I vanished before I could hit the ground, reappearing an instant later in the tiny bathroom of my borrowed apartment with a thunderous crack. I hadn’t apparated so loudly since I’d first learned how to, but thankfully I hadn’t splinched myself. That would have been very, very embarrassing.
The next forty-five minutes were a total blur. I took a too-short but wonderful hot shower, washing away all the goat blood my first cleaning charm didn’t manage to take care of. A healing charm and then a minor glamour were the best I could do for my hand––ritual wounds like that needed to heal naturally, though the ritual itself had sealed the cut after it had concluded. I really wish I had some pepper-up potion, but three mugs of steaming hot tea would have to suffice for getting me up running.
Somehow, despite the odds, at eleven-fifty-six I laced up my leather shoes, checked myself in the mirror, and apparated to Shadowcrest. I felt a lot more composed and awake than I had when I’d woken up, but I definitely wasn’t back to one-hundred percent. I was still exhausted and my magic felt like a badly overworked muscle. Just the fact that I’d needed to take an actual shower and scrub my body with a soapy sponge despite the small amount of time I had to work with spoke volumes. Apparating kind of hurt, and my scourgifies just weren’t strong enough to scour the blood off my skin.
I made it up to the entrance right before noon, just in time to watch Zatanna step out of the front door of Shadowcrest in a stunning red off the shoulders dress. The velvety fabric hugged her curves, then swept outward and reached down to her feet, hiding the high heels I knew she was wearing. A small, matching purse was clutched in one of her hands and she was wearing a small, shy smile that stood in sharp contrast to the confident figure she cut.
I had been planning to immediately apologize for my conduct the night before, but all words fled my mouth at the sight of her. She stopped on the top step and twirled around a little, making the skirt of her dress flare out. It wasn’t a dress robe––even though it was one of the most conservative outfits I’d ever seen her wear, it was still rather more revealing than what was common in the wizarding world––but it looked close enough that I wouldn’t be shocked if such a thing became the fashion back home in a few decades.
I silently extended a hand out towards Zatanna and leaned forward to kiss her hand when she offered it to me as had become the norm between us. “I hope you slept well, Hydrys?” she asked.
I shook my head, “Terribly, but just the mere sight of you cleanses all discomforts from my mind.”
She laughed, then looked at me suspiciously. “You didn’t stay up late casting more spells, did you?”
“Of course not, how could I possibly disappoint a lady in such a manner? No, I fear I fell asleep too quickly. Stone and concrete do not a good bed make.”
“Oh no, that’s terrible!” she laughed, undermining her own words. “I should have dragged you upstairs before I left.”
“I fear that would not have improved things much.”
Zatanna stared at me in exasperation. “You never did end up preparing a bedroom, did you.”
“I…did not,” I agreed.
Zatanna looked up at the sky and mouthed something, her shoulders shaking with mirth. “Never change, Hydrys.”
“I will endeavor not to?”
“Good enough. Now, am I remembering correctly that you still have one of those spare pens from when we went to Europe to check up on all those locations?”
I frowned. I…Yes, yes I did. I’d made extra portkeys just in case I needed to go back again, and had never bothered getting rid of them. “I do.”
“Perfect, then let’s get going!” She waved her purse through the air. “We have a dinner reservation in thirty minutes and an opera right after, and I don’t want to miss either.”
“We do?” I asked. “Dinner?” It was a minute after noon, what dinner?
“Yes, yes, in Paris. I kept meaning to tell you but it was never the right time!” She nervously brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “You don’t have any other plans, right?”
Then it was my turn to stare at her. “No. No, I…don’t have any other plans. Um, Paris. Yeah, I can do Paris.” I was very glad I had those portkeys lying around, because I was in no shape to prepare new ones right about now. “Wait, how did you set this all up? You can’t teleport yet, can you?”
“No, no, but I have a phone and the internet. It wasn’t that hard.” It felt like she was playing down what she’d done, but I really didn’t know enough––even after several weeks of trying to adjust to modern muggles––to know one way or another. Still, I would expect no less from someone like her.
“Fair enough. Paris it is.”
The next few hours were, to put it simply, kind of amazing. We ate at a muggle restaurant with too many letters and not enough actual sounds in the name. I wasn’t really expecting much from muggles, particularly French muggles, but Merlin's beard was I wrong. The food was amazing. Not the best I’d ever had, but so much more than I would have ever expected from chefs without the aid of magic.
There were eleven courses, each completely unique and wonderful and served beautifully arranged on gorgeous dinnerware. The staff were well mannered and courteous, the atmosphere lovely, and the company, of course, unmatched. Even the wine was excellent, the lack of magic in the alcohol barely noticeable. I was also pretty sure that Zatanna was very new to wine, and perhaps alcohol in general if I remembered the colonies’ strict stance on drinking correctly. She didn’t particularly like most of it, though she did drink all of the port served with dessert, and steal most of mine as well. I mentally filed that preference away, perhaps it might come in handy in the future.
After dinner, we hurried over to an enormous theater teeming with well dressed men and women. Zatanna drew more than a few eyes, my muggle-repelling wards disabled so we could get inside, but we were soon ushered to our seats and sat back to enjoy the show. Our seats were a tad far from the stage, but the acoustics of the room made that mostly a moot point.
The performance was beautiful, the dancers incredibly talented and synchronized, and once again I was shocked that all of this was done without the help of any magic. It seemed impossible, and yet the proof lay before my eyes as my magic-sight spell and one of the Order magic detection spells both told me that what I saw was naught but pure muggle work.
It was quite late when we finally made it back to Gotham. Zatanna and I stood together just outside of the wards surrounding Shadowcrest. She was hanging off my arm, her cheeks rosy and the setting sun casting the sky in a riot of pinks and purples.
“That was wonderful,” I told her honestly. “I had a splendid time. Thank you for setting it all up.”
“Yeah,” she agreed breathlessly, “I didn’t know people could really sing like that in real life. I thought it was just stuff people did with software, you know?”
I did not know, but nodded anyway. “It was certainly beautiful, but allow me to say, not nearly as beautiful as you. It was nice to listen to for a night, but I could listen to your voice till the stars die and even then the warmth of your smile could sustain the land all on its own.”
Zatanna snorted with laughter. “Oh, shut up Hydrys.”
I thought back to what Kent had told me just a few days ago after Zatanna and I had run into those assassins. Then I mentally shrugged. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Make me,” I dared her.
Zatanna looked around, as though worried someone was going to jump out from behind a tree at any moment. “Okay, you asked for it,” she told me with feigned sternness. And then she shut me up. With her lips.
It wasn’t a long kiss, nor a deep kiss, but I suddenly understood why I’d kept catching couples snogging in broom closets during my patrols as a prefect and later head boy. This was worth a dozen detentions and a thousand house points.
Her lips were soft and warm against mine, and the smell of her subtle perfume filled my nose and left me feeling slightly lightheaded. Lighting trickled down my spine and I felt a new blueprint appear within my Spark.
Zatanna broke the kiss after several long seconds that felt both like an eternity and no time at all. There was a wild, breathless look in her eyes, and her face was the same shade as a ripe tomato.
“Normally, I would ask your father for permission to court you, but in this day and age I feel as though your permission matters to me far more than his would.”
Zatanna let out a very unladylike snort. “He’d kick you out of the house in a heartbeat. You know, he keeps warning me to stay away from you.”
“Well, I’m glad that you do not take such warnings to heart.” I paused and took a deep breath. I extended a hand out towards her palm up. “Then, do I have your permission, oh beautiful witch that has stolen my heart?”
She put her hand in mine and smiled. “I’d say that’s a safe bet.”
I leaned down and kissed the back of her hand properly, my lips lingering for several moments longer than was truly proper. “Then I look forward to our next meeting.”
“Kent probably won’t mind if I come tomorrow, right?”
I considered how much the old wizard loved his niece, even if I’d learned yesterday that they weren’t actually related. “I very much doubt it.”
“Then I’ll be ready at ten-till.” Zatanna took a step away from me and half-turned towards Shadowcrest. “Oh and Hydrys?”
“Yes Zatanna?”
“Maybe you should consider getting a proper bedroom set up. With a nice big bed, pillows, clean sheets…” she winked and stepped through the ward line, instantly vanishing from my sight.
I stared after her, not quite fully processing what she’d just implied. She had just said that, right? My mind wasn’t playing tricks on me?
I brushed my thumb against my lips and closed my eyes, my occlumency allowing me to perfectly remember the feeling and taste of her lips on mine. Then, for the second time in less than twelve hours, I apparated right into the bathroom of my borrowed apartment. I needed another shower. But this time, a cold one.