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twoidiotwriters1 · 4 years

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Home- Chapter 5 (Kylo Ren/Ben Solo x F!Oc)

A/n: This is the end of The Force Awakenes

Words: 2,134

Chapter 4 // Chapter 6

An alarm causes the lights to turn red and make it harder to see. I take advantage of the situation and hit his face, Kylo complains and moves away and with what I have left of strength and dignity, I get up and run through the halls. The only good idea that could occur at a time like this.

He is clearly better than me, I couldn’t win that battle. I tried, Leia. The plan didn't work, it's time to run away.

I don't know how, but I get to a rather strange part of the barracks, boxes are arranged in different corners… I walk slowly to avoid crossing someone, unfortunately I lost my blaster in the fight, so I ought to be careful. Everything is silent, until I almost had a heart attack when I hit against someone.

"Chewie, you almost escarde me to death!” He just growls, I can understand that he’s scolding me, "I just had to take care of something- it didn't work, now we must go!”

The Wookie explained the plan to me: Han and him were setting detonators all over that sector, they had to me in one place.

"Well, let's go with Han!”

I follow Chewie, we hear voices just before we reach a hall. A single runner crosses a ... cliff? Who designs these things?

"Ben!" Han's voice echoes. The Wookie and I get closer. Han is downstairs and Kylo Ren, who has the stupid mask again, is in the corridor.

"Han Solo, I waited a long time for this day to come.”

Oh, no. I lean on the rail. Han walks until he’s close to Kylo. I have a bad feeling. I look up at the floors above, Rey and Finn have entered and also observe the scene, Chewie approaches my side.

"Take off your mask, you don't need it.” If I were in another situation I’d laugh, Kylo doesn't understand that mask is ridiculous.

"What do you think you'll see if I do it?"

"My son's face," Han replies. Kylo obeys and removes the mask.

“Your son is gone, he was weak and dumb like his father. You all wanted to change me, but you failed, so I destroyed him,” explains Kylo, Han approaches carefully.

“That's what Snoke wants you to believe. But it is not true. My son is alive ”

“Don't. The supreme leader is wise.”

The whole conversation continues in a tense moment, I know that if I approach everything can fall, they’re in a very dangerous position.

“Snoke is using you for your power. When he has what he wants, he will destroy you. You know it's true ”

"It's too late" his voice breaks and my heart does too.

Now I can see how a part of Ben comes out. The memory of when we were young comes and a knot forms in my stomach.

"It is not. Get out of here with Kiara and me. Come home. We miss you"

"I've been torn apart" he says, “I want to get rid of this suffering. I know what I have to do, but I don't know if I have the strength. Will you help me?"

“Yes, whatever you need" His mask falls and my breathing is cut short.

Kylo takes out his saber and offers it to his father. They both take it, but something distracts us all: the light that illuminated them disappears. For a few moments, nobody moves. I feel a tingling in my hands and a little pain in my temple.

Ben.

Kylo looks up and his eyes meet mine for a few seconds, then turns to Han.

Suddenly the red saber lights up and goes through Han's body. I hold my breath. No no no no! Rey screams and Chewie roars in pain.

Han's body falls. Tears fall down my cheeks and intense pain fill my entire body. I step back a few feet away. Chewie roars again and with his gun shoots at Kylo, hitting him on the leg. He screams and falls to his knees. All my attention is focused on Kylo and anger clouds all my senses.

“You! Fucking shit, he was your father!”

I shout as I try to go downstairs, but Chewbacca takes me by the arm. A Stormtrooper starts shooting at us, the Wookie drives me away protecting me.

“Leave me, Chewie, I'm going to kill him. I swear I will!”

My attempts fail and he drags me to a safe place as more soldiers arrive. Then he stops and presses a button that activates the bombs. Everything starts to explode. Chewie gets distracted, I get out of his grip and run back. Despite the explosions I see Kylo's black figure leave the barracks, I don’t hesitate to follow him.

I walk through the snow-covered forest, the darkness makes me lose it, but everything changes when he turns on his lightsaber, its light shines on two other people. Rey and Finn are within walking a little further behind Kylo.

"We aren’t done yet" None have noticed my presence. My body trembles.

“You're a monster," Rey says resentfully.

“We are. Han Solo can't save you.” Rey lifts her blaster, but Kylo throws it through the air and hits a tree. Finn goes with her.

"You're more idiotic than I thought," I said and he stops, turns and share a look.

"No one can defend you anymore"

"I can do it alone” He raises his saber, "How could you do that to one of the people who loved you the most?"

“Everything’s part of the training, it was necessary”

“You're a bastard!" I don't mind being unarmed. I run to him and manage to take him by the shoulders, but he easily pushes me away.

"Stupid girl! Do you really think you can against my power? ”

"Maybe I don’t," All this talk served as a distraction so Finn could get close. Out of nowhere, a blue light comes out behind Kylo. The boy has Luke's saber.

“That lightsaber. It belongs to me,” says Kylo.

"Come find it,” Finn confronts Kylo. The sabers collide producing noise. Clearly Kylo has more experience than Finn.

While they fight away, I get desperate and look everywhere waiting for a miracle.

"Come on, there has to be something... magic, I know-" I frown and sigh. I can't believe I have to do this again.

I sit on the floor on my knees, close my eyes and try to concentrate. It’s time to ask for help. I hear a scream from Finn, causing me to open my eyes. Kylo's saber is hurting him. I get up, but I'm still not sure what to do.

Finn flees the attack and both continue fighting until Kylo manages to remove his weapon and hurts the boy in the back. Finn falls unconscious in the snow.

"Okay, enough of games" I see where the blue saber fell. I sigh, all the noise around me goes away. I raise my arm in that direction. I can feel it.

The snow falling, the trees fallen by the fight, I feel Rey, Finn, I can feel that Kylo also wants the saber.

"Not this time,” Finally, the force allows me to take the saber that belonged to the master Luke. My hand trembles a little and I see the weapon with surprise. I shake my head and return to Kylo.

I position myself, remembering the training of many years ago, I press the button and the saber lights up. Kylo also lights his.

"Let's see your dance steps, Ben," I joke, he growls and rushes over to me. The clash of arms begins.

He’s strong and determined to finish with me, but I am faster, dodge attacks and defend myself.

"Silly girl," he says with difficulty.

"You've said it before,” We run through the forest, cutting trees with sabers. I feel the sweat run down my back, forehead and neck. The fact of not having trained for a long time is already taking account.

While we fight, the ground shakes, I try to see what happens, but Kylo makes it difficult. I see from a distance how far the ground is breaking into thousands pieces. I kick him in the stomach to get away.

Poe. They had to continue with the plan, the planet is being destroyed. I smile, but it doesn't last long. A stabbing pain centers on my right thigh. I let out a shriek and fall to the ground, throwing my gun in the process.

The saber's wound draws smoke, I try to touch it, but the burning is unbearable. I look up and Kylo watches me panting.

"I could destroy you or take you with the supreme leader to finish your training-“

"I'm sorry, I have plans," I say through my teeth.

He growls and tenses his body.

“It'll be the first option then," He raises his weapon, but before he could do anything, Luke's saber is shot in the distance. We both turn to meet Rey.

"You won’t,” She says and runs to Kylo, a new fight begins, but this time they’re in danger of falling into the abyss. In a second, both are on the edge.

"I can show you the ways of the force,” What is it with offering its services?

Something seems to connect with Rey and suddenly, he manages to get out of Kylo's attack. With great skill she attacks, now she’s superior to Kylo, which makes me feel like a proud mom. The girl manages to beat Kylo. I let out a shriek when she hurts Kylo in the face. As I can, I get up and walk limping towards her.

The man is on the ground with serious wounds, the biggest is the one that goes from his forehead, through his nose, under his right eye and through his cheek. The three of us share a look, but mine focuses on him.

It hurts to see it that way… No! He’s no longer that boy I met when I was just a child.

Every connection is cut when the ground shakes again, this time very close to us. My legs fail and the earth is destroyed right where I am. Everything happened too fast.

My body falls and I try to reach anything to hold myself without success. I scream with despair and the last thing I hear is Rey's screams.

"Kiara!" Then I felt a heavy blow to my head, and everything went black.

__________________

As soon as Kylo Ren senses danger, he ignores the pain in his body and sits on the snow, which is shaking by the earthquake.

Then he sees that the black-haired girl screams and her body falls into the abyss, but just before that happens, Kylo uses the force and makes the girl levitate a little, enough to take her hand, pull her body until she’s by his side.

He clenches his teeth at the effort and again the pain comes. He looks up and the scavenger sees him from the other side of the abyss, seems not to believe what she’s seeing, looks everywhere, but sees no other way out, doubts seeing Kiara's body, but in the end she turns and runs away.

Kiara's unconscious body is still close, a thread of blood runs down her forehead to her chin. Kylo growls and kneels beside her. Taking deep breaths and with the help of force, he puts his arms under the girl's neck and knees and lifts her in his arms. He grunts and closes his eyes for a few moments, but then continues on his way. His body trembles with the pain and the destruction of the planet.

Before everything collapsed, Kylo Ren arrives on a First Order ship with a new crew on board.

______________________

Back at the Resistance base, Rey tells everything that happened to General Organa. Everyone feels the intense pain for the losses of a great battle, Han was the most significant loss for some, but what surprised most were the following words of Rey:

“He saved her- Kiara was going to fall, but Kylo saved her. The last thing I could see was that he carried her on his arms and left.”

The others murmur surprised by the actions of the man. But Leia, sitting near the control panel smiles.

“He's going to torture her, we must go," says Poe, drawing attention, Rey nods.

"No," says Leia and they both look at her strangely.

"Poe is right, Kylo Ren won’t hesitate to hurt her,” Leia sees the two young men still with a smile. “You're smiling. Why?"

Leia laughs and gets up.

“She'll be fine, Rey.”

"How can you be so sure?" Poe asks.

"Because my son fell in love with her before the darkness took over his mind.”

Taglist:

@oopsiedoopsie23 @blackheartedspider @fandomshit6000

#ben solo #kylo ren #star wars fanfic #ben solo x reader #Kylo ren x reader #twoidiots writing #star wars #Home

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riathenowheregirl · 5 years

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Gold Dust Women: My Favorite Witchy Singers

Okay, before you burn me alive with “Where’s this certain artist?!” or “Why is this certain artist not here?!” or “Who even uses Tumblr these days?”, uhmmm me bish?? It’s my safe zone. Okay, the last question was a joke.

Can I just say that the amazing women on this list are artists I listen to all the time. They’re my favorites, so chill (I’m open for suggestions tho). This is not Rolling Stone or Billboard magazine, it’s just ya girl’s good ol’ tumblr blog. Also, I’m not saying that all of them are literal w i t c h e s, it’s just that they portray the same aesthetic through their art and music.

Alright, now that’s settled, let’s start.

1. STEVIE NICKS

Do I even need to explain this? Stevie is undoubtedly the Etheral Queen of them all, the Pioneer, the O.G. Supreme whose lyrical soul and spellbinding voice echoes from the distant past to the inevitable future. Everything about her oozes with witchcraft and magic starting from her iconic top hat, to her millions of intricately made shawls, down to her platform boots. Only Stevie Nicks could pull off such Not-of-this-Era outfits and she has been doing it CONSISTENTLY. She’s in a timeline of her OWN. If you listen to her music, you would notice that every song of hers is poetry, like she’s telling a story or conjuring the unknown. She’s every witchy woman’s icon and that’s a fact.

Stevie is an untouchable yet gracious legend, we’ll always be a part of her sisterhood until the day of earth’s decay. Forever the Queen of Rock N’ Roll.

Current Favorite Stevie Lyrics: “ You can fly swinging from your trapeze, scaring all the people...but you'll never scare me.” | “Once in a million years a lady like her rises. Oh no, Rhiannon, you cry, but she's gone and your life knows no answer.”

Notice how I used the word “current”? Because it always changes depending on the state my life. Here’s a more detailed post on why I love her.

2. KATE BUSH

“Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy, I've come home, I'm so cold! Let me in through your window!”

The eccentric beauty, Kate Bush made a genius, artistic move by writing a song about the book, Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Brontë in the 1800′s. Mind you, she was only 18 when she wrote and was the first song written by a female artist that landed on top the charts. Her voice is almost as distinctive as Stevie Nicks. While Stevie’s more nasal, commanding, wailing rock n’ roll goddess, Kate’s voice was high-pitched, alarming, ghostly, queer, and fairy-like. Everything about her is Performance Art. This is a woman who is not afraid to express herself.

For starters, you might think her music is strange and weird. Trust me, I felt the same way when I first heard her songs. But then, it began to grow on me leaving floral patterns on its path.

Favorite Kate Bush Lyrics: “Do you want to feel how it feels? Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me? Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making? You, it's you and me.”

3. FLORENCE WELCH

This one is as obvious as Stevie Nicks. Florence Welch from the band, Florence + the Machine, is a poetess, a screaming banshee, and a full-pledged Sister of the Moon. She even started a witch coven during middle school. From her red carpet looks to her everyday outfits on Instagram, Florence vibrates powerful witch energy. Not to mention she has a song called “Which Witch” and that haunting music video for Big God with levitating women. Flo is not a woman to trifle with, I’ll tell you that.

Photos courtesy of @lillieeiger

In all her songs, Florence will bind you with magic and it’ll leave you breathless. If Stevie’s songs are poetry, hers are spells you could sing out loud. Also, if you haven’t seen her house tour, go check it now!

Favorite Florence Welch Lyrics: “'Cause I am done with my graceless heart so tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart.” | “And in a moment of joy and fury I threw myself in the balcony like my grandmother so many years before me.”

4. LANA DEL REY

Remember when Lana used witchcraft to hex Donald Trump? It was all over the news and Twitter went wild. She was later quoted saying, “I really do believe that words are one of the last forms of magic and I’m a bit of a mystic at heart.” Oh, and she also did a collab with Stevie.

We. Stan. Forever.

There was even a time that I MEMORIZED the monologue in the music video for Ride. ALL OF IT, HUNNY.

Lana’s hypnotizing vocals together with her sixties baby doll dresses and Priscilla Presley hair is enough to convince me that she’s not of this era. She has a deep understanding of the beauty of past generation and the looming sadness and nostalgia that comes with it. Whenever I listen to her music, I imagine myself as a rockstar’s muse who is involved with the mafia but then I decided to leave him while taking his gun and convertible. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Favorite Lana Del Rey Lyrics: “Well, my boyfriend's in the band. He plays guitar while I sing Lou Reed. I've got feathers in my hair, I get down to Beat poetry. And my jazz collection's rare, I can play most anything.”

5. LORDE

David Bowie didn’t call her the “future of music” for nothing. Just two albums under her belt, Lorde already proved that she will one day become a legend herself. Her music narrates an unparalleled interpretation of the anguish and fleeting charm of our youth. She knows what we’re feeling because she’s been there herself and is on the road to healing just like us.

I think the message she’s trying to say is that we’re constantly losing grip on our innocence, and that life is often wicked so we need to accept that, grit our teeth, get on with it, and make art. She can also see color when she hears music.

In my opinion, Lorde is one of the greatest artists of my generation.

Favorite Lorde Lyrics: “The truth is I am a toy that people enjoy till all of the tricks don't work anymore, and then they are bored of me.” | “That slow burn wait while it gets dark, bruising the sun, I feel grown up with you in your car. I know it's dumb.”

6. FKA TWIGS

Honestly, FKA Twigs is literally art in living form, a celestial angel that nobody can easily decipher. This woman has more talent in her fingertips than I could ever have in a lifetime. She somehow reminds me of a young Kate Bush; fearless, experimental, with an intoxicating voice. She never stops reinventing herself and it’s beautiful.

In FKA Twigs’ world, there are no limits, just endless galaxies. She pours her whole being in all of her songs and it shows. She’s not for the faint of heart, let me tell you that.

Favorite FKA Twigs Lyrics: “And I don't want to have to share our love. I try but I get overwhelmed. All wrapped in cellophane, the feelings that we had.”

7. SKOTT

I say this all the time, but I cannot write without Skott’s music blasting on my earphones. She grew up in a “forest commune run by outcast folk musicians” and was not exposed to contemporary music until her teen years. You would notice it in her songs.

It’s hard to explain why, but listen to Skott’s music when there’s thunder and rain outside, then you’ll know why this woman is witchy. I kind of want her to be more popular and known, but then again, I also want to keep her to myself. Scratch that, LISTEN TO SKOTT’S MUSIC NOW.

Start with Glitter & Gloss.

Favorite Skott Lyrics: “Like an empty canvas, hear me cry. Like a masterpiece, I'm in your eyes. Now your colors are in front of me, we're a picture-perfect oddity.”

8. FIRST AID KIT

I fell in love with this sister duo when I first heard their song, Emmylou, while browsing YouTube. It’s one of those moments of instant magic. Klara and Johanna Söderberg are a coven of their own. I would describe their music as “Woodland Folk laced with runes and wild flowers”.

Their voices compliment each other so much that it reminded me of Simon & Garfunkel (they even performed their own version of America in front of Paul Simon!!!). First Aid Kit has this Woodstock seventies vibe, and you know me, I live for that sh*t.

Favorite First Aid Kit Lyrics: “ When I run through the deep dark forest long, after this begun, where the sun would set, the trees were dead and the rivers were none. And I hope for a trace to lead me back home from this place, but there was no sound there was only me, and my disgrace.”

9. ZOLA JESUS

Zola Jesus’ music deserves to be played with an orchestra inside an abandoned castle in Transylvania while it gently rains and you’re wearing a white nightgown as you roam its empty halls. Is that too much?

Not at all.

Like Skott, I listen to Zola whenever I’m having writer’s block. If I ever finish my book, I’m gonna have to thank them.

Favorite Zola Jesus Lyrics: “I'm on my bed, my bed of stones, but in the end of the night we'll rest our bones, so don't you worry. Just rest your head cause in the end of the night we'll be together again.”

10. ZELLA DAY

Photo Credits to Harper Smith

I LOVE ZELLA DAY’S MUSIC OH MY GOODNESS. My favorite songs of her are Sweet Ophelia, Hypnotic, Man on the Moon, and Hunnie Pie. ESPECIALLY HUNNIE PIE. I cry whenever I hear that song. It’s just so pure, calming, and beautiful.

Her music belong in the psychedelic era.

People labeled her as the “happier version of Lana Del Rey” but I think she’s in a league of her own. She deserves more recognition, honestly!

Favorite Zella Day Lyrics: “The older we get there's an ocean of people in places we've chosen and you know how mama keeps saying “we've gotta stop the games we're playing””.

Hope you guys approve of my list! I really like sharing stuff that I love! Feel free to message me for more suggestions, I’d really appreciate to know more witchy artists out there. We’re all in a huge coven of sisterhood.

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Ria 🌙

P.S.

Please follow my blog!!! THANK YOU 🔮

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aethelar · 4 years

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FB week day 5: Crossover

Newt’s not sure, later, exactly how it happens. There are spells. Dragon flame. Bombs. There might have been thunder, or maybe just more war, echoing off the sky as though it could reach out and swallow the stars.

War seems to reach everywhere these days, Newt wouldn’t be surprised if it could.

In the immediate sense there is the slick feel of wet leather under his aching hands, the dull sheen of rain on polished metal, the freezing bite of a storm as he struggled to keep hold. He hooks a numb arm around one of the ironbelly’s ridged neck-spines, fingers frozen and useless even in his gloves.

“Down!” he yells, again, bracing his shoulder against the wind. “Damnit Katya, land!”

She roars a frustrated denial, head whipping left to right as she struggles to see anything through the storm. Newt isn’t the only flier in the dragon corps but he’s the only one stupid enough to be airborne; they’re alone in the sky and though he trusts Katya to keep them steady he’s rapidly losing control of the warming charms that are the only thing standing between him and hypothermia.

Her wings flare out in a sudden turn and Newt is thrown sharply against his harness, the force of it knocking the wind from him. He wheezes, blinking through his sodden fringe as his chest pounds, and scrabbles desperately to right himself.

“Katya -”

The fire comes out of nowhere. Katya warbles in alarm and dodges again, but not fast enough; she misses the fire but the hulking mass of the horntail slams into her left side. Newt yells something incomprehensible, pushing forwards with a burst of magic to shield the delicate membrane of her wing. He feels more than hears the skitter-thud of impact as the other dragon’s spiked tail swings up against Katya’s armoured underbelly; her scales hold, but the horntail has her, talons wrapped around her wing joints and jaws angling for her neck.

Newt swears. He forces numb fingers to curl around the handle of his wand; one jagged slash releases him from the harness and with the second he points blindly at the horntail and summons. She’s too big to be moved so he’s flung upwards, and he spins through the air, wand aimed and squinting through the pelting rain - there, he can see her rider -

“Stupefy,” he spits. The woman - man? - jerks to the side and the spell dissipates harmlessly off the horntail’s hide, but it’s enough to break her concentration. Newt lands awkwardly, sticking charms on his knees keeping him from tumbling off, and immediately flattens himself under a shield to avoid her retaliation. It creaks under the onslaught and Newt grits his teeth in anger; he uses stunning spells specifically so he won’t hurt the dragons but clearly the other rider doesn’t have the same concerns. It means that Newt can’t dodge for fear of the horntail getting caught in the crossfire - he has to shield them both and he has to end this fast. Katya’s armoured and fierce, but tangled as they are the dragons are plummeting to the ground.

The rider spits an instruction and the horntail swings her tail again, wings flapping for balance. Katya bellows, tongues of her blue-white flame lighting up the sky around them but Newt has to trust that she can hold her own for a minute longer. He flings himself at the distracted rider, knees bent and shoulder first in the tackle Theseus taught him - she goes down with a yell, her wand already up and a spell cracking into Newt’s side - he hears bombs, or maybe thunder, or all of the above - the dragons roll and Newt hangs by the sticking charms on his knees - the other rider falls - the ground is too close - the horntail roars and the world is on fire - the rain stings against his skin and Newt can’t breathe -

He’s not sure, later, how it happens, but they skid to a tangled, messy landing. Newt is half-crushed under a scaled limb, the ground is gritty and hot beneath him, and he thinks his side is bleeding from the other rider’s spell.

His last thought before passing out is, but where did the rain go.

He wakes up slowly, wading through a molasses headache to a world that’s far too bright. He squints, the skin on his face pulling in a way that announces, delightfully, that it’s sunburnt. The arm he raises to block the sun is similarly tight-skinned and achy, though at least some of that pain is radiating out from his shoulder.

He can still move it though. Probably not broken. Which is good; skel-gro remains one of the most disgusting and unpleasant potions he’s ever taken, no matter how many times he’s had to use it. Dragon riding just isn’t good for his taste buds.

So: he’s sunburnt, but conscious, and he hasn’t broken his arms. The pain that flares out from his side when he tries to sit up suggests that his ribs weren’t so lucky - the spell the other rider hit him with has left him with a dark burn and at least one break, though thankfully it doesn’t seem to be more than a fracture. Beyond that his legs are scraped sore even through his thick leather chaps and one ankle is tender from having a dragon land on it, but he seems ok. A shaky episkey to patch over his side and he’s not even bleeding anymore.

Much.

Eh, it’ll do until one of the healers can look at it. There are other things to worry about - first being his dragon. She’s curled up not far from him, wings tucked in tight against her back. The sun glinting off her white scales is almost blinding.

“Katya?” he tries, testing his weight on his ankle. It holds, so he walks gingerly over to her. “Katya, malecha? You alive over there?”

She twists her head back, fixing one upside down eye on him with a warbling chirp. The knot in Newt’s chest loosens at her relaxed expression. “Katya,” he repeats, hobbling faster. “Let me see, poppet, show Mummy how bad it is.” She huffs, but hauls herself to her feet, too used to his fussing to complain. Each wing is stretched out for inspection - neither are torn, thank Merlin, though the thin membrane is in danger of drying out and cracking in the heat - followed by a slow turn to show the damage she’d taken.

“Oh, baby girl,” he soothes, running a hand down her neck. “My poor thing.” Her side is barely hurt, thick scales protecting her from the horntail’s claws, but the base of her neck is badly scratched. It’s right where the harness loops over, which both is and isn’t surprising; it makes tactical sense to try to tear a rider’s harness off as a rider-less dragon is rarely as great a threat, but horntails aren’t known for their use of strategy.

Horntail riders, on the other hand, are sometimes known for their use of the imperio curse. Newt’s mouth settles in a grim line. Even some of the ironbelly riders had used spells to control their dragons. They all swore they didn’t, of course, but dragons were unpredictable and they rarely liked the people that tried to fly them into battlefields.

When this stupid war was done, Newt was personally going to see the dragons set free - or at the very least given a good home in a reserve. He didn’t care about the contracts Gringotts had to buy them, he’d sneak in at night and steal the dragons if he had to. And the horntails, if he ever found out where Grindelwald’s forces were keeping them. It wasn’t their fault they were fighting against him. They were dragons. They shouldn’t be fighting anyone.

“Time to get this off you, malecha,” he says, peeling the harness back from Katya’s neck. It’s unwieldy for one person to manage but judicious use of feather-weight and levitating charms get the job done, and she shakes herself out with an approving rumble when it’s gone.

“Careful,” Newt cautions. “Let me look. It won’t hurt, I just need to see.” He keeps up the soothing commentary as he climbs up to her back, taking advantage of the wing she crooks forward to lift him up. It’s trickier without the harness but Newt’s had over a year of practice and she holds still enough that he makes it easily.

“Good girl,” he praises, smoothing his hands over the unbroken patches of skin. “My brave girl, the best of dragons. Just hold still for me Katya, just for a minute.” He taps his wand against the inner pocket of his jacket and retrieves a tub of faintly glowing blue gel. “Katya, eyes on me,” he says, holding it out. “Katya, look. Eyes on me.”

She cranes her head round as instructed and he waits until she’s acknowledged the tub before he unscrews it. Her neck spines flatten back with displeasure but she knows how this one goes, and does little more than hiss when Newt spreads the cold gel on her scratches.

“Best girl,” he tells her. “The very best of dragons, my bravest Katya.” He even reaches out to give her eye ridge a scratch in reward and she huffs at him, but presses closer for more when he stops. He laughs, obliging her with more scritches.

“We’re going to be alright, malecha,” he murmurs. Battles are always horrible and he’s got some fabulous new additions for his nightmares, but Katya’s wounds are minimal and his own are survivable, so that’s the important things down. It’s a relief that she’s ok, a frantic buzzing at the back of his skull that goes quiet and allows him to focus on the rest of their situation. Newt takes the chance to look around at the oddly bright place they’ve landed, trying to work out how far it’ll be to get back to the stables.

He blinks.

“What…?”

The stables are roughly twenty miles outside St Quentin. They’re hidden behind wards, muggle repellents, and trees, and are close enough to the Western Front that Newt knows the route by heart and could draw an aerial map if he needed to. The map would contain fields in varying stages of muddiness, dead trees, some living trees, a handful of towns and trenches and assorted people, and at least one river.

The map would not contain a desert. Newt’s pretty sure he could draw a map of the entirety of Europe and not find a desert like this.

“Katya, how far did you fly last night?”

She opens her eyes long enough stare disinterestedly at the blank wasteland around them and shuts them with an uncaring shrug. Newt navigates. She breathes fire. Nothing to burn, nothing for her to worry about; she nudges into Newt’s hands and demands more pets.

“Katya - no, not now little girl, Mummy needs - point me Theseus.” It’s the strongest form of the spell Newt knows, latching onto his care for his brother to direct him unerringly back home. It never fails. Sometimes it leads him astray, if Theseus isn’t where Newt expects him to be, but the spell has never failed. It wouldn’t. Even if Theseus were - it wouldn’t.

The wand spins.

“Point me Theseus,” he repeats. “Point - point me Katya.” The wand angles straight down, almost falling from his fingers. “Point me Theseus.”

It spins.

Katya croons, pushing her head against his chest and knocking into his broken ribs. That’s fine. Newt can’t breathe anyway. He shakes his wand and tries again for the same result, and he almost throws it away from himself in disgust because it’s broken, it must be broken -

Katya pushes harder, the rougher scales around her jaw scraping against the burn on his side. He drags in a harsh, shuddering breath and tightens his grip on his wand.

“We’re too far away,” he says, forcing his voice steady. “That’s all baby girl, we’ve gone off course. We need - we just need -” He stops, breathes, counts it in and out until he thinks he can talk again. He has to keep his voice steady. Katya’s shifting her weight, unsettled by his panic, and he has to keep her safe.

“We just need to find out where we are,” he tells her when he can speak again. “Find where we are and find the way back, and we’ll find Theseus when we’re close again, that’s all. It’ll be ok, Katya, you’ll see. We’re ok. We’re all good.”

He strokes a hand down her neck, staring blankly at the miles of desert around them. His hand is sunburnt. It’s almost glowing red against her white scales. How the hell did they end up in a desert.

“Everything’s fine, Katya,” he promises her. “We’re fine.”

They’re not fine. It takes until nightfall for Newt to be sure, but the sky confirms what every variant of scrying spell he knows have been trying to tell him for the past five hours: they’re a long, long way from home.

He can’t find a single constellation he knows.

He can find a moon, though it seems larger and ever so slightly brighter than he’s used to, and the white pinpoints of starlight against an otherwise black sky is also familiar. He doesn’t think he’s in a dream or a memory, and there’s enough natural magic on the edge of his senses that he doesn’t think he’s trapped in an object either. He can’t get a proper grip on the magic though to be sure - it’s oddly thick and sharp, skittering off his reaching senses like something almost physical. But it’s definitely magic and it’s definitely natural, which means the endless desert is an unfortunate reality.

So is the cold. And the hunger. And the fact that, real or not, he and Katya are hopelessly lost.

“Eyes on me, Katya,” he murmurs again, holding his wand up for her to see. She huffs in annoyance but turns her head to look, blinking sleepily at him as he casts yet another perimeter charm. It flickers into life around them with a flare of gold-green before fading invisible into the sand. Katya curls her tail in tighter around Newt; the charm won’t hurt her, but she’s intelligent enough to recognise a boundary when she sees it.

“Best girl,” Newt promises her, and settles back against her as she grumbles a reply and goes back to sleep. The armoured plates on her stomach are too thick to let any heat through but the softer scales of her side are warm; Newt buries his fingers in his armpit and presses in as close as he can.

In his brown army jacket, he has a basic field medkit, a more elaborate dragon medkit, official papers identifying him as a member of Her Majesty’s Magical Airforce, his wand, and a lopsided drawing of a hippogriff Theseus had made to remind him of home. On his belt he had four flares, a now half-empty canteen of water, and a pocket knife that doubled as a quill pen and a corkscrew depending on which way he opened it.

“What we need, malecha,” he says, “is food. And water, but with any luck they’ll be together. You might be able to go a week without eating but your mummy, he’s not as strong as you are.” He folds and unfolds the hippogriff sketch restlessly, smoothing the paper out between his hands as he thinks. Katya doesn’t respond but he doesn’t expect her to - he’s more talking for the sake of it, in the vain hope of keeping himself calm. “What do you reckon, baby girl? Travel by day? Travel by night? It’s hot in the sun, you think you could be nocturnal for a bit?”

Katya groans and moves and lifts a wing over Newt, pressing it down like a particularly smothering blanket. He sputters out a laugh, pushing it until his head at least is free. “Ok, ok,” he relents. “No travelling by night, we’ll sleep. Breakfast can wait til the morning.” He bites his lip. He’s got three different ward spells running and even in the war that’d be overkill, but he doesn’t know where they are or what might be out there. He’s not the worrying sort but he’s not the reckless sort either, not when it comes to his dragon’s safety.

“Katya?” he says, lifting his wand. “Sorry baby girl, just one more."

The wards flare barely an hour before dawn. Newt scrambles awake, instinctively putting himself between Katya and the threat, wand raised to defend. Katya herself stayed still, wings tucked in to protect the delicate membrane and head lowered in watchful wariness.

On the other side of the wardline two figures jump back to a safe distance, crouched in battle-ready positions. They don’t seem to have wands, and they aren’t attacking, but they don’t seem friendly either; their clothes aren’t military in the way Newt recognises but with the matching i marked headplates they definitely look like a uniform.

“Hello,” Newt says cautiously. “I don’t mean you any harm. I’m lost.”

No reply.

“Bon jour,” he tries, repeating his statement in French, then Guten Morgen, and finally dobroye utro in a stumbling attempt at Russian.

One of the figures says something back in harsh, aggressive language - or that might just be the woman’s tone - that Newt doesn’t recognise.

“I’m sorry,” he says, reverting back to English. “I don’t -” he mimes, pointing to his ear and shaking his head - “I don’t understand.” He chews his lip in deliberation, then slides his wand up his sleeve in obvious, telegraphed motions and holds out his empty palms. “I come in peace,” he says, and tries not to feel too much like an idiot as he does so.

The wards ping behind him and Newt spins but Katya is faster, rearing up with a roar and unleashing a gout of flame at the intruder.

“Katya, Katya wait!” Newt yells, flinging his arms up to shield himself from the heat. The wards break with a static crack and Newt gropes blindly for Katya’s leg to try to climb up, desperately dodging her beating wings. He can hear the others shouting and a sudden, fierce wind sends him sprawling back - he cries out as it hits him, a flare of foreign magic-not-magic that leaves stinging papercuts over his skin. His ribs ache as he lands on them and the sand burns, molten glass from the dragonfire mixed in with the other grains.

Katya shrieks, furious and terrified, and Newt shakes the pain off to focus on her. The two figures have been joined by a third, same uniform, and between them they’re working in a smoothly coordinated attack that’s almost too fast for Newt to see. There’s no way he can hit any of them with a spell and with Katya in the middle of them he can’t use an area-effect either.

“Katya!” he yells. One of the three attackers splits off, flinging a pair of knives that clatter loudly against Newt’s shield. “Katya, up!” She growls, twisting her head round to look at him and letting out a high whistle of distress when she realises he’s too far away for her to reach. The knife-thrower has given up on projectiles and now appears to be summoning glowing air-blades that extend out from each hand; Newt reinforces his shield and wishes, desperately, that he knew more about the magic here and whether his defences would hold.

“Up, Katya!” he commands again, begging her to obey. She roars, sweeping another torrent of flame out in protest, but with a final leap she’s airborne and spiralling away. Newt grins. Bereft of their other target all three of the attackers now begin to circle him, testing his shield with their weapons and strange elemental magics. With dragon safely out the way though he doesn’t have to worry so much about using his spells.

He drops his shield and banishes the ground in one movement, stifling a yell as the force of being thrown in the air jars his ribs. One of the men wastes no time in following him, leaping thirty feet straight up in the air and landing a spinning kick to Newt’s solar plexus that leaves him gasping and tasting blood. He apparates, aiming for the ground in a panic and lands in a wheezing mess; he’s far enough away that he gets a second to get his wand up and shoot out a shaky freezing charm, slashing his wand in a harsh arc as he does so to cover a wider area.

One figure drops, arms pinned to its side and spine ramrod straight. Newt apparates again just as the other reaches him - then again, in panic, when a giant eagle made out of wind nearly eviscerates him. He’s breathless and running dangerously close to exhausting himself, and he needs to get away somewhere safe so Katya can find him again but if he keeps apparating like this he’ll splinch himself.

His magic flares a warning and Newt flicks his wand up in a shield charm but he’s too slow. Rough hands grab his head, hauling it back to hold a blade against his throat, and a foot slams into his wrist to make him drop his wand.

The man barks something at him, a single word command that Newt doesn’t understand. The meaning isn’t hard to guess, and he holds himself deliberately still. The next sentence that the man says though he doesn’t have a hope.

“I don’t know,” he says, trying subtly to lean away from the knife. The man repeats it, harsher this time with his hand tightening painfully in Newt’s hair. “I don’t know! I don’t understand you, I don’t know what you want!”

For a second he thinks that’ll be it, the man will try to cut his throat and Newt will have to risk apparating and probably splinch both of them in the process - then in a movement too fast to follow, he flips the knife and slams the blunt handle into Newt’s temple and Newt is suddenly, jarringly unconscious.

#newt scamander #Katya the ironbelly #FBWeek2019 #Day 5: Crossover #and I know it doesn't actually get to revealing in this /what/ the crossover is with so I'll tell you here #it's naruto #yep #Newt and Katya landing in Wind country and facing off ninjas #sorry i would have got there in the text but this ended up SO FRICKEN LONG #tune in next time for Baki being confused as shit and baby Gaara being an absolute delight #my writing

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darkobsidianquill · 4 years

Text

Harry Potter and the descent into Darkness.

Chapter Seventeen.

After dinner, Harry stayed with Hermione and Ron, instead of running off to the chamber right away. They both seemed rather surprised by this, but Harry tried to play it off as a non-issue. He doubted he could get away with disappearing at 8:30 – which was when he planned to leave in order to make it to Voldemort's manor with enough time to spare – if he was also gone for his usual hour after dinner.

As he sat there, working on his homework, he asked Hermione a few remedial questions about arithmancy and ancient runes. She was clearly very excited to discuss her favorite classes with someone else and easily prattled on about both. At 8:20, Harry asked Hermione to recommend the best Rune dictionary for a beginning, and then said he was going to go to the library before Madam Pince closed it for the night. He said he might stay there and browse a bit.

It was obvious that Hermione was itching to come with him, but she had a huge pile of work in front of her, and he had known before he even mentioned it, that she wouldn't be willing to uproot herself from her study table.

Still, there had been a brief moment where he feared she would surprise him, and insist on coming with him.

Relieved that it didn't become a problem, Harry slipped from the common room with his bag slung over his shoulder. The first secret passageway he came across, he ducked behind the tapestry covering the entrance, and threw on his invisibility cloak while pulling out the map.

He quickly checked the Defense corridor where the statue of the one-eyed witch covered the entrance to a tunnel. It was empty, and the way there was pretty clear. It wasn't after curfew yet, so there weren't any people patrolling the halls to catch anyone out after hours.

Harry rushed there, and slipped into the tunnel without encountering any resistance. He jogged through the narrow tunnel, eager to get past the wards as quickly as possible. He finally made it, pulled up the left sleeve of his robes and hissed the command to activate the portkey.

A dizzying moment later, he was standing in the entry hall of Voldemort's manor house. He stood there for a moment and checked his wrist watch. He had arrived at 5 till 9 o'clock, so he had made it in time. He wondered if he should go up to the study, or if the ritual would be performed in the ballroom. He doubted it would be elaborate enough for such a large space, but at the same time, he really had no idea what would be involved.

Harry decided to just go up to the study to look for Voldemort there, and then if he wasn't, he would just have to... find him some other way...

...fff... feel him...

Harry stopped in his tracks at having suddenly heard his companions voice. The two hadn't conversed much outside of his nightly routine and Potions class, so he was a bit surprised to hear the voice in his head while at Voldemort's manor.

Once his surprise had faded, he finally thought about what had been said.

"Feel him?"

Hisss... magic... Follow your... ssscar.

Harry blinked and then did a mental 'face-palm' and grinned. It really was rather obvious, once he thought about it.

"Thanks," Harry thought mentally with a grin before closing his eyes and reaching out with his magic to sense the familiar magical signature of the Dark Lord.

He quickly realized that the man was not in his study. He was on the first floor, although he didn't seem to be in the ballroom that he had been in for the resurrection ritual.

He opened his eyes and followed the potent magical vibrations that radiated out from the most powerful dark wizard alive. He went down a long hall, and then turned off into another before finding himself in front of a very nondescript door. He had absolutely no doubt that Voldemort was on the other side of it, but wondered if it was alright for him to knock, or if he should wait a minute. For all he knew, he was looking at the door to the loo. And while his mind was quickly adjusting to the knowledge that Voldemort was in fact a living human being, it was still odd to think of the man going to the bathroom.

He stood there awkwardly for a minute, debating whether or not he should knock when the door suddenly flew open and Voldemort was standing there, looking at him with impatient annoyance.

"How long, exactly, did you plan to just stand there?" He asked as he spun around and began to walk back into the room, not bothering to wait for a response. Harry quickly hurried after, and closed the door behind him.

When Harry turned around to face the room, he froze and his eyes widened in shock.

It was the loo.

Well, it was a bathroom. A very large bathroom, that had tub that was sunken into the tiled floor that looked more like a small pool, or perhaps a hot tub, only without the bubbles.

To one side of the room, was a cauldron with a potion of some sort boiling away in it. Voldemort was walking back to the cauldron at that moment, but Harry was just too confused by what he was looking at to know what to do.

Surely the man had a more appropriate place for brewing potions than a bathroom?

"You will need to soak in a special bath for the next five hours. At the end of that time, you will speak the ritual words, endure about one minute of mild pain, and the trace will be dispelled," Voldemort said as he added one last thing to the cauldron and stirred it a few times.

"Whuh? I... wait... Five hours!" Harry said, finally catching up with what had just been said.

"Yes, Potter. Five hours," Voldemort responded with a flat and slightly annoyed tone.

"I really didn't make a suitable excuse for disappearing that long," Harry said hesitantly as he finally took a few more steps into the posh, tiled bathroom.

"I told you it wouldn't be a problem, and it won't be," Voldemort sighed in exasperation.

Harry sighed and shrugged. "Alright. If you say so. So... what do I need to do, exactly?"

"Very little. I've done all the work for you," Voldemort said as he finally turned his head to look over his shoulder back at Harry. He was smirking, and there was mild amusement in his eyes, which helped put some of Harry's nerves at ease. "Like I said, you quite literally just have to soak in the tub." Voldemort stood up and walked over over to a table at the side of the room that had a number of folded towels sitting on top of it. To one side of the table was an open book, and a couple pieces of parchment. Voldemort picked up one of the parchments and walked over to Harry.

"It has been charmed to be waterproof. At the end of the five hours, an alarm will sound. Pick up your wand, follow these instructions for the proper focus, and speak these words," as he spoke he pointed at different areas of the parchment before handing it over to Harry. "When you finish, come get me in my study, I have something I need to explain before you leave."

Harry nodded his head and began to read the piece of parchment. Voldemort walked over to the cauldron, and with a wave of his wand, it floated up into the air, away from the fire, and hovered over the tub, that was already filled with water. He flicked his wand and the cauldron turned over and its contents fell into the tub.

Harry looked at it with mild apprehension but quickly pushed past it and began to remove his robes. He folded them and set them on the edge of a counter behind him and began to remove his undershirt. He hesitated at that point, wondering if the man intended to leave soon, or if he was going to wait until Harry got into the water.

"Don't be so modest, Potter. I need to add a few additional ingredients after you've entered the water. Get on with it."

Harry blushed and ducked his head as he reached down and unbuckled his belt and began to undo his trousers. He turned away, hating how idiotic he felt, as he pulled his boxers down and took a deep breath, as he tried to compose himself. He quickly made his way over to the sunken bath and slipped one foot in. He could feel Voldemort's eyes on him as he stood there, stark naked for all the world to see. Or... for the Dark Lord to see. His gaze was piercing – or at least, it felt that way. For all Harry knew, Voldemort had his eyes closed, seeing as how Harry was pointedly refusing to look the other man in the face. He quickly tested the water, wanting to sink down into it and obscure his nudity as quickly as possible. It was really quite hot. A bit hotter than he was comfortable with, but he figured he'd adjust.

He quickly forced himself to sink down into the water and found that it had a raised seating platform along the outer edge. Harry's hand sank into the water and he tried to casually cover himself with them, which caused Voldemort to snicker. He walked around the bathtub adding in various sand-like looking ingredients, and a few leaves that Harry didn't recognize.

"That is all that is necessary until the five hours are up. You may read, just make sure you don't do anything stupid like drop your book in the water."

Harry grabbed his cypress wand, that he had placed on the edge of the tub and used it to levitate his book bag from against the wall to the edge of the tub where he could reach it.

"Oh, and definitely do not drop your wand in the water. You will have to start over completely if that happens."

Harry's eyes went wide and he nodded his head. "Right. Got it. Erm... thanks... for this. All of it. I really appreciate it. I mean, you didn't have to go to all this trouble for me, so I can't express how much I really am thankful."

"Oh, shut it, Potter. Come get me when your done. Nagini might drop by for a visit. She enjoys the warmth of the room," Voldemort spoke with easy disinterest as he gathered a few things and quickly left the room.

Harry blinked after him before taking in a deep breath and sighing heavily. Of all the things he had imagined for this 'ritual', a long soak in a hot bath, was most definitely not on his list. After a quiet, peaceful minute had passed, the stunned confusion that had filled him from the moment he had entered the room, up until Voldemort had left, finally abated, and he found himself calming down and truly relaxing.

He let himself just soak for a while. Relaxing his mind and letting himself drift away. About forty-five minutes in, he was starting to get rather bored, so he pulled a book from his backpack, cast a temporary waterproofing charm on it, and began to read.

After an hour of that, his eyes felt strained, and he decided to try doing some laps. He wasn't sure if whatever Voldemort had put in the water would be bad for his eyes, so he avoided dunking his head under the surface. He'd been playing around in the misty-looking water for a while when he heard a hissing sound that he had only ever heard in visions. He looked towards the door, but it was still closed shut. He glanced around again, and finally noticed that the hissing sound was coming from a metal vent in the wall, towards the floor. The vent cover appeared to have a hinge along the top, and no sooner had he spotted it, then he saw it getting pushed open to reveal the head of a large black snake.

Nagini slithered down the foot of space between the vent and the floor, and then slowly muscled her entire length out of it and onto the floor. Harry watched her move and was actually rather transfixed with the way she moved, and the way the light glittered off her obsidian scales. She was a really beautiful snake. He could see why Voldemort had chosen her as his familiar.

§Hello, Nagini,§ Harry hissed and the serpent froze and instantly jerked her head in his direction.

§Master sssaid you were a ssspeaker...§ she hissed with an air of surprise in her voice. She paused and seemed to consider him for a long minute. §Make me a rock to perch upon,she demanded simply.

Harry blinked at her.

§Pardon?§

§Make me a rock with your sstick and make it warm. Masster always uses his ssstick to make my perch.§

Harry looked around the room for anything he could easily transfigure into a rock large enough to house Nagini. There was a chair off to one side of the room that had potential. Harry grabbed his wand from the side of the tub, summoned the chair closer and set it in the center of the floor a few feet from the edge of the tub.

§What are you doing?§ Nagini hissed in impatience.

§I'm going to transfigure the chair into a rock for you,§ Harry hissed back, a little annoyed at her attitude.

§Masster can make a rock from nothing with his sstick.§

§Yes, well your master is indescribably more experienced with magic than I am. Conjuring something from nothing is not exactly easy, and I haven't really covered that in my classes yet. But I can transfigure the chair into a rock.§

§And you will make it warm?§

§And I will make it warm.§ Harry echoed with an exasperated eyeroll.

§Good.§

Harry chuckled and quickly transfigured the chair into a large, flat rock and then cast a warming charm on it. Nagini slithered over and curled up into a coil on top of it. She made a pleased sort of hissing noise and seemed to slip off to sleep.

Harry read a couple chapters from a book, did a few laps, and read a bit from another book, before Nagini began to stir.

Harry noticed that she had her own unique magic vibration. It was strangely familiar, and comforting, in the same sort of way he felt around Voldemort himself. There was no rational explanation behind it, he just felt an easy relaxing sort of vibe off her. Which was exceptionally odd since she was such a brat.

The best Harry could figure was that Voldemort had to have put some of his own power into her, and it was that that he was feeling so comfortable with. The two of them carried on a bit of a conversation for a while. Nothing serious was really discussed, although they did spend a bit of time talking about how pathetic Wormtail was. Nagini said that he was an abysmal and utterly inadequate servant to her master, and that she enjoyed terrorizing him. Apparently, having spent more than a decade as a rat had only intensified his natural fear of giant serpents, and Nagini absolutely terrified him. Harry laughed at the sight he imagined in his mind of the short, pudgy, balding man, running in terror from the large snake.

Nagini finally told Harry that she was hungry and that she was going to leave. She slithered off the heated rock and made her way back to the vent that she had entered the room from. She easily nosed it open and disappeared inside, leaving Harry, once again, alone.

He relaxed back in the still-hot water and let his head rest against the tile edge. Before he'd even realize it, he had begun to doze off. He wasn't even sure how long he had been out when a ringing bell sounded in the room, jarring him awake.

Harry blinked owlishly at the room, slightly confused for a long minute as to what was going on before his fuzzy brain cleared up enough that he remembered where he was. Quickly, he grabbed his wand and the parchment that Voldemort had left for him. He did the proper focusing and quickly read through the ritual words. The moment he had completed the last word his skin began to prickle with pins and needles. It escalated into the point where it felt like his limbs had all painfully fallen asleep. It was decidedly unpleasant, but it really wasn't that bad.

The prickling spread across every surface of his body and slowly intensified until he found himself sitting there in the water stiff-backed and clenching his teeth, hands, and toes.

And then it was gone.

Harry sighed heavily feeling the sensation completely disperse and began to haul himself out of the water. His body felt heavy after having been suspended in the water for so long. To call his skin 'pruney' would be putting it mildly. His hands and feet were wrinkled up like a giant raisin and he laughed at the sight of himself. He dried off with one of the towels and then quickly got dressed. He collected all of his things and quickly left the room.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor and went straight for Voldemort's study. He knocked gently on the door before pushing it open a crack and peering inside. Voldemort was hunched over his desk again, scratching away with his quill at some large parchments. There were a few open books scattered around as well.

"It's done, I assume?" Voldemort's voice called out, breaking the silence and startling Harry.

"Yes, sir."

"Any complications?"

"None."

"Good," Voldemort said as he gracefully stood from his seat and began to stride confidently towards Harry. Harry stepped to the side as the Dark Lord walked past him through the door and began to lead the way down the stairs. Harry followed wordlessly, and was surprised when he was lead out the front doors of the manor, and into the overgrown garden of weeds and grass beyond. The two of them kept walking until they had reached an untidy hedge and Voldemort came to a stop.

"The current wards end here. Step beyond it and cast a spell with your cypress wand. I will remain on this side of the wards, so if the trace is still in place, it will not detect the presence of an adult wizard. If the spell has failed, we will know very shortly."

Harry's eyes went wide and he felt legitimate fear in the pit of his stomach. If he got a letter from the improper use of magic office, they would know he had been outside of school. How the hell would he ever explain that he had snuck out and gotten to... where ever the hell Little Hangleton was?

"Don't look so terrified, Potter. Do you honestly think I would let you do this if I had any concerns about whether or not it had worked? I simply wish to confirm it for sure."

"Er, right. Sorry," Harry muttered before taking a deep breath, stepping beyond the shrub and pulling out his cypress wand. He cast a lumos, because that seemed the easiest to get away with, if he did get caught, and then stood there and waited. His heart was hammering in his chest, no matter how much he scolded himself for being an idiot. Getting caught was probably the only thing he really was afraid of these days.

Several minutes passed and no owls appeared carrying howlers. Harry sighed in relief and then a very wide, triumphant grin spread across his face.

He could do magic out of school, and no one could find out. He turned back to Voldemort, who was standing beside the hedge with his arms crossed, looking poised and relaxed at the same time. He was smirking down at him with a knowing expression. He jerked his chin back towards the manor and began to walk back. Harry quickly matched his stride, still grinning widely as he walked.

"This is so brilliant," he finally said under his breath when he couldn't help it anymore.

"I vaguely recall feeling much the same way when I first performed that ritual."

"Did you do it while at Hogwarts?"

"Yes. I used the Room of Requirement."

"It can have a bath tub?" Harry asked, suddenly intrigued.

"It can have anything you need. You just have to ask the room for it when you are walking in front of it. You can also ask it to provide you with any book that is also contained in the school library and it can." He hesitated for a moment and a sly grin spread across his thin lips, "Even the ones in the restricted section. It was quite handy. It had always been such a bother convincing the professors to write me a permissions slip to gain access to it. The Room made that unnecessary."

Harry gaped at him. "For real? That's incredible!"

"Mm. Yes. It was quite a boon when I discovered it."

They climbed the steps to the manor's doors and stepped into the entry hall. Voldemort continued leading Harry down the hallway past the stairs and stopped at a door not very far from where Harry always port-key'd in at. The door seemed just as nondescript as all the rest at first glance, but Harry suddenly realized that it didn't have a doorknob.

Voldemort leaned forward and hissed §open§, and suddenly there was a click sound and the door popped open an inch. Voldemort pushed on the door and slipped inside. Harry followed and found that they appeared to be in a room the size of a small walk-in closet. There was absolutely nothing in the room except for a shelf on the wall opposite the door. On the shelf were two small wooden boxes with hinged lids. They were identical and looked to all the world to just be jewelery boxes.

Voldemort reached forward and opened one of them. Inside, on a thin chain-link necklace, was –

"A time-turner!" Harry gasped as his mind registered what he was looking at.

Voldemort looked back at him and smirked. "Seen one of these before, have you?"

"A friend of mine got one for her classes last year. We ended up having to use it in order to save me and Sirius from a hundred or so dementors."

Voldemort rose a single eyebrow and the look on his face told Harry that he wanted Harry to elaborate.

"Sirius and I... it was after Wormtail got away, and Professor Lupin had transformed into a werewolf, so Sirius and I were running. We ended up getting cornered at the edge of the lake and were surrounded by dementors. There were literally a hundred of them, and I thought we were doomed. But then, out of nowhere, I saw someone across the way appear in the shadows and cast a huge corporeal patronus. It drove them all away.

"In my own moronic idiocy, I convinced myself it was my dead father, because the patronus was his animagus form. But then just a bit after that, I was with that friend – Hermione – and Dumbledore basically told to her to use the time-turner... bloody hell, he even told her exactly how many hours back we needed to go... manipulative old bastard... anyway – we went back and it turned out that the shadowy figure I saw who cast the patronus was actually me."

Harry paused as he saw a look of mild disbelief cross Voldemort's features.

"Are you saying that last year you cast a corporeal patronus, powerful enough to drive off a hundred dementors?"

Harry blinked and then ducked his head. "Er... yeah. It was one of those moments where I just knew I could do it, because I'd already seen myself do it, so I just... did. I never could get my patronus to be that clear or well formed before that. I had so much trouble with it. I practiced that spell almost all year, but there at the end it just worked."

Voldemort was quiet for a long moment before he began to laugh. Harry looked up at him, slightly bewildered by the reaction, but didn't say anything.

"You are truly an oddity, Harry Potter," Voldemort said with a smirk. "Now that you are no longer fighting off the piece of my soul that exists within you, I imagine you would find it much easier to tape into that power at will. You've already told me how learning magic comes much easier to you now. I believe you've already come to the obvious conclusion on your own – all of the magical energy that you dedicated towards restraining my soul was holding you back in your magical development. Now that you are no longer doing that, you should have access to that great power whenever you want it, not just when facing off a hundred dementors."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I sort of figured that was the case. I've also tried casting a patronus recently, just to make sure I still could."

"And?"

Harry shrugged. "Easy. Still solid and corporeal. I was afraid I'd have a hard time with it now, since it's a light spell."

"It doesn't quite work that way," Voldemort said dismissively with a wave of his hand. "Anyway, we are getting off track. This, as you accurately observed, is a time-turner. I am going to permit you to make use of it when you are here, but you cannot take it with you. After you have spent an evening here, you will let yourself into this room, remove the time-turner from one box," Voldemort motioned towards the open box he had just taken the time turner from, "use it to go back to the time that you arrived here, and then, at that point in the past, you will leave the time-turner in the other box. Do not put the two time turners into the same box. They cannot exist beside each other at any point in time. Is that understood?"

Harry nodded his head. "Yes sir."

"Good. Once you are done, leave the room, return to the entry hall, and use the portkey to return to the castle. Problems solved. You will not have to worry about when you come here, or how long you spend here, and no one at your school will become suspicious about extended absences."

Harry looked at the time-turner, and then Voldemort with awe. "This is perfect. I... I just keep thanking you for things. You've done so much for me these last couple days. It's just so much. I don't know what to say..."

"Despite what Dumbledore and the Ministry would have everyone believe, I did not simply rule my followers through fear and torture. I treat my followers with as much respect as they earn and deserve."

"But what have I done to earn this? I'm... I'm the stupid brat who prevented you from getting the stone. I –"

"That is in the past, Potter. And while that may be true, you are also the stupid brat who willingly came to me, and offered up your body and blood in order to help my resurrection, even though you already knew I was after you, and that by coming to me, you could easily have been walking to your own funeral. Continue to prove yourself useful, and I will continue to treat you with the respect you earn from me. Fail me, or betray me, and you will wish for death. Do you understand me?"

Harry blinked at the man, but instead of feeling fear like he rationally knew he should, he felt a wide grin spread across his lips. He quickly nodded with odd enthusiasm. "Yes, my Lord. I understand you perfectly well."

Voldemort rose a single curious eyebrow in response to Harry's reaction.

"Good. That is all for tonight. Return tomorrow and you will continue reading the chapter on countering the affinitatem reveleo spell. When you feel sufficiently comfortable with it, we will practice. I imagine you will catch on quite quickly."

With that Voldemort handed the time-turner to Harry, and slipped out of the room. Harry was left feeling a bit odd with the abrupt dismissal, and stood there for a few long seconds, at a bit of a loss. Finally he shook his head clear and turned down to the time-turner. He looked at his watch and saw that it was just after 2:30am. He put the time-turner's chain around his neck and turned the tiny hour glass six times. A moment later, the world swirled around him, and was suddenly still again. Harry cast a tempus and saw that it was now 8:34pm. He took the time-turner off and put it into the second box. He looked in the first box and saw the time turner already resting there.

He wouldn't be arriving at the manor for another twenty minutes. If he used his portkey to return to the tunnel, would he run into his other self on the way? He hadn't before, so he would obviously find a way around that. He could either hang out in the manor for another twenty minutes and leave after his other self got here, or he could go and make sure he got out of the tunnel before his other self entered it. Would he have enough time for that?

He would, he decided. He left the 'closet' and made his way back to the entry hall. He hissed §morsmordre§ and activated the portkey, bringing himself back into the tunnel where he had departed from. He put on his invisibility cloak and ran down the tunnel at a rather quick pace. He got to the end, surprisingly fast, used the password to move the statue away from the entrance, climbed out, put it back to rights and quickly ran from the hall.

He pulled out the marauder's map and checked it. It was odd seeing two different dots marked 'Harry Potter'. He watched as his other self got to the statue and disappeared into the tunnel. Remembering that his excuse for leaving had been to visit the library, Harry figured he'd go there now just to add some validity to his story. He checked out the book Hermione had recommended and then made his way back to Gryffindor tower.

By this point, he was really really tired, and wanted to just head straight to bed. But of course, to everyone else, it wasn't even 9pm yet, so going to bed this early would look decidedly odd. Harry forced himself to stay up another hour and a half, and when he did finally fall into bed just before 10:30pm, he was so exhausted that he fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

– –

Tuesday morning brought History of Magic; which meant that Harry took a nap. After lunch, Harry had a single section of Potions, followed by a free period, where Hermione was in Ancient Runes, before he had to go to dinner. Now that he knew he could rely on the time-turner, Harry decided to try visiting the manor during the daylight hours instead of waiting till late at night.

After potions, Harry managed to give Ron the slip, which wasn't that hard these days since the red-head had basically come to accept that Harry would disappear at least once or twice a day and not tell him. Harry slipped on his invisibility cloak, and walked straight across the grounds and towards the path to Hogsmeade.

As soon as he felt himself leave the wards of the castle, he activated the portkey and reappeared in the entry hall of the manor. As he recovered from his temporary disorientation, he stood up straight and blinked in surprise at the man staring back at him.

Wormtail was standing – rather, he was cowering, in the open door way to the front of the manor. He had a several newspapers folded under his arm, and what looked like a grocery bag, in his other hand. The sight was entirely odd, for some reason.

The two stood there, in a tense silence for a very uncomfortable minute. Images of Sirius flitted through Harry's mind. Despite everything that had changed in Harry and his life, he still desperately wished he could clear his godfather's name.

But there was no going back now. Harry knew that. He really and truly had no choice now. If Wormtail were somehow captured by the Ministry, they would use veritaserum on him, and if that happened, not only would it reveal that Voldemort had returned, earlier than he wished this to become common knowledge, but he would also tell them about Harry's involvement with said Dark Lord's resurrection.

It was a matter of self-preservation now, too. He wondered if there would be a way to obliviate the last year from Wormtail's memory...

Harry shook his head and gave the short repugnant man a confident smirk.

"Wormtail," he sneered in greeting. The pudgy, balding man flinched and jerked back slightly, bumping into the door frame.

"H-h-harry," the man stuttered as he gave Harry a desperate, pleading smile. "W-what brings you here so, ah... early, in the day?"

"Paying the Dark Lord a visit," Harry said dismissively before glancing down at the papers under Wormtail's arm. "I'm heading up to see him right now. I can take those with me."

Wormtail blinked in confusion for a moment before his head bent down and he looked at the papers as if he had completely forgotten they were there. Then he stiffened and straightened up some.

"That's quite all right Harry. I can take them there myself," he said as he sniffed the air a bit.

Harry almost laughed out loud at the man's poor attempt at being pompous. As it was, someone else, did laugh. Only it was a strange, hissing sort of chuckle.

§Ssstupid little man...§

Harry paused and turned just in time to see Nagini slithering down the hall towards them. Harry grinned.

§Hello, Nagini,§ Harry hissed to the snake, and he heard Wormtail give a tiny yelp from the doorway.

§Greetingsss brat. Tell the fat man to get me my food or elssse I will eat him instead.§

Harry laughed out loud and turned back to Wormtail, who was, once again, looking decidedly timid and afraid as he cowered by the door.

"She says that you are to go get her food ready or else she's going to eat you instead," Harry relayed with a wide smirk across his lips.

"W-huh?" Wormtail sputtered for a moment before he looked up at Harry with a confused expression.

Harry rolled his eyes. "She says go feed her, you idiot. She threatened to eat you if you don't hurry it up."

Wormtail gave a startled squeak and began to hurry inside the entry hall, while sticking to hugging the wall with his back and strafing sideways, always keeping his eyes trained on the enormous black snake. As Wormtail came within Harry's reach, his hand darted out and Harry grabbed the newspapers.

Wormtail gave an indignant start and glared at Harry for a moment. Harry glared right back with a sneer on his lips, and the man was instantly cowed.

Harry rolled his eyes in annoyance at the stupid fat little man and turned to make his way up the stairs.

§See you around, Nagini,§ Harry hissed as he climbed. The sound caused Wormtail to yelp in surprise again, and both Harry and Nagini hissed out some chuckles.

Harry reached out with his magic and confirmed that Voldemort was in his study, so he quickly made his way there. He knocked lightly on the door and waited a moment.

"Come in," called the familiar voice of the Dark Lord. Harry pushed the door open, expecting to find Voldemort sitting in the chair behind his desk, but instead finding the man sitting on the floor in the center of the room. He appeared to be sitting on a cushion on the floor, with his legs crossed and his arms stretched out in front of him with his wrists laying across his knees. His eyes were closed and he was breathing in slow steady breaths.

He seemed to be meditating or something. The way he was sitting actually reminded Harry vaguely of the exercises he had performed when learning his sea serpent transformation.

"Stop gawking Potter, you're disturbing my focus," Voldemort's voice cut through the room harshly, shocking Harry out of his stunned stupor. "Now, get in here."

"Sorry, my Lord," Harry said quickly as he took a few steps in and closed the door behind him.

Voldemort let out a slow breath and then opened his eyes, giving Harry a mildly annoyed look.

"Place the papers on the desk. You'll find the book is there as well. Begin reading where you left off," he said shortly before closing his eyes again and resuming his earlier breathing.

Harry foundered for a moment, thrown off by the unexpected turn of events, but he quickly sorted himself out and walked over to the desk. He placed the papers in the center and saw the book he had started reading a few nights ago sitting to the side. He picked it up and turned back to look around the room. Voldemort's desk chair was still the only chair in the room, and he was damn well not about to sit in it while Voldemort was sitting on the floor.

Harry decided to sit in the same spot he had last time – directly beside the Dark Lord's chair. This put him far enough away from Voldemort's position on the floor that he hoped he wouldn't disturb his meditation.

He sat down and opened the book to where he left off. Harry felt part of himself was yearning to be closer to Voldemort, and he mentally scolded himself for being weird. Despite being a good six feet from the Dark Lord, he still quickly found himself slipping into his comfort zone in the quiet room with Voldemort's steady breaths as the only sound.

Harry lost himself in the book and the comfortable atmosphere of the room, so deeply, that he completely lost track of time. He finished the chapter on the affinitatem counter, but didn't want to interrupted Voldemort's meditation to informing him so, so he flipped back to the start of the chapter and started reviewing the material. He felt like he had a pretty solid handle on the theory of it, but it actually sounded like a pretty complex bit of magic. Stopping the spell from working didn't sound too difficult, but it would look suspicious. The tricky part was casting the counter magic fast enough, and with the proper focus to make the spell return a false reading.

While sitting there, Harry could feel variable waves of magic rolling off the Dark Lord. The sense of them was vaguely familiar, but Harry really had no idea what Voldemort might be doing. Harry considered asking him once he was finished, but wasn't sure if it was his business to ask such things... even if he was insanely curious.

He'd gotten half-way through the chapter again before Voldemort began to stir from his spot on the floor. The man sighed and relaxed his position. Harry watched with a strange sort of fascination as Voldemort rolled his neck and then shoulders before stretching out his long slender arms. It was just such a human thing. Such a normal thing. He was surprised, and honestly rather honored, that Voldemort trusted Harry enough to sit there in such a vulnerable state in his presence. It was honestly remarkable that the man could trust Harry at all, let alone this much. The realization startled Harry quite a bit.

Voldemort heaved a long sigh and gracefully stood to his feet. He stretched his back before turning and walking back towards his desk and Harry. Harry sat up straighter and watched as Voldemort walked right up to him, and then slid into the chair at Harry's back.

Harry waited for a moment in the continued silence, and started to wonder if he should just go back to reading when Voldemort finally spoke.

"I assume you've finished the chapter by now?"

"Yes, I finished," Harry said as he shifted around and began to push himself to his feet. His back was a bit stiff from having sat on the floor so long, and he gave it a bit of a pop as he came to stand straight.

"You said once that you only have one class on Wednesdays, correct?" Voldemort asked, catching Harry slightly by surprise. "Yeah, that's right."

"When?"

"Second block. Right before lunch."

"Good. Come right after lunch tomorrow. I'll have some something for you to read."

Harry felt suddenly that he was being dismissed and felt rather disappointed by this. He really didn't want to leave yet. Plus he'd been hoping to actually try out the affinitatum counter. He couldn't do that without someone to cast the affinitatum reveleo spell on him first.

"Alright, sir. I'll be here," Harry said as he began to shuffle awkwardly. He ran his hand through his hair and heaved a sigh as he bent down to pick up his bag.

"Going somewhere?" Voldemort asked as he opened the newspaper on the top of the stack and began to skim through the headlines.

"Er... I thought –" Harry started, trailing off.

"Wait a few minutes and then we can go practice what you have read," Voldemort said as he turned to another page.

Harry was surprised a bit by this, but was then flooded with relief, and he smiled widely. "Great, er... okay. I'll just wait."

Five minutes passed before Voldemort stood up and led Harry to one of the rooms that Harry had never been in before. From what Harry could tell, it might have once been a guest room, but it had been mostly emptied out. There were a few what looked like a davenport, and a couple stuffed armchairs shoved against the wall with sheets draped over them.

Voldemort instructed Harry where to stand and then walked a few feet away from him. They both drew there wands, Voldemort gave some simple instruction, and then cast the spell. Harry called forth his magic, but it took three tries before he had finally got it sorted out enough to properly block the spell. It took considerably more time before Harry was finally able to start getting faked readings to show up instead of nothing at all.

Voldemort's instructions made perfect sense though, and Harry thought that the way the Dark Lord was explaining it made a lot more sense than the book had. Harry doubted he would have had any success at all, if it weren't for the man's instruction.

Voldemort made a number of dry remarks, but he never made Harry feel weak or inferior for taking as long as he was. In fact, Harry found himself shocked at just how patient the Dark Lord was being with him.

Harry was getting pretty warn with all the precise magical focusing he'd been doing, and realized suddenly that they'd been at it for over two hours He was actually panting and he bent over with his hands on his knees.

"Sorry," Harry said between heavy breaths. "That spell takes a lot out of me."

"It should. I don't think you quite comprehend just how advanced this spell is. It's honestly extraordinary that you've come as far as you have in such a short time." Voldemort said dryly as he examined his finger nails absently.

Harry looked up at the man and felt his cheeks and the back of his neck warm slightly with mild embarrassment. Had he just been complimented?

"Er, well... yeah, thanks," Harry mumbled as he stood up straighter and ran his hand through his hair.

"Do try to not act like such an incoherent idiot, Potter," Voldemort said with a sigh and an eye roll.

Harry blinked, ducked his head and grinned. "I'll work on that."

"Do that," Voldemort said as he smirked down at Harry. "I think we should call it an evening. You'll be here tomorrow right after lunch, correct?"

"Yes, I'll be here."

"Good. Feel free to use the time-turner before you leave," Voldemort said as he turned and began to leave the room. Sensing his dismissal, Harry walked over to the wall beside the door where he had left his bag, picked it up, and headed down to the time-turner closet.

– –

Wednesday, Harry left Charms and then hurried his way through lunch. Hermione and Ron were both looking at him curiously, but didn't say anything. He knew they weren't going to put up with his continued secrets for too much longer and that he was going to have to come up with some way to address their growing concern, but he wasn't ready to deal with it yet.

He did tell Hermione that he was going to spend the afternoon trying to get another large batch of pages copied from the Old Aldric book, and that her copy should update as he goes. He figured that once he was done with his visit to the Dark Lord he could just come back and use his second go at the afternoon to do it.

Hermione seemed pleased that he was going to provide her with more to translate, since she was apparently approaching the end of what he'd already given her. She clearly wanted to inquire further about the 'room' he kept going to that had this mysterious book, but they'd had enough little spats over it already, and she tended to avoid bringing it up when they were somewhere public like the great hall.

Harry bid Ron and Hermione goodbye and quickly left. Once again he donned his cloak, slipped out across the grounds, and headed down the path towards Hogsmeade, and the boundary of the castle's wards.

Once he had arrived at Voldemort's manor house Harry instantly sought out his magical signature and headed straight to the study. He knocked on the door, and Voldemort bade him enter. He pushed the door open and, once again, found Voldemort sitting on the floor in the center of the room meditating.

Even after having encountered this yesterday, Harry still found it entirely bewildering. He silently slipped into the room and went straight over to the desk. It was bare except for a single book placed in the center, which he assumed was meant for him. None of the pages were marked on this one, but upon quick examination, he had a pretty good idea why it had been sat out. The book seemed to be written by a magical archaeologist or something. It was all about how to handle, care for, and restore ancient magical artifacts. One section was on how to properly approach ancient items that could possibly be cursed. The following two chapters were on common detection spells, and then spells for temporarily sealing nasty curses until you could get an item back into a safer environment for dismantling the curses.

The last few chapters were all about restoring exceptionally old objects, so Harry skimmed through that part until he came across something dealing with books. He quickly settled himself into 'his spot' on the floor beside Voldemort's chair, and began to read.

Voldemort's rhythmic breathing, and the subtle pulse of the Dark Lord's magic began to lull Harry into a blissful state of relaxation. He almost felt like he was meditating right along with the Dark Lord, and it made him wonder, once again, just what the man was doing.

An hour passed, and by that point Harry had long sense finished reading up on the book restoration spells. He had flipped back to the curse detection chapters and found them rather interesting. The magical energy, radiating off of Voldemort had been slowly shifting and growing, and they had increased to a powerful peak without Harry even really realizing it until the intensity made his vision blur and he felt lightheaded for a moment. His eyes rolled back in his head as his whole body began to feel tingly and warm.

He realized with a sudden start that the magical type wasn't really that of dark magic so much as it was parselmagic. Extremely powerful parselmagic. This realization really only served to make Harry that much more curious as to what Voldemort was up to. He had really only found a couple books in the Slytherin study about parselmagic, and most of them were simpler things like a parselmagic equivalent for locking, privacy, and levitation charms. The only truly advanced book he'd found on parselmagic was the serpentine transformation book, which he hadn't really looked at much since before the second task.

The waves of powerful parselmagic in the air began to ebb and wane, and eventually died down to a simmer. Harry felt his head clearing up again and heaved a sigh as his body suddenly felt like a heavy lead weight. It had been strange and overwhelming, but now that the magic was gone, he felt a bit disappointed. Voldemort's magic was just so... something... Harry couldn't really put words to it. But being near the man just made him want to be closer. Made him want more... whatever the hell that meant. He really wasn't sure.

Another half hour passed before Voldemort stood up and stretched. He was wearing loose, comfortable looking black pants, and a white button-down shirt intended to be worn underneath open robes, sewn in a style that Harry had only ever seen in wizard shops. Harry noticed that the top few buttons were undone, and his eyes were drawn to the bit of bare chest he caught a glimpse of. Harry didn't know why, but he blushed and looked away.

His eyes were drawn back to the man as Voldemort walked over and sat down, heavily into his chair. He leaned back, sighed, and ran his hand through his black hair. It had a soft wave to it. Just as Harry had thought, Voldemort had trimmed it several days ago. He had it slicked back slightly, out of the way of his forehead, and neat. It was layered in the back and reached the base of his neck. Harry couldn't help but stare as the Dark Lord relaxed into his chair and began to sort through a newspaper that he pulled out of one of the desk drawers. You would think that Harry wasn't even in the room by the way the man was acting, and Harry couldn't help but wonder why he'd been told to come right after lunch if all he was doing was sitting there for a couple hours while Voldemort meditated.

The idea that Voldemort would want company was just too absurd to even fathom. But Harry found he desperately enjoyed being able to just sit in the quiet, comfortable room, in the Dark Lord's presence, while reading. Even if he was sitting on the floor, getting a crick in his back. The room, and the magical vibrations, and just being near the man made Harry never want to leave the room, if he was being completely honest with himself. He knew that was stupid and irrational, but he also knew it was true.

Another fifteen minutes passed in silence before Voldemort stood up from his desk. "Come on Potter. Time for some more practice," He said shortly and Harry scrambled to his feet.

They only spent an hour in the 'practice' room, as Harry was now dubbing it in his mind. He was starting to make a little progress on his affinitatem counter, but it was still difficult, and he could only do it if he was prepared and knew it was coming. Voldemort said that he would need to practice it enough that the moment he sensed the magic of the reveleo spell incoming, that he would instinctively cast the counter. He would only have a fraction of a second to respond in a real scenario, and only repeated practice would help that happen.

"Alright Potter, that's enough for today," Voldemort said rather suddenly and Harry blinked at him in surprise as a small wave of disappointment washed over him, but he quickly squashed it.

"What is your class schedule like tomorrow?"

Again, Harry was caught off guard, but quickly recovered. "Transfiguration in the morning, then a free block, then lunch, and then double Defense, followed by dinner," Harry said quickly.

Voldemort looked thoughtful for a moment. "Can you come during your free break after transfiguration?"

Harry's jaw floundered slightly, but he nodded his head dumbly. He really didn't understand why, but he certainly didn't mind. He would have a bit of trouble getting away from Ron. Thursday's morning free period was one of the few times that Harry made it a point to try and be social with the ginger outside of meals. But all he really had to do was get away long enough to use the portkey. With the time-turner he could be back with Ron moments later and make it seem like he'd never left at all.

"I'll be here," Harry said, and even he was surprised by how eager he sounded.

"Good," Voldemort said as he began to leave. "You can let yourself into the study."

"Alright," Harry said as he grabbed his bag and ran after the man.

"You can also bring one of the older books from the chamber if you would like," Voldemort said as Harry caught up to him and the two walked down the hallway. "I can help you make sure you do the charm properly and don't damage the book.

Harry nodded his head thoughtfully. "Okay, I'll do that. Any particular book I should bring?"

Voldemort sighed and rolled his eyes. "It has been many many years since I was last down in the chamber, Potter. I do not remember the entire library. Just pick one and bring it."

Harry ducked his head, feeling a bit stupid for his question. "Right... I'll... do that."

"What did I say about acting like an awkward idiot?"

"To not do it?"

Voldemort turned his head and gave Harry a pointed look.

"Right. Working on that. Swear it." Harry said, trying to put a bit more confidence into his voice, and grinning a bit. Voldemort rolled his eyes.

They reached the study and Voldemort gave Harry a few parting words that made it clear he was dismissed. Harry hurried down the stairs and slipped into the time-turner closet before portkeying back to Hogwarts..

#Harry Potter #Tom Riddle #Dark!Harry #Tomarry #Harry Potter and the descent into Darkness..

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cecilspeaks · 5 years

Text

143 - Pioneer Days

We are thirsty. We cannot see. We don’t know what time it is, we are nearly here.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Pioneer Days are upon us again. This is, of course, just the folksy rebranding that the public utilities department gives to randomly selected days throughout the year, when they cut all services without notice. The lights go out, the air conditioners grow warm, the food spoils, the water supply dries up. All residents are required to dress in the costumes of early settlers to make the whole thing feel festive and patriotic. Failure to dress in era-appropriate clothing, such as overalls and soft meat crowns, will result in punitive measures. Including being called a time traveler in a pejorative tone of voice, as was traditional punishment for all real time travelers back in the early days of Night Vale.

Polls show that these civic holidays are increasingly unpopular, but this time it’s going to be different, the utilities department promises. “It’s going to be way more fun, we swear. Just bear with us, you’re so brave. You’re all my brave little pioneers,” the pamphlets scattered around town assure us. “After all,” the pamphlets continue, “what is bravery but endurance? What better way to honor the struggles of our ancestors than through personal discomfort and grim acceptance? These are the values our town was founded on, aren’t they? Aren’t they?!” the pamphlets shout. The pamphlets writhe on the ground. The pamphlets inhale sharply and become still. In an effort to sway public opinion on pioneer days, the utilities department has unveiled an interpretive boardwalk and historical display, set up in an open expanse of desert miles from town. The intention of the display is to bring a sense of local pride and education to the community, and to be a fun family centered activity that can take people’s minds off the panic inducing existential questions that come from being so very alone in the dark.

And now traffic. You had a dream when you were young. In the dream, you woke up on the couch after a nap just in time to see your family driving away, leaving you alone in the house. They’ve never done that before, you’re much too young, too small to be left alone. There are no lights on and everything is soft with shadows. You see a brown paper bag on the table. They must have left it there for you. Is it food? You don’t know how to feed yourself yet. The bag suddenly lurches and tips over onto its side all by itself. A snake slides out onto the table, drops to the floor, and slithers rapidly toward you. You try to scream.

This is the moment you were supposed to wake up, but it isn’t a dream, is it? Your whole family really did abandon you. You grew up in this house alone after that, just you and the snake. It wasn’t poisonous but that doesn’t mean it was a good companion. It came and went without consideration for you at all, sunning itself on rocks or squeezing rodents to the death whenever it pleased, sometimes not coming home for days. You cleaned up its discarded skins during the molting season. You let it sleep curled next to your body for warmth in the winter months, even though it could only give back cold indifference in return. But you had no one else, that’s just how it was. You still see each other once a year during the holidays out of a sense of duty. You follow each other on Facebook, but neither of you check that site anymore. You waited to wake up from this dream of your youth to find your family had never left, that they were still there with you. You are still waiting to wake from this dream. This has been traffic.

I’m getting more details about the Pioneer Day’s display and celebration. Along the interpretive boardwalk, visitors will come to several viewing platforms where they will see the bleached bones of select citizens’ ancestors, scattered across the sun scorched earth. Those who won last night’s raffle must remit their ancestral bones by noon in order to be featured in the display. Further along the walk, spectators will be treated to an animatronic re-enactment of the battle for the scrublands, an event in which several key town founders bravely fought against the giant benevolent arthropods that used to exist in this area. As visitors will see, the beasts were all slain easily by our intrepid settlers, as the animals were unaccustomed to violence of any kind and regarded the human newcomers with only gentle curiosity. “They had to die,” intones the robotic voice of a mechanical man in a waistcoat, as he stands triumphant among piles of enormous multi-pointed legs. “For they were too visually disconcerting to live,” he booms.

There will always be a booth sponsored by the historical society displaying repurposed slide film from random strangers’ family vacations that have ben collected at garage sales over the years. Accompanied by plaques with made up historical narratives about the pictures. For example, there’s one of an elderly woman playing shuffleboard on a seniors’ cruise entitled “Griselda Fords the River”. It tells the tale of when pioneers first got to the sand wastes and there was a big scary river running through it, and how they had to risk their lives just to reach the land that we now have the privilege to take for granted. A lot of plaques have a kind of passive aggressive tone like that, actually.

If you make it to the end of the walk, you will be greeted by Earl Harlan, who will demonstrate how to make cherries jubilee, a staple dish among the early Night Vale frontiers people. “You feed a goose cherries until it can no longer walk or stand on its own,” Earl explains. “Then you light the goose on fire until its screams become whimpers, and when it’s finally silent, you extinguish the flames. The goose’s blackened flesh is full with tar enzymes that are very good for your skin and eyes. The red liquid pooling around it is only cherry juice. Only viscous cherry juice,” he explains as he dishes out samples of the boiling native cuisine directly into people’s outstretched ravenous hands.

That’s not all. The fully immersive interactive theater segment is last. You’ll be blindfolded and placed in the back of a cargo truck. Hours later, you will step off of the wooden blank and be free to enter into the desert, to try and find your way back home. Just like the pioneers did it. You don’t realize how the boardwalk is designed to be completely disorienting until this moment, when you step into the endless desert and look to all horizons and see only identical sagebrush and chaparral and nothingness. As if you’ve entered a mirrored fun house made only of hot dirt.

More on Pioneer Days, but first The weather.

[“Vines” by Super Boink https://superboink.bandcamp.com/]

As you wander lost in the desert, you first experience a dizzying sense of freedom. You can go wherever you want, the future is yours to shape. The possibilities seem as endless as the vast wasteland in front of you, but when you look behind you and realize you can no longer see the interpretive boardwalk or any other sign of human life, that sense of freedom becomes abject despair. You realize that taking risks is only fun when you have safety net. When that risk is a choice. Now that you’ve been swallowed up into the blistering wilderness, you learn that choice has always been an illusion. You must go forward. The sun sinks lower. The dark air blurs the edges. You feel a cool breeze sweep over the sand – and you are grateful for that. Your lips bleed.

It’s nightfall when you come to an old homestead. It has no roof and leans to one side. There is no door, but there is the shape of a door, the black rectangle of absence. You feel compelled to go in, as would anyone confronted by a structure with an entrance, but you hesitate. You recognize this place, yes. You saw it in the slide film display by the historical society. There was a picture of it taken many years ago. It depicted the same house, only it had a roof back then. It did not lean to one side, and two children, barely toddlers, were standing out front. They had no heads, they had chickens roosting on top of their necks instead. The accompanying explanation said that it was a double exposure, a photographic art form that early Night Vale settlers dabbled in to pass the time. There was a whole collection of these photos displayed: a bath tub filled with blood. A levitating skull on fire. A baked ham with long luxurious hair. “The first Night Valers were incredibly adept at trick camera work,” the historical society insisted nervously when questioned. “Cameras had come to town at least a hundred years before cameras were invented, due to the rampant time traveler problem back in those days,” they explained. “We found the pictures in a locked trunk buried near the railroad tracks,” blurted a younger historical society member who was immediately shushed by the elders and relegated to selling merch.

You hesitate in the yard, until you can no longer ignore the siren song of the wind through the broken bones of this place, screaming at you to enter. Inside, the only piece of furniture left standing is a kitchen table. On top sits a sealed jar packed to the brim with pickled eggs. Your child asks if she can have one. Your child is with you, she’s ben riding on your back the whole time and you forgot all about her. That’s incredibly alarming. How can a parent just forget their own child like that? “Yes, honey,” you say, trembling with the effort of keeping your voice calm. “You can have one.” You set her down and she scampers across the dusty boards, and she feeds. She feeds ravenously. She asks for a bedtime story next, it is her bedtime after all. At least she says it is. You don’t know what time it is, but somehow she senses it and you trust her instincts. Habits are comforting, rituals are important. It’s what keeps us grounded. It’s what prevents us from shouting uncontrollably and clutching at our eyes. “Once upon a time, there was a child who looked very much like you,” you begin. “No,” she interrupts, “the child looks like you.” “It doesn’t matter,” you say, “because it was actually a dog, not a child, be quiet now. Here’s the story. A dog ran away from home and had many adventures and then returned to its family and everyone learned lessons.” “What kind of adventures?” she asks. “Unspeakable adventures,” you say. “Is this a true story?” she asks. “Every story is true,” you say. She’s still awake. You point through the roofless void and tell her to count the stars, hoping to bore her into unconsciousness. “There are no stars,” she says. You acknowledge that the thick dark air obscures any light that might be in the sky, but “we can see them anyway,” you tell her, “because we know the stars exist.” “How do we know?” she asks. “Go to sleep,” you say.

After she’s asleep, you walk through what’s left of the old house and wonder if this is your new home now. There are many things you think you see standing in doorways or huddled in corners. Luckily, most of them are not real. The only thing that’s truly there is a nest of baby arthropods, bedded down in the tattered remains of a blood stained prairie dress. They appear to be orphaned, but they are together, intertwining all of their legs and blinking all of their eyes and wriggling as one large familial mass. You know you don’t belong here. This is their home now, as it was their home before, long before there was ever a house. You lift your child’s sleeping body and enter the desert once more. You look behind you and see the silhouette of a chicken-headed toddler standing sentinel in the yard. It’s not real, it’s just a double exposure.

As light lifts itself above the horizon, something shiny catches your eye in the distance. You move towards it, because it’s the only thing to move towards. You don’t feel hope or motivation, only the pull of a random focal point that keeps you going forward. Eventually you come upon an enormous parking lot full of vintage cars. Some are early models made of skin and mud and some are mid-century coupes with fins and hardtops and spinal columns. Hundreds of chrome bumpers glare in the blinding half-sun of dawn. What’s all this? you wonder in the daze.

“Hear yee, hear yee!” shrieks an individual in a tricorn hat, ringing a handbell. “What is this?!” you shriek back, grabbing them by the lapels. They do not acknowledge you. “Hear yee!” they cry again, but do not elaborate further. Suddenly the pounding of drums and deafening squawk of brass, a marching band is playing. Colorful streamers trail through a clear blue sky. It’s the city parade. You made it to the end of the Pioneer Days interpretive display and celebration! You accept another liquid handful of scalding cherries and stumble home with your drowsy young still clinging to your back.

As you enter your own silent house, completely free of all public utilities in celebration of Pioneer Days, you are overpowered by the scent of rotting kale in the stuffy air. And you breathe it in deeply. You rejoice. You weep. The only source of water is the puddle on the kitchen door, fed by the constant drip of the defrosting freezer. And you kneel down and drink from it, until you are satiated.

Things don’t look as bad as they once did, do they? The walls aren’t closing in on you anymore, they embrace you. The dark screens of your electronic devices no longer reflect your own boredom back to you, they reflect only relief on your haunted face. The inconvenience of no public services pales in comparison to the night you spent merely surviving in a howling unstable universe. It’s all about context. It’s all about managing your expectations. That’s what the utilities department pamphlet was trying to tell us all along. And of course about celebrating the Pioneers spirit, something something forefathers, vintage cars and other stuff like that.

But now that I think of it, we do spend a lot of our days distracting ourselves from physical reality. Maybe we really can use this time to experience life more solidly in the physical world, the way our ancestors did. Who needs modern conveniences when we have each other, right? Hold your loved ones close tonight. After all, you have nothing better to do. I’m coming home now, Carlos. I know you can’t hear me. No one can hear me. The power’s out here in the station just like it is everywhere else. We haven’t been broadcasting anything for days now. And even if we had bee, your radios don’t work anyway. but habits are comforting. Ritual is important.

Stay turned next for – whatever you think you hear. Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: The leading cause of death is having a body.

#welcome to night vale #episode 143 #pioneer days #wtnv transcripts

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pernatius · 4 years

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Lost in Space Part 3: Ch 1

Summary: Sending the Earth to its doom, an unnamed Space Explorer must now try to prevent the demise of millions of humans by risking her life.

Five chapters, 10k works, and in one week.

Part 1: ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5

Part 2: ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5

------------------------

I sat on the windowsill. My shoulder is pressed against the glass as I watch the planets fly past us, blurring past us as a river of thousands of colors, which splash against the ship. A tear goes down my cheek. It splashes onto my palm as I rub my thumb against its cold, but soft surface. Noticing my reflection, the sorrow on my face, causes me to bend and fold my fingers into a fist. Lifting my head, I meet with her reflection. She’s sitting down, watching everything fly past us as well. I’m not sure what’s on her mind, but I feel bad for taking away the only home she’s ever known and forcing her into a world she’s only known from my stories. Earlier it sounded like she wanted to get away from it, but I don’t like how I made her do this. If I could I would’ve given her a choice. I would’ve given her time.

Because I surrounded myself in a bubble, I flinched at the ship’s alarm. “Captain Saamuki, the ship’s fuel is at three percent,” the AI explained.

She sighs before asking, “Is it at least enough to get us to the nearest planet with fuel?”

“Yes, it’s more than enough. However, that planet is inhabited by the Nantos.”

With the reveal of the alien species’ name Mikrovos’ ears twitch. “Can’t you find another planet?”

“Unfortunately, this is the closest planet with intelligent life. Therefore-”

Turning to him, “Mikrovos?”

“I’m staying in the ship as you guys get the fuel.”

“I’m not going to be much help,” Ashley reminded us of her injury.

“And I’m not going to be doing anything hands-on anytime soon either,” Saamuki also reminded us of her injuries.

“Look, I just can’t step foot on that planet, okay?” My stubborn friend crosses his arms.

My wife stood up and walked towards him. The AI stood between the two of them. She looked directly into his eyes, past the computer-generated face, as she tapped her foot against the floor. “ Mikrovos, this isn’t the time to argue. We need your help so that we can get as far away from your people as soon as possible.”

He grunted. In the reflection in her eyes, I saw his mouth open. He showed his teeth and made sure she saw his fangs. He raises his fists and moves them all too close to her, causing me to get up, but when he instead turns away from her rather than get physical I let out a sigh of relief. “As long as Saamuki is with me, I’m sure I’ll be able to do Mikrovos’ job. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the strongest Space Explorer, but with what I must’ve done when I was one I shouldn’t be someone you should dismiss from this situation.”

All of them turn to me. Saamuki looks at me with concern in her eyes. “Unlike Earthling ships, ships we use run on crystals. The one for this type of ship is much smaller compared to the ones used for other ships, but they’re extremely heavy nonetheless.”

“Well, I’m sure I’ll manage. Besides, it’s not like we have any other choice.“

“If it’s too much for you...maybe I can get a Nantos, or whatever else could be on that planet to help.”

“You’re going to be okay, right?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well…” My eyes pointed to the brooding Mikrovos sitting in the windowsill.

“I’ll just keep my distance from him until he gets back, but while I do can you promise me that you’re not going to hurt yourself by lifting that crystal?”

“I promise, but,” I flexed my muscles, “that crystal should instead be worrying about me.”

This gets a chuckle out of her and my heart fluttering out of me. If I’m not able to fix what I’ve caused to Earth then I’ll at least try to fix what I did to her. No, I must. I have to keep making her happy. I can’t hurt her. I have to protect her from it. I have to protect her from my impulses, from myself.

Crystals had sprung out of the ground. They created a dense forest with their varying shapes, sizes, and colors. Speaking of their colors, from underneath them different shades of reds and blues bent within them, bouncing from one of its sides to another. It faded in and out, following the same rhythm as my heartbeat. Saamuki led me to an alien whose species I’ve met before. He’s the same species as that ringmaster who orchestrated that fantastical fight back on that desert planet. So, his physiology is blob-like, but his clothing told me he doesn’t live to entertain others. It’s the opposite. He’s wearing a robe with three shades of orange and a bright yellow sash. As I note that his hands are hidden, I also note a dark circle that’s been imprinted on his forehead.

“We’re here to-”

He sets his hand in front of my snakelike companion before she can finish. I note the several holes and scratches on it as he spoke, “You are here because you wish to be given something from my people. For that to be, you must first offer us something of value.”

Before I can omit my frustration Saamuki places her hand in front of my face. “I am the last of my people, so I am the only one with the knowledge of the last three days of my planet.”

“Ah, yes, we have gotten word of the demise of your planet. Unfortunately, writing of its final year has come a few and far between, especially its last days. Your knowledge will be a great addition to our library.” Moving his hand closer, placing it on her forehead, I become worried. Her eyes become blank as the circle on his forehead glows. Before I can act it’s already over. She falls to her knees and throws up. I go to her and pat her back, hoping to relieve whatever pain she’s feeling.

Once I helped her up, “What did you do to her?” The ground rumbles as his forehead glows. Behind him, the crystals separate from one another, creating a passageway that led to a cave. “Hey. Answer me.”

“It’s okay. I’m alright,” Saamuki responded but she’s clearly out of breath.

“All are welcome into the Nantos’ temple. He bows and as I led her into the makeshift passageway I looked at him. He doesn’t look at me. I had a feeling he wouldn’t, but I just needed him to know if he did something permanent to her, something fatal to her, then I wouldn’t hesitate to bring him down as well.

Just like on the surface crystals sprouted all over the ground and even on the walls and ceiling. It gave the cave light. It gave it life.

Hundreds of Nantos walked about. Most of them had their foreheads glowing as their hands covered the vegetation wrapped around the crystal before them. Half of them caused the plants to levitate and be pushed into the basket sitting in their laps. A few of them used that same power to move large orbs of water onto the newly freed crystals. The rest meditated. All of them paid no mind to us. “It’s none of these, right?”

“Right. The crystal we’re looking for is much darker. The crystals we’ve seen so far would barely get us off this planet.” With that last word spoken she coughs. Some of her blood spit out as well. Most of it lands before us and the rest sit on her lips.

“Saamuki!”

She tries waving my worry away. “It’s fine. My sister was here before. She had to do that same thing too. It’s draining, but it only lasts for a few hours. Just help me walk and I’ll tell you which one it is.”

I helped her the rest of the way without another word, but worry still hit me throughout it. Once we find the crystal I gently set her down and turn towards it. Unlike the ones I saw earlier, this one is a dark purple and is much smaller. Because it’s half of my size, confusion circles my mind. I expected it to be as big as Mikrovos or at the very least an inch taller than me, but once I tried lifting it I understood why she needed him. My arms and legs shake as I try to pry it off the ground. In height, it’s shorter and in width, it’s skinnier, but it managed to be heavier than me. Sweat rose at the brim of my forehead and my back began to burn. I was carrying it right. I was using my legs rather than my back, but it’s just that heavy.

“Hey. Don’t push yourself. I’ll get-”

“No, I got this,” I grunted between shaky breaths.

I felt it slide out of its hold, but because I celebrated too soon I let go. It slipped back into the ground. One of my eyes twitched. I placed my grip back onto it. I sunk my nails into it. I felt like I was going to blackout. Thankfully, a familiar set of brown fur-covered hands wrapped themselves around the crystal too. It’s able to be pried out easily. I turned around to thank Mikrovos for changing his mind at the right time, but instead, my heart dropped. While he’s a Tauvox he isn’t the face I thought I’d see. His body is just like The Commander’s, but his face is slimmer. It’s more angular like it’s triangular.

As he sets the crystal on his shoulder, “It’s good to finally meet you, human.” I stand frozen as his eyes meet with mine, causing him to smirk.

Still drained, all Saamuki can do is talk. “How-how did you find us?”

“Us Tauvoxes has excellent tracking skills. We are a barbaric race, yes, but we know how to use our means.” He points a finger behind his neck.

My eyes widen. My hands attack the chip still inside my neck.

“It’s much too late for that, human. However, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. One wrong move and it’ll send a fatal electric shock.” I slowly move my hands away from my neck. “But I’m not here for conflict, at least not yet. You see, there’s a little tournament that’s going to happen by tomorrow and I want Mikrovos to enter. Unfortunately, he declined my invitation. So, I was hoping you’d change his mind.”

“Knowing him, there’s a reason why he doesn’t want to be part of it. I’m not going to be played by people like you, especially when it means putting my friend in danger.”

“Even if it means the chance of ending our little raid on your homeworld?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ever since the fall of The Commander the Tauvoxes have gone into chaos. There isn’t any clear leadership. Sure, I was his second, but my power only lasted during his command. The tournament I speak of will determine our next commander and if Mikrovos wins he’ll take full leadership even if he’s a low-class Tauvox, especially one that willingly left our ranks. From the face you’re making, I see I’ve interested you.”

“Don’t listen to him. He’s a high ranking Tauvox. He’s a Space Pirate too!”

“Now. Now. Let the girl make up her mind. She’s old enough to.”

“I can save it. I can fix this, but Mikrovos…”

“He’ll listen to you. He’s gotten close with you, soft for you.”

“But I can’t just make him do this. Isn’t there another way? Can’t I just take his place?”My offer gets him to laugh. It echoes and rings in my ears. “A human fight against hundreds of Tauvoxes? You won’t survive past five minutes. Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll make it to ten.”

“I don’t care. I’m never going to put any of my friends’ lives at risk. Besides, this is my fault. I have to fix this. I have to be the one to enter.”

“Humans always let their pride speak for them,” he shakes his head, “Well, I’ll see what I can do. It was hard enough as it was to get them to let all Tauvoxes enter, but before I do will you shake on it? If they agree to your offer will you commit to your words?” He moves his free hand in front of me.

I gulp. In the corner of my eye, Saamuki wants me to rethink my decision. In front of me, the Tauvox is giving me a devilish grin. It’s obvious this is all a game to him. It’s obvious I’m a pawn that fell right into his arms, but I don’t fight free. I shake his hand.

“My name is Syco and it’s a pleasure to do business with you.”

#189 #lost in space #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writers #creative writing #spilled ink #wlw #fiction #my writing #space

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youreahunterclary · 7 years

Text

Longing || Chapter 1

☾ Beast Boy has been out on a mission with the Doom Patrol for just over a year now. His absence has hit a lot of the Titans hard, especially a certain empath. Raven can admit that she’s missed the green changeling since he’s left, but what she can’t admit is just how much she’s missed him. There’s something else Raven can’t admit either, but it’s gonna take some time for her to come to terms with that. ☽

He was like the summer, everything about him reminded her of the warm season. His smile was like the sun shining down on the rest of Jump City. He always seemed to be in a joyous mood, his mouth alternating between smiles and laughter for most of the day. His body emitted warmth and he smelled of forests and the ocean that surrounded their tower all at the same time.

She didn't know why these thoughts were coming to mind now as she laid in bed, the day already late as she'd slept in. Raven sat up and took a look around her darkened room. She usually kept her curtains shut, but today she was in a strange mood and with a quick flick of her wrist she pulled them apart to let the sun in. She could now see a lot better, though it was still dark due to the fact that the sun rose on the other side of the tower. She sighed heavily as she pulled the warm covers aside and got up from the comfort of her bed to start her day.

The plum haired girl took another look around and noticed the numerous books splayed about from her research the night before. Using obsidian energy she picked them up and easily set them back in their designated spots on her shelves. There wasn't anything else out of place so she stepped into the bathroom attached to her bedroom and the door slid shut behind her. Raven switched the light on, actually using her hands to do so, and turned the knobs on the shower until satisfied with the temperature of the water. She removed the long shirt she wore to bed with ease and stepped under the steaming water. A content sigh left her lips as she scrubbed away at her skin with her lavender scented body wash and shampooed her hair, only using a bit of conditioner for a bit of softness after.

When she stepped out she used her powers to wrap a towel around her, almost feeling lazy enough to not use her legs and levitate back into her room. She decided against it though and walked all the way to the sink and pulled out a hair dryer.

A few years ago she would never have owned one, but in the time that passed her hair had grown until it reached just below her waist. Raven would've cut it sooner, but she felt like she always had more important things to do. She looked directly into her reflection while turning the dryer on and waited until her hair wasn't damp anymore.

Raven then moved on to her closet and grabbed a dark blue leotard like she did on most days and slipped into it before willing her belt to hang across her hips and clipped her cloak on. Without looking at her reflection a second time that day, she stepped out of her room and made her way down the lengthy hallway.

Before the door to the common room hissed open she could smell bacon and sausages sizzling against a hot pan. Cyborg stood in the kitchen making breakfast for a yawning Starfire, who managed to still look more put together than Raven did, most likely not even having spent half an hour on her appearance, and Robin who'd made himself a cup of coffee. A sinking feeling filled her core, the same feeling she got everyday that passed and Beast Boy was not there to joke around and make scrambled tofu. Even though he left over a year ago now, Raven could still feel his absence and knew for a fact that the rest of the team felt the same way. Especially the half man half robot who stood in front of the stove, his best friend.

"Good morning friend Raven", the Tamaranean greeted cheerily, "You seemed to have done the sleeping of in. Were you kept up by your research?"

Raven said a quick hello in reply, nodding while heading past the island Star and Robin were sitting at and into the kitchen. She opened the cupboards in search of her kettle and got started on boiling water before contemplating what tea she'd be having that morning. The demi-demon was pouring the boiled water into a cup already when an alarm blared and Cyborg groaned loudly, having served the food already.

"Honestly, why couldn't they have waited until after we ate", he said, muttering a few other things under his breath.

Raven sighed, slightly annoyed that she wouldn't be able to drink her tea and would most likely have to make herself another cup when they got back from the mission. Cyborg looked at the screen embedded in his robotic arm to get some information on the who and the where. As soon as he got a location we were all heading out, Robin and Cy taking the T-car while Star and Raven took to the skies.

When they got there, Killer Moth was unleashing his mutated insects on the civilians who were running and screaming as they swatted them away and looked for shelter. Starfire and her immediately went to aid them and started fighting the insects off. Starfire took them out with her starbolts, blazing green orbs of energy. Raven worked on shielding the people in Star's line of fire, to make sure no one got hit, until they found shelter. When the boys arrived they'd taken care of the majority of the flying creatures already and they went off to face Killer Moth himself.

"You fools", he gloated, "Did you honestly think it'd be that easy!"

Then another wave of insects came through, only slightly larger than what Star and Raven had just dealt with. Luckily neither of them had gotten injured too badly earlier in the battle, just a few scratches here and there. As Robin and Cyborg fought against Killer Moth, throwing punches and firing beams of blue his way, Raven and Star worked to eliminate the mutated creatures.

All of the civilians had made it into some form of a shelter so Raven no longer had to worry about them, but she had used a lot of her energy to protect them already. It wasn't until the battle was ending that the exhaustion had started to settle in that Raven felt herself faltering a bit. She kept going at it though, crushing the vile creatures against one another, against buildings, and the concrete of the street below them.

By the time they were close to finishing them off Raven was out of it and hadn't noticed when some of the insects started closing in on her. Raven turned and saw yet another wave of insects coming their way and for a second she was annoyed at how tired she was feeling so early in the fight. It must have had something to do with the lack of sleep she had the night before. She threw off a wave of obsidian energy and singed the things surrounding her and readied herself for another round. As soon as they were in her line of fire she started firing orbs of energy their way alongside the red haired alien next to her.

They weren't even halfway done when Raven started seeing dark spots in her vision.

No, she thought to herself desperately. Not now, not when there are still so many left.

She was already falling and everyone was too busy fighting to notice right away. It wasn't until she was halfway through to colliding with the street that Cyborg turned enough to see what was happening with the girls and yelled out her name. It was too late though, none of them would reach her in time and she just accepted that thought as she continued to fall. Seconds passed and she felt as though she would crash any moment now, her eyes starting to close. A sigh left her lips and she readied herself to meet a rough landing.

Then, unexpectedly, something- no someone, caught her in their arms and all she saw was a blur of red, white, and a lot of green. Feeling shocked, Raven opened her eyes to see who had caught her and she was even more shocked to see who was holding her to their strong chest.

Beast Boy.

Her breath caught in her throat and she contemplated whether he was really there or if he was a vivid hallucination. If she'd hit the ground already and none of it was real.

"No worries Rae, I got this. You just rest up." He said and walked her over to the pavement, laying her down gently before taking off to aid Starfire in battle.

Beast Boy flew into the city just before the other Titans had taken off, not finding them in the tower, and figured they'd be out on a mission. He could've waited, but something felt off and he knew, he just knew that he was needed. His theory was proven right when he saw Raven free falling towards the street and felt his heart nearly jump out of his throat. He willed his wings to push him forward and hoped he'd get to her in time. He was further motivated at hearing Cyborg's desperate cry at seeing Raven falling and no way of anyone else getting to her in time.

Beast Boy transformed back into his normal form as he held his arms out and caught her easily before landing on his two feet. He sighed in relief and spoke a few soothing words, holding her close to his chest while hoping the red tint on his cheeks was not noticeable. He almost couldn't process that he was holding her in his arms like he'd wanted to many times before. It was also hard to believe that she wasn't tossing him into the nearest building for touching her. Then again she was slowly going out of consciousness, otherwise he'd probably be laying on a pile of rubble by now.

He looked for a safe area to lay her to rest, but there weren't many options nearby. Beast Boy thought the safest place for her to be right now was in his arms, but he also needed to help his other teammates. So he walked over to a fairly out of the way area on the sidewalk and laid her there gently before taking off. He transformed into a cheetah, running quickly as he attacked the insects swarming the area.

He heard some shouts of surprise come from his friends as they took notice of who had arrived to the party. If he were in his human form he would've grinned and said something in return, but at the moment he was in an animal form and was focused on the mutated creatures in front of him. With his help and his teammate's hard work, the army of bugs was defeated and their leader was being cuffed.

Beast's friends made their way towards him, but he was already walking away, finding Raven and picking her unconscious form up. His friends looked at him in surprise. Whether it was because of how different he looked or how he was holding the mistress of shadows in his arms, he didn't know.

Before any of them could get a word in Beast Boy spoke up, "We need to get her home to rest."

Later that day when Raven awoke after a few hours she was confused as to why she could feel someone else's presence in the room and why the room she was in was the infirmary. She sat up slowly and saw that it was Beast Boy, her thoughts filled with questions. He stood up from the chair set up next to her bed when he noticed she'd awoken and rubbed at the back of his neck. She could feel his nervousness radiating off of him, probably thinking that she was seconds away from tossing him into the bay. Raven surprised even herself when she didn't do so in the first place.

"Raven you're up", he said with a grin on his face, but she could feel that he was still nervous and felt some slight surprise coming from him. "The others are in the common room. Cyborg checked your vitals earlier and said all you needed was some rest. I figured there should be someone here when you wake up."

"I guess so", she replied groggily, looking around and noticing that no one else was in her room, just Beast Boy, and then she surprised them both again, "Thanks for saving me from that fall."

It was still hard for her to acknowledge her failures, like not having enough energy, but he had saved her and she was grateful. He looked at her, not even trying to hide the shock on his face, "I've always had your back during a fight Rae, you know that."

"Yeah I know you have Beast Boy, I just wasn't expecting it since you left", Raven said it as though it were a fact, but soon wanted to apologize after feeling the guilt coming off of him.

"You know you can call me by my real name now Raven- not that you have to, just a suggestion", he said, putting his hands up defensively.

She only nodded in response and took the opportunity to look him over. Beast Bo- Garfield, had grown into himself in the past year. He definitely wasn't as muscular as Cyborg or Robin, but his muscles had gotten much more toned and defined in just a year and he seemed to grow a lot more too. His cheeks weren't round anymore, they'd taken a more angular shape and his jaw looked as though it could easily cut glass. His uniform did his new body justice, clinging to him and accentuating every muscle.

The only things about him that didn't change were his smile and canine that stuck out, his easy going personality was still there even if he'd matured a bit, and every other irritatingly endearing quality that made him who he was. Maybe he'd started maturing over the years when he had still lived here and she just never noticed until he was gone.

Raven shook her head, questioning herself as to why she was thinking such things, but it was only normal. At least she figured it was since it'd been so long since she last saw the changeling.

Gar had also been shamelessly checking Raven out even though most of her was covered by a blanket. He could still see how much her body had matured over just one year. Her curves had grown out a bit more and maybe she grew a tiny bit in height, if she grew an inch or two it was hard to tell since he'd grown another foot. Her hair had gotten a lot longer and he actually liked it a lot. As a person, she definitely had changed a bit, seeming a bit more comfortable in her own skin, but still held the usual sense of seriousness she always carried with her.

When too much time passed Raven cleared her throat and a blush crept onto Beast Boy's cheeks, wondering if she'd caught him staring. When Raven didn't speak up he decided to initiate the conversation, "Uh, so why so tired Rae? Usually you're the one kicking butt and on top of everything. Robin filled me in on what happened before I arrived so I know there was a lot to deal with. But you're one of the toughest people I know and you blacking out like that isn't like you."

Now Raven was the one blushing and feeling embarrassed. She thought for a moment, contemplating whether she should lie and pretend everything was alright or tell him the truth. Before she made up her mind her mouth was already choosing for her, speaking in her usual monotone, "I was just doing some research like I have been for the past week and last night I actually managed to make a breakthrough. That's all."

Lies. She's been having trouble sleeping for much longer. She didn't know why, though.

Beast wasn't at all surprised that she'd been up all night doing research, but he still felt as though there were more, "Oh, I'm sorry Raven. I'll just go and let everyone know you're okay and that you're gonna be resting for a while."

A small smile appeared on her lips whether she wanted to or not and she thanked him. When he stood from his chair she felt the warmth of his body leave and suddenly felt cold, not having noticed in the first place that it was his warmth she'd been feeling.

He started walking away and before the door slid shut behind him he caught a glimpse of Raven getting comfortable in the infirmary bed. He felt a little relieved after talking to Raven about why everything that happened, did. Still feeling a sense of unease, though.

Gar walked into the common room and three pairs of eyes turned to look at him. If he could've turned bright red he would've, feeling embarrassed for some reason even though all he was doing was checking up on a friend. A teammate of his.

"Look he's smiling", Cyborg said, mock surprise in his tone, "and dry."

"Did she tell you anything? Is she alright?" Robin asked, getting straight to the point.

"Yeah she was just pretty drained is all", he replied, not wanting to go into too much detail since most of the conversation consisted of him gawking at her.

It was strange, Raven would never have even talked to him about the book she was reading that day a year ago from now, not that he ever asked. So for her to trust him enough to even talk to him about her research, whatever it was, made him feel a sense of pride. Now that he was back, it seemed as though things with Raven had changed for the better, even if it was only a slight change.

We'll see about that, a deep voice in the back of his consciousness growled.

Later that day when Raven woke up she felt re-energized as she stretched. The talk with Beast Boy had left her feeling calm and the nap well rested. She got up and took a peek outside, it was still pretty early in the day. When she thought of what she could do her stomach growled and she knew that she should probably grab something to eat. Before exiting her room she grabbed the book she'd started last night before her research took priority and made her way down the hall.

When she walked into the common room Beast and Cyborg were sat in front of the big screen and were playing a video game. Raven went into the kitchen and started brewing some tea to make up for the cup she didn't get to take a single sip of earlier that day. She looked into the fridge for something to eat and managed to find some berries all the way in the back. Not that the fridge was overflowing with food in the first place.

Maybe I can go grocery shopping tomorrow, Raven thought to herself.

"Raven come play a round with us", Cyborg hollered over the sound of the video games, "Beast Boy sucks even more than he did before!"

"No I don't," The green shapeshifter yelled over Cy's laughter.

Raven shook her head at the two, "I'll sit next to you while I read, but I am not playing any kind of video game with either of you."

"That's more than we expected actually so we're cool with that", Cyborg stated as he crashed his car into a wall and muttered, "Damn it."

Raven engulfed her fruit and tea into a ball of dark energy and dragged it behind herself. She set both things onto the coffee table, which already had a ton of junk food splayed about, before making herself comfortable.

He's not been back for even a day and it's like he never left, Raven thought to herself.

Some time passed by, them arguing over the game while Raven tried reading and eating her snack, before they put a movie on and quieted down. A peaceful silence settled in, only the sounds of crunching popcorn and the movie could be heard. Raven settled into the couch and sighed as she turned the last page of her book. When she finished the book she got up to wash her dishes before making her way towards the sliding doors. She stopped, though, when a voice spoke up.

"Hey Raven", Beast Boy called out, "Why don't you stick around for the rest of the movie?"

"I don't even know what's going on in the movie", she said, but still made her way over to the couch for some reason.

"No worries, I'll fill you in on what's been happening so far", a quick nod of agreement and a green hand wrapping around her wrist to pull her down next to him and Garfield was whispering to her, "Okay so it starts off with this kid getting kidnapped by aliens..."

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